Edacious - Food Talk For Gluttons

Dairy Work. With Raw Milk. How can we get over our fear of all natural? Welcome to an episode where a city girl learns the difference between black cows and brown cows and we demystify all the imagined dangers around one of the healthiest beverages you can drink, raw milk. Meet Ben and Kristen Beichler of Creambrook Farm dairy in Middlebrook, Virginia. What are the health benefits of raw milk anyway? Are they legit or a product of its rarity, more legend than fact? It's proven raw milk has more vitamins because any beta-carotene, omega-3 and 6, and other nutrients the cow eats from grass ends up in your belly. Cows digest these nutrients way better than you, but you end up with the benefits. In fact, some lactose-intolerant folks can actually handle raw milk! To me, it tastes better. It's more satiating. It feels like a complete thing in and of itself. But some folks still don't buy it. They subscribe to old beliefs leftover from the turn of last century, not understanding the production of raw milk is a lost

Catering is hard work. Chefs like Gabrielle Hamilton earned their stripes doing large corporate catering events and if you read her memoir, "Blood, Bones, and Butter," you know doing the job of caterer is no joke. There are long hours, unpredictable circumstances, and anxious customers hell-bent on having everything absolutely perfect. Ever watch Restaurant Wars on Top Chef? Well, a caterer builds a pop-up each time they do a job. Which can be multiple times a week in the busy season. How does the magic happen? Welcome to my FANTASTIC conversation with someone well aware of catering's triumphs and possible pitfalls. Meet Gay Beery of A Pimento Catering, a Charlottesville institution. "You build a restaurant for a night, and then you make it go away." Gay's life parallels Gabrielle's in many ways beyond food. Both women grew up in theatrical families with mothers who were dancers. Both fathers worked IN THE SAME CIRCUS! The story of how her parents met is one not to be missed. Gay credits her theatrical back

Bourdain's Work. Or Once Again, We Must Be Speakers for the Dead. We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you a semi-regular segment here at Edacious. A segment where I rant about a food topic so much on my mind, it warrants its own episode. Anthony Bourdain can't be summed up in a soundbite or a quote. His body of work stands for his name. Nor will I add anything better than what's already been written or said. There are hundreds of Speakers better than me, including Mike Costello of 100 Days in Appalachia. Bourdain wasn't even my favorite food writer, but he was the door. The very first door I opened onto a world I knew nothing about and one I'm so glad I stepped through. I loved his work, honest, ballsy, gritty, truth-telling. Sentences with a heft that sat on the page like granite. I fucking loved the way he wrote, and what he stood for. Connecting over food. He did this every minute of every day. And he taught me to do the same. Bourdain believed when someone cooks you a meal, they are

How do you sell vegan to the masses without the dogma? The Good Phyte. With No Diet Dogma Allowed. Welcome to Episode 101 and my conversation with Stacy Miller of Good Phyte Foods. Stacy became disgusted with overpriced, oversugared processed foods, especially snacks. Most are too caloric with high glycemic indexes but use wholesome packaging to build trust. There's a lot of green so it must be organic. Which fools folks who don't have time which we know is how big corporations get us. How could she create something healthy, yet so tasty eating it doesn't feel like punishment? Why not a healthy snack just as easy as those famous crackers shaped like fish? Something you can use when you've got a screaming 2-year-old and feel good about? How could she do that without pushing a lot of rigid dogma? How could she use local ingredients to create a 3-tiered bottom line? "When it comes to healthy eating, I'm just trying to provide an alternative." The result is Good Phyte Foods, a play on the word "phyto" which is

Why is Petit Manseng so vilified? Just one of the topics we discuss during this very special LIVE event recorded at Market Street Wine to celebrate its new owners, Siân Richards and Thadd McQuade, and the 100th episode of Edacious. This special partnership acts as both celebration of our two businesses reaching an important benchmark, and one of community, sharing, and learning. Four celebrated local winemakers join us to offer a special taste of two different varietals and to discuss the future of winemaking in Virginia: Corry Craighill of Sunset Hills Vineyard and 50 West Vineyards, Kirsty Harmon of Blenheim Vineyards, Matthieu Finot of King Family Vineyards, and Ben Jordan of Early Mountain Vineyards. How do winemakers decide what grapes to grow and exactly where on the land to grow them depending on wind, slope, elevation, soil, and amount of sunlight? Which sites and grape varieties make your best wines? How do we adjust to the terroir as winemakers, especially in terms of breaking from classical approac

Cake Work. With #MeToo Challenges, Baking Triumphs, and Spirituality. Does baking have a spiritual side? We explore this topic among others in Episode 99. Although anxiety-inducing for some, baking can actually be a way to calm yourself down and conquer your demons. Welcome to my conversation with Rachel Greenberg Willis of Cakes By Rachel! Rachel opened her shop in downtown Crozet in 2015, but she's been baking professionally for years. The story of how she found the shop is so quintessentially of this region I found myself shaking my head in wonder, and making a mental note to take this approach immediately. This person doing The Work of Food got her start at 18, studying at culinary school and cooking everywhere she could, eventually staging at a Michelin-starred restaurant in a small French town in the southwest of France and cooking for a white-water rafting company in the Pyrenees. What was that experience like? Short answer? IT'S A MUST-LISTEN. As is the story of an epic wedding fail that happened to a

Self-Sabotage Work. Or Why Would You Knowingly, Purposefully Jeopardize Success? We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you a semi-regular segment here at Edacious. A segment where I rant about a food topic so much on my mind, it warrants its own episode. Welcome to self-sabotage folks. And yes, it does relate to food. Very well in fact. What is self-sabotage? Why does it happen? What can you do about it? How did depression and self-doubt cause my most recent bout with this annoying occurrence which unfortunately occurs fairly often? How did I cure my most recent bout? Have you experienced this? What did you do? I'd love to hear about it because I have a feeling most of us do this subconsciously on a regular basis, cutting ourselves off at the knee symbolically because somehow we feel we've gotten "too big for our britches".  In future episodes, I hope to discuss other topics like tipping, reservations, even what makes a great pizza. May you never experience what I just did. And if you do,

Building Relationships. With Food Labels. Welcome to Episode 97 and a conversation with a food professional who travels under the radar. But if you've enjoyed food or beverage in Charlottesville, chances are you've seen her work. Meet Darcey Ohlin Lacy of Watermark Design. Darcey and her team specialize in labels and brand assets for food and beverage companies. Her clients include Veritas, Champion Brewery, Brasserie Saison, Jake Busching Wines, and The Barbecue Exchange. Darcey started her business a decade ago in a historic chicken shack in Belmont with no bathroom, heat, or air conditioning. An introduction to Michael Shaps from Michael Shaps Wineworks began a graphic design relationship with food and beverage that continues to this day. She and her design team of Jenna Thielges, Sean Raynor, and Sara Hade now share a space off of Preston Avenue, and the minute we began talking I started taking notes for my own dream studio space. Because the energy in her new space is so dynamic and creative. As is the w

Navigating #MeToo. With Food Women. Welcome to a very special episode, the premiere of a new segment on the podcast I like to call the Edacious Round Table. Instead of learning one person's journey, area Food Folks discuss a topic. First up? Harassment and discrimination in Food Work with co-hosts Arley Arrington and Clare Terni. How has it affected Charlottesville? What can we do to change things? We dive in. Arley Arrington works at Whisk in Richmond. Previously, she lived and worked in Charlottesville as a server in various restaurants and as a baker at Brookville. She's also done catering for The Space and owns her baking business, Arley Cakes. She is a past podcast guest and her lemon raspberry birthday cake won a 2017 Edacious Golden Fork Award. Clare Terni has lived in Charlottesville for 20 years and has worked on and off in food since she was sixteen, mostly catering and working in restaurants. She currently teaches Anthropology at JMU and works as both a server and manager for The Whiskey Jar, as we

Cocktail Work. With History, Great Local Ingredients, and That Elusive Yummy Factor. Welcome to Edacious! In Episode 95 we talk with bartending master Micah LeMon of The Alley Light. Having enjoyed many a fine adult beverage up their back stairs it was great to finally sit down and chat about Prohibition, the evolution of bartending, current trends, and his new book, The Imbible. We talk a lot about the difference between good cocktails and great ones. Micah truly believes in striving to achieve that benchmark. That moment you take the first sip and proclaim your drink YUMMY beyond all measure. What makes a cocktail yummy? What doesn't? He takes me to school. The Doctor's Orders cocktail I sipped on through the entire episode was very yummy indeed. Micah's first book, The Imbible, is a labor of love and libation. Not only does it include history, recipes, and technique, but Micah provides basic tables so you too can become a Master Mixologist within the confines of your own bar cart. Micah will be mixing cock

Revitalization Work. With conscious growth. In a bank vault. Welcome to Episode 94 and my conversation with Chef Joy Crump of FoodE and Mercantile in Fredericksburg. I was immediately taken with Joy when I met her during the Fire, Flour, Fork Women in Food panel where her thoughtfulness on the topic of running a kitchen stayed with me for hours afterward. We had this conversation inside FoodE, a converted bank building. In the vault of all places, which has excellent acoustics! Joy and her business partners were very conscious about keeping the original bones intact, using what was in place, rather than gutting everything and starting from scratch, hiring craftsmen to painstakingly restore every part and piece. Was there pushback from the community when she decided to renovate? How did her knowledgeable partner make the renovation process easier because of his background? How was this overhaul financed? If you're a woman, and even if you're not, Joy's story will CURL YOU HAIR. Make you angry. Galvanize you to

Edacious - Food Talk for Gluttons is three years old! It shows. Go ahead, listen to some of the earlier work. You'll hear the difference. When I started this project in 2015 I had no idea. No idea how to podcast, no idea what my goal was, no idea what would happen or if it would be worthwhile. I was afraid of so many things. But I showed up anyway. And WOW! I'm so glad I did. This podcast has not only been the most rewarding project I've undertaken in my life, it has changed me. How I see the world and how I approach relationships. Both with others and with myself. The people I've met, the stories I hear, the experiences I have all galvanize me toward doing more and doing it better. I'm so very grateful to everyone who took time out of their busy lives to sit face to face with me and have a conversation. This year saw many changes that will keep this podcast strong in its focus on community and on the stories of folks doing the Work of Food in our area. People edacious about what they do. Here is a quick and

Baking Work. With New Normals. And Tons of Community Support. Welcome to Episode 92 and a conversation with a great writer and a dear friend. Polina Chesnakova of Chesnok blog first struck me with the level of expertise in her food writing and her enthusiasm for Charlottesville and its community members who do the Work of Food. After meeting her several years ago (when we both wrote for Our Local Commons), I discovered this enthusiasm is infectious. Polina is the Queen of Hustle. Food writing is just part of the equation. In her career, she's been a baker, a sous chef, created food programming for the Tom Tom Festival, taught cooking classes, even done some recipe testing. But what happens when an accomplished baker and writer loses the use of her hand because of disastrous circumstances? What happens when your whole world changes? We talk about it in this episode. Polina was in a serious car accident in December 2016. Her hand was badly maimed and for a time, she thought she'd lose it completely. Multiple ha

Ghost Work. With Unparalleled Hospitality. Welcome to a conversation a long time in the making. I've wanted Chef Angelo Vangelopoulos of the Ivy Inn as a podcast guest since the inception of Edacious! Why? Because the Ivy Inn is a Charlottesville institution and one of my favorite places to eat. Chef Angelo? One of my favorite people inside or out of the food scene both for his humor, kindness, generosity, and his great positive energy. Spend 10 minutes with this guy and you'll discover his enthusiasm for food and life, in general, is contagious. This conversation was no exception. We talk about his journey in food and the importance of family and community to the restaurant's mission. We even discuss the little-known fact the Ivy Inn is HAUNTED! Love a good ghost story? Angelo has quite a few, including one that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. The Ivy Inn is located in a historic building from 1815. No surprise there. And what about that unparalleled hospitality? It begins the minute you step throug

Eating Out As A Dangerous Act. An Act of Trust. We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you a new segment here at Edacious. Created out of unfortunate circumstances. Mainly me passed out on the bathroom floor, cold tile on my face, trying to figure out how I can take a violent episode of food poisoning and make it a valuable topic for discussion. I'm an optimistic person. So even in situations as dire as this, I'm spinning my mind cogs. Trying to turn this into something that works. An experience to learn from. Welcome to the very first Blue Plate Special, a semi-regular segment where I rant, either alone or with a co-host, about a specific food topic. Today's subject? Food poisoning! How does it happen? Why do we never stop to talk about it? Thousands of folks serve other folks food every day in this country. A process which involves many steps to ensure the consumer doesn't get sick or even die while enjoying their favorite meal. A complicated process that when successful, goes unnoticed.

Here it is folks. My Golden Fork Awards for 2017! What did I eat that was noteworthy? A lot of stuff evidently. These are dishes so tasty I have to talk about them at length, even months after eating. Which is how I construct the list, the way I've done it since 2009. It’s not a perfect method, just my own. Let me know what you think. Do you agree? Disagree? What did I miss? 2017 was different. A lot happened. To me. To our community. I found myself reaching for foods that screamed "COMFORT" more often than not. I also found my memory ain't what it used to be. So when I ate something that fed more than just my stomach? I wrote it down. Sometimes I remembered to take a photograph. I did away with limits, so there are not 10 dishes or one that tops them all. It's not "Best Of" meaning all the other stuff I ate was subpar. Far from it. This is not a popularity contest. These are my opinions. This is about the folks in our community who do the hard work. The Work of Food. It's about Big Love. These dishes gave me

I apologize for the moments of bad audio...tried like heck to fix it! Any gurus out there? I'm all ears! Literally. After hours of battle, the headphones have melded themselves to my head! Quick, Healthy Dinner Work. With Slow, Conscious Growth and Balance. Welcome to Episode 88! In this conversation, I speak with Eric and Leslie Benz of Hunter Gatherer Dinners. Shelf-stable meal kits that are convenient, quick, and produced locally. Dinner kits seem a trend that's here to stay, but unlike big box companies such as Blue Apron, when you purchase a Hunter Gatherer Dinner you know exactly how and where your kit is created. And unlike those other companies, most of the packaging is biodegradable. Hunter Gatherer Dinners can sit in your pantry until you need them, the perfect dinner solution on those nights when you come home exhausted. The Benz's develop the recipes, source the ingredients, and package each kit with care by hand. Each kit contains everything you need to create a delicious, healthy main dish and s

Dinner Work. With Lots and Lots of Community Effort. Welcome to a very special Thanksgiving episode! In this season of gratitude, I'm feeling very grateful for so many things, both personal and professional. What better way to celebrate that gratitude than with an event by the community for the community. Farm dinners at Caromont happen twice a year, at the beginning of the season to celebrate new growth, and at the end to celebrate harvest. Ceremonial beginnings and endings. All food is locally sourced and prepared by Food Folks who live and work in this region. They've become so popular I often see the same faces around the table, smiling, sipping wine, and introducing the newbies to the magic that is Caromont Farm. So when cheesemaker Gail Hobbs-Page asked me to record the event I did a happy dance. After listening to the results? I did another. And felt very grateful I captured this moment with sound. This Thanksgiving, as you travel and cook and take deep breaths because your Uncle Raymond said something

Kitchen Work. With Badass Women. Welcome to a very special episode! In this season of gratitude, I'm feeling very grateful for Richmond's Fire, Flour, & Fork festival. Not only did it land me my dream podcast guest, Gabrielle Hamilton (episode up now!), but I was asked to moderate a Women in Food panel with some of the top names in our industry. Women in Food. Every festival seems to do this. It's not like when you sign up for your breakout sessions you see a panel called, Men in Food. Is it necessary? Has the conversation been exhausted? Yes and no. As you will hear in this episode recorded just two weeks ago all of our panelists, while somewhat tired of being asked the same questions, feel the conversation must continue, particularly in light of the recent allegations against chefs like John Besh. Who are our panelists? Chef Joy Crump of FoodE and Mercantile in Fredericksburg, Virginia and Season 12 of Top Chef contestant, Kerry Diamond of Cherry Bombe, the new Cherry Bombe cookbook, and Radio Cherry Bo

Dream Guest Work. With Just Showing Up. Welcome to a very special episode! Back in February 2015 when I started this podcast, I spent a great deal of time figuring out my core values. Face-to-face interviews? Check. Community focus? Check. Dream guest? That one was easy. Gabrielle Hamilton of Prune in NYC is #1 on my laminated list, both for her otherworldly food but even more so for her panache with food writing. Ever since I devoured her Mind of a Chef episodes and her memoir, Blood, Bones, & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, I've been praying to the podcast gods to somehow, some way talk with this woman who writes likes I want to write and cooks the food I want to eat. In this episode, I traveled to Merroir in Topping, Virginia to record her event with Chef Dylan Fultineer of Rappahannock in Richmond - a lunch completely foraged in and around the restaurant. Oysters, rockfish, trout, and greens. Softshell crab and sweet potatoes. Hyperlocal and cooked simply over a grill. With mini