Catfish a jumpin’ at Blackwood “Aqua” Farm. Could they soon be jumping on to your plate?
PHOTO COURTESY CCSF

Local foodies are by now familiar with the idea of a CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture), where people buy shares of produce from local farms or their reps before the growing season begins to receive weekly deliveries of fresh produce. Appalachia Star Farm in Nelson, Open Gate Farm in Earlysville, Layz S Ranch in Palmyra, and distributors like Horse & Buggy Produce and the Local Food Hub are a few that come to mind.

So, would you be willing to support local fishermen in the same way?

Two local grad students in UVA’s School of Architecture want to take the CSA idea and apply it to fishermen,  or what’s officially known as a CSF ( Community-Supported Fishery), and create the Charlottesville Community-Supported Fishery.

Recently, Jack Cochran and Douglas Dickerson have been testing the waters, so to speak, by setting up booths at the local farmer’s market to spark interest. So did they get any bites?

“It seemed to go over well with a good amount of people, and many were very interested in participating,” says Dickerson. “Community members could purchase different types of fish like catfish, shrimp, trout, rockfish on a weekly, biweekly, monthly basis, and have it delivered to the farmer’s market.”

The duo have connected with a network of local fish farmers in South-Central Virginia, the Virginia Natural Fish Company (VNFC), an organization sponsored and assembled by the Virginia Aqua-Farmers Network (VAN), which provides sustainably harvested, natural seafood, catfish, and trout. One of those aqua-farmers is Lynn Blackwood, who founded Blackwood Farm in Meherrin, Virginia in 1998. Blackwood raises fish in four ponds fed by underground springs (primarily catfish and rainbow trout), and maintains a system of aeration that constantly purifies the water.

For now, Dickerson says he and Cochran are simply trying to get the word. Well, here’s the word: want fish? Check out their website at csfcharlottesville.wordpress.com and let them know.

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The C&O has always been the home of the second chance,” says owner Dave Simpson, who has run the Water Street restaurant for 30 years.
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

For 30 years now, Dave Simpson has been holding down the fort at the C&O restaurant, which put Charlottesville on the fine dining map when original owners Sandy McAdams and Philip Stafford opened the place in 1976.

Back then you could count the number of fine-dining restaurants in town on two hands. Today, you need a calculator.

Remarkably, the cozy place in the funky building on Water Street is still setting the standard in Charlottesville cuisine. As for Simpson, he’s manged to maintain the restaurant’s good reputation for three decades now with a combination of hard work and some fine people skills. One of the few missteps he’s made was straying away from the C&O and partnering with wayward accountant Jim Baldi (who is still wanted on felony embezzlement charges) on the Bel Rio fiasco, a restaurant whose noise and financial problems made Simpson feel put in a “bad guy” role. He parted ways with Baldi and issued a public apology to the people in Belmont “who found this enterprise a nuisance while I was involved.”

Back where he belongs now, Simpson, who grew up in Charlottesville in the 1950s, the son of a City cop, recently took time out to reflect on the last 30 years.

“Growing up as a cop’s son then was a little like growing up on the Andy Griffith Show,” says Simpson. “My mom worked at Sperry, and my brother Mike and I graduated from Lane High school.”

In 1968, Simpson’s mom took him to lunch at the local Shoney’s for his 13th birthday, and at one point asked (more)

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All aboard! The Java Depot is taking passengers again in Nelson.
PHOTO FROM JAVA DEPOT WEBSITE

It looks like the Java Depot in Nelson County has re-opened. Previous owners Nancy Kern and her husband, Richard Boyd, an architect who had designed the Java Depot building in 2007 using the old Arrington railroad depot, which was built in 1870 to replace the old depot which was burned down during the Civil War. Before being dismantled and moved to its current location along Route 151 in Beach Grove, it housed the Arrington Post Office from 1961 to 1982. Three years later, Boyd and Kern decided to become coffee shop owners, but it proved to be a little too much work for folks with full-time occupations. They put it up for sale in June and found a buyer in shortly thereafter.

Swiss-born Nelson County resident Edith Fisher re-opened the Depot in October, and is poised to bring a little European flair to the old depot. Expect breakfast plates, fine coffee, of course, and tasty deli sandwiches, burgers, and a few surprises seven days a week.

In other Nelson news, mom and son team Danny and Mary Wolf have opened the Wild Wolf Brewing Company in the Valley Green Shopping Center in Nellysford, which sells beer, soda, and wine making stuff. It’s also another budding brewery that offers its own brews, hopes to be selling their own beer at a separate location in the near future.

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Meal on Wheels has been serving it up for over 30 years locally—now Walmart has given them a little boost.
PHOTO FROM MEALS ON WHEELS WEBSITE

Earlier this month, Walmart announced it was donating $755,000 to 12 Virginia non-profits through the super-store’s  State Giving Program. Well, $45,000 of it landed in the lap of Meals on Wheels of Charlottesville/Albemarle, which delivers 180 to 200 hot, prepared lunch-time meals to the homebound every day Monday through Friday, courtesy of a local volunteer force of nearly 200.

“We are so grateful to the Walmart Foundation for this generous grant,” says Meals on Wheels public relations director Dawn Grzegorczyk. “With this generous gift, Meals on Wheels can continue our work to fulfill our mission of providing hot meals and friendly hellos to all those in our community who need them, regardless of ability to pay.”

Grzegorczyk says the money has already been earmarked to purchase meals for Charlottesville residents in public housing who are both unable to prepare their own meals and unable to pay even a nominal fee for the meals they do receive.

“This grant will cover the cost of one full year of hot, home-delivered meals for 32 Charlottesville city residents who depend daily on Meals on Wheels for both food and social interaction,” says Grzegorczyk.

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Glass House Winery grapes are ready to deliver.
PHOTO FROM SANDERS FAMILY WEBSITE

According to the Hook’s latest count, there are 31 area wineries, which is enough to give Dish a hangover just thinking about trying to visit them all. Indeed, we appear to be surrounded by an army of wineries!

Well, it appears we will now have 32 wineries.

In early December, the Glass House Winery in Free Union plans to have its grand opening. Owners Jeff and Michelle Sanders, who moved here in 2006 and were featured in a story about “the lifestyle farming trend” in USAToday, have thrown their hats into the grape smashing ring with a few unusual twists.

Michelle is a chocolatier, so visitors will also be able to enjoy hand-made chocolates. But that’s not all. The tasting room features some unusual architecture, including a giant wine barrel turned into a doorway (which will be stained to smell like wine during the early December grand opening), a geothermal heat and cooling system, and a glass conservatory attached to the tasting room to house (more)

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