Neighborhood Restaurant Group

by Marian Burros   What sets Michael Babin apart from his peers is not the fact that he owns 11 successful restaurants and assorted food-related businesses, collectively known as the Neighborhood Restaurant Group. What makes this Cajun-Italian transplant from Baton Rouge – he grew up with pigs and a vegetable garden out back — stand [...]

Rebel with a Cause- Food Nazis

by Joel Salatin “You’re food Nazis,” wrote the irate customer in her e-mail to our farm.  The accusation stung, but more than that, it exposed a gross ignorance about local foods. The e-mail outburst followed a dialogue about product availability. She wanted bacon and had been denied three deliveries in a row. In her mind, [...]

A Beer Grows in Wine Country

by Sarah Searle, photography by Sarah Searle There are local beer makers, and then there’s the Corcoran Brewing Company — where hops are grown on site and pumpkins for the seasonal ale are picked by hand just up the road. If beer has a terroir, this is it. “It’s all about making beer people love,” [...]

Natural Skincare: From the plate to your face

by Kristin Hartke, photography by Molly McDonald Peterson Honey, avocado oil, tangerine extract: Sounds like a recipe for a tasty salad dressing, but it turns out that these lip-smacking ingredients are also good for the skin and are the basis for a burgeoning cottage industry in skin care products that focus on locally sourced and [...]

Meet the Future of Farming

by: Pamela Hess, photos by: Molly McDonald Peterson There’s a crisis in farming: The average age of a farmer in the United States is between 57 and 59. Thirty percent of our farmers are beyond retirement age. And the USDA says we need 100,000 new farmers a year – that’s right, every year – to [...]

Flavor Cafe: The Empress

by: John Haddad, photos by: Danny Spry Breakfast choices on the run in Virginia’s capital are either a latte and mass-produced scone from Starbucks or a biscuit and bad cup of coffee from a fast-food joint. Rarely do you see – or get — a hot meal to start the day, and certainly not a [...]

RdV Vineyards

by: Adrienne Wichard-Edd, photos by: Molly McDonald Peterson Three birds perch on the label of the most expensive bottle of wine in the state of Virginia. “A tribute to my grandfather,” explains Rutger de Vink, vigneron and owner of RdV vineyards. “When we were boys, my brother and I would play in the attic of [...]

On Location: Berkeley Springs

by: Pamela Hess An American resort destination for more than 250 years – and a healing spring for Native Americans for untold years before — Berkeley Springs (the village and the water) is just what the doctor ordered after a holiday season of overindulgence. But first, some history: Thomas Jefferson’s father mapped the area in [...]

Paving Paradise

by: Michael Clune photography by: Molly McDonald Peterson Waving his arm down the length of a garish orange boundary fence that passes just feet from his home and then disappears into his 250-year-old farm, the anger and frustration in Sam Brown’s face are easy to read. The fence, erected after the town council of Purcellville, [...]

Rebel with a Cause: I Can’t Answer for all the Fringes

by: Joel Salatin photography by: Molly McDonald Peterson I was in Australia a couple of weeks ago doing regenerative food systems seminars and a fellow raised his hand with a question: “I’m a farm consultant working for the government.  What do I tell my clients that have 30,000 acres of wheat?” It’s the same mentality [...]

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