Pressing on: Virginia wineries adapt and hope in response to COVID-19

For many, COVID-19 has made it feel as if time is standing still. For local wineries, however, the early- April budbreak marks the start of the growing season and serves as a hopeful, but also stark, reminder that the cycle of winemaking continues forward. Planning, attention, and hard work is required now if wine is […]

PICK: Shelf Life

Beach bound: When uber-popular mystery writer Tana French calls your debut novel “a subtle but relentlessly unsettling book,” you know you’ve got what it takes to thrill readers. Tara Laskowski appears in the Virginia Festival of the Book’s streaming series Shelf Life to discuss One Night Gone, a suspense story set in an off-season beach […]

Pick: Craft Cville’s Virtual Pop-Up

Making it interesting: Is your shopping addiction really being served by refreshing that grocery order and impulse buying on Amazon? Sure, Etsy can take you down some twisted, cash-grabbing rabbit holes, but the most fulfilling isolation void-filling purchases may be at Craft Cville’s Virtual Pop-Up. How about a set of magnets that features Tupac and […]

Trust science: New documentary profiles pioneering immunologist

No one could have predicted the global pandemic of COVID-19 when production began on Jim Allison: Breakthrough, but its foundational message is so resonant that there might not be a more perfect time for it to reach audiences. Chronicling the life and scientific research of Nobel laureate and trailblazing immunologist James Allison, whose work with […]

Food that’s free: Plants to forage in this strangest spring

Years ago, in the spring, I was out for a run in a rural spot and encountered an elderly man who told me he was hunting “dryland cress”—an edible plant. I was enchanted; it was like he’d stepped from the pages of that 1973 Foxfire volume on my shelf, in which Appalachian old-timers shared secrets […]

ARTS Pick: JMRL-WriterHouse Poetry Contest

Ongoing Pursuing a poetry prize Good news For those who’ve already finished You’ll be able to cruise Right to April 30   A new deadline for entries So quick, write a poem And submit it with no fee For a gift card, worth $200   Or a single Benjamin For the runner-up prize Even this […]

ARTS Pick: Virtual tour at The Fralin

A look inside: In January, The Fralin transported us to the land down under through its collaboration with the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection. “The Inside World: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Memorial Poles” is a mesmerizing exhibition of 112 poles by 55 artists from remote communities in the northern region of Australia. With museums now closed for […]

Keep on truckin’: Food trucks retool their approach to stay running

April in Charlottesville is when the food truck business kicks into high gear. For Ignacio and Maria Becerra, the warm weather typically signals the return of long lines of customers snaking around the perimeter of the Charlottesville City Market, waiting for their Mexican Tacos. But there’s nothing typical for the local food industry this spring. […]