We Ate Here

Chef Jesse Wykle at the Inn at Court Square takes Southern cuisine to a whole new level, and rather than one dish we made a feast of samples: crispy, golden grit cakes beneath melted Stilton, roasted asparagus, Portobello mushrooms and a sprinkling of pink peppercorns—delicately balanced flavors and alluring presentation, done and done. It goes […]

Puzzling pieces

In the blink of an eye, a season could have changed. Hopes could have been dashed and promises could have gone out the window. Fortunately, "hope and promise" just limped to the sideline with a deep knee bruise.A startling revelation occurred three Saturday nights ago at Fed Ex Field when Washington quarterback Jason Campbell writhed […]

Talk of the town

One of the best and worst things about Charlottesville is that it’s a small town. This is a dichotomy that I have long struggled with: On the one hand, I delight in knowing a good piece of gossip about the random person sitting next to me at the bar; on the other hand, I cringe […]

From little to big

If there's one profession that's well represented in Charlottesville, it's architecture. The local glut of designers—from neo-Jeffersonian to eco-contemporary—partly accounts for all the great houses here. This year, as we looked forward to our children's design issue, we started to wonder: When architects become parents, how do they design spaces for their own kids?

Parentproof

When I announced, eight months pregnant, at my baby shower that (1) I planned to be back in my bikini by summer, (2) I intended to tag along with my spouse on a planned work trip to China with a nine-month-old, travel-loving baby in tow and (3) I planned to never, ever appear in public, […]

Out of town, but not out of the game

If you’ve been looking at the Mid-Year Market report from the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors (CAAR)—and let’s face it, who hasn’t?—then you might have noticed something curious in the rollercoaster that local real estate’s been riding the past six years. While Charlottesville and Albemarle County saw significant spikes and dips in mid-year sales, outlying […]

Design, living and trends for home and garden

Feeling your way New book advocates an emotional approach to interiors Some interior designers publish books that bombard readers with exhausting lists of dos and don’ts and overly specific how-to guides. World-renowned designer Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz turns this method around with his open-ended guide to home decorating, Emotional Rooms. Instead, Noriega-Ortiz encourages readers to concentrate on […]

News and ideas for sustainable living

Planet nowTea and conversation It’s only natural when considering the phrase "green drinks" to conjure up cocktails with weird names that only weird people order, or some sort of juice that sun-dazed tourists buy at roadside stands in Hawaii. But, in fact, "Green Drinks" is the term for informal get-togethers of folks who work in […]

Created space

If Belmont’s Douglas Avenue were a family, Joan Schatzman would be the matriarch. The native Chicagoan moved here in 1978 and bought four houses on the avenue because, she says, "I wanted to shape my neighborhood." Decades later, the result of her efforts is a diverse and tight-knit community that gets together at holidays and […]