FOOD- THE DISH- Meet your food: Blue Ridge Harvest Festival debuts
Beer Run's Josh Hunt says you oughta come on down Belmont way and celebrate Oktoberfest with him.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR
Local food and farming gets the spotlight next week, from Sunday, September 28 through Sunday, October 5, as The Blue Moon Fund, a philanthropic organization dedicated to "elevating the human condition in the web of life," and Locallectual, a local website dedicated to conscientious shopping, host the first annual Blue Ridge Harvest Festival.
Events include local food samples at Feast! on West Main all week, a presentation at the St. Anne's Belfield School about the Farm to School Cafeteria Movement, a brunch held by UVA Dinning and open to the public (it's only $9.50 per person!), and a sneak on-line preview of Meet the Farmer, an upcoming local documentary from director Frank Melli supporting Charlottesville's Buy Local Program. For more information, go to www.locallectual.com/blueridgeharvest/
Malay debuts in "The Eater"
The Dish welcomes Kate Malay, a.k.a.. "lilith," who found that not having a byline with your real name wasn't all it was cracked up to be, as our newest food reviewer this week.
"My experience was similar to former Gawker editor Emily Gould's," says Malay about writing anonymously for local gossip website cVillian, which she co-founded, referring to a column Gould wrote in the New York Times Magazine, "though on a much smaller scale."
Toward the end, Malay says it got bad. In addition to having her IP address tracked, and having nightmares about being humiliated in her legitimate job or getting confronted by the people she was writing about, "There was this uncomfortable dichotomy between the perception of my identity I wanted to convey and the perception of my identity that people actually found appealing," she says.
Recently, Malay says a tech-savvy friend asked her what she saw for the future of "new media."
"I honest-to-God think there will be some kind of authentication process to account for all of the identity play that takes place," she says, " so there's not so much disparity between real and online personas."
Writing as herself for The Hook, we hope she'll be able to straighten some of that out, and indulge her inner-foodie. As cVillian readers may recall, "lilith" wrote many pithy, informative, and often spicy reviews of area restaurants. Ah, but writing for the Hook appears to have been in the stars for Malay. Back in May, she sent in a letter-to-the-editor, as herself, saying how much she loved reviewer Ned Oldham's contribution to our "The Eater" restaurant review column (note: Ned's reviews will continue).
Of course, we had no idea she was "lilith" at the time, though we should have guessed by the way she ended her email: "You may have read some of my work..." She also asked to be considered as a reviewer if the opportunity ever arose.
Beer Runoberfest
To celebrate Oktoberfest, Josh Hunt over at Beer Run says they've put Starr Hill Festie, Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest and an old Favorite of the Ludwig's crowd, Allgäuer Cambonator Doppelbock, on draft.
Don't forget to eat your veggies!
Charlottesville's annual Vegetarian Festival, held downtown at Lee Park, happens Saturday, September 27 with more than 100 exhibitors including restaurants, free food samples, a dog and cat Adopt-A-Thon, nonprofits, silent auction, live music, and more. Activities for children include magicians, jugglers, vegetable-print painting, a beanbag toss, face painting, and a children's literature table with information about animals and the environment. Things get started at 11am and go to 4pm.
All this food news was first reported online. Check it out at readthehook.com/food/
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