Virginia, part one

What would you, dear reader, say if I claimed to 1. have had an epic Labor Day weekend and 2. be able to pair ever significant food experience with one of "love." You may say it can't be done. You might also say it took me damn near long enough to force everything to meet those two criteria.

I'd say that I can do it if I change the definition of love to mean either a passionately positive or negative experience with an individual of the opposite sex. I'd further say that this will be most symmetrical food/love nexus description ever been written about a trip about traveling around Virginia. I've even included real names to praise the innocent and shame the brazen.

Unnamed (well, unknown) Men
The food/love adventure began as most of these described in this weekend do, over fish and alcohol. Dear Christine and I had beer, moules, and frites, to test to how strong our constitution would fare when faced with a weekend of fried-food eating (we passed the indoor-fried-food-consumption test). We found ourselves at Brasserie Beck at the moule-friendly happy hour, we met two young men, one of whom provided useful information on rural Virginia.



















We rewarded him with an invite to a bar down the street, as well as his friend, who runs drunk across townhouse roofs. Focusing more on his knowledge of Jefferson's accomplishments than his name, we thanked him heartily but generically at midnight and congratulated ourselves on securing beer, travel advice, and mild flirtation on a school night.

Scot (deliberately one T) and Andy
Ever wonder what culture has the best skirts and the worst food? After visiting the Virginia Scottish Games and Festival, watching strong men throw stuff they'd find in forests or toolsheds, and eating three bites total of both haggis and a Scottish egg, I had an idea. The day after Brasserie Beck, I caught up with old friends Andy and Rachel and had the wherewithal to order (see above) fish and chips and beer. Christine cleverly got a bridie, a burrito-shaped meat pie that evoked flavors of stew, pastry, and not-haggis.



But, with all the bagpipes, wool socks, and log-tossing, I started getting restless. Everyone's second-favorite fair treat (kettle corn) wasn't enough: haggis was my object. It was, quite possible, the most hideous thing I've ever eaten and tasted like how it looked: like ground up corn nuts, cat fur, and liver. I can say little better for the Scotch egg, whose sausage tasted like haggis with the haggis casing still on.

While largely similar in appearance in texture, I'd prefer to eat these and enjoy the company of Wilford Brimley, an added bonus.


James M.
I did live and luckily was able to celebrate the life and residence of James Madison, our fourth president, who built his fine estate in Orange, Virginia. What's the nexus here and how would I dare presume to compete with Dolley? Traveling to learn about James permitted Christine and I to eat at a fine Charlottesville restaurant and to swat love away in all the wrong places. But first, feast on Montpelier and its surrounding countryside:

Madison was a smart man and we admired the intellectual endeavors of the Father of the Constitution a great deal. So much so, we decided to discuss them in detail at Charlottesville's C&O Restaurant, a quite blog-worthy meal.



















We had bread, a delicious dense, biscuity, hearty-yet-pliable fortifier, and Christine had a delicious-looking salad with a mustard vinaigrette.



















For my appetizer, I had the cleverest combination of Mediterranean and Super Bowl potluck flavors: kibbeh and burrata from the former culture, fried onion straws from the latter. The base of the plate was filled with stringy burrata, holding in place the pine nut-studded kibbeh meat. In case you also wanted to simutaneously indulge in the buttery sparseness of a popover, a small profiterole sized one was sliced in half and placed on both poles of the plate. Atop it all were the fried onion straws. If I were fully reconciled to my skirt sizes getting progressively larger, I'd eat this every night.



















Then, we really commemorated the Federalist Papers and Dolley Madison's fine-art-related bravery by enjoying our entrees, Christine with the beef tenderloin and I with the salt-crusted fish and the best skin-on potatoes I may have ever had.













We polished off our dinners in less time than the Articles of Confederation even existed.













Proceeding to Calvados (apple brandy indigenous to Normandy and which we both tried sentimentally for the first time in la Normandie), we had for dessert the coupe maison, a scoop of ice cream infused with grated vanilla bean, toasted almonds, whipped cream and brandy laced Belgian chocolate sauce. We were in train to have a few more digestifs afterwards, though...



To be continued...