Foodie Elitism

How should we respond when we’re called elitists because we buy more expensive, local food? By Joel Salatin • Photographs by Molly McDonald Peterson Because high-quality local food often carries a higher price tag than food generated by the industrial system, the charge of elitism coming from industrial foodists is often vitriolic, and embarrassed foodies [...]

Using Our Common Cents

The Slow Money Alliance is re-imagining financing options for local food systems. By Jennifer Conrad Seidel • Photos by Molly McDonald Peterson The magazine in your hands is part of a national movement seeking to establish regional food systems that are sustainable environmentally as well as economically, where new ways of making food flourish alongside [...]

Chardonnay

Chardonnay is more complex than you think. By Jim Law • Photographs by Molly McDonald Peterson There is more acreage of Chardonnay in Virginia than of any other variety, and this reflects a national trend: Chardonnay is the most widely sold variety in the U.S. Arguably, it makes some of the most complex and age-worthy [...]

Cheese Greater

The demand for FireFly Farms’ cheeses — including a rare goat’s-milk blue — seems insatiable. By Marian Burros • Photos by Molly McDonald Peterson When Michael Koch and Pablo Solanet bought an old farm in Garrett County, Maryland, in 1997 and turned it into their weekend getaway, it was not with the thought that it [...]

The Capital’s Hot Somms, The Commonwealth’s Hot Wines

Flavor invited some of the Capital foodshed’s most influential sommeliers over for a drink to see which Virginia wines would impress them. By Bill Plante • Photographs by Molly McDonald Peterson People have been making wine in Virginia since the 17th century. So why don’t diners see more Virginia wines on restaurant lists in and [...]

Out of the Woods

An alternative Virginia farmer brings a variety of specialty mushrooms to market while caring for the ecosystem. By Walter Nicholls • Photographs by 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 [...]

After a Hard Winter

This paralyzing winter should have taught us to take advantage of our local bounty and lay up for the day our food systems grind to a halt. By Joel Salatin The winter of 2009–2010 will go down in our mid-Atlantic record books as one to remember. Fender benders, shoveling, and bone-chilling cold. Here in the [...]

One of Us?

Kathleen Merrigan is working hard to change federal agriculture policy from inside the USDA. By Marian Burros Until last spring, phrases like “sustainable agriculture,” “local food,” and “mobile slaughterhouses” were only whispered in the halls of the Department of Agriculture, the agency where industrial agriculture and biotechnology reigned supreme. Then Kathleen Merrigan—a 50-year-old assistant professor [...]

Unleashing Your Inner Winemaker

In the fields and cellars of wineries around Charlottesville, a local community college is training future winemakers, vineyard owners, and wine industry professionals. By Jennifer Conrad Seidel • Photos by Molly McDonald Peterson The wine industry in Virginia is growing. Even in 2009, when we were spending our grocery and entertainment dollars more carefully, the [...]

Vouchers for Veggies

Helping food stamp recipients shop at farmers markets near and far. By Marian Burros • Photo by Kristen Taylor With names like Boston Bounty Bucks, Fresh Checks, and Double Dollars, programs at a few farmers markets across the country—including some in the Capital foodshed—offer economically vulnerable people a deal they cannot refuse: as much as [...]

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