1)  Sunday Lunch at Palladio.  “Palladio was my favorite special occasion restaurant long before I married Melissa, their lovely and talented chef.  Sunday is my favorite day to go, and not only because it is the only day I can manage to make it out there.  After a busy weekend the perfect way to unwind is a leisurely lunch and glass of wine (okay, maybe a couple glasses of wine) and good company.  Since my lovely wife is invariably cooking the food, I like to bring my ten year old son who is already smart enough to know good food when he tastes it, and loves Palladio as much as I do.”

2)  Bacon, Egg, and Cheese on an Everything Bagel at Bodo’s.  “Yummy.  What kind of cheese?  American.  Don’t tell anyone please, because I know it is terribly unchefly, but when it comes to egg sandwiches and burgers, American cheese is gooey delicious.  Being a chef, whenever I travel, I always try to eat the regional specialties in order to sample the best dishes as they are meant to be prepared.  When I was younger and would find myself in New York, I would always ask around for the best bagel place because everyone always said that was where the best bagels were.  Now, when in New York, I order whatever I am in the mood for because I had a lot of good bagels, but never one that was better than what Bodo’s serves all day, every day.”

3)  Pork at BBQ Exchange.  “Being outside of my regular stomping grounds, I don’t make it out to the BBQ Exchange as often as I would like.  Fortunately, it is not too far out of the way for my wife to swing by and scoop some up on the way home.  What do I like to eat there?  Everything!  As long as it is pork I am a happy camper.  (I am sure that the non-pork meat offerings are good there as well, but I have not found a good reason to deviate.)  Round it out with collard greens, macaroni and cheese (better get extra because my son can eat his own body weight in mac-n-cheese), some slaw, and some of the spicy pickles and that is about as good as it gets.  Craig Hartman really shows that when a chef, who’s fine dining game is as good as anyone’s I know, turns his ambitions towards BBQ, then great things happen.”

4)  Pizza at Ciro’s Pizza.  “Ciro’s Pizza in Waynesboro is something I grew up eating and it is still my favorite pizza in the world.  In my family, on your birthday, you get to pick what everyone eats, and we have been having Ciro’s Pizza since I was 12 years old.  Judging by how old I feel, that is about 75 years of birthday dinners.  My parents still live in Waynesboro, and Ciro’s Pizza helps ensure that I am a dutiful son and visit as often as I can.”

5)  Blue Crabs on the Beach with my Family.  “Every year my family gets to sneak away for a week and we go to the Outer Banks for some R&R.  One of the highlights for me is getting a bushel of crabs, some potatoes, some corn, some shrimp, and whatever else looks good at the market and throwing together a crab boil.  I literally look forward to this all year long.  Dinner takes about three hours as we sit around and pick crabs and drink beer.  I always get way more crabs than we can eat so that I can eat them for lunch the rest of the week.  This is my favorite meal in the world and the crabs are only a small part of the recipe.  Every year, I prepare this meal and sit down with my loved ones to eat it.  The crabs taste great, but when mixed with the company and the memories of sharing this meal in years past, they become something indescribably delicious.  This is what food and drink is all about.  Making memories while breaking bread and sipping wine (or in this case beer).”

The Charlottesville 29 is a publication that asks, if there were just 29 restaurants in Charlottesville, what would be the ideal 29?  Follow along with regular updates on Facebook and Twitter.

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Monday 5/27. $12, 9pm. Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, 414 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 293-9947.

The post ARTS Pick: The Men appeared first on C-Ville Weekly.

The workshop will feature Wendy M. Miller, a SPHR-Training and Career Development Specialist.  Lunch is provided. Nicole Royal, a local photographer, will be available to take professional pictures for online employment profiles.

Workshop topics include “Finding Work that Matches your Interests and Personality,” ”How to Market Yourself when Re-entering the Workforce or Changing Careers,” and “How to Create a Path to Your Dream Job.”

The event is free; however, space is limited. For more information or to register, contact Eboni Bugg at 434-202-7692 or ebugg@thewomensinitiative.org.

“When women are in financial distress, it is difficult for them to focus on self-care,” said Eboni Bugg of The Women’s Initiative. “This is a time for them to focus on self-care and the next step in their career.”

Kids in the Kitchen

Kids will have the opportunity to see how things cook in the Jefferson School City Center’s state-of-the-art demonstration kitchen this summer. During the week of July 15 through 19, Mr. Tom Cervelloni, Director of Food and Beverage at U.Va’s Darden School will teach rising third through sixth graders how to prepare a healthy salad, make meatballs, and scoop muffins and cookies. Kids will learn basic rules of kitchen safety and food preparation and practice teamwork skills. Students will create a lunch to share with parents at the end of the week. Space is limited to 10 students. More information is available by calling 434-961-5354, and a registration form available online.

Grillin’ and Chillin’ at Vinegar Hill Café

The Vinegar Hill Café will be creating a party atmosphere at the Jefferson School City Center on Thursday, June 6, from 5 pm to 7:30 pm with backyard style food and fun for the family. The café will be showcasing BBQ Ribs, BBQ chicken and hamburgers with choice of collard greens, baked beans, cole slaw and homemade cornbread with live music, all for $10. All proceeds from food sales support JABA‘s senior meal program.

Roller Skating at Carver Recreation Center

Roller skating, a long-standing community tradition in Charlottesville, is being offered at Carver Recreation Center on the Jefferson School City Center campus. This event occurs most Fridays from 5pm–8pm and Sundays from 1pm–6pm.  Skates are provided and there is no charge for this activity.  (Skaters are also welcome to bring your own skates or rollerblades.)

Coming soon to the African American Heritage Center

The African American Heritage Center at the Jefferson School City Center will be presenting the work of Lola Flash from June 7 to August 30, 2013 in the Contemporary Gallery. Flash’s photographic imagery confronts pigmentocracy, which is a term that relates a slave’s socio-economic position to their skin color. Flash analyzes the impact of this condition on contemporary society in the exhibition, “[sur]passing.”  Flash will speak at the gallery on June 14 at 5:30 pm.

Jefferson School City Center is a voice of the nine nonprofits located at Charlottesville’s intergenerational community center, the restored Jefferson School. We are a legacy preserved . . . a soul reborn . . . in the heart of Cville!

The post What’s Happening at the Jefferson School City Center? appeared first on C-Ville Weekly.

Bryan, President Emeritus of the Virginia Historical Society, spoke to a small but interested crowd, expounding on the life and work of the most prolific Civil War artist ever. Although the presentation, aided by PowerPoint images, was a fluid explanation of the man and the history surrounding him, there was little analysis of the artwork and the themes, both artistic and personal, running through the work.

An engineer from New York, Sneden helped map areas of Virginia and the old South that had never been drawn or configured before. In his spare time, he sketched battle scenes and landscapes, cities, like Charleston and Atlanta, and the army forts and stations he occupied. He also recorded everything that passed his eye or entered his weary mind, especially the details of daily soldier life, his prison sentences, and his observations of the brutal reality playing out around him.

“He seemed to be trying to put together a comprehensive history of the war,” Bryan said. Sneden returned to New York and continued to record his experiences after the war, contributing more than 30 images to the series “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.” Struggling to keep a steady job and failing to get his diary published, Sneden retreated into alcohol and died in a soldier’s home in 1918.

The sketches (which were later turned into watercolors) are rudimentary and general depictions that display more of an architect’s sense of functionality than an artist’s sense of skill. His landscapes are full of rough lines mapping out space, as if surveying the scene, rather than capturing it and imprinting it with meaning. Yet it’s the overview of “View of Culpeper Court House,” with the lightly shaded horizon and primitively rendered buildings, that makes his work effective. His writing is cleanly descriptive, using words to sketch, and omnisciently observant or “clinical and unemotional,” as Bryan put it. His sober, unsentimental perspective lets us into a simultaneously personal and objectively historical landscape.

The collection, discovered in 1994 in a Connecticut bank vault, was brought to the attention of the Virginia Historical Society by an art dealer named Robert Hicklin. The breadth and the detail of the maps and watercolors was so unique that the VHS, headed by Dr. Bryan at the time, decided to buy them. The only problem was finding the money for a vast collection of Civil War art that was originally offered at $250,000.

The VHS bought 400 watercolors and maps for $100,000 in cash with the help of Floyd Gottwald, a generous and inspired patron. As it happened, Gottwald recognized his ancestral home in a painting of Leesburg, Virginia. The connection spurred Gottwald to insist that the VHS find out more about the man and his work.

Bryan’s search brought him to Snedens Landing, a hamlet in the lower Hudson Valley, 20 miles north of New York City. The initial inquiry came up empty, but he was referred to a great great-nephew of Sneden’s and learned that, stored somewhat haphazardly, were 500 more watercolors and a 5,000 page diary.

In 2000, Eye of the Storm: A Civil War Odyssey was published and edited by Bryan and Dr. Nelson D. Lankford. The illustrated memoir chronicles Sneden’s harrowing journey through specific campaigns, such as the Seven Days Battles and the second battle of Bull Run, as well as his time in Andersonville prison. A companion of mostly illustrations, Images from the Storm, was published a year later.

Sneden’s watercolors and writings can be accessed mainly through the books, but information about the collection is available on the Virginia Historical Society’s website (www.vahistorical.org), where exhibition schedules are listed.

Sneden’s work is also included in VHS’s exhibition “The Story of Virginia, An American Experience,” a wide ranging history of Virginia through its art.

No matter how you access Sneden’s work or feel about its value, experiencing one man’s complete perspective is as unique and important as the war he recorded. Thankfully, in an age where history is constantly turning to dust, organizations like the Virginia Historical Society and the Marine Corps League continue to preserve evidence of the Civil War’s personal toll and the artistic benefits we have reaped from the destruction. ~Justin Goldberg

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It’s disheartening to report that Star Trek Into Darkness has tacked in the other direction. It pays such direct—and at times, such ironic-corny—homage to Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan that one can only think of the newer film’s failures.

There are few universal truths in the Star Trek universe. Here’s one: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan is the best Star Trek film. It has a superb villain (Khan, played by Ricardo Montalban), gross special effects (creatures in the ears), and a death scene that still surprises with its emotional impact.

Star Trek Into Darkness has a mediocre villain (Khan, played Benedict Cumberbatch, doing the best he can with what he’s given), dumb-cute character moments (the relationship between Zachary Quinto’s Mr. Spock and Zoë Saldana’s Lt. Uhuru), and a misguided attempt to try to top Wrath of Khan’s death scene—under the guise of paying it homage.

Into Darkness opens with the crew of the Enterprise on a distant planet with a primitive populace. Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) distract the indigenous people while Spock attempts to keep a volcano from erupting that may destroy them all.

They make it out, but not before Kirk breaks a Starfleet prime directive to save Spock’s life. The move gets Spock transferred to a different ship. Kirk is made executive officer of the Enterprise under the command of his mentor, Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood).

Then Khan shows up and everything turns to pudding. Along the way, Klingons are introduced and dropped (maybe it’s a set-up for a future film), and Khan seems like the most arbitrary of villains.

At least Abrams uses Peter Weller (and his deep, icy voice) as a twisted Starfleet admiral to fine effect. But how can a film series that took such joy in knocking off what came before it stick so rigidly this time to what came before it? Urban, in particular, looks pained by Dr. McCoy’s catchphrase spewing, which has been turned into a hacky joke that’s supposed to be ironic.

Wrath of Khan works so well because it had 79 episodes of the TV series and a feature to fall back on. The characters in Into Darkness are just sketches. Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof have made a terrible choice. They want to create their own version of the Star Trek universe while relying on nostalgia for the universe they destroyed to power their movie. That’s just cheap. And worse, it’s lazy.

Star Trek enthusiasts like to say the odd-numbered movies are mediocre (Star Trek The Motion Picture, The Search for Spock, The Final Frontier) and the even-
numbered movies are good (Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, First Contact). Abrams and his screenwriters have set a precedent: They made an even-numbered movie one of the weakest.

Star Trek Into Darkness PG-13, 132 minutes. Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX.

Playing this week:

42
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Admission
Carmike Cinema 6

The Big Wedding
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Company You Keep
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Croods 3D
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Disconnect
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Great Gatsby
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Carmike Cinema 6

The Host
Carmike Cinema 6

In The House
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Iron Man 3
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Jack the Giant Slayer
Carmike Cinema 6

Mud
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Oblivion
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Pain & Gain
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Peeples
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Place Beyond the Pines
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Vinegar Hill Theatre

The Sapphires
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Side Effects
Carmike Cinema 6

Silver Linings Playbook
Carmike Cinema 6

Wreck-It Ralph 3D
Carmike Cinema 6

Movie houses:

Carmike Cinema 6

973-4294

Regal Downtown Mall
Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14
and IMAX
244-3213

Vinegar Hill Theatre
977-4911

The post Film Review: Star Trek Into Darkness appeared first on C-Ville Weekly.

Fun in the sun: Ever wondered how a solar oven works? Check out Transition Charlottesville’s solar cookout this weekend, a fossil fuel free feast at Washington Park. Don’t forget to bring your own plates, cups, and utensils, and a potluck dish—preferably one that’s been prepared with little or no fossil fuels—to share with the group. The picnic starts at 1pm on Monday, May 9, and is free to everybody.

Happy trails: During construction of the new Ragged Mountain Dam, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department is leading an effort to restore and replace the trails in the adjacent natural area. Saturday, June 1 is National Trails Day, and starting at 8am, city staff will work with volunteers to create new trail links. If you’re interested in helping out, contact Chris Gensic at (434)-970-3656 or gensic@charlottesville.org.

Up a creek: As of last week, the Nature Conservancy and the City of Charlottesville have completed the year-long project to restore two miles of Meadow Creek. The project, funded by the Virginia Aquatic Resources Trust Fund, involved removal of invasive vegetation and improved creek stability, erosion control, and wildlife habitats. It also added 40 acres of new city parkland, and a conservation easement is now protecting the 70-acre project area.

Talkin’ green: Want to hear what this year’s City Council candidates have to say about the environment and keeping Charlottesville green? Join them in City Hall chambers at 7pm on Wednesday, May 29, for a forum hosted by the Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club. For more information contact Jessica at ja5sa@virginia.edu.  

The post Green happenings: Charlottesville environmental news and events appeared first on C-Ville Weekly.

But this isn’t a drinking story. Not yet anyway.

Continental Divide is usually mad busy, which is why I have never made it past the point of giving my name to the hostess and then “waiting” at the bar with only appetizers and cocktails to keep me company until I’m full. I always end up figuring I’ll try back later. Finally, that later date came.

The menu and the daily specials at this UVA haunt on West Main are flush with southwestern delectables: Santa Fe enchiladas, catfish tacos, and salmon quesadillas with asparagus, tomato, and goat cheese. I zeroed in on the tuna tostada, a menu regular, and pestered chef Amber Cohen, who agreed to tell me how it’s made.

Cohen is a Lexington, Virginia native, and the daughter of a professional caterer. One of her first real gigs was at The Blue Heron, a vegetarian restaurant in Lexington, where the spice jars in the kitchen were left unlabeled. “You had to learn them just by the smell of them,” she said. She then apprenticed at several Charlottesville standards, including Bizou, Escafe, and Hamiltons’.

I followed her into the Continental’s impossibly tight kitchen and she took a sushi-grade yellowfin tuna steak, an inch and a half thick, and tossed it on the grill. She got some flour tostada crisps, which had been deep fried, and plated them. The tuna popped and sizzled over the flame. Cohen turned it once. She ladled black bean puree onto the lightly browned, puffy-crisp tortillas and spread a thin layer of roasted red pepper coulis over top.

“We do our beans from dry here,” she said. “Flavored lightly, with pretty much just cumin and onion.” She sprinkled crumbled goat cheese over the beans. After it had been grilling for only a few minutes, she took the seared tuna, sliced it in two, exposing the lovely pink, thick middle and laid it on the beans. Then came the kicker.

“It’s all about the glaze,” Cohen said. “You’re heating up rice wine vinegar, one of my favorite vinegars. Very versatile. It doesn’t have a heavy flavor and it’s a little bit sweet. It’s good to use in a similar fashion that you would use citrus, because it’s got that tart, sweet thing. So you heat the vinegar, you add sugar to it, dissolve the sugar, then you let it cool down and you add in your peppers, diced raw peppers, and you let it sit for a couple hours. And that’s what makes it special, gives it the awesome flavor.”

Cohen delicately spread the glaze over the stack of fish, beans, cheese, and flour crisps. And she was right: awesome. The tuna tostada is a crazy assemblage of textures and flavors. The bean puree and crisps have a little melding party. Within the tuna itself, the contrast of the seared outer skin against the pink pure middle is just right, and deserves to be enjoyed without distraction. But anyone can grill sushi grade tuna at home. The glaze is what makes people crave this thing, dream of it during the week. It gives the whole thing an Asian tinge, a complex sweet and sour essence.

When she one day has her own place, Cohen reckons, she may lay off the meat.

“I’m not vegetarian but I love cooking vegetarian food. I think being a meat eater in the long run makes me a better vegetarian chef because when you get used to the way things taste, you just dull your palate a little bit,” she told me. “I feel like I’m tasting what’s missing and a lot of times vegetarian food is too often flat and depends too much on cheese. Not that cheese isn’t delicious, it is. But often, things aren’t spiced properly or are missing certain elements for making a whole flavor. So, that’s really what I would want to do is vegetarian comfort food.”

I’ll be there when it opens.

By the way, I happened to stop back by the bar on my way out to inquire about the mysteries behind the Divide’s signature margaritas. They have a page-long list of tequila options, plus you can customize your drink by choosing Cointreau or Grand Marnier over the rail triple sec. Actually, bartender Matt McCaskill says you can just ask for yours “smoky or crisp, or citrusy or smooth.” And he will try to comply. I asked for mine to taste like tequila, more sour than sweet. He started with a dash of Cointreau over a full glass of ice. Then came a heaping helping of Jose Cuervo Platino. He added a splash of the housemade sour mix, which, McCaskill said, he couldn’t tell me anything about. Fresh lime juice came next. He cupped the glass with a stainless steel shaker, gave it a couple hearty jolts, popped the rim of my glass into a pile of chunky salt, poured the concoction back into the glass and garnished it with a lime wedge. If there’s a better margarita in town than this one, I definitely don’t need to know about it.

The post The great Divide: The making of Continental’s perfect tuna tostada appeared first on C-Ville Weekly.

Monday 5/27  $10, 6:30pm. Charlottesville Day School, 320 10th St. NE. www.charlottesvillesoup.com.

Listen to the SOUP theme song, composed by Matt Wyatt.

The post ARTS Picks: Charlottesville SOUP appeared first on C-Ville Weekly.

Megan Hilary, the festival’s founder, says the event will be “the most comprehensive spread of the city’s dance offerings” to date, and that the event was created to raise awareness of the richness of dance traditions practiced in Charlottesville, as well as the artistic expression and health benefits available to those who get moving.

The full day of dance will feature troupes from the Charlottesville Ballet, Phoenix Dance Studio, PVCC Dance, Wilson School of Dance, Fire in the Belly belly dancers, and Nia and BodyGroove instructors. There will be opportunities for children to choreograph their own dances with members of the Charlottesville Ballet, facepainting, henna art, a massage tent, and the chance to discover a dance form your never knew existed.

The kinetic spectacles will take place on indoor and outdoor stages on the Mall from noon until late into the night. Catch performances of Tahitian dance by local Karine Morgan, Mukta Dance with Amanda Evans, drawn from the wisdom of yoga, and salsa, merengue, reggaeton, and bachata demos by Lilli Ross. And those of age can give the acrobatic silks and pole dancing a try with help from members of the Phoenix Dance Studio.

After the sun goes down, fire dancers and beats by DJ Elipss will close the festival down with a heart-pounding community outdoor dance party.

For a complete list of the scheduled events, visit www.cvillefest.wix.com/cvilledayofdance or email charlottesvilledayofdance@gmail.com. All events are free and open to the public, even to those with two left feet.

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Route 250 Bypass/McIntire interchange 

The City of Charlottesville expects construction of the new intersection at the U.S. 250 Bypass and McIntire Road to be complete by July 2, 2015, two and a half years after the project went to bid. Priced at $20 million, the diamond-shaped, at-grade interchange will include sidewalks and bike lanes. Much of the initial work is taking place outside the current roadway, but drivers can expect occasional lane closures and lane shifts next spring.

McIntire Road extended/Meadowcreek Parkway

Key Construction Co. Inc., from Clarksville, Virginia, began construction on the new half-mile stretch of road connecting Melbourne Road with the intersection of McIntire and the 250 Bypass—a.k.a. the final piece of the Meadowcreek Parkway —in August 2011. A 10′-wide pedestrian trail will run parallel along its entire length, and the $3.4 million, two-lane road should be open to traffic by the end of the summer, linking McIntire to the existing portion of the Parkway.

Soil removal on I-6 at Afton

The Virginia Department of Transportation’s (VDOT) emergency project to remove unstable soil from Afton Mountain —delayed multiple times by heavy rains—wraps up Thursday, May 23. Through the end of the day today, expect intermittent closures starting at 8:30am for 30-45 minutes at a time. Construction should run no later than 8:30pm. The project will affect traffic from Exit 107 (Route 250/ Rockfish Gap Turnpike) at Crozet to Exit 96 (Route 624/5, Delphine Avenue) at Waynesboro.

 I-64 interchange at Route 15 

Next month, Corman Construction Inc. from Colonial Heights, Virginia will begin construction on a diverging diamond interchange on Route 15 at Zion Crossroads, Exit 136. VDOT says one lane of traffic will remain open on Route 15 throughout, but traffic patterns will go through a number of shifts. The state estimates the $6.9 million project will wrap up in April 2014.

McCormick Road bridge closure  

On Monday, May 20, VDOT closed the McCormick Road bridge over Route 29 Business (Emmet Street) at the University of Virginia for construction. Corman Construction Inc. is replacing the aging bridge, and the demolition phase will require the closure of Emmet Street on the nights of May 21 and 22 from 9pm-6am each night. Another two-night closure will occur in mid-June, and VDOT expects the bridge to reopen in late July. In the meantime, car and pedestrian traffic will be rerouted. Check virginiadot.org for updates and detour maps.

Bypass update 

Want to weigh in on the Western Bypass? VDOT is hosting a citizen information meeting on Thursday, May 23—that’s today—at 7:30pm at the Holiday Inn Charlottesville. The public can view and comment on three design concepts for the southern interchange of the bypass, or submit written comments to 29bypassinterchange@vdot.virginia.gov.

The long-discussed 250 Bypass and McIntire interchange is under construction, and VDOT expects to finish the project in July 2015.

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