Preston Long

This started out as a nachos survey, with me sampling some platters from a few establishments around the village perimeter, plus one on the Downtown Mall, just to establish a baseline. But I knew all along where it was going, where I would end up directing my sunshiny prose. I wanted to be in a […]

The fast food franchise gods have extended a gesture of mercy toward us and hath bestowed upon our town a considerable bounty of good tidings with the opening of Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (1). It might behoove us all to send up thanks with abandon and with earnest zeal as then these gods may see fit […]

I had never known an independent organic farmer before I went to meet Michael Clark, who owns and works Planet Earth Diversified (PED) farm outside of Stanardsville. Therefore, I had nothing on which to base any expectations. But what I did not expect was to meet an organic farmer who would go fishing more often if […]

Now that it’s warmer outside, they will come. They’ll come from the field and the hollow and the valley and even the next state over. I saw one last summer just after he had gotten off the bus. He looked as lost as Gomer Pyle at a love-in. He was warily wandering around the west […]

Barbecue can be so vexing—like one of those vague memories you can’t decide whether it ever really happened, or you maybe just dreamt it. You’ll be driving around the ragged streets of North Philadelphia trying to find that vacant lot where some guy had a half-barrel smoker and was selling brisket and ribs wrapped in […]

The New York pizza slice, for years the pizza gold standard, inspired a lot of wasted effort and money, what with people trying to reproduce NYC pizza parlors, replete with transported ovens, in places like Kansas or Albuquerque or (gack) San Francisco. Pizza everywhere was measured against some non-specific New York City pie. If you […]

Color me tacky and low-rent, but there’s just something homey and inviting about the naive optimism and dauntless ambition behind a strip mall storefront that has been transformed into an enchanting dining experience with a cozy darkened lounge. The practice must have been perfected in places like Texas, Florida, and Dubai, where the blistering heat […]

The cheap date is a tricky proposition. But there are ways to cut corners without necessarily revealing yourself for the broke-ass bounder that you really are. Despite the holdover notion that some here in central Virginia cleave to—the idea that we live in some bastion of Southern rectitude—you needn’t occupy your mind with chivalric conceits. […]

After covering kebabs and burgers in my last two columns, I should, in the interest of my own constitution, undertake my signature psyllium screwdriver cleanse, which involves copious amounts of vodka, orange juice, a hot water bottle, and, well, you get the idea. Instead, I’m soldiering on, and have been eating eggs and meat for […]