some shows coming down the pike:

thursday (10.29.09)

the blue nile - the great migrators, ferdinand thomas – 10pm

the little grill – open mic – 8.30pm

clementine – dj neals barkley – 9.30pm

friday (10.30.09)

the blue nile (state sanctioned)- the super vacations (record release gig), the cinnamon band – 10pm

the little grill – the keezeltones w/ danny dolinger – 8pm

clementine – skunk ape funk escape – 9pm $5

saturday (10.31.09)

clementine (state sanctioned) – harrisonburg zombie fest ‘09! – 7pm

the blue nile – dj finks’ halloween party – 9.30pm

the slaughterhouse – dear wolfgang, halloween bash – 9pm

monday (11.2.09)

clementine – sin nombre (film) – 7.30pm

tuesday (11.3.09)

clementine – democratic election-night pary – 7pm

the blue nile – pulse fx – 10pm

thursday (11.5.09)

the blue nile (state sanctioned)- invisible hand, preacher, americans in france, eternal summers – 9pm $4

friday (11.6.09)

clementine – shotgun party – 9pm $5

saturday (11.7.09)

bangcock house – stand your ground, run with the hunted, redemption – 8pm donate!

so.  jason from downtown wine & gourmet is a busy fellow.

it took some seriously annoying behavior on my part to get him to give me input on fall drinking.

but – lo and behold – i got an email full of alcoholic information yesterday.  he states:

o the threats, manipulation, and strong-armed tactics have finally pinned me against the wall of my iniquities.

fall drinks of choice would be:

coffee / breakfast stouts – stouts brewed with coffee are a splendid fall beverage because they are hearty, satiating, and the addition of coffee adds not only a fantastic component to the flavor profile, but also a little pick-me-up.  breakfast stouts utilize coffee as well as oatmeal as the primary grain. this leads to an even richer and more decadent beverage.  delicious!

pick: Founders Breakfast Stout & Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast (awesome website/label by the way)

cider – really, is there a fruit that carries more of a fall-time connotation than apples?

pick: Samuel Smith Organic Cider, Etienne Dupont Cidre Bouche Brut de Normandie (again with the great label)

mead – mead is a beverage using honey as the sugar which fuels the fermentation.  Its origins are lost in prehistory; “it can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks,” Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat has observed, “antedating the cultivation of the soil.”[5] Claude Lévi-Strauss makes a case for the invention of mead as a marker of the passage “from nature to culture.”[6]  It can be consumed right out of the bottle, but it is also delicious mulled.

pick: Lurgashall English Mead

red wine – the possibilities are endless…

pick: jason refused to even try to pick…go bother him at downtown wine & gourmet for more specific suggestions.

happy autumnal drinking, friends!

okay.

i’m on the verge of hopefulness.

is there actually a voodoo doughnuts in charlottesville?

(josh insinuated that i was missing something huge in my donut review.)

am i insanely ignorant?  (here’s to hoping…)

the only voodoo doughnuts that i know is in portland.

and this famous mainstay features things such as:

dirty snowballs

the tangfastic

and, most infamous:

the bacon maple bar

do creations such as these exist just over the mountain?

please say it’s so.

our family is wild about donuts.

there are entire, multi-generational traditions built around donuts.

i once took a chunk out of a charlottesville krispy kreme (r.i.p.) driveway in an attempt to obey the command of the “hot donuts” sign.

we made sure to be best friends with people who lived next door to top pot in seattle.

we go to mennonite relief sales expressly for the homemade fried dough.

in short, we have a long-term serious commitment.

we’ve written about this passion before on the state. i’ve griped about how, around here, gas station donuts are as good as it gets.

and then there’s carpe donut.

granted, it’s not in harrisonburg.  but the drive to charlottesville is a small price to pay for a good donut.

and hardly noticeable when you are journeying to this:

Tender and steamy on the inside…slightly crisped on the outside…..dusted with crunchy melty cinnamon sugar…..and infused with the mellow sweetness of apple cider.

and making the whole deal even sweeter:

We start with organic flour, organic eggs, local apple cider, and organic spices. Add pure sugar and non-aluminated baking powder and now you know all the ingredients. We cook all our donuts in 100% pure soybean oil. No hydrogenation, no trans-fats, no shortening. We always advise our customers to refrigerate the donuts if they are not going to eat them within a couple hours. They won’t last on the shelf for a week like those “things with holes” at the grocery store…Finally, all oils used to fry the donuts are being converted to environmentally friendly biofuel at the end of their frying life.

ummm.  yes please.

others recognize the power of the donut.

the blue moon diner in c’ville does up a nice little dessert with carpe donuts.  it involves ice cream and chocolate and whipped cream.  and grilled donuts.  otherwise known as the grillswith:

(this photo is from a fabulous and newly discovered blog devoted to donuts.  check it out.)

now.  carpe donuts represents the cute, trendy, organic, environmentally-friendly delicious donut.  classic they are not.

for a real potato flour classic, served to you as well as a number of grizzled regulars, you must go here:

adored by all, this is spudnuts.

as per the cvillian:

Spudnuts has been around for a long time. And by long time, I mean when velociraptors used to hunt small wild pigs and T-Rex’s ruled the United States. In other words, Spudnuts has been open since 1969 at 309 Avon Street. It has kicked so much ass in the last 40 years or so, in fact, that both Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ Doughnuts left town.

The doughnut has a distinct feel to it. Maybe it’s the off white glow of the lighting, the smooth colors of the furniture and decor, or maybe it’s just the people. Spudnuts feels eternal, in a good way. The menu, with its giant Pepsi logo reminds you that this place is about doughnuts, no more, no less.

you know.  the options over the mountain are not bad.

anyone in harrisonburg want to open a sweet little donut bus?  i would be first in line…

we have friends that live in kabul.

i’m thinking of them right now.

what a place.

and then.  there is also pakistan to think about.

where is the best street in town to trick or treat?

not ours.  you might remember our controversial post from last year.

(today, as i walked by that friendly neighbor’s house, i was sorely tempted to place a jack o’ lantern on the front stoop.  see how effective their anti-halloween/demon/devil message was?  i feel changed.)

but seriously?

in seattle, it was 19th ave. on capitol hill.  those fine rich folks passed out full-sized candy bars.  and bonus candy if you had a hand-made costume.

and harrisonburg?  i’m thinking along the lines of where to take a 3 year old for a one-street, 30-min, halloween bonanza experience.  let’s hear the suggestions…

our friend tom has been working (among many, many other things!) on helping harrisonburg with its ped & bike transportation issues.  he and a group of folks meet each week to coordinate their efforts; they recently started a “one mile challenge” campaign to get people thinking about “human-powered transport” in this town:

lara is another organizer of the one mile challenge:

and for those of us who need to fix up, or even to get, a bike, tom recommended ben wyse @ wyse cycles.  he does a “mobile bike clinic,” meaning he’ll come by your house and fix you up!

local folks have a lot of great ideas & energy, but bike & ped transportation issues shouldn’t have to be optional parts of our transportation planning, budget, or infrastructure.  as tom points out: “would a city not put up a stop sign at a four way intersection because they don’t have money allocated in a budget?”

well, the new stoplight by cleo’s old intersection shows that, either harrisonburg has plenty of money in the budget to update our system to suit our community’s wants and needs, or harrisonburg needs to fix its priorities.

happy columbus day.
Democracy Now! | Radio and TV News

I think that the non-Indian people must understand why the Indians are in the state of affairs that they’re in. It’s not because they’re lazy, ignorant, inferior, stupid or anything. Chances are that if an Indian kid makes it these days, it happens because of some lucky accident.

. . . But I wrote ["Now that the Buffalo is Gone"] not to make anybody mad, but to kind of acknowledge the fact that a lot of people who are part Indian really would like to know and would care, so again and again it says “you, dear lady, and you, dear man.” You know, it’s trying to explain something to people who don’t usually get to know anything about Native American stuff, because you never hear about Indian people. The only time you hear about Indian people, like, for instance, Wounded Knee, you know, when Nixon was president, what you’d see in the media was, you know, some Indian with a gun, you know, who was defending their land against, you know, things that shouldn’t be going on.

amy goodman had a conversation with buffy saint marie–
also known as one of the people who used to bring genuine content to kids’ tv:

thanks to andrew for the heads-up.  these two maps show harrisonburg plans for pedestrians, bikers, bussers, etc.

the pedestrian map:

the bike map:it’s hard to see, but click the map links for the pdfs.  now, i am a biased townie, but i would like know if the plans, and their spots on the harrisonburg priorities list reflect a grasp of smart, central development (look at the end of this document for an ordered list–and changes may be coming after the public meeting, so if you have info, please let us know!).  it’s wonderful to see maps like this at all in a town with more per capita stoplights than i’ve ever seen, yet rare busses or walkable sidewalks.  but, i see a lot of line spread around the north and south fringes of town.

i’m no city planner, but it seems that these long lines would cost more than downtown-centered improvements?  and downtown-centered projects will support smart development and help spark downtown living, walk & bike commuting, etc.  public moneys must be tight these days, so make sure the first dollars are visible, useful, and dovetail with downtown development.  and for god’s sake, don’t let useless project fragments like the the dogwood to waterman bypass north of redfront.

on the map, it almost looks like west downtown is bike-linked to north park view, but this route doesn’t follow an arterial, twists & turns around, and isn’t clearly marked or known.

so, more power to you city planners, bicycle & pedestrian committee–just develop smart(er)!

i’ll let jill write in defense of cookie,

but i’m really depressed about gourmet.

conde nast publications pulled the plugs on these two, along with two bridal magazines (so they’re not complete morons!).  & i just wanted to lament a magazine that inspires interactions with others (thank you gourmet for really tasty bits of several dinner parties) and a healthy relationship to tasty, local (often), cared-for food.

anyway, get it before it’s gone.

and a personal favorite: