By Walter Nicholls • Photographs by Molly McDonald Peterson

It’s time to raise a farmed oyster half shell for a slurping salute. The number of oyster aquaculture farms in Virginia is growing with harvests year-round; and to the north, Maryland is taking steps to catch up with the Old Dominion’s success in stimulating economic growth and putting a regional delicacy back on the dinner table.

The oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay has been on the decline for so long and the forecast has been so bleak. But here’s the good news: major pockets of oyster prosperity are on the rise.

© Molly McDonald Peterson

Just Below the Surface

Not far from the mouth of the Rappahannock River in Topping, Virginia, just over an hour east of Richmond, cousins Ryan and Travis Croxton can watch once-endangered American bald eagles soar overhead as they tend their successful oyster farms, spread over 300 leased acres of shallow river bottom. For the Croxtons, the big birds in the sky are a reminder that if the eagle can make a comeback, the Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern oyster can, too. They believe modern aquaculture techniques are the answer. “Aquaculture takes over when man destroys what’s native and you’re forced to change,” says Travis.

With a reverent nod to their great-grandfather, an oysterman, the Croxtons started raising oysters from the larval stage as a hobby in 2003. That initial harvest of 300 oysters per week has grown to more than 30,000. Starting at the top, the cousins sold their first 100 bivalves to New York chef Eric Ripert, co-owner and executive chef of Le Bernardin, arguably the finest seafood restaurant in the country. With that account, their company, Rappahannock River Oysters, was off and running. Rather than joining the mass shucked-oyster industry, they brand their oysters to their point of origin and sell directly to restaurants. At least 200 restaurants are already clients.

A Win-Win Proposition

Out for a check on their stocks, Travis pulls their 24-foot Carolina Skiff up to a white PVC pipe marking one farm. With the help of a boat hook, he fishes out a submerged guide line and with a crane hoists a metal cage four feet long and three feet wide, with as many as 1,500 market-sized, 18-month-old oysters destined for raw bars across the country. Feet on the underside of the cage keep the mollusks off the river bottom and out of the mud, where they could possibly suffocate or pick up an undesirable flavor. “Listen to them spit, clamping down. They are actively feeding,” he says. “They say each oyster filters and cleans 50 gallons of water per day.” The return of a healthy population of oysters to the bay is believed to be one key to the bay’s survival.

Next spring, the Croxtons are opening an oyster and wine bar at their rustic marina with hopes of turning little Topping into the Napa Valley of oysters—a place where oyster lovers can journey to pair the meroir, or naturally occurring flavor profiles of their farmed bivalves, with the terroir of regional vintages. A half dozen oyster varieties will be offered so folks can compare how the water’s mineral content and salinity levels affect the mollusk’s taste: from mild and buttery Rappahannock River Oysters to briny, Chincoteague Olde Salts. In the not-so-distant past, such a venture would seem curious, at best.

Decline & Recovery

Over the past 100 years, oyster harvesting in the Chesapeake Bay has had a tragic history. Although oysters were once perceived by many as an inexhaustible resource (in the language of the Algonquin Indians, “Chesapeake” means “great shellfish bay”), overharvesting, pollution, and disease have reduced wild stocks to just 1 percent of historic populations.

At the peak of the shellfish harvest in the 1880s, when oyster restaurants lined the streets of downtown Washington, about 17 million bushels of oysters were dredged from the bay bottom each year by 50,000 oystermen. Today, there are only a handful of shucking houses around the Chesapeake Bay, which, with the Gulf of Mexico, has the distinction of being the last two places on earth where wild oysters are commercially harvested.

In Virginia, oyster aquaculture is booming. The number of oysters produced has multiplied more than 10 times over three years—from 840,000 in 2005 to 9.8 million in 2008—according to a recent report by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. One-third of Virginia’s oyster grounds are in private leases to encourage farming, and in 2008 the state established “aquaculture enhancement zones” on the Eastern Shore, imposing regulations to reduce pollution from entering waters. Last year Virginia oyster farms contributed $7 million to the state’s economy.

“It’s not going to happen overnight. But in maybe eight to ten years, aquaculture is going to get us back our share of the oyster business we’ve lost,” says Tommy Leggett, the foundation’s Virginia oyster restoration and fisheries scientist. “Big companies like Bevans [Oyster Company of Kinsale] and Cowart [Seafood Corporation in Lottsburg] are investing millions in research and equipment. At the same time, with education, we can now manage around disease and protect the resource.”

Maryland is playing catch-up. Last year, with aquaculture in mind, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation extending the leasing of Chesapeake Bay bottom grounds for the first time in 100 years. Presently in the state, only 6 percent of oyster grounds are in private leases. Afraid of the change from hunter-gatherer to farmer, many Maryland oystermen continue to fight the state’s efforts to convert the wild oyster fishery to aquaculture. Still, officials hope to grow the number of farms from the nine in operation today to 150 in 10 years.

Quite a Haul

Plenty of buyers are ready to shuck. Noted chef David Guas has set sights on serving local, farm-raised oysters at his new 70-seat Bayou Bakery in Arlington. “This is a very delicious product—top notch,” says the Louisiana native. “Once chefs learn to handle these oysters, which have a delicate shell, they will find that they are easily opened.”

Bruce Wood, owner of Dragon Creek Aqua Farm in Montross, Virginia, is growing a special oyster that will be available in 2011 exclusively at Hank’s Oyster Bar restaurants in Washington and Alexandria. Raising these oysters on the Nomini Creek of Westmoreland County, which has one of the lowest salinity levels within the Chesapeake region, results in a unique, sweet flavor.

At BlackSalt, the stellar seafood restaurant in the Washington’s Palisades neighborhood, fishmonger M. J. Gimbar appreciates a farmed oyster’s uniformity. “Look at the consistency,” says Gimbar holding a misshapen, wild oyster in one hand and a near cookie-cutter farmed version in the other. “All are similar in size and shape with a perfect little cup, which makes them easier to open.” That ease is appreciated by BlackSalt workers, who shuck as many as 1,200 oysters from Rappahannock River Oysters each week.

They will be shucking even more in November. In fundraising support of the new Juvenile Diabetes Care Complex at the Children’s National Medical Center, BlackSalt will host an oyster tasting and discussion with aqua farmers on November 6. On November 14, BlackSalt’s sister restaurant, Addie’s in Rockville, Maryland, will have an oyster roast with the mollusks served four ways as well as a shucking competition.

In addition to ordering oysters online, you can try Rappahannock River Oysters at the 53rd-annual Urbanna Oyster Festival on November 5 and 6, at Cardinal Point Winery’s 7th-annual oyster roast near Charlottesville on November 13 and 14, and at the Old Ebbitt Oyster Riot in D.C. on November 19 and 20.      

Walter Nicholls is a former staff reporter for The Washington Post. A native Washingtonian, he has written about farms, food markets, and restaurants for 21 years. He resides both in the Georgetown section of Washington and on an historic homestead in Rappahannock County, Virginia. Find him at www.walternicholls.com.

Rappahannock River Oysters
Topping, VA  
(804) 204-1709
www.rroysters.com

Dragon Creek Aqua Farm
Montross, VA  
(703) 625-0599

By Walter Nicholls • Photographs by Molly McDonald Peterson

© Molly McDonald Peterson

In the 1980s, American diners walked away from veal in droves after animal welfare groups laid bare inhumane factory-farm practices—which continue to this day. From the veal boom days of the mid-1940s, consumption of the milk-fed, white meat has tumbled from 8.6 pounds per person annually in 1944 to less than a pound per person today. Veal’s high price, compared with other meats, adds to the product’s fragile niche.

But now mid-Atlantic diners are taking a second look as a growing number of Virginia farmers have introduced veal— pasture-raised “rose” veal—that satisfies both the palate and the consumer’s conscience. These three Virginia farms—Chapel Hill Farm in Berryville, Froggy Spring Farm in Nethers, and Ayrshire Farm in Upperville—have their own reasons why this type of veal production makes sense for them.

Noticeably Different

As defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, veal is the meat of a young beef animal raised until about 16 to 18 weeks, weighing up to 450 pounds. Most veal comes from male dairy calves, a natural by-product of the dairy industry: To meet consumer demand for milk and dairy products, cows must give birth every year to continue producing milk. Male dairy calves, which will never produce milk, are of no use to the average dairy farmer.

But in contrast to factory-raised veal calves, which are housed in immobilizing crates or narrow pens, the calves at these farms graze and frolic. That difference is found on the plate, too. Meat from a confined, milk-fed calf is pale in color, whereas calves that eat grass and move freely produce a pink, but still tender, meat.

Saving an Endangered Breed

For rancher Joe Henderson, owner of Chapel Hill Farm, veal sales help America’s rarest breed of cattle, the Randall Lineback, not only survive but flourish. “Our deal is creating a product from an animal that hasn’t been eaten in a couple hundred years, one with a different genetic print from dairy cows,” says Henderson, who started raising Randall Lineback cattle in 1999.

Henderson, who is keen on history and genetics, says that early American farmers created the Lineback by mixing European breeds, yielding an animal that could withstand the challenges of life in the New World, where they were used as oxen and provided meat and milk. The breed was nearly extinct until the Randall family of Vermont bought Linebacks a few decades ago and slowly developed a dairy herd. Henderson’s 250 cows are direct descendants of the Vermont Randall herd. For long-term survival, he believes, his male calves “need a job.

At Chapel Hill, male calves roam free on grasslands. A combination of their colonial American genetics, natural diet, and exercise produces finely grained, rose-colored meat with little intermuscular fat. Top chefs, such as Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve in Alexandria and Bryan Voltaggio of Volt restaurant in Frederick, Maryland, buy whole calves from Chapel Hill and use every part of the animal. Randall Lineback veal has been on the menu at Marcel’s restaurant in Washington’s West End for several years.

“Before, I didn’t use veal because I didn’t like the flavor or how it was processed,” says Robert Wiedmaier, Marcel’s chef and owner. “But I’ve been to Chapel Hill. I’ve seen the cows as well as the slaughter, and I absolutely love this product with its clean taste on the palate.

Henderson produces a veal commodity that didn’t exist six years ago. “This is a different critter—a fabulous, tasty piece of meat, bright in flavor.” And it’s rare. (“It’s like beluga caviar,” he says.) Rose veal from Chapel Hill is available only in restaurants.

Meeting the Bottom Line

At Froggy Spring Farm, farmers Chrissy and Lee Witscher produce pasture-raised veal as a sure-fire way to bring in extra income. “If I took our male calves to the livestock sale in Marshall, we would get 80 cents per pound—if we were lucky,” says Lee. The couple’s two dairy cows produce enough milk for six calves, so they buy additional calves for their small herd. At six months and 400 pounds, the calves are sold for $750 to restaurants, which pay an additional $200 to the slaughterhouse for butchering.

Frank Maragos, co-owner and chef of Foti’s restaurant in Culpeper, sources rose veal from farms all over the mid-Atlantic. But his first choice, when it’s available, is veal from Froggy Spring. “The way they care for the animals and hang the meat for 21 days gives it the great characteristics of beef, but the great delicateness of veal is still there. It knocked my socks off when I first tried it, and guests say, ‘Oh my, I can’t believe this is veal.’” Froggy Spring rose veal is also available at one retail location: Forlano’s Market in The Plains.

Providing a Service

On a larger scale, Ayrshire Farm prospers as a leader in certified humanely raised meats. With a herd of 70 or more calves at any one time, rose veal is a growing part of its product line. “Humane veal is the solution to the problem of what to do with

male dairy calves. This is an issue that needs to be addressed,” says Ayrshire’s retail division manager, Susannah Carney. “We want to educate and tell people it’s okay. There is nothing to be ashamed of. You’re producing a service.”

Ayrshire buys male Jersey and Holstein calves from area dairy farms—saving the animals from being shipped to industrial factory farms. They are bottle-fed twice a day with a nutrient-rich milk replacer and are free to roam on the farm’s rolling hills. For this, the farm has been certified by Humane Farm Animal Care, a nonprofit organization that awards its “certified humane” status to producers that meet its strict standards.

Customers for Ayrshire’s rose veal include The Ashby Inn in Paris, The Restaurant at Patowmack Farm in Lovettsville, and The Local in Charlottesville. The Home Farm Store in Middleburg, the farm’s butcher shop, also stocks the veal. At Ayrshire’s own Hunter’s Head Tavern, also in Upperville, chef Rob Townsend prepares a terrific, tender, slow-cooked, braised veal chuck roast, served atop a polenta cake drizzled with a reduced veal stock.

Savoring the Results

Bryan Moscatello, executive chef of the Stir Food Group, which includes Washington restaurants Zola, Zola Wine and Kitchen, and Potenza, uses only rose veal. “It has more body and pairs with robust flavors on the plate,” he says. “[Traditional] milk-fed veal gets lost in the presentation. It may be tender, but there is less going on with flavor.”

In addition to making its way onto menus at high-end restaurants, rose veal is increasingly available at farmers markets. (Shop early for prime cuts, such as scaloppine.) For best results, chef Wiedmaier recommends searing cuts on the stove top followed by slow, low-temperature (225 F) cooking in the oven. Says the chef, “It’s lean, clean, and good for you.”

Walter Nicholls is a former staff reporter for The Washington Post. A native Washingtonian, he has written about farms, food markets, and restaurants for 21 years. He resides both in the Georgetown section of Washington and on an historic homestead in Rappahannock County, Virginia. Find him at www.walternicholls.com.

By Walter Nicholls • Photographs by Molly McDonald Peterson

© Molly McDonald Peterson

Just behind a sizable 145-year-old white clapboard farmhouse on a peaceful lane in Cismont, Virginia, there are paths through a maze-like garden of perennials, herbs, and hybrid willows that lead to a multifaceted world of mushroom cultivation, both indoors and out. What looks like a funky outbuilding turns out to be a sterile laboratory for producing vigorous spawn. Steps away along ivy-bordered paths in the open forest are 500 mostly chestnut and white oak logs on end, ready to “flush” with seven species of shiitake and oyster mushrooms when temperatures are right.

This is Sharondale Farm, Mark Jones’s expanding experiment in mushroom agriculture and the development of methods for introducing fungi into gardens alongside fruit trees, vegetables, flowers, and fiber plants. Pound by pound, those shiitakes and six other varieties, such as spiny lion’s mane, make their way to high-end restaurants 12 miles away in Charlottesville. But the interests of Jones, a self-proclaimed “science geek,” also include using fungi in farm waste management strategies and joining mushrooms with vegetable production for a profitable crop and for building healthy soil.

Relational Gardens

On a recent March morning in his garden, Jones talked about his farming goals, mushroom workshops, and love of the land while boiling chopped wheat straw in a 55-gallon kettle. After draining a batch in a battered feed trough, he inoculated the straw with blue oyster mushroom spawn mixed with rye grain and stuffed the works into tall, clear plastic bags. Holes poked in the sides will allow the mushrooms to later emerge.

“A garden is not just vegetables and perennials. It’s all kinds of energies working together. And when you add species such as mushrooms, you build a guild of functional relationships from one plant to another,” says the Virginia native who has had a lifelong fascination with this relatively fast-growing crop. “In addition to being delicious, fungi are integral to the ecosystem, and composting is the simplest way for you to use mushrooms on your property. They break down the waste carbon sources and create soil.” With one bag tossed over each shoulder, he heads for his new 1,440-square-foot, climate-controlled grow house. Over a three-week period, each bag will fruit with blue oysters for seven to ten days.

With degrees in both liberal arts and science, Jones says it was a college mycology class that sparked his enthusiasm for fungi. After finishing grad school at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, he moved to Oregon, where his trade was carpentry and his passion the development of useful landscapes. He moved back to his family’s Virginia homestead in the summer of 2004. Three years later, he sold his first commercial mushroom crop at the producer-only Charlottesville City Market.

Mushrooms 101

At Sharondale Farm, more than a dozen types of mushrooms are currently in cultivation—another 12 species are in the experimental stage—each growing on straw, compost, wood chips, or logs. The grains and cereal bran Jones uses in cultivation are organic, and the methods of cultivation are in accord with standards for organic production.

In spring and fall, the best time for cultivation, Jones conducts two- to three-hour mushroom workshops that cover plant biology, ecology in the garden, and hands-on cultivation skills. “For most students, the interest is growing shiitakes on logs. But I prefer to start people out on oyster mushrooms, also on logs. There’s less management involved,” he says. Jones also sells mushroom spawn and tools of the trade for log inoculation on his web site. Farm tours are available by appointment.

The Growing Season

When it comes to taste, Jones’s favorite is the almond portobello, which he calls “extraordinary for its nutty flavor.” His shiitake varieties have varying texture and flavor profiles. Those spiny lion’s manes, he says, “shred like crab meat and have a subtle flavor that’s easily enhanced with white wine and herbs.”

Restaurants, such as L’Etoile and The Local in Charlottesville, appreciate that Jones is right down the road. “He’s so passionate about mushrooms. And what’s really nice about his products is that they are so fresh, full of life, and moist,” says Dean Maupin, executive chef of the nearby award-winning Clifton Inn. “Mark turned me on to the lion’s mane,” Maupin adds.

For some lucky community supported agriculture (CSA) members in the area, beautiful mushrooms from Cismont are included in every share. “Mark’s mushrooms are not what you see every day in stores. People are excited about having diverse products in their share,” says Kathryn Bertoni, co-owner of Appalachia Star Farm in Roseland.

With his new grow house up and running, Jones hopes to increase production in the coming year “by an order of magnitude and then some. This means thousands of pounds of mushrooms, but I can’t give exact numbers,” he says.

Though a teacher, Jones is still a student of mycology, ever on the lookout for strains of edible wild mushrooms, always experimenting with new methods. And ready to sauté the results.

Mark Jones teaches classes at Richmond’s J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, and he also conducts mushroom-growing workshops in spring and fall—the best times for cultivation. Here are some upcoming workshops. Information can be found online.

Growing Mushrooms at Home
An introduction to cultivating gourmet and medicinal mushrooms
April 3 at Sharondale Farm, Cismont

Got Mushroom?
Growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms in urban and small spaces
April 17 at New Community Project, Harrisonburg

Sharondale Farm
Cismont, VA
(434) 296-3301
sharondalefarm.com

Walter Nicholls is a former staff reporter for the Washington Post. A native Washingtonian, he has written about farms, food markets, and restaurants for 21 years. He resides both in the Georgetown section of Washington and on an historic homestead in Rappahannock County, Virginia. Find him at walternicholls.com.

By Walter Nicholls • Photographs by Molly McDonald Peterson

In the late 1990s, organic farmer Beverly Morton Billand had what she calls “my crazy idea.” She took the otherwise farmers market–bound vegetables and herbs, grown on her 25-year-old, 40-acre farm in Lovettsville, Virginia, and launched the quintessential farm-to-table experience. “At the time, I knew of no one in this country doing such a thing,” says Billand. “We were a first.”

A Setting Like No Other
In a tent outside her kitchen door, on a gorgeous, fertile bluff over the Potomac River in western Loudoun County, Billand opened The Restaurant at Patowmack Farm. She served not only the bounty from her own fields, but also foods sourced from regional farmers who shared her vision for sustainable agriculture. This eco-pioneer didn’t stop there.

Along the way, and in order to bring as many people as possible to Patowmack, Billand started an on-farm retail market for value-added products, such as dilly beans, salsas, and pesto. Farm tours, cooking classes, and wine dinner partnerships with local vineyards brought more and more people up the steep drive, where visitors can see the vistas of three states—West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia—in the distance even as the farm that produces the ingredients in their dinner is at their feet.

Guests continue to come in every season to what is now a permanent, 110-seat glass conservatory for a sensory nirvana. Eagles soar overhead, trains whistle in the distance, and modern American cuisine bursts with just-picked flavor and aroma.

A Few Steps from Farm to Fork
Just rewards for more than a decade of hard work came on January 22, when the Patowmack crew, including executive chef Christopher Edwards, traveled to the James Beard Foundation in New York City for a farm-to-table dinner executed by Edwards. On the five-course menu were two of his signature dishes: a delicate cannelloni of Cherry Glen goat cheese with roasted beets and aged balsamic vinegar as well as an earthy, hay-smoked potato gnocchi with potato-skin consommé. Edwards took Virginia wines to the New York dinner, including Fabbioli Cellars 2007 Chambourcin, Corcoran Vineyards 2008 Viognier, and Sunset Hills Vineyard 2007 Reserve Cabernet Franc.

“For me, after all this time—this recognizes our passion for organic and seasonal cuisine,” says Billand. “For Chris, it’s an opportunity to be recognized as a top chef.”

Edwards’s credentials come from a rarified rung of restaurants here and abroad. Edwards, who came to Patowmack in early 2009, trained as an apprentice at the acclaimed and cutting-edge molecular gastronomy temple Restaurant El Bulli in Roses, Spain. From there, he joined noted chef Fabio Trabocchi at the now-shuttered Maestro in McLean, Virginia, and later went with Trabocchi to Fiamma in New York. “From El Bulli, I took away a love of woodland foraging for select ingredients, like the discovery of a wealth of Patowmack’s wild purple nettle, which has a sweet, minty flavor,” says Edwards. Come late April, he will take to the hills in search of morel mushrooms.

Seasonally at Patowmack, nine cultivated acres produce dozens of kinds of herbs and vegetables, including 30 kinds of tomatoes, 20 kinds of peppers, basketfuls of asparagus, assorted berries, and eggs from a flock of free-range chickens. Successive plantings, where crops mature at staggered dates, provide a steady flow of string beans, eggplant, and melons. With a new hoop house in place for winter crops, delicate salad greens are available all year. Garden predators are a problem, but this food show must go on. “We plant enough for everybody—the deer, rabbits, and groundhogs,” jokes Billand.

Executive chef Chris Edwards

For grass-fed Angus beef, the chef relies on Hedgeapple Farm, based in Buckeystown, Maryland. The pork, veal, and chickens are heritage breeds, coming from Ayrshire Farm in Virginia’s Upperville. “For meats, that covers my bases,” he says.

Well Worth the Effort
This year’s plans call for the May opening of an on-site bakery specializing in gluten- and dairy-free cakes, pies, and breads. Says Billand, “We want to draw even more people to the farm.” With outreach in mind and with a nod to first lady Michelle Obama, Patowmack wants to work with local schools on a garden-to-lunchroom project. Billand says students will learn the how-to of the hoe and also gain cooking and proper diet knowledge.

The push for more activity at Patowmack is not only a move to guarantee the farm’s sustainability, but also a response to recessionary spending cutbacks on the part of guests. A luxury for many, Edwards’s five-course prix fixe dinner is $85 per person, without wine, tax, and tip. Recently, an à la carte menu was added, and on Thursdays diners can choose from an assortment of small plates and classic cocktails.
Still, Billand says she is “having a great time” growing Patowmack, all the while supporting local small businesses, farmers, and community organizations. Her challenge is to continually alert the world that her farm-based restaurant is unique and that guests will find the travel effort and expense well worth it. “Could we have more people? Yes,” she says. “But we’re a destination restaurant. People have to think about coming here.”

By Walter Nicholls • Photos by Molly McDonald Peterson

For many of today’s boutique farmers in the Capital foodshed, variety is the key to survival. Making a go of it—making the day pay—requires diverse revenue streams and the figurative ability to gently collect an egg with one hand and crack a walnut with the other. In addition to producing agricultural products, some farmers teach and demonstrate their varied talents with an open gate to visitors. Many are obliged to be unique and unusual, with some throwing a seasonal corn maze or petting zoo into the mix. We found two special farms, where day and night blend into one, where chores never seem to end. And that’s just the way these farmers like it.

SYCAMORE SPRING FARM Frederick, MD

Sycamore Springs' Carol Rollman with freshly picked radishes. (Photo © Molly McDonald Peterson)

Seven years ago, ultrasound technician Carol Rollman made a decision that not only changed her life but, she believes, saved it. The North Carolina native, who 27 years ago moved her four children into a 280-year-old log homestead on seven and a half acres in Frederick, Maryland, was diagnosed with the low bonemineral density condition osteopenia. Today her highly diverse Sycamore Spring Farm provides both a steady income and a means to teach others how to stay well.

“When I got the diagnosis, I didn’t want to take chemical drugs the rest of my life. Instead, I bought a goat for the milk and to make cheese, and my bone density went up and up,” says Rollman as she gives a tour of the barnyard, where heritage breed tom turkeys strut past a flock of guinea fowl, bringing raucous squawks. Chickens poke out of the woods. “I was 48, closing in on 50, and I said to myself, ‘If I don’t do this farm operation now, I’ll never do it.’ Then I went gangbusters.”

With full speed and energy, she researched the best heirloom breeds of a variety of farm animals, attended agriculture and beekeeping classes, gained certification as a tester for poultry diseases, and learned the how-to of butchering and soapmaking. Soon she was working her land 16 hours a day, seven days a week. “The idea,” says Rollman, “was to be as selfsufficient as possible and have my lifestyle pay for itself.” Her 22-year-old son, Christopher Chung, and her 17-year-old daughter, Olivia Chung, help with chores on weekends.

The family acreage is dense with both funky and historic outbuildings, barns, sheds, and coops for heritage breeds of rabbit, geese, and her beloved goats. Customers come to the farm by appointment for fresh meat, which is butchered on the spot. She leases a nearby 54-acre farm for her herd of 20 Scottish Highland cattle. (There is a 10-year waiting list for beef, which she sells at premium prices.) More than 50 dozen eggs go out the gate each week.

Riding a wave to total sustainability, Rollman has added classes in canning, butchering, cheesemaking, and fermentation of foods over the last several years. Additional income comes from her goat boarding program and dairy maid services, giving those who want it legal access to raw goat milk.

At Sycamore, neat fenced plots are in place for a wide variety of heirloom vegetables. Rollman started a 22-week community supported agriculture (CSA) program three years ago, with not only vegetables, but also niceties such as sunflowers, walnuts, and pears. This season there were 25 members. Plans for the coming year include doubling the size of the CSA and providing delivery service within an hour’s drive of the farm. Talks are underway with several nearby farmers who will produce other crops, such as corn, which she has no room for.

Rollman says her greatest challenge is finding farm workers to help with the endless chores. Few have lasted for long. “For this to work and grow, I have to find someone who cares about more than an hourly wage,” she says. “For this job, you need passion.”

BELLE MEADE Sperryville, VA

Belle Meade proprietor Susan Hoffman and two students grooming a horse used in the school’s riding program. (Photo © Molly McDonald Peterson)

In 1993, Alexandria resident and newspaper distributor Mike Biniek and D.C. resident and school teacher Susan Hoffman were returning from a weekend date in Madison, Virginia, when they took a bend on scenic F.T. Valley Road in Rappahannock County and spotted an enormous Victorian house with an enticing “For Sale” sign. “Let’s buy a farm,” Hoffman recalls calling out.

And that’s when these two future farmers, then in their early 40s, began a discussion of what they would do with 138- acres of fertile, rolling land with a terrific view of Shenandoah National Park’s Old Rag Mountain. In short order, they married and moved into the cream-colored, 5,500-square-foot clapboard house, filled with well-preserved architectural detail.

With little farming experience, their first thought for making a living on the property was to start a kids’ summer camp and a bed-and-breakfast, which were both in place in two years’ time. Still, they projected that not enough money would come in on a yearly basis. “It became pretty obvious that the camp and bedand- breakfast wouldn’t provide enough income to be here,” says Biniek. “There were pieces that needed to come together, and I didn’t have strong ideas of how to make farming pay.”

Inspiration came in 1995 when the couple attended a Virginia Biological Farming Conference, which included a tour of acclaimed innovator Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farms in Augusta County. “That was our introduction to a small-scale, diversified farm,” says Biniek. They took away expertise on where to spend money first (on farm animals) and what can wait until later (fencing). The possibility of sustainability hit home after they saw for themselves how Salatin rotated his animals from one pasture to the next, naturally fertilizing as they went.

At Belle Meade, there are now 60 head of cattle, five pigs, 250 laying hens, and a seasonal flock of 150 turkeys. A one-anda- half-acre organic vegetable garden produces a wide variety of vegetables as well as strawberries and raspberries. Much of the meat and produce is purchased by the Airlie Conference Center in nearby Warrenton. “They are serious about buying local,” says Hoffman. Local stores sell the eggs.

After purchasing, moving, and renovating a 1914 schoolhouse on an adjoining property, Biniek and Hoffman opened Belle Meade School in 2007, offering both academics and a hands-on farm education. It now has 25 students, in grades six to ten. Six horses are on hand for the school’s riding program. The charming school building also hosts regular classes in yoga and ballet and is rented for weddings, workshops, and meetings. Guests who stay in the five-room bed-and-breakfast, with its distinctive red trim and sky-blue tin roof, have the option to lounge and swim in an enormous pool or in a one-and-a-halfacre pond stocked with bass, bluegill, and catfish.

The couple says their greatest challenge is raising the agricultural revenue from the beef and increasing the size of the herd. “The dance is first—how to produce it—and then, how to sell it,” says Biniek. “I enjoy raising animals. But what I can produce and provide isn’t in a steady enough stream.” From the start, financing the expansion has been paved with hard-to-get loans and mounting debt.

Fortunately, the camp and school provide plenty of hands to help with the chores as well as families who are encouraged to purchase the production of the fields.

Walter Nicholls is a former staff reporter for the Washington Post. A native Washingtonian, he has written about farms, food markets, and restaurants for 21 years. He resides in both the Georgetown section of Washington and on an historic homestead in Rappahannock County, Virginia. In addition to contributing to Flavor, Nicholls writes for Chesapeake Life and DC and for the web site BizBash.

MANY VARIATIONS ON THE SAME THEME

MARYLAND Several farms, such as Maryland Sunrise Farm in Gambrills (www.mdsunrisefarm.com) and Bowles Farms in Clements (www.bowlesfarms.com), have seasonal corn mazes and host birthday parties and meetings. The newest attraction at the 540-acre Clark’s Elioak Farm in Ellicott City (www.clarklandfarm.com) is the “Enchanted Forest Pine Tree Maze.” Characters and buildings from an old amusement park are spread throughout the property. The far smaller 33-acre Summer Creek Farm in Thurmont (www.summercreekfarm.com), which specializes in organic vegetables and grains, has recently added a line of gardening supplies, such as farm tools and organic potting soil. Calvert County’s Serenity Farm (www.serenityfarminc.com) is developing a farm museum and renovating a barn as a venue for events.

VIRGINIA A self-guided farm tour and kids’ educational scavenger hunt started this year at Chicama Run farm in Purcellville (www.chicamarun.com). In nearby Berryville, Smith Meadows Meats (www.smithmeadows.com) has value-added chicken pot pies and beef chili. On April 1, 2010, the Remington dairy operation Cool Lawn Farms (www.cowsatcoollawnfarm.com) will open a retail store, selling ice cream made with their grass-fed milk. Goodwin Creek Farm & Bakery (www.aftonvirginia.com) grows produce, raises laying hens, and produces handmade breads and granola. The owners diversified by adding bakery products after crops were devastated by deer. At Eco-Ridge Farm (www.echoridgefarm.org) in Middletown, pick up a CSA share, hold an event on the grounds or in the 19th-century barn, or shop at the nursery. An orchard will be ready soon.

Butchers are a key link in the local food chain because they help small farmers get their meat to customers. Demand for such products in the Capital foodshed is strong enough that several new butcher shops have opened recently.

Over the last three decades, the all-American butcher shop nearly disappeared. Along the way, few shoppers noticed that the less mainstream cuts of meat and personal service all but vanished along with the specialty trade. Most consumers seem to be satisfied finding what they need in the supermarket: portioned, wrapped, and ready to-go.

But over the last five years, after repeated salmonella scares and product recalls, there has been a major uptick in the number of people who are concerned about health, food safety, and supporting small farms. On came author Michael Pollan with his groundbreaking The Omnivore’s Dilemma in 2006, and this year filmmaker Robert Kenner released the documentary Food, Inc. The horrors of industrial food hit the page, the screen, and the public’s confidence. Humane treatment went buzzword.

A handful of issue- and quality-conscious entrepreneurs have stepped into the void and brought the specialty butcher shop back—in Richmond, McLean, Charlottesville, and most recently, Alexandria. Daily, they source the best products available, truss naturally raised beef roasts, make European-style pâtés, offer serving suggestions, and more. That’s their business.

Walter Nicholls is a former staff reporter for The Washington Post. A native Washingtonian, he has tracked down and written about the best food markets, restaurants, and farms for 21 years.

Belmont Butchery

Just inside the door of Tanya Cauthen’s petite Belmont Butchery, located in Richmond’s Museum District, there is a “Me” wall of framed magazine and newspaper clips, devoted to her rising fame. National and local food writers have focused on her 20-year career as a noted area chef, caterer, cooking consultant, and, since late 2006, butcher. All around, the black and white tile décor sings with mellow, retro notes.

“I’ve been lucky,” says Cauthen, sporting a knowing smile that comes with confidence. “We never sent out press releases saying: ‘Come look at us.’ People noticed on their own that we are doing something unique and different. We break full carcasses and make our own sausages and charcuterie. It takes a lot of effort to do this stuff.” Just past the framed magazine clips are the saws and cleavers, her tools of the trade.

At Belmont, every chop and steak is cut-to-order. Her shoppers appreciate that, in addition to restaurant-quality beef, she stocks the more muscled, grass-finished beef, which cooks faster and, some believe, is healthier. “Animals that walk around have a different muscle texture,” explains Cauthen. “Factory animals are couch potatoes. Like an athlete, farm animals walk.” The pork in her display case is from pastured, heritage breeds. Customers eat it up.

“I met the man here who raised the pig that Tanya used to make the bacon. These people are my quality control,” said shopper and health-care consultant Hollister Lindley, who this day bought house-made hickory-smoked bacon that she planned to wrap around a lean pork roast.

Cauthen credits a trip Down Under and a cable television show for the inspiration for her butcher shop vision. “In Australia, there are butcher shops everywhere. You can buy small portions and the off cuts, like flatiron steak. I knew I could cut meat and work hard.” But it was Food Network personality Alton Brown who drove the idea home. “He likes to say: ‘Ask your local butcher,’ she says. “But at the time, I didn’t know who that would be.”

Belmont Butchery
15 N. Belmont Ave., Richmond, VA
(804) 422-8519
www.belmontbutchery.com

The Organic Butcher

For the fall season, Belmont Butchery, The Butcher’s Block, and The Organic Butcher are featuring game, such as rabbit, elk, boar, and game birds.

In late 2005, Don Roden and his brother-in-law, Ryan Ford, opened The Organic Butcher stores in McLean and Charlottesville with the specific goal of helping small farmers sell every part of their animals, not just the high-end cuts. At the time, both had sales and marketing experience but little formal training in butchery.

“Opening a butcher shop appealed to us on a personal level,” says Roden, who, like Ford, is a Vienna native. “We enjoy eating good food and making it available.” They recognized the existence of a farm-to-table, supply-and-demand problem.

Ford explains that beef farmers, for example, can sell the steaks to restaurants but wind up with a freezer full of ground beef, chuck roasts, bottom rounds, and bones. Farmers find some success selling frozen meat at the farm or at farmers markets. “But we can put fresh product in front of the customers every day, just like a European-style butcher shop,” he says.

All of the beef, and most of the heritage-breed pork, is organically raised, antibiotic- and hormone-free, and humanely slaughtered. Customers regularly ask if the animals had a good life and were treated well. Only a few shoot questions about organic certification. “People put more emphasis on locally raised,” says Ford, adding that he sees fewer farmers entering the organic production program because of the fees, costly feed, and the paperwork. “In the end, it’s very difficult for them to get the premium price they need,” says Ford.

At the gleaming McLean store and the far smaller outpost in Charlottesville’s Main Street Market, one of the biggest sellers is hanger steak—the flavorful boneless beef cut that hangs between the rib and the short loin. “It’s a great price point, easy to prepare, and tender,” says Roden.

The men have had less luck selling grass-finished beef, which they say, “doesn’t move.”

“People are getting on board. But we’ve found that as butchers, we are not here to promote ideologies,” says Ford. “We stock what sells.” And despite the recession, the meat is moving. Sales have grown 20 percent over last year.

The Organic Butcher
6712 Old Dominion Dr., McLean, VA
(703) 790-8300

416 W. Main St., Charlottesville, VA
(434) 244-7400
www.theorganicbutcher.com

The Butcher’s Block

In March, Washington powerhouse chef Robert Wiedmaier fulfilled a lifelong dream, opening The Butcher’s Block in Old Town Alexandria. Next door are two of his restaurants: the more formal Brabo and casual Brabo Tasting Room. Across the Potomac in Washington, his fans know his Belgian-inspired Marcel’s and Brasserie Beck.

“My drive has always been to be a full-service chef, sourcing whole products from local farms and utilizing everything. Like in Germany, where I grew up, nothing goes to waste,” says Wiedmaier, who is known for his attention to every detail.

He takes “full service” one step further than his competitors. With three chefs on the shop’s staff, everything in the display case—the bison flatiron steaks, lamb tenderloin, and veal cheeks—can be cooked to order. Having a party? This crew creates event-worthy bites, such as foie gras parfait topped with Madeira gelée.

Chris Watson, the chef in charge of The Butcher’s Block, calls the shop “an on-going project.” “We just added books on butchering. We keep adding more farmers,” says Watson, who enjoys the teaching aspect of the job. “I like to explain to people things like what to do with bones [make stock] and fat [lard roasts] and how to prepare the meats properly.”

To that end, in the front section of the modern shop, there are meat-complementing ingredients, used in the Wiedmaier restaurants, such as finishing salts, verjus for sauces, and olive oil marinades. Wash it down with a selection from the wall of wine.

Once a month Watson gives free, one-hour butchering demos at the store for up to 40 people. “We open some wine and answer questions, like why we support local farmers,” says Watson. “Then, we put a whole chicken, for example, in front of the group. We show how to truss it three or four different ways, which helps it to cook evenly and hold a shape. We stuff herbs under the skin. We break the birds apart five or six different ways. It’s super fun.”

The Butcher’s Block
1600 King St., Alexandria, VA
(703) 894-5253
www.braborestaurant.com

Unlike employees of chain grocery stores, independent butchers can often tell you about the farm where their meat was raised and about the people who raised it. Butcher shops are few and far between, so please patronize the ones near you when you can.

Here are some other butchers in the Capital foodshed you can support.

Bedford Avenue Meat Shop
2302 Bedford Ave.
Lynchburg, VA
(434) 845-6328
www.bedfordavemeats.com

Blue Ridge Meats
2391 Guard Hill Rd.
Middletown, VA
(540) 636-6050
www.blueridgemeats.com

Home Farm Store
1 Washington St.
Middleburg, VA
(540) 687-8882
www.homefarmstore.com

Let’s Meat on the Avenue
2403 Mt. Vernon Ave.
Alexandria, VA
(703) 836-6328
www.letsmeatontheavenue.com

Olde Towne Butcher
405 Williams St.
Fredericksburg, VA
www.oldetownebutcher.com

T&E Meats
256 Charles St.
Harrisonburg, VA
(540) 434-4415
www.temeat.com

Two Fat Butchers
239 South St.
Front Royal, VA
(540) 635-6900
www.twofatbutchers.com

Wagshal’s Market
4845 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC
(202) 363-0777
www.wagshals.com