Erin's First Pumpkin

The magic dust of holidays seems to lose its power over time.

Somehow, dressing up as a pink fairy with wire wings and an aluminum-foil wand doesn't stir the same excitement as it did when I was 9. (I'm speaking for myself. You might have a different take. :)

But that excitement re-ignites when I get to pass along a tradition and watch someone new discover the fun. Like, oh, when a new baby arrives, and Santa Claus is jolly and real again. Or when your roommate, an international student from Beijing, carves her first pumpkin on her first Halloween.

I picked up a pumpkin, the roundest, most perfect one I could find, at the Darden farmers' market this week. (Yes, Darden's very own market. So far, four vendors have come twice this year. The bread makers are my favorite. Three bucks for a blissful loaf labeled: "Crusty French. Flour, canola oil, yeast, salt.")

At home, I left Erin the gourd and a note. It read:
Hi, Erin! I am your pumpkin. My name is Jack. Please give me a face!

(So much more fun than if I bought one for myself!)

And tonight, Halloween, Erin carved Jack a face. He looks awesomely silly.

She drew on the eyes and nose and mouth. She scooped out his gooey innards. We even baked the pumpkin seeds with cinnamon and salt.

Here's Jack, outside on our porch, blazing a grin:

And we've still got Thanksgiving and Christmas to come!

Hiking Humpback Rocks

We're in the peak of fall right now in Hoo-ville. If you can, you should jump into your car this weekend and make your way to the Blue Ridge Mountains. On the Blue Ridge Parkway, a winding road with stunning views, you will feel like you are in a car commercial. Even in, hmm, say, an 11-year-old Honda Civic. Trust me.

But even better is getting out of the car and putting yourself in this vivid painting.

Hikes abound near Charlottesville. Many of them are long, wonderful loops that take four or five or more hours, plus an hour or more each way in travel time. If you have little spare time (i.e. any first-year at Darden), Humpback Rocks is your kind of hike.

Less than an hour from Cville, Humpback Rocks provides a spectacular view just a mere mile or so from the parking lot. The path winds through a lovely forest, with some wide spots, some rocky areas, a bit of scrambling here or there, even a staircase of sorts.





We saw lots of dogs (including — at the top — one miniature black and white bulldog in a pink sweater). I wouldn't, however, take my grandmother on this hike.

The path is marked by whitish-blue painted lines on the trees, just in case you get disoriented. There are a few spots in which it seemed like we could go a couple of different ways. If that happens, look for markers of the same color.


It took us a bit more than an hour to get to the top, but I'm not the speediest hiker. The ending is a little deceiving, because you actually go downhill to a huge steel-gray collection of boulders. Climb to the top, and there it is:


The view was stunning. And these photos are from an iPhone. Just imagine what it looks like in 3D, 360-degrees, sitting on a gigantic rock.





Directions
From Charlottesville, take I-64 heading west.
Then take the Blue Ridge Parkway south — a road I almost missed, so be careful.
Go 5 or so miles, and you'll eventually see a sign for Humpback Rocks.
A visitors' center and parking lot will be on your right; another parking lot is shortly thereafter on your left, along with the start to the trail.
Note: the Blue Ridge Parkway is free, but Skyline Drive — essentially, Blue Ridge Parkway's name on the north side after it cross I-64 — is something like $10 a car. Ouch!

Spectacular Spudnuts

Yes. That's right. I said: "Spudnuts."

You can laugh, but it's a real word connected to a really tasty confection.

Apparently, spudnuts are doughnuts made with potato flour, an old-timey concoction that nowadays is nearly extinct. But Charlottesville, being the foodie enclave that it is, has a tiny Spudnut Shop that's still alive and kickin'.

My friend Himanshu and I ended up there last weekend, after buckets of rain washed out our market plans. One abrupt U-turn later, we were standing in line in a tiny diner straight out of the 1970s. Or maybe 50s. It's hard to say.

Himanshu's keen eye caught the chocolate doughnuts, but by the time we made it to the register, only blueberry were left. (That was around 10:30, which is waaaaay late in doughnut time. The restaurant closes up with that day's batch is gone, so don't sleep in too late.)


I'm no doughtnut connoisseur, but this was spectacular. Light, airy, sweet, baked-this-a.m.-fresh, with the slightest tang of berry. The tissue-paper-thin glaze gave it a little crisp, before you reached the soft cake middle.

And, quite honestly, I'm doubtful this is even an Official Spudnut. This diner sells both cake and spudnuts, and in a variety of flavors. I should have asked. I should have specified. So, obviously: I must go back.

Spudnut Shop
309 Avon St
Charlottesville, VA

The Inspiring Jules, both of them

Today was as dreary as days come in autumn.

A plague of mist descended on Charlottesville, a sort of evil spitting fog. I walked through it, down to a coffee shop to meet a friend, until my jeans were damp and clingy and miserable. Even the vivacious leaves just hung, listless and defeated, like drenched feathers of peacock.

Blah, personified.

As if that weren't gloomy enough, the day began at 8:30 a.m. with a five-hour exam, No. 4 of 5 this week. Yes. Five exams. The end of Quarter 1 is near.

Antidote? Comfort food, please.

Or better yet, a comfort movie about food: "Julie & Julia." The basic premise is a 30-year-old New Yorker named Julie Powell cooks her way through Julia Child's classic cookbook over a year and blogs about it in the process. That blog became a book, which became a movie. Which is, in and of itself, inspiring. Go, Julie!

And if you find Julie inspiring, you'll be amazed by Julia.

I'm late to the Julia Child fan club, but I couldn't help but be immediately enthralled by her. Inspiring in 100 dimensions. I hesitate to try to sum her up in a spoonful of words here, as it would take an entire biography to do her justice.

Still. Just imagine, if you have never seen her: a tall, joyful woman without a pretentious bone in her body, instructing you to cook decadent buttery dishes in the most practical terms. I want to appear magically next to her at the kitchen counter and watch her add cream to something and describe "coagulation" or whatnot in her high-pitched drawl. Alas, she died in 2004 at age 91.

If you've never seen her PBS cooking show, you can watch "The French Chef" episodes for free at PBS.org. I'm fond of the egg episode, wherein eggs are cooked and baked in little dishes, the likes of which IHOP has never seen.

Maybe I'll try baked eggs tomorrow — the perfect protein-rich breakfast for the very last of this week's five-hour exams!

An escape to the State Fair

In an alternate reality, I would be living in New York City, near a certain school not named Darden. I wonder, sometimes, what that life would have been like. Who would my friends be? Would I be lonely? Busy beyond belief? How often would I go swing dancing? What would I be learning about the media world? Would I be happier? More stressed?

I would, doubtless, be wondering about the life I'm currently living.

But enough with the wondering. I'm in beautiful Charlottesville. An hour's drive from the state's capital. A bit longer to the State Fair. And that's a world away from New York City.

My friend Tina had the awesome idea to check out the fair earlier this month. Let's start with the food: fried everything and everything on a stick. Or, as with corn dogs, fried AND on a stick. I thought I'd seen it all, but no:

Try cucumbers on a stick.

Maybe even the State Fair is starting to watch its waistline....

Here's more edible fun, but this is in the crafty, ribbon-winning section. A baseball stadium made out of pretzels. Awesome. I can't make this stuff up.

Or how about squash painted like bowling pins?

Who can't admire a giant watermelon? I mean, really. That's talent.

On to the animals... we saw many races, including ...

... duck races, with absurdly silly names (along the lines of, say, Princess Waddle vs. Ducky Charms). Audience members get called up to hold a flapping duck tight, until the announced says "Go!" Then the racer lets the duck go into the pool lane, and it (he? she?) paddles furiously to the end. It's quite thrilling.

And then there are the less active in the animal kingdom:

And those just getting started in life:

It was a world away from Excel and tornado charts. I recommend everyone take such a detour every so often.

Happy Thanksgiving! (In October!)

Having international friends thrills me constantly, in often surprising ways. (The surprise is part of the joy, because I never know what I don't know.)

Tomorrow is, apparently, Thanksgiving in Canada. As an oblivious American, I had no idea. I couldn't imagine that anyone outside of America even cared about the pilgrims and the Indians, but then, that's the kindergarten version of the holiday, all Plymouth Rock and no wider view.

Thanksgiving in Canada is officially marked on the second Monday in October, in celebration of the harvest. A Winnipeg columnist writes: "According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the explorer and pirate Martin Frobisher held the first Thanksgiving on Baffin Island in 1578 to give thanks for the safe arrival of his crew after a voyage of discovery. That's 43 years before the famous and better-known Pilgrim celebration in Massachusetts in 1621, the one with the roast turkey, potatoes and pumpkin pie."

The celebratory staples are the same, from what I understand: the requisite turkey, pie, mashed potatoes, etc. It makes me hungry just to think of it.

Lucky for me, my friend Julie, a Darden student from Canada, baked up two pies in honor of the holiday: a cherry and a raspberry. I can attest to their goodness.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Autumn: A magical time-travel machine

I've lived in the mid-Atlantic region my whole life, so the seasons are nothing new. But that doesn't make autumn any less amazing.

I like to think of the seasons as a sort of travel experience, except instead of jetting off to gawk at a new landscape of mountain vistas or canyon cliffs, we get to travel in time. The landscape changes, while our feet stay planted. Alchemy, leaf by leaf.

Charlottesville, Virginia, is the perfect vantage point to see the transformation unfold. The air is cooler, crisper. My footsteps on the leaf-strewn sidewalk crackle. The birds are going mad with twittering, as if they need to tell every living organism that something special is happening.

It's not full-blown autumn yet, as you can tell from the greenery above. But the season is ripening. Time is passing. We might forget that sometimes as humans, but the trees always know.

International Food Fest

I'd been told by those in the know that the best annual event at Darden — and believe me, there are plenty of events to contend with — is the International Food Festival.

If you know me, you know I could hardly wait.

Groups of international students (and some innovative types from, say, California or the South) cook up dishes from around the globe. The festival is a giant sampling event, more than you could ever try in one evening. It's amazing.

A ticket costs $15-$20 and includes all-you-can-fit-in-your-tummy, plus entertainment by students. (Think gorgeous Indian dances, hilarious mock Sumo wrestling, beautiful Argentinan folk music, etc. etc. — all under a festive white tent on a gorgeous autumn night.)

I caught a few pics before the sun went down and rendered all the culinary masterpieces into a blurry haze.


A delicious spicy rice dish from the African table ...


... fig tarts from the Wine and Cuisine Club ...

... cheese and fruit desserts from the Denmark table (right by the crepes from France) ...


... these were some of my favorites — a Japanese treat. These particular ones are tinted green because they are made with green tea. They remind me quite a bit of Parisian macaroons, only these are soft, like pancakes. Mmm.

My wonderful roommate also made a Chinese dish of tofu and beef, which I shall post soon. (Hopefully, with the recipe!)

Brunch at Bluegrass Grill

What better way to start a glorious mid-week day off than with brunch?

This Wednesday was a reading day at Darden — a full day off from classes, carved out for the purposes of reading, relaxing, and recruiting, or so the schedule gods tell us.

So bright and early at 8:30 a.m., I met a friend for brunch at Bluegrass Grill & Bakery. Wednesday is the perfect day to visit this laid-back charming restaurant; if you go on a Sunday or Saturday, be prepared to join the line outside. It's well worth the wait, but I'm just sayin', on Wednesday, you get your pick of tables. I had been to the Bluegrass Grill once before, maybe five years ago, and remembered the food as being fantastic. That hasn't changed.



The menu has a huge pile of options, including a bunch of potato- and hash-brown-based dishes. My friend ordered one of the potato concoctions with chorizo sausage and, if my memory serves, peppers. There are plenty of vegetarian-friendly dishes, too. Last time, I ordered the delicious tofu scramble, which I remember distinctly even 2,000 breakfasts ago. (It's sort of like scrambled eggs, except with soft tofu, and I recall a lovely tumeric color to it back then ...)


This time, I was lured by the Mediterrean frittata. Sprinkles of rich feta topped the creamy eggs, nestled by peppery fried potatoes and the biggest biscuit I've ever seen in my life.


Seriously, check this baby out. It's three stories tall, at least. And this biscuit is not like the flaky, buttery type from Pillsbury. This one feels more like wheat flour, more doughy. Imagine warm, soft bread to pull apart and slather with butter that melts immediately. So dreamy. I couldn't even finish my biscuit, so I took it, half-eaten, home with me. Yes, it was that good.

I can't seem to find a menu online, but the prices were very reasonable, something like $7-$9 per dish. But a fair warning: This is the kind of old-timey place that doesn't take cash, so come prepared.

Bluegrass Grill & Bakery
313 2nd St SE
Charlottesville, VA