The future of food

"Welcome to our cheese manufacturing facility," Christine Solem says pointedly. She’s standing in her cozy, well-worn kitchen north of Charlottesville, where she and John Coles have run a small goat and vegetable farm since 1973. Outside, their 24 goats wander around a large, partly wooded enclosure. Solem and Coles, in fact, make goat cheese in […]

Ballot Stuffing

In case it escaped your notice, there’s an election scheduled for November 5. We don’t blame you if you’ve been out of touch on this subject. Even dedicated pols might find themselves bored by a campaign season that features empty platforms, absent candidates and geeky legislative reforms. For instance, who is there to care about […]

The C-ville drought survival guide

Daily we have waitedby the fax machine for a dousing of the region’s bad news, expressed in terms of percents and millions of gallons: 54.2, 7.091; 53.2, 6.905. These are, of course, the terms of the drought (reservoir level and regional usage), which, even after a healing, gentle rain, have not fundamentally changed since August. […]

Holding Out

This isn’t Mayberry. Slipping away are the days when store owners know you by name, you can pay on a tab and deals are made with a handshake. For one Charlottesville Mom-and-Pop shop, holding on to that ideal is more than a nostalgic whim: it’s a matter of principle and necessity.Look while you can. On […]

This writer’s life

George Garrett is a storyteller and has been since his age was measured in single digits. It was then that Garrett says he decided he wanted to be a writer, even though he had no clue, at the time, what it meant to be one. Today, after more than 60 years practicing his craft, Garrett […]

Shades of PVCC

When he returned home to Charlottesville after earning a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, Joshua Galloway wanted to keep up with his drawing, so he enrolled in an advanced drawing course in the evenings at Piedmont Virginia Community College for three years in a row. With the help […]

All Aboard

Kevin Lynch arrived in Charlottesville from his hometown of Alexandria in 1980 to study at UVA. Twenty years later, he won a seat on City Council as a “Democrat for Change” advocating an alternative-transportation platform. Midway through his first Council term, Lynch is a Council representative to the Metropolitan Planning Organization and a member of […]