wine festival this weekend

This weekend (June 27 and 28) is the first annual Virginia Wineworks Wine Festival. The cool thing about this particular festival is that Virginia Wineworks is a "custom crush" winery—meaning they work with various clients (grape growers, winemakers, regular joes) to create wines tailored to their specifications. So at the festival, you get to sample it all. Time: 12 to 6 p.m. Cost: $14. Location: Virginia Wineworks (for directions, go to www.virginiawineworks.com/contact.html).

See you there!

power to the people

How amazing that we can all make a big difference—and participate in the local foods movement—by simply asking restaurants and stores that we patronize to carry local foods. We (and our dollars) have the power!

That was just part of the discussion at Rapture on Tuesday June 2. Kate Collier of Feast! and Melissa Wiley of the Piedmont Environmental Council and Buy Fresh Buy Local spoke about the importance of small farms here in Central Virginia. The event was hosted by Left of Center Charlottesville (www.leftofcentercville.org), a Democratic organization. And the locally produced food that fed the local bellies in attendance was great too (but of course).

Kate talked in detail about the Local Food Hub, which will bring local produce to big local institutions (hospitals, schools). It's an amazing concept, and we have a lot to be excited about. For more info, go to http://chofoodhub.blogspot.com.

For more about buying local, go to www.buylocalvirginia.org.

nominate your farmers' market...to win!

Hey, all of you farmers' market fanatics in Central Virginia--this is a chance to celebrate your local market and let the rest of the country know how great our markets are here in our corner of the world. Nominate the farmers' market in your town to become America's Favorite Farmers Market as decided by American Farmland Trust (the people who bring you the super cool bumper stickers "No Farms No Food").

As of today (June 1), you can vote at www.farmland.org/vote; simply type in your zip code and select from there.

You can't vote for your market unless your market manager has enrolled it in the contest. So if your farmers' market isn't enrolled, let the market manager know she or he should register now by going to http://bit.ly/rgvQW.

The three winning markets (one small, one medium, and one large) will win bragging rights and a free No Farms No Food tote bag giveaway for their market customers. Can never have too many tote bags, can we?