I knew of a boy whose mother would give him cottage cheese with peaches and call it an ice cream sundae. He gobbled it down until the first time he went to a friend’s house and was given an actual ice cream sundae. Obviously, it blew his mind—not only how much more delicious ice cream […]
With all of the frost, fungi, and fruit flies that Virginia winemakers have to fret over, it’s easy to forget that they also have some fun along the way. And it was in the name of fun that friends and colleagues Jake Busching, Matthieu Finot, and Emily Hodson Pelton came up with the idea three […]
Assuming his new post as executive chef of Glass Haus Kitchen this past fall, Ian Boden had big shoes to fill—but they were all his own. The Northern Virginia native who put his New England Culinary Institute degree to use for 10 years in the kitchens of top New York restaurants, opened Staunton Grocery in […]
I’ve always been proud to be an equal opportunity lover of wine. Sure, I’m not wild about anything too buttery or beastly, but as long as it’s a well-made, balanced wine, there’s a happy home for it in my glass. So imagine my surprise, amidst all this open-mindedness, when years of field research revealed a […]
With days this cold and dark, a little trickle of sweetness goes a long way to cure a mean case of cabin fever. But reserving syrup for breakfast is selling the elixir short. These places around town are seeing the forest through the trees (and they’re not just maple) by treating us to syrup in […]
In December, Robert Parker, the 65-year-old lawyer-cum-wine-scoring demigod, sold a substantial portion of his bi-weekly newsletter, The Wine Advocate, to a group of investors in Singapore. And, a mere month after telling the Wall Street Journal that he would never give up editorial control, he bequeathed his editor-in-chief title to Singapore-based, former Australian wine correspondent […]
You can’t fake charm. It’s got to come naturally, and it does for Nellysford, the little town nuzzled in the bosom of Wintergreen’s mountains. It’s not trying to be anything that it isn’t, yet manages to enchant everyone who passes through, some so much so that they stay forever. Few places are more illustrative of […]
Americans have a love affair with Tuscany and few grapes are as quintessentially Italian as the cherished region’s workhorse, Sangiovese. Chianti Classico may be where it’s best known, but it’s in Brunello di Montalcino (where the grape’s grosso clone accounts for 100 percent of the wine) that it’s the most revered. That’s not saying a […]
If the holiday season’s been a gluttonous rampage that began with leftover Halloween candy and ended with the roof off your kid’s gingerbread house, then you’re not alone. The new year offers a chance to make amends, and the weight loss market, that $60 billion (give or take) cash cow, has promised its fair share […]
If you are reading this on New Year’s Day, then chances are that even your own inner reading voice is hurting your head. My husband was born on the first of the year and never got to have birthday parties on his actual birthday, because, oddly, every single one of his friends’ parents (and his […]