A taste of luck: Three ways to start the new year

New Year’s is more of a drinking-and-kissing holiday than one meant for feasting. But don’t let a good start-of-the-year meal go overlooked, especially if you might leave some luck on the table. We asked some local food folks to cook us up New Year’s Day nosh that was traditional (to capitalize on all that good […]

Soup’s on: Hearty bowls simmer in a Crozet cottage

Chef Mark Gresge missed making soup. From 1992 to 2014, Gresge ran the beloved local French restaurant L’étoile. “To me,” Gresge says, “French country cooking was the perfect cuisine. Depth of flavor, locally sourced product, a true sense of region in the cooking.” L’étoile had always run catering alongside its restaurant operations, but the growth […]

Native flavors: Priya Mahadevan brings a taste of South India to Charlottesville

Birthdays are always special, but growing up in Priya Mahadevan’s family of nine, birthdays came with an extra privilege: choosing the day’s menu. “We always asked for this lentil and vegetable stew called sambar, with roasted potatoes and masala vadais, which are a fried lentil snack,” Mahadevan says. “Payasam (also called kheer) was the dessert […]