Every War Garden a Peace Plant

Don't expect a guard to know about an exhibit.

When I walked into the Library of Virginia, I was on a mission. At a lecture there back in late August, the speaker had mentioned an exhibit upstairs of U.S. war posters pertaining to food. And while I'm no fan of the government's propaganda machine, I am a fan of poster art.

But it was more than that. At the lecture, the VCU professor speaking about food during WW II had mentioned how surprised her students were that Americans had been willing to pull together for a national cause, even when it meant major personal sacrifices on their part. That kind of patriotism was foreign to her students, even when they had grandparents who confirmed it to them.

So naturally my curiosity was piqued about how posters had been used to convince people to change their eating habits for the sake of war.

But going through the metal detectors and asking about the exhibit, the guard said there was no such thing. Ignoring him, I took the stairs to the second floor to ask a knowledgeable woman behind a desk who pointed in two directions to show me where I could find the propaganda.

Woodrow Wilson had been the one to create the U.S. Food Administration and tapped Herbert Hoover to lead it in August 1917, just a few months after we entered WW I. Hoover, who thought food was second only to military action during the conflict, used the Food Administration to produce posters as propaganda to encourage good Americans to conserve food and use substitutions and augmentations.

Basically, the posters played on people's emotions and sense of patriotism to eat less meat, sugar, wheat and eggs, as well as grow their own veggies and keep chickens and pigs. It speaks to what a different place the U.S. was that keeping pigs was even an option for more than farmers.

Food was the means by which every citizen could be part of the war effort. And I'm talking every American.

One poster, aimed squarely at the bibbed toddler pictured, read, "Little Americans, do your bit! Eat oatmeal-corn meal mush-hominy- other corn cereal- and rice with milk. Save the wheat for our soldiers. Leave nothing on your plate!"

I'm sure every toddler responded accordingly.

One somber looking poster showing a basket of food says simply, "Food is ammunition. Don't waste it!" In another, a heroic-looking woman wearing a dress made from the flag - white-starred blue bodice and red and white striped skirt - is shown sowing seeds from a basket, the copy reading, "Sow the seeds of victory! Plant and raise your own vegetables. Every garden a munition plant!"

Wait, does that mean the government was okay with turning the flag into apparel? Discuss.

In another poster, a line of supply trucks, each labeled "FOOD," traverses a series of snow-covered hills. The message reads, "Keep it coming. We must not only feed our soldiers at the front but the millions of women and children behind our lines." It's signed by none other than General John J. Pershing.

When need be, the government always pulls out the women and children to great effect.

Several posters touted the Salvation Army, reminding the viewer that they gave doughnuts and coffee to the boys "over there." Another showing a woman in uniform carrying a plate of crullers exhorted the viewer to, "Keep the Salvation Army lassie on the job." Yes, sir.

I think we can all agree that doughnuts were integral to the war effort. And not those iced, candy and bacon-covered Sugar Shack monstrosities so popular today, but simple, unadorned cake doughnuts.

Imagine the government trying to tell entitled Americans today what foods to sacrifice for the sake of the greater good. As for corn meal mush, who even knows what that is?

As usual, I like my American history with a strong dose of skepticism. Kind of like my attitude when that guard told me there was no poster show.

Elementary, my Dear Freud

Leave it to Richmond to overreact before Flo even touches down.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as concerned about the potential damage of a Category 3 storm as much as anybody along this part of the east coast. Who wouldn't be terrified reading that they've measured 83' waves under the northeast quadrant of Hurricane Florence?

But did we really need to start canceling events tonight, before Florence even makes landfall? Mac and I had plans to stroll over to the ICA for "The Future is Afro-Femme: New Negress Film Society" to take in a variety of short indie films presented by the New York-based film collective, but VCU squelched that by closing down tight, effective tonight through Sunday.

Seriously, VCU?

The weather has been brooding all day. When I left for my walk, the top third of the Art Deco Central National Bank building was shrouded in fog, as was the crane looming over the Dominion HQ being built downtown (because, of course Virginia's shadow government needs to have the tallest building in the city). The canal was unusually high, with not a duck in it. Brown's Island felt like a pressure cooker it was so oppressive and the James was lapping over the pipeline.

Not one to be daunted by impending weather, Mac and I simply made other plans. No one's going to take away our evening if we can help it.

When she came to pick me up, she was frazzled, having had to run the gauntlet of crazed drivers headed to and from the grocery store in addition to the usual September problems brought on by students who can't walk, much less drive, impeding traffic at every turn and making her late. Put another way, Mac is an easygoing woman who showed up at my house frustrated by the short drive from Byrd park to J-Ward.

By the time we made it to 821 Café by the most circuitous route imaginable, she was saying she'd be needing a drink with dinner. For Mac, that's a major indicator.

My problem was that after a busy afternoon with no breaks to snack, I was all but monosyllabic. When I realized that, I apologized, saying that a wise man once told me that if I'm quiet, it means one of two things: I'm hungry or I'm tired.

I got nearly nine hours last night, so clearly my issue was food, a problem easily corrected with a half order of black bean nachos while Mac tried to forget about the legions of bad drivers with a BLT and a cocktail. By the end of the meal, we were both in happier moods.

And little did I know, but there was laughter in our future, too.

Walking down the aisle to find seats at the Byrd, we passed an older man sitting in one of the raggedy old seats. Since the theater was uncrowded, it seemed like an odd choice. Why have a spring poking at your butt when you can sit in a wide, comfy new seat? Apparently the man realized this and moved to a seat in front of us, despite the hundreds of free seats not near others. Once the lights went down, he slid down in his seat and promptly went to sleep, only occasionally rousing himself for a moment before dozing off again.

I can't explain 'em, I just observe 'em.

As for our reason for being there, I'd suggested seeing "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution," not because I'm a Sherlock Holmes fan but because it was a 1976 movie - a period of filmmaking I adore - and the cast was fabulous.

From Broadway star Nicol Williamson - whom I'd seen at the Kennedy Center in the '70s in "Rex" - to Vanessa Redgrave ("her head of flaming red hair was celebrated on four continents"), not to mention a dapper Alan Arkin in a handsome beard (as Sigmund Freud), a young Robert Duval as Watson, Joel Gray as a bad guy and even Sir Laurence Olivier as the real villain, it was a primo group of acting talent.

So while I'd chosen it for the era and the actors, the movie ended up being downright hilarious, which I hadn't expected at all. Because I don't know the Sherlock Holmes canon, I have no clue whether or not Holmes is always played as an understated and droll wit with encyclopedic knowledge and a magnifying glass.

Even the credits made us laugh. "The story is true...only the facts have been made up."

As I anticipated, the movie melded the Victorian period squarely with the '70s, as evidenced by the décor, costumes and especially the women's hairstyles. Watson's drawing room looked like a cross between an antique store and a fern-filled college dorm circa 1972. Dated lines like, "The ladies do seem to cause trouble, don't they?" reeked of SOP male chauvinism.

Even the story about Holmes being addicted to cocaine seemed straight out of the Studio 54 era, as did his reason for taking it up: "to relieve the ennui." The struggle is real.

But the visuals were wonderful, from a sword fight atop a steam engine train to a library with a two-story bookshelf to a scene of Lipizzaner stallions attempting to trample our heroes inside a large building. Can't say I recall the last time I saw horses used as killing machines.

Best of all, the film ended with Holmes cured of his cocaine addiction and persecution complex by Freud. He then takes off alone on a cruise, where he just happens to find himself on a deck chair next to Vanessa Redgrave's character, Lola Devereaux.

Lola: Journeys alone are always so tedious, don't you find? Specially when they are long.
Holmes: Will this be a long journey?
Lola: That all depends. But I do think it will seem shorter if there are two of us, don't you?
Holmes: I hope it will not seem too short.

I have it on the best authority that the best journeys are neither short nor solo. As for relieving ennui, everyone knows only boring people get bored.

Winning the War on the Kitchen Front

Why are all my favorite history lectures about women?

I mean, technically, "Food for Victory During W II" at the Library of Virginia was about how Americans dealt with food shortages and rationing during the war, but really, it was about how women handled those things, still got dinner on the table, tended their victory garden and, in many cases, worked or volunteered, too.

VCU professor Emilie Raymond's talk brought home just how much women had to do while the boys were off fighting the good fight. From the Women's Land Army - created so women could do the farm chores while men protected democracy - to the North Platte Canteen in Nebraska that served pheasant and egg salad sandwiches to traveling soldiers, my people were on the front lines making sure no one went to bed hungry.

My mother had the same rule, but it usually involved a slice of white bread with apple butter on it before bed.

And let's not forget the U.S. role of producing and supplying food to the Allies.

Raymond talked about how central food was to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan's motivation because they wanted to be self-sufficient food-wise. It was incredibly disturbing to hear that it was  food shortages that caused Hitler to speed up the Holocaust (why feed people you wanted to exterminate anyway?).

She laid out the food hierarchy for us: American soldiers, American citizens, Allied soldiers, Allied citizens. Meanwhile, the white men in charge decided that since the U.S. was the largest food producing country, we'd be willing to trade our surplus for military bases in other countries. Kinda makes you wonder who didn't get to eat so we could have another military base.

Of course, the war was a godsend to U.S. farmers, whose income increased 150% during the war years, not to mention accelerating the mechanization of agriculture. Meanwhile, Richmond did its part by starting 12,000 victory gardens by 1943.

We heard about how the government stepped up its propaganda efforts to ensure good Americans accepted rationing with a smile - patriotism and guilt were especially effective - even as they gave up sugar, coffee, meat and dairy products for the cause. Hoarding food and buying on the black market were seen as the epitome of bad citizenship.

Even Hollywood helped with films like Disney's "Food Will Win the War."

And let's not forget that it was then that they started pushing oleomargarine on butter lovers. Naturally, it fell to the women of this country to still come up with tasty meals with far fewer tasty ingredients.

I'd heard stories from my Mom about rationing, so Raymond's anecdotes were familiar. My Mom remembered putting ration coupons on a high counter as a child and some wily adult swiped them before she could place her order. She also recalled the disagreeable task of adding the coloring to the oozing package of oleomargarine to make it look more like butter, even if the taste was more like plastic.

Seems that's when the government started pushing the concept of victory gardens and canning to supplement the meager family rations, along with raising chicken and rabbits for dinner. Raymond mentioned a Life magazine article about how easy horses were to raise, love as pets and then slaughter.

Because horsemeat, it's what's for dinner.

One facet of all this that particularly fascinated me was learning how malnourished most Americans were at the time. Two out of every five men called up for duty were rejected for malnutrition. Most Americans knew little about how to eat right, so it was at that point that the government started teaching us how to eat for good health. It's also when foods began to be fortified with vitamins to help those who weren't paying attention to all the new nutritional info being foisted on them.

Most importantly, we can't forget that this was the Greatest Generation who didn't see any of this as a hardship. No, siree, this was their contribution to the war effort, along with silk and nylon rationing.

Today's lecture was a reminder that I love me a good her-story lecture. Leave it to women to make the sacrifices and somehow make it all work on the homefront. I'd like to think that I could have done the same.

Just don't ask me to eat oleomargarine.

Moonshine Conspiracy

Take warning, girls, don't ever marry a drunkard.

Advice, a pink grapefruit whiskey cocktail and anti-drinking music, what more could a girl ask to start her evening? Okay, someone willing to walk to the Library of Virginia with her to avail herself of all that would be a bonus.

He wasn't that hard to find.

The occasion was "Goodbye, Booze: The Music of Prohibition (with a beer chaser)," an event to celebrate the Library's moonshine and bootlegging exhibit which I'd already seen and really enjoyed. Tonight was icing on the cake foam on the beer.

By the time we moseyed in and took seats, the show had begun. On the left was an old-timey bluegrass trio (banjo, fiddle, guitar) and on the right, a gospel/R & B trio (drums, keys, singer), with curator Greg Kimball acting as moderator sitting in between and offering context.

Wisely, they'd decided to get the anti-liquor songs out of the way first. That marriage warning came between verses of "The Drunkard is No More" and was repeated afterward to ensure all the single ladies got the message. We did.

The banjo player was full of 'shine stories, like a Will Rogers quote that Prohibition was better than no liquor at all and how the only people not making moonshine in Franklin County were the Baptist preachers and they were making barrels. Ba dum bum.

Then there was the one about the guy who died of a heart attack, with a contributing cause of having been intoxicated for 13 weeks. Just ladled it up out of a bucket on the back porch until he was dead. Ouch.

"Better Quit Drinking 'Shine" was like a sermon condensed into a 3 1/2 minute song and singer Jessi delivered "God Don't Like It" to the rafters. The raucous "You Can't Get That Stuff No More" sounded like we were in a juke joint.

What I particularly liked about "I'm Wild About Moonshine" was the lyric, "I'm a little bit spoon-y, just a little bit loony." I'd be curious how spoon-y might manifest itself.

The reception afterward afforded guests the chance to taste the Three Notch'd Prohibition beer (already tasted it last night), but after we saw the exhibit, we made a bee line for the Virginia Distillery table for a cocktail featuring their whisky along with grapefruit juice and grapefruit bitters.

As someone who keeps grapefruit juice in her refrigerator, drinks it after walks and has been known to mix it with Rose, of course I loved this combo, but so did my companion. I ran into several people I hadn't seen in years, including one who reminded me she's still envious of my self-directed life philosophy.

You never know what people are going to recall about you.

Looking at our empty cups, my companion observed, "Well, I could drink another of those, but I'd better not," so we went in search of dinner instead in service of my hired mouth.

Omnivores make the best companions for that - don't get me started on the friend who asked to join me once and then turned out to be a seafood-hater - and the meal benefited from a '90s soundtrack that included the likes of the Offspring which tickled my friend, who'd had their first album and was coveting their latest.

At Gallery 5, I admired Barry O'Keefe's "Open Inboxes," four beautifully detailed wooden boxes, each designed to reflect the neighborhood where they'll be placed this summer. I'm doubtlessly partial, but I think the Jackson Ward box - which took its cues from our magnificent cast iron porches - was by far the most handsome (others were Woodland Heights, Oregon Hill, Church Hill) of the lot.

Back at my place, I played DJ at the turntable while my friend set up my new computer (he's determined I achieve speed) and we bantered about relationships, laughed uproariously when he announced his phone would ring in 30 seconds and it did in about 5 and marveled over the brilliance of George Will's writing.

Hours later, we'd wound up discovering all kinds of things. He knew I was a Luddite, but  not that I'd have over 2500 photographs on my computer. Even I didn't know I took so many pictures.

Granted, I was sure he'd sing along to every Neil Diamond song and he didn't disappoint, but was totally impressed he knew the words to so many Thompson Twins tunes. And the Blow Monkeys, well, who doesn't appreciate a good English doo-wop song with a sax solo? The Dazz Band, Paul Carrack, I cast a wide '80s net to encapsulate what he called his formative years.

I think that means after he worked at the hardware/grocery store for a summer and before he discovered Christine and the Queens and laid her at my feet.

It's enough to make a girl get a little spoon-y.

Life is a New Draft for Every Day

Rolling in the deep of Women's History month, I can't resist.

There was the "Virginia Women: Their Lives and Times" lecture at the Library of Virginia, an event attended by 36 women and 6 men about a two-volume set by that name.

Editors Sandra Treadway and Cindy Kierner explained that they'd intentionally chose women that readers wouldn't know, the better to pique their interest.

Of course Dolly Madison was there, but not the Dolly of myriad social graces we usually hear about.

Instead, this essay dealt with how the North Carolina-born Dolly spent her life denying it and trying to pass herself off as a Virginian. True, her parents were Virginians, but the essay addresses the question of why she felt it preferable to be thought of as a Virginian.

There was Jane Webb, a free mixed race woman living on the Eastern Shore who spent much of her life shrewdly and tenaciously fighting the courts to ensure that her children were free as well. Virginia wasn't the best state for following the letter of the law about freed blacks so she used the law to protect her family at a time when few blacks could read, much less write legal documents.

But the most fascinating woman by far was Grace Sherwood, a woman tried five times - five! - on suspicion of being a witch, specifically, the witch of Pungo. And why did the men think that, you wonder?

Because her husband had died and she didn't remarry, so then she was a property owning woman. Because she was assertive and known to be crabby. Because - gasp! - she occasionally wore trousers. In other words, just the kind of woman that colonial men wanted to do away with.

And the best part of that story is that not only is there a statue of her in Virginia Beach now, but when Tim Kaine was governor, he pardoned Grace.

It takes a feminist man to reach back and right a 17th century wrong.

There was also TheatreLAB's production of "My Name is Rachel Corrie," a one-woman show about the Seattle born and raised activist (who says she ended up just like her mother expected: scattered and deviant and too loud) who died in 2003 in Palestine protesting the bulldozing of innocent people's homes.

The issue is real, obviously, and Rachel's concern for the kind of evil being powered by American dollars in that part of the world resonated with truth, but at intermission, the couple nearest me were discussing how manic the first act was and whether it was even convincing.

I was convinced, but also distracted by how frequently actress Kaelie James rearranged her hair, so it was a relief to see it in a ponytail for the second act.

Granted, it's a heavy subject (Pru had declined my invitation, saying she didn't want her evening entertainment with political commentary because it was too depressing), but given that the script was an amalgamation of Rachel's journal entries and emails, it was a powerful one, too.

The entire row behind me didn't return after intermission, and once it began, I saw two guys nodding off, jerking their heads up repeatedly, a shame really because they probably missed the final point of what a tragedy it is that so many people consider Israeli policy and Jewish people the same thing.

And then, just to rip out hearts out completely, the play ended with film footage of Rachel in a 5th grade speech, passionately making a case for feeding hungry people in the middle east regardless of their religion. In fifth grade.

But by far my biggest project in celebration of Women's History month was about books.

I'd recently seen a video of a mother and young daughter going through a bookcase of children's books, removing all the ones with no female characters, then all the ones with female characters who had no speaking parts until the shelves were decimated and it got me thinking.

I've got a bookcase the length of my living room wall - 23 shelves in all - and I had no earthly idea how many of the books I owned were written by women or about women.

So I set out to find out, pulling titles and authors that had XX chromosomes.

There were the usual literary suspects: Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Edith Wharton, Harper Lee, Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, Katherine Anne Porter, Ann Beattie (inside "Secrets and Surprises" I found my ticket stub to see Diana Ross at the Capital Centre..score!), Willa Cather, Muriel Spark and Anais Nin, among others.

There was the feminist element: Ellen Goodman, Marilyn French, Susan Jacoby, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Gail Collins and Erica Jong, as well as the food contingent: Judith Child, M.F.K. Fisher, Betty Fussel and Ruth Reichl.

Long a fan of non-fiction, there were plenty of memoirs, biographies and autobiographies: Diane Arbus, Vera Nabokov, Sally Hemmings, Coco Chanel, Carrie Fisher, Georgia O'Keefe, Katherine Graham and Peggy Guggenheim. Not all written by women, but all written about a woman.

Dust flying, I pulled out books on art, photography ("The Female Focus: Women Photographers") and punctuation, a graphic novel, hell, even "Our American Sisters: Women in American Life and Thought," from my first women's studies class in college.

A few did double duty, like "Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette" by Judith Thurman or "First Mothers: The Women Who Shaped the Presidents" by Bonnie Angelo.

I'm not going to say I sorted through every single book in my collection because I didn't (why is it a deadline always rears its head when I'm in an organizing mood?), but I dug through enough to come up with nearly five shelves of nothing but female-centric books.

And, quite frankly and surprisingly, that's a little embarrassing. Out of 23 shelves, I only have enough tomes to fill five shelves representing the blood, sweat and tears of a woman's mind or life?

Time to preach. Ever Since Eve (also a title on my shelf), there's been an imbalance. The Possible She (yep, another one) is still just out of reach.

We may be scattered, deviant and loud, or even assertive, crabby and trouser-wearing, but that, ladies and witches, is exactly why we still need Women's History Month.

Up the Nose, Into the Lungs

Kepone: local band, song by the Dead Kennedys and, today, topic of a lunchtime talk at Library of Virginia.

When speaker Dr. Gregory Wilson inquired of the nearly full room who didn't know about the local Kepone crisis in 1975, only one woman raised her hand.

"Then this is for you," he joked of his lecture, "Toxic Dust: The Virginia Kepone Disaster." It's impossible now to fathom how it was ever considered okay to dump such a thing in our creeks, rivers, or even bury in on land, but there you go, it was a different time.

And while I knew of the insecticide, I didn't get to Richmond until '88, the year the ban on fishing the James River was finally lifted, so I definitely needed a remedial course on what went down in Hopewell that kept people out of the river I'm now devoted to

And this being 2016, the audience could collectively watch a YouTube video originally made by OSHA, with interviews with workers from Hopewell's Allied and Life Sciences Product Company who'd inhaled the dust - or even eaten it by inadvertently placing their lunch on kepone dust-covered tables - for so long and were then paying the price with their health.

Just as damning was footage of wives testifying at the Senate hearings about how even though they washed their husband's work clothing separately, the poison lingered in the washing machine and then contaminated the rest of the family's clothing, affecting them as well.

The best thing to have come out of all that, besides the obvious, closing the kepone plant, was that $8 million of the $13 million settlement went to the establishment of the Virginia Environmental Endowment to hopefully prevent such a debacle happening again.

Wilson was adamant that the kepone issue had been uncovered at exactly the right moment in time, namely the '70s, not long after the EPA had been created and the first Earth Day had brought together people to address environmental concerns. Had kepone come to the fore in the '50s, he thought it might have been swept under the carpet.

And while his talk was interesting for bringing me up to speed on local environmental history, I was probably even more fascinated to get a little Hopewell history.

Like that it had been developed in 1914 by Dupont Company to house dynamite and gunpowder factories for WW I. He even showed us a postcard image from 1914 boasting, "Hopewell, toughest town north of hell!"

This is a tourism slogan?

And that signs leading in and out of town used to read, "Chemical Capital of the South," as if it were a point of pride, at least until vandals scratched through chemical and wrote "kepone" and through South and wrote "world." Wilson assured us that those signs were subsequently removed.

Damn. You just never know what you don't know until you learn it.

Study Period

When it comes to what constitutes "women's work," I don't know whether to be insulted or complimented.

If you were one of the brilliant black women hired by NASA's Langley Research Center in the 1940s, it was to be one of their human "computers" doing the mathematical calculations for the male engineers trying to win the space race.

That's right, they were doing one kind of women's work (incredibly complex math) so that the engineers could utilize it and hog all the glory for their accomplishments.

This means that some of these women wrote the trajectory equations for putting a spacecraft into orbit around our planet, a feat which boggles my mind. More correctly, it shuts it down entirely since the notion of math making space (or even air) travel possible is beyond my scope of understanding.

Don't forget, I'm the one who freaked out when I was told that Neptune was discovered by mathematical predictions rather than by observation.

Tonight's reading at the Library of Virginia featured Margot Lee Shetterly, author of "Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race" (easily the clunkiest book title ever) sharing bits of the story of women who, until recently, languished in the shadows of American history.

Which is crazy given that these women were trailblazers in their field during a key period of the development of air travel safety and the space program. I'd call that way more than a big deal.

One of her best anecdotes concerned, of all things, "Star Trek" and Martin Luther King ("He was a Trekkie," she informs us as if she's letting us in on a secret).

Seems that the actress Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura, was ready to quit the show for Broadway when she ran into her uber-fan.

King told her she couldn't quit because of how important her role was. He saw the inclusion of her character as significant because it meant that whites saw blacks as equals and part of the future, at least by science fiction standards.

"This is the kind of role we've been fighting for," he supposedly told her, changing her mind about quitting. "Keep doing what you're doing because you're our inspiration."

Shetterly's research showed that when the first five black women showed up at Langley in 1943, they were in a separate office with a bathroom and cafeteria designated for "coloreds," which isn't much of a surprise given that Jim Crow still flourished outside of the military base.

Needless to say, it was a fascinating peek into the story of women with brilliant mathematical minds who did calculations most of us can't begin to understand at a time when they had no role models for black women going into such a field.

Leaving behind tonight's history lesson, I walked five blocks down Broad for a civics lesson.

The Bijou was holding its third salon, this one with mayoral candidate Levar Stoney as its focus and since I'd missed the first two - Jack Berry and Jon Baliles - this one I intended to make.

When Stoney arrived from his last candidate obligation - a house party - he wasted no time in removing his tie, rolling up his sleeves and inquiring if the beer was free (it was).

Then he sat down in the hot seat to talk to 9 people curious about what he had to say.

Although I was a salon newbie, I'd heard that they all begin with grilling the candidate on the Shockoe stadium issue and this one was no exception, an easy segue into the ballpark miasma (he wants the city and VCU at the table to discuss any future plans) and the challenge of getting the counties involved ("Attendees at baseball games don't look like city residents").

There was a polish to his patter, a sense that he's been well-schooled in numbers and talking points that made him feel very much like a professional politician, which he more or less is.

Humor still showed through occasionally (when someone joked that the Coliseum was "built to last," he quipped, "Yea, that's what Bobby Ukrop said," and laughed) but even it seemed practiced.

Assuring us that he'd be a mayor who could bring money into the city, he also insisted that the mayor's role is to be a visible cheerleader for development and new programs, selling business start-ups to the citizenry.

Additional fun facts: he's not a Redskins fan, Chuck Richardson told him to be patient and wait his turn to run and when told he seems "tight as ticks" with Governor McAuliffe, assured us that the guv did not put him up to running.

After he told a forum audience that he'd explore increasing the cigarette tax, he got a call from Altria the next day and he's meeting with them tomorrow.

And while I know that politicians have to play the game, a lot of his answers involved finessing the deposits and withdrawals of political capital, which to me just sounds like typical good old boy backroom negotiating.

One point he was clear on was that with a median age of 33 years old in the city, it's time to pass the baton to the next generation and employ newer, younger voices to run Richmond. That he would also be the youngest mayor (35) of a mid-size city also seemed to sit well with him.

My issue is not his age, it's his tenure in Richmond and his mostly appointed job experience. As one salon participant commented after he left, "This guy intends to be President someday."

With at least ten years before that can happen, I'm more concerned with his fitness to run my city, a place I've lived for three decades now and come to love. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm with Chuck Richardson, at least on this one. It's not quite Stoney's time.

I need to feel like my mayor truly knows the city, not just how politics works.

For what it's worth, that's how this woman's mind works.

How Long is Too Long?

The thing about getting older is you realize there are no answers, only stories. Tonight brought me some really excellent storytellers.

Let's start with L. Doug Wilder, who was talking at the Library of Virginia tonight about his memoir, "Son of Virginia: Life in America's Political Arena."

The man is 84, was a state senator for 16 years, made Lieutenant Governor in 1985 and became the country's first black governor in 1989. Oh, right, and the first popularly-elected Richmond mayor in 60 years.

Naturally, he had some mighty fine stories with a history like that. Or as the RTD newsman who introduced him put it, "He's been good copy for 40 years."

From stories of his stint in the military in Korea ("My first experience being, eating and sleeping with whites, sharing the same experiences") to being appointed to the NAACP council by Thurgood Marshall ("We met at Slaughter's Hotel, where everyone met") to politics being the last thing he wanted to get involved in ("But I kept running my mouth"), he regaled us in his distinctive cadence, his voice rising and falling with inflection.

He bragged a little about his law firm being the first - black or white - in Church Hill and his back roads barnstorming campaign in which he never stayed in a hotel, only with voters ("I carried southwest Virginia, can you imagine? Show me a Democrat now who can carry southwest Virginia!").

Yes, he recalled chasing a young Arthur Ashe off the tennis courts, but he also was responsible for Ashe's body lying in state ("The last person to lie in state was Stonewall Jackson!") and 5,000 people coming to pay their respects. Well done, sir.

When asked Hillary ("She needs to be innovative and show that things won't be business as usual") or Bernie ("He's going to have a difficult time explaining socialism to a country that still fears it"), he was diplomatic, making the point that when you have a new poll come out every day, something is drastically wrong.

The fact is, he was unfailingly lively, funny and completely at ease, whether sharing anecdotes from his colorful past or taking the audience's questions. The combative Wilder of old was nowhere in evidence and the stories were pure gold.

Hate on him as a politician all you want, but as an octogenarian, the guy had spunk and a terrific memory.

Walking out, I ran into my favorite city councilman and former neighbor and his first question was about where I was off to.

That was easy: to meet a visiting septuagenarian, her former roommate (aka Pru's delightful mother) and a favorite couple at Amour for dinner.

Starting with a fun wine - a sparkling gamay called "G," fruity on the front and dry on the finish - and humor - "It'll hit the spot" - I took a seat across from the visitor from Mexico, eager to get to know the woman I'd heard so much about. The first things I learn are that she's a chef and rents part of her house on Airbnb, leaving her plenty of time to enjoy life.

Over the four hours we spend eating and drinking, one thing became obvious to us all: this tiny woman and I were cut from the same cloth. Showing me pictures of her house, I see a bedroom with violet and fuchsia walls, an orange coverlet and art everywhere. I could move in tomorrow and not change a thing.

But here's the clincher: when someone brought up that I'm a Luddite, I admitted to not having a cell phone. Her eyes lit up. "So? I don't have one either!" Beau, sitting across from me, rolled his eyes. "The two people on the planet who don't have a cell phone, right here at this table."

Lucky man. He had our undivided attention.

Bottles of beautifully crisp J. Fritsch Riesling accompany a cheese plate, a charcuterie plate, onion tarts, onion soup and two vegetarian plates while the visitor enjoys flounder and ratatouille and tells me about nursing one of the members of the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

We have an especially good time talking about how she likes to unwind and the product she's developing, which involves personal lubrication, among other things. When the subject of 15-minute orgasms comes up, everyone around the table is quick to clarify that 15 minutes is too long.

"Oh, no, it's not!" this feisty woman insists and I feel sure she knows of what she speaks.

Sure of what she wants and what she wants to know, she doesn't hesitate to ask questions ("Do you know when this fish was caught?") and impart opinions about the food ("This gelato needs salt. Just a little to brighten it up") to the owner.

Meanwhile, she regales us with tales of the recent Day of the Dead celebration just before she left Mexico, how much she was enjoying the Boathouse's oysters at lunch today and her hope to be green-lit on her flight back so her luggage doesn't get checked. She wants to return with a lot of, er, souvenirs.

When the subject of her gardener comes up, Pru interjects about how the man ogled her in the shower from above on one of her visits, causing jokes to fly. Better to be ogled than not, yes?

She pays me what is probably the best possible compliment, not because she says that I'm lovely, but because she also observes that I am completely present in the moment.

And why not? I may not get ogled from above, but there always seems to be something interesting going on right in front of me. Maybe that's the luck of getting older.

Telling the Untold

I assumed I had to be one of the few non-genealogists in the crowded room.

We were all at the Library of Virginia for archivist Greg Crawford's talk on "Restructuring the African-American Family," delving into how Emancipation allowed blacks to reconnect if not reunite with family members post-war.

I'm kind of a history geek, but so much of most history lectures is usually male-dominated, so my interest had been piqued at the possibility of hearing women's stories, too.  

And we did, lots of them.

Crawford showed photographs of all kinds of the documents that he and his fellow archivists have been  carefully unfolding and scanning to put online as "Untold Virginia: The African-American Narrative," a treasure trove -  what else would you call indexing over 91,000 enslaved and free people? - of resources for people looking for stories.

Or as he put it, he's interested in the hyphen between the born and died dates of a person. Those stories, the ones you get from court cases ("In these bundles are the voices of people who have a story," he said about a photo of an open drawer of crumbling court cases), business records, freedom suits, petitions of enslavement and coroner inquests. And, of course, correspondence.

Like the letter from a woman to the sheriff in the town she was from, asking him to go visit her former neighbors and ask if they know where her family members were. Other blacks posted ads in newspapers seeking information on family members' whereabouts.

There was a court case disputing the distribution of a dead man's property and wealth, with the man's illegitimate son being denied any rights because of the cohabitation laws governing slave marriage.

Easily one of the most heartbreaking was one of a man petitioning to be enslaved again after having had his freedom. Why? Because his wife was slave in Virginia and our great Commonwealth wouldn't allow freed blacks to stay here. He chose her over his freedom.

Coroners' inquisitions also held dark stories of beatings by overseers, suicides and infanticides, all testament to the life of a slave.

But the best thing about Crawford besides his pronounced southern accent was his genuine enthusiasm - "I want to get these stories out beyond the Library of Virginia" - for the wealth of resources to be read by anyone who's willing to look. 

You could tell he was the sort of historian who could get not only lost in an old box of letters and deeds, but manage to entice an uninterested friend into doing some reading, too (Oh my god, look at this!). Hours later...

As it turned out, I wasn't the sole non-genealogist because the woman next to me said the same about herself when she posed a question about gleaning information about runaway slaves.

She didn't mention it, but perhaps she also came to hear some women's stories. They're the most fascinating history to some of us.

History Lesson in 3-D

Talk about a timely topic.

Today the Library of Virginia opened a new exhibit, "Remaking Virginia: Transformation through Emancipation," so I walked myself down there for a look-see and some lunch.

The overarching theme of the exhibit was simple: freedom for the half million slaves in Virginia after the Civil War should  have meant something more than just the absence of slavery. But it's Virginia and old white men's ways die hard.

Naturally, one of them opened the exhibit because you can't really talk about emancipation without starting with Abe.  On display was a life mask of Lincoln, a reproduction done by VCU Arts using a 3-D printer from the original in the National Portrait Gallery. Very cool.

A blowup of a photograph of the Freedmen's Village at Greene Heights in Arlington showed a rustic-looking village that must have seemed like the promised land after slave quarters. The handwritten register of Colored Persons Co-habitating was a testament to legislation to legalize the marriages of blacks who'd been unable to legally marry as slaves.

An engraving, "The First Vote" showed a line of black men casting their ballots and nearby (under glass of course) sat a green ballot box marked "colored." Gee, I bet that box never got "mislaid." I also saw handwritten labor agreements between landowners and freedmen, negotiated by local freedmen's bureaus

The exhibit was very good about using both the term "freedmen" and "freedwomen" to indicate that emancipation effected both sexes. A display about Mary Smith Kelsey Peake said she'd been born free in Norfolk and worked in Hampton as a dressmaker with her husband until Confederates burned their house down. Taking refuge at Fort Monroe along with thousands of escaped slaves, she'd begun teaching adults and children under an oak at the fort that became known as the emancipation oak.

They sure didn't teach us about people like her in history class, but hopefully they do today.

A map of Jefferson Township in Arlington where blacks and whites lived together showed the political gerrymandering done to create voting districts segregated by race. The crazy configurations of the districts makes it obvious what they were trying to do (and getting away with).

Another thing I learned was that for a very long time, black churches had been required to have a white minister, something that only began to change with emancipation.

One thing the exhibit made clear was that Virginia has little to be proud of when it comes to how we assimilated former slaves into society as the old guard fought full citizenship, education opportunities and political participation. Ours was a commonwealth slow as a snail to accept change.

Afterwards, enjoying a salad at the Discovery Cafe, I overheard a tour group going through the exhibit, the group's leader explaining in summary all the things I'd spent the last hour absorbing.

Any way people can get the information is fine, because learning Virginia's past can only help us going forward. Transformation is a slow process, Virginia.

Is That So Difficult?

Life is too short to sit still.

The Library of Virginia was hosting Calvin Schermerhorn discussing "Solomon Northup and the Tragic Voyage of the Orleans." Yes, the same Solomon Northup as depicted in "12 Years A Slave."

After parking in the garage, I rode upstairs in the elevator with an attractive man who looked at me quizzically and asked, "There is a lecture here tonight, right?" Reassuring him, I shared that I'd asked the parking lot attendant the same question.

The proof was upstairs where the room was just about full for a Friday night lecture.

Using maps, vintage pictures of Richmond and plenty of photos from the movie, Schermerhorn took us from Spring 1841 in Richmond through Northup's boat ride to New Orleans.

His point was showing that human trafficking then was not so different than now, except prices have risen (Solomon was sold for a mere $650).

Showing bills of lading with slaves listed as chattel, noting their aliases (because free men were being sold as slaves), height and color (Northup was listed as "yellow" because of his European and African ancestry), he wove a tale of how men were systematically broken down and resigned to being enslaved.

But it was during the Q & A that things got good. Several black audience members made the point that enslavement was kidnapping, a point that Schermerhorn agreed with. He admitted that he'd been contacted by Northup's relatives but hadn't been in touch.

And, lo and behold, the next woman who stands up says she's a third generation descendant of Solomon Northup and part of the effort to establish a foundation to honor his legacy.

You can imagine how surprised our lecturer was at this surprise guest. Several black audience members challenged her on whether she felt herself to be black or white given how white she looked.

Admirably, she acknowledged being raised with a strong sense of Solomon's legacy but self-identified as white.

So that was a totally unexpected part of tonight's history lesson. Having seen "12 Years a Slave" and been moved by its tragic story, it was equally as moving to hear from a descendant of the man depicted.

Pays to go to history lectures, kids. Keep that in mind.

But it's Friday night and we can't be serious all the time, so my next stop was UR for their International Film series, tonight showing "Land Ho!"

A man I'd never seen before stood in front of the audience and said, "Paul's not here, so this is a comedy and it actually has some funny stuff in it. Enjoy!"

With people calling out, "Speech, speech!" sarcastically, he started the film.

An Icelandic-American film that premiered at Sundance, the charming story was nothing more than two 60-something men on an extended vacation in Iceland. As a bonus for me, there were plenty of scenes in Reykjavik restaurants featuring beautiful food and winking at the top tier food scene that exists there.

Oddly enough, the film had subtitles despite all the characters speaking in English.

The extrovert was divorced, recently retired as a doctor and bored for company and the introvert widowed, then divorced and retired from banking with no money. Strange bedfellows, indeed.

The former doctor, with his thick southern accent, penchant for pot (when he offers it to his friend, he declines, saying, "I haven't smoked pot since the '70s." Incredulously doc responds, "The 1970s?") and lusty nature was hilarious ("This is so good it's like angels pissing on your tongue"). His ex-brother-in-law was more cautious and tentative about everything.

As they make their way around Iceland, enjoying a disco ("We're the oldest people here. By a lot!"), being drenched by a double cascade waterfall (truly beautiful), seeing a geyser explode twice (I jumped the first time) and talking about life's letdowns (hey, shit happens), they both find themselves happier.

When they pop Jiffy Pop together over an open fire while camping, it got a big laugh from the mostly older audience.

The former banker would like another relationship and defines it as wanting someone "to talk about the news with, have a cup of tea with, eat breakfast with and sleep with. Is that so difficult?"

You want my opinion on that? Harder than you'd think, my friend.

But it's the pot-smoking ex-doctor who continually pushes the limits of his friend's patience, suggesting walks at night (they wind up lost in the darkness), driving through ponds (because they can), quizzing a honeymooning couple ("How many times have you hit the mat so far?") and generally being goofy ("I think I need a doobie-nator right now"). His friend finally loses his patience with him, asking why he always has to be doing something.

Because life is too short, he insists, to sit still.

After the movie, I met Holmes and Lovey for a short walk to Belmont Food Shop to quell our grumbling stomachs. I'd been craving the late night cook's plate and they'd never even heard of it.

Sometimes it's my duty to educate.

We began with a bottle of Sainte Eulalie 2013 Rose while Satchmo played overhead. The other tables were mostly winding down, so one by one they wandered out into the night while our evening was just beginning.

After hearing my order, Holmes took my advice and got a cook's plate for the two of them as well, none of us knowing what might be on it. In the meantime, he ordered Espolon, which arrived looking sophisticated in a champagne coupe.

Have one, he suggested. While I admired the presentation, I required food before tequila. Like magic, our cook's plates arrived.

The pieces of slate held lamb belly confit, fresh tuna poached in olive oil and duck gizzards, along with frisee salad, pickled veggies, crusty bread, buttered radishes and celery salad, the makings of a rich and wonderful meal.

I have been devoted to this cook's plate since Belmont Food Shop first opened. You never know what's going to be on it and you're never disappointed with what shows up. Lovey swore she'd never eat gizzards and ate several. Such is the power of the cook's plate.

Next came a cheese course: Pecorino, Maytag Bleu and triple cream Delice de Bourgogne with Marcona almonds and dried fruit, honey, bread and crackers, accompanied by J. Mourat Collection Rose in a unique bottle that resembled an old-time medicine bottle.

Meanwhile, I heard about a wake the couple had recently attended at a home with a fabulous art collection. Besides a Picasso and Dali, they had a painting of Pat and Julie Nixon, their faces expertly depicted and both with their naked breasts showing. It sounded like the highlight of a home filled with art.

Everyone talked at once. We heard about Belmont finally getting the permits to start hosting events, such as a recent Petersburg restaurant clan party, in their other room. Discussion ensued about how to get people to try things like heart, cheeks and tail. It sounds like their patio opening is just around the corner.

Ah, patio season, I await your arrival.

Despite Lovey's purported disdain for butterscotch, I insisted we try butterscotch pot de creme along with the expected chocolate silk pie and darned if she didn't become a convert right in front of our eyes. First gizzards, now butterscotch. It was a big night for our girl.

Holmes couldn't resist a chuckle when he asked where I'd been before dinner. He seemed to think it was funny that I'd begun with a slavery lecture before moving on to an Icelandic aging comedy. That I'd wound up sipping pink and eating belly surprised him not at all.

Stop moving and you die. It's not just me. Look at sharks.

Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get

Not everyone's taste ranges from vintage funk to retro cartoons like mine does. A fragrant white rose to anyone whose taste does.

Tonight, I began by giving my all to "Back Story with the American History Guys" at the Library of Virginia. The public radio podcast was performing live so we could watch them bring historical perspective to current events.

What a popular event it was, with a sold-out crowd including General Assembly types down in front. The woman next to me explained that her husband was in Atlanta, so she was a lone wolf tonight. Good for you, honey.

First we had to sit through the Lieutenant Governor (who pronounced "ideas" as "ideers") and the recently-hospitalized governor giving us a robust greeting that belied his recuperation.

Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf and Brian Balogh took on the '60s TV program "The Jetsons" as a cultural reference point for the current happenings that may (or may not) define our future. Clearly, what we had thought was going to the future did not come true and their goal was to provide historical context for that.

Balogh began by sharing that he'd gone to Perly's before the radio broadcast and now had indigestion, as any good Jewish deli reliably provides, he said.

From there, they addressed the relevance of St. John's Church, Broad Street Station, drones and online cirriculum, knitting together the past and the future, making it hilarious every step along the way. Balogh was self-deprecating, Onuf made his share of oldster jokes and Ayers was the glue that held it all together.

It's no wonder their podcast has gotten close to six million views. They may have radio faces, but their banter is terrific.

From there, it was on to the Valentine Museum to see "Made in Church Hill," an exhibit about the people who have lived in and shaped Church Hill. The exhibit was mobbed with people related to the exhibit, although the ones I found most interesting were the people who had actually shaped "the new" Church Hill, people who'd gotten in early before it was the cool place to be. You know, back when houses were $10,000.

Making my way through the very crowded show, I ran into all kinds of familiar faces - the film queen, the bridge visionary, the beekeeper - all, like me, admiring the variety of objects in the Richmond portion of the museum.

There, I admired a Chuckwagon menu from Oregon Hill, a picture of Catherine Street in Carver (where I walk so often) and a mourning dress (so much black fabric!). The bugle, sofa and man's bathing costume were just gravy.

Keeping to the old-timey theme, my last stop was Garnett's for a Cobb salad and some Moldovian Chardonnay while the soundtrack delivered strong woman's voices: Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Garbage, all the best female sounds.

All around, the restaurant filled up with people, albeit not anyone I had seen at the Library of Virginia or the Valentine. Apparently, not everyone spends their Thursday evening digging into local history.

Which probably makes me the biggest geek of all. If you need more proof, my evening ended with Pandora set to the Curtis Mayfield station, a wonderfully funky mixture of L.T.D., the Dramatics and Donny Hathaway.

As fabulous as the music was, it's also key to have someone to enjoy it with and some things are much harder to find than a good Pandora station.

History is fascinating, but future is key. Any geek knows that.

Butter It While It's Hot

My walk turned into a history lesson, my snack a reminder of my childhood.

It began when I walked down Fifth Street and picked up the Canal Walk from there, something I'd never done before, usually sticking to the area around the turning basin near 14th Street.

Despite the chill in the air, it turned out to be a perfectly lovely morning along the Canal Walk, with sunlight playing on the water and reflecting onto the underside of bridges. I stopped to read all the historical medallions in the sidewalk, gathering new facts about the area as I went.

Coming back through downtown, I decided to make a stop at the Library of Virginia to see "To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade," a look at the role Richmond played in the domestic slave trade.

The exhibit begins with a jolt with the fact that between 1500 and 1866, over 12 million Africans were forcibly enslaved and brought to the New world. That's a staggering number of human beings to wrap your head around.

I was fascinated with the part of the exhibit that dealt with the book "Uncle Tom's Cabin," learning that it was the best-selling book of the 19th century. Just as surprising was that it had been translated, re-illustrated and printed ad infinitum all over the world.

One version was called "Uncle Robin in his Cabin in Virginia and Tom Without One in Boston." Another was the Classics Illustrated comic book version (25 cents). There was even a pro-slavery book written by a Virginian called "Aunt Phillis's Cabin: Southern Life as it Is." Despite the title, I doubt it seriously reflected the reality of a slave's life.

And the merchandise! Uncle Tom playing cards, pitchers, plates and figures abounded.

Hung from floor to ceiling was an enlarged photograph of Richmond from Church Hill, the view all but unrecognizable except for the State Capital.

As far as I was concerned, the most compelling part of the show was artist Eyre Crowe's drawings, illustrations and paintings of the slave trade. A Brit who was touring the country with author William Thackeray, Crowe documented aspects of human trafficking seldom scene, such as the moving painting "Slaves Waiting for Sale," an image of nicely-dressed Africans awaiting their fate while white men behind them held their destiny in their hands.

One, "Slave Auction, Charleston, South Carolina," had been thought to be lost, with only copies surviving until recently it had been discovered in the Museo della Belle Artes in Havava, Cuba. I have to say, it seems like an unlikely painting for a Cuban museum to have acquired.

Where the exhibition was especially strong was in telling individual stories of people on both sides of the slave trade. It was sickening to read about how some of Richmond's major slave traders kept black mistresses, sometimes even marrying them. Such hypocrisy.

When I left the Library of Virginia, the morning's sun had been obliterated with a leaden gray sky, appropriate to the story I'd just taken in.

Lesson over, it was time for lunch, or at least a good snack so I set out for Early Bird Biscuit in Lakeside, eager to see what the biscuit of the day might be. I couldn't have had better luck because it was crabby cheddar, a buttery biscuit made with Old Bay and cheese. Perfect, in other words, for someone with Maryland roots.

The shop was just as appealing as the smells coming from the oven. A rolling pin collection on the wall, a vintage flour sifter, white with cherries like my grandmother's and an old school electric mixer in the case and the colored glass bowls every grandmother used to have lined up on a shelf.

I was completely entranced when I spotted "Betty Crocker's New Boys and Girls Cookbook," a classic I still have to this day. The one in their case looked pristine while mine has crusty pages stained from so much use as a kid.

Asking what my favorite recipe in it was, I went with meat loaf a la mode and fudge, two of the crustiest and most stained pages in my copy. He said they'd recently made the molasses cookies from it. My childhood was unfolding in a biscuit shop.

They also had copies of the new book by my latest chef crush, John Currence, "Pickles, Pigs and Whiskey." It's tough not to be impressed with the man who threw the Big Gay Mississippi Welcome table in NYC to protest pending outmoded legislation.

All of Early Bird Biscuit was impressive, though, with a cozy and welcoming feel, including the guy behind the counter. After I swooned over the sound of today's biscuit, he admitted it was his favorite of all the daily biscuits they've made so far.

Apparently, what they do is alternate sweet and savory for biscuit of the day, so I'd randomly lucked into the crabby cheddar. When he asked if I wanted butter with mine, I asked if that was a rhetorical question. "Why not gild the lily?" he asked with a grin. Amen.

He suggested I return on a Saturday where the line may be out the door, but, "It moves quickly and there's more choices." Sounds like a plan to me, although since they close at noon on Saturday, it'll have to be after one of my infrequent early Friday nights.

As for the biscuit, it was heavenly, laden with butter and piquant with the spices of Old Bay studded with shredded Cheddar. I savored it like the biscuit hound my biscuit-making grandmother raised, my only regret that I should have asked for even more butter.

I can't wait to go back for another kind of biscuit. I'm only grateful that Early Bird is located in Lakeside and not Jackson Ward where I couldn't guarantee showing any restraint.

Grandma Bessie, I thought of you with every bite.

One and Done

Still firing, still flouring, still forking.

In a repeat of yesterday, my friend shows up at the crack of 9:30 so we can walk over to the Library of Virginia for day two of food curiosity. The weather has turned noticeably cooler and the sky threatens rain so I bring along my umbrella.

Our first course offering today is "At the Counters," a screening of two documentaries about lunch counter sit-ins in the '60s.

"If We So Choose" chronicles the non-violent sit-ins ("You can't put out a fire with fire") at the Varsity Grill in Athens, Georgia.

"The Richmond 34" told a story much closer to home about the VUU students who staged demonstrations and sit-ina (resulting in the first mass arrest of the Civil Rights movement) at Thalhimer's lunch room.

A marcher's protest sign said it all: "Don't blame the police. Thalhimer's swore out the warrants." Truth.

A panel of four - the Athens documentarian, a VUU history professor, a Thalhimer and an original member of the Richmond 34, Elizabeth Johnson Rice - each gave their take on the events for a fascinating look from all sides.

My next stop was "Founding Foodies" with author Dave DeWitt, who took numerous tangents ("And then there was a scandal" about dating a student when he was a college professor) in talking about how Washington (a farmer with money), Jefferson (a gardener with debt) and Franklin (retired at 30 after creating the post office system) all had vigorous interest in food and wine.

Among the interesting food topics he discussed were the history of barbecue (begun as a cheap way to feed crowds at political rallies), how Jefferson was the first to import a pasta machine, and how peacocks were the "feast" bird before turkeys.

Among the tangents he took were Jefferson vowing not to remarry when his wife died (hence the affair with 16-year old Sally Hemmings), how De Witt got a free pellet smoker out of Yoder Company and how using a conventional wood smoker cut into his sports-watching time. Yawn.

Leaving FFF behind, we walked over to Lucy's for lunch where a cheeseburger salad was just what I needed after yesterday's all-day small bite eating. The music was funky, a Doris day movie was on the screen and the crowd was low-key. Perfection.

My last class, "Getting Gnudi," was with Mike Isabella of Graffiato whom I'd never heard because I don't watch TV so haven't seen "Top Chef" (which he claimed was a nightmare fueled by over-drinking by the judges and crew).

His plan was to make a quick and easy meal - Ricotta and goat cheese gnudi with shallot/tomatoes sauce -that we could make at home that would taste as good as his.

Being from New Jersey, he pronounced onion as ung-yin and meatball as meat-bowl. He told a story of a line cook under him using a dull knife to chop chives and throwing that knife in the garbage and telling the guy, "We don't use dull knives here. Get out!"

That line cook now works at the French laundry, for which Isabella jokingly took credit.

His advice boiled down to two things: with cooking, all you need is love and pasta water should be as salty as the ocean. Got it.

Once through with his Italian wisdom, Friend and I made one last stop in the big tent for coffee (her) and chocolate (me) before walking home in a fierce wind, light rain and uncomfortably cold temperature.

It's hard to believe that only four days ago I was in the ocean in a bathing suit.

And so my Fire, Flour and Fork foray comes to a close. I'll give its creators credit, they did a fabulous job of planning, organizing and executing two days and nights of varied and mostly compelling programming.

One thing that came up again and again with people I talked to was that this event is going to be huge next year while this year, everything was manageable, interesting and easy to navigate. The consensus is that next year and going forward will be overcrowded and far less enjoyable as attendance grows.

It makes me glad I got to be an FFF virgin. Hats off to the inaugural weekend of what's sure to become an unwieldy monster with time.

That said, it was a distinct pleasure to be fired up and forked.

Photographs That Haven't Happened

Let me tell you two things that'll get people out on a Tuesday evening: poetry and piano.

I know this because when I got to the Library of Virginia for tonight's installment of Poetic Principles, the room was buzzing with people there for the reading and it's not even poetry month.

Interestingly enough, one of the three readers, Paula Champa, was a fiction writer who shared two sections of her new novel, "The Afterlife of Emerson Tang," the story of four strangers trying to reunite a car's body and engine.

She was humorous, noting that generally writers are not advised to kill off main characters but doing it anyway.

"Our stories collided so forcefully they could not be separated," she read referring to the narrator and Emerson and using the kind of language that had many of the writers in the room nodding in approval of her phrasing.

Emilia Phillips read next and immediately apologized for reading off her laptop, explaining that she had a lot of new work but is in the process of moving back to Richmond, so the easiest way to access the work was digitally.

I have to admit, it doesn't have the same charm as reading from a dog-eared copy of a book or rifling through sheaves of paper, but the important thing was that we got to hear new stuff from her upcoming book, "Ground Speed," comprised, she said of essays and poems or some hybrid of both.

Promising that we might recognize some Richmond landmarks in the numbered essay,"No Man's Land," it was only moments before the intersection of North Lombardy and Brook Road was mentioned.

That's a particularly recognizable landmark for me because it's the Budget Inn there that is the turnaround point for one of my regular walks, although she referenced "bodies wheeled out of the Budget Inn" and I can't say I've ever seen that.

"A quarter plinks into the jukebox of my heart." she read in one especially well-turned phrase.

She told of being a child of four and a Baptist minister asking if she were to die today, would she go to heaven or hell. "My Mom doesn't let me go places like that by myself," she read.

Favorite line: "We're always leaving language, our most transient dwelling."

I've heard Emilia read before and I'll undoubtedly hear her again because of her pithy observations about the world and her place in it.

Our final reader was Joshua Poteat and right off the bat, he admitted he was not good at preparing, so he liked to bring a lot of poetry and a stopwatch and "hope I stop at the right moment."

But you can't sop till you start and he began with "Nostalgia of the Finite," a poem he'd written in graduate school back in the dark ages of the '90s. Wasn't that right after Guttenberg invented the printing press?

He read from an eBay copy of one of his books which he'd bought used from the Daniel Boone Library and entreated us not to support the Daniel Boone Library.

Admitting that he'd intended to read some happy poems until he realized he really didn't have any, instead he read "Death of the Death of Youth," with the beautiful line, "The noise of time is not sad."

For a long time, he said he'd avoided telling the truth in his poetry but now that it felt to him that his neighborhood of Church Hill was losing its authentic feeling - "Instead of hearing gunshots, you see chicken wings from the Roosevelt," he lamented- he was more inclined to be brutally honest.

That had led to "Department of Aerial Photography," also known as "Death Map," an interactive project that showed a map of the area where he grew up and when you clicked on a location, his words came up.

"Every photograph is a disaster that's already happened," he read. So true.

"Letter to Gabriel Written in the Margins of Murder Ballads" was a very long piece that paid tribute to Gabriel Prosser, the woman in his neighborhood who lived in her Oldsmobile on Leigh Street and Woo Woo, the neighborhood prostitute, in a a winding, storytelling manner.

Best line: "When the highways came, the houses didn't know enough to be afraid."

His stopwatch must have told him it was the right moment because all at once, he announced, "That's all!" and the reading ended. How beautifully poetic is that?

Next up was the sundown concert series so I made my way to a favorite pocket park for music in the grass. The series began last year and I'd enjoyed many summer evenings listening to music while the sun set.

See, that's key. The shows always begin 15 minutes before sundown, meaning a different start time every week and way different in May than September.

With a few scattered raindrops falling, I arrived to find the poet lounging with some friends, so after giving her a proper hard time for not attending the reading I'd just come from, we moved over to the enclosed grassy park.

I found a bench with a good vantage point and she joined some friends on a blanket. That was the preferred mode of concert watching tonight - stretched out on colorful blankets around the park- and I saw lots of familiar faces playing park blanket bingo with pizza, wine and other delectables.

At the front of the park sat the unlikeliest of sights, an upright piano under a tree. Before long, I noticed organizer Patrick lighting a candle to put on top of the piano.

Now the mood was set.

Chrijs Dowjhan, tonight's pianist, is a multi-talented man. He's a baker and cook, a teacher and hiker, fluent in Italian and seasoned with summers working at Italian vineyards. Plus he's an all around nice guy.

"I'm not really prepared tonight. I love Patrick," he said of the man who'd asked him to play. "Patrick is reliably unreliable, so when he asked me to play, I said sure, when you get a piano in the park, I'll play. I never really thought he would."

Then Chrijs sat down under the tree, in front of the piano, to play original music and adaptations he'd been working on the past few years.

I'd seen Chrijs play at the Listening Room last March and that had been my first clue what he could do with the ivories.

As he began playing, a gentle breeze picked up and before long, the enormous wind chimes hanging nearby began adding their distinct sound to Chrijs' dynamic one.

As he played, the crowd sat rapt and newcomers continued to arrive and find a place just outside the grassy area or among the other yard sitters. No one was talking, just listening.

"I'm not that prolific," he said after huge applause. "So I only have a few more songs. This next song I love to close my eyes and go some place else."

If the composer can, why not the audience, so I closed my eyes and allowed his playing to take me to another place.

When the audience began clapping enthusiastically, a neighborhood dog joined in, barking along with the applause.

The last piece of the night came with a story about how it came to be. Chrijs was in Italy, waiting for the farmer to come back and killing time with a Russian also staying there.

The Russian began writing poetry, Chrijs the music and while copious amounts of estate wine were consumed every night, they brought forth an exquisite composition we got to hear under a darkening sky tonight.

Interestingly enough, he stopped at one point, unsure of the music, before restarting. "What's up with you guys? You're making me nervous," he said, uncharacteristically flustered.

He had to be over-thinking it. So he let his mind go and his fingers took over the thinking and the piece was finished to hollers and a long round of applause.

He took a bow and Patrick sent us on our way with a mission.

"This isn't about me, it's about you guys, it's about all of us! Tell your friends about this series," Patrick called out. "Be ambassadors for what we're doing here. It's every Tuesday night until it's too cold to be out here anymore."

There's so much summer ahead of us. It's enough to make you want to just close your eyes and listen to the poetry and the music until it's the right moment to stop.

No over-thinking allowed in the meantime.

Monday Field Notes

I listened to a man talk about foraging for food old school before attempting some new school foraging of my own.

Max Watman was doing a reading from his new book, "Harvest: Field Notes from a Far-Flung Pursuit of Real Food" at the Library of Virginia, usually a place I walk to.

But because I had lunch plans afterward, I drove only to find the garage marked full. That's expected when the General Assembly is in session, but it's not.

Turns out the governor convened a press conference this morning at the library, meaning all the indoor parking was gone. I managed to find a spot on the street behind a license plate marked "Senator."

I bet he doesn't have to worry about having enough change for the parking meter.

Inside, I found a seat just as the talk was beginning and Watman was noting that it was Publication day, an all but meaningless fact given how few people read physical publications anymore.

Happily, I do not count myself in that group.

He began by reading a  section from the book about fishing in the Shenandoah where he grew up, talking about how he loved doing it but wasn't very good at it.

Mentioning how fishing involves being moved from a meditative state to a blood-fueled adrenaline thrill, he read a reference to a cannon used by Union soldiers at Gettysburg.

"I probably should have edited that out," he joked to titters from the audience before finishing the story of ultimately catching a catfish with "a crazy Dali mustache."

Stressing that a big part of the book was about trying things, failing at them and continuing to fail, but failing better with each attempt, he admitted that midway through his pursuit of real food, it began to wear on him.

He's one of those people who can recall in detail entire meals eaten years ago and proceeded to catalogue a few. I know a guy similar to that in that he can tell you what wine he drank at any given meal.

Talking about what it means to forage when you travel, he mentioned people who seek out the familiar when they're away, reminding me of the long lines of Americans I saw outside a TGIF in London, a depressing sight.

But his emphasis was on what great joy there was in seeing everything in a different light when you're away, how learning to forage is a lot like traveling where you have to learn to be aware of what's around you.

His best story on that subject was about discovering tins of caviar for $27 at a Russian deli, buying them and "flipping" them to restaurants for $70, still half the retail price. "Everyone was happy," including Watman who proceeded to get positively hedonistic about putting caviar on practically everything.

Sometimes being in pursuit of real food is a lot more pleasurable than you might think.

Nothing strokes the passion of the palate like the ocean, he told us, supporting my mother's long-time theory that children eat best at the beach because of the salt air.

One vacation, he took a lobster pot full of ocean water and cooked it down to the salt. Now he could sprinkle bits of the ocean on everything.

Seeking more ocean food for his guests, he used seawater for risotto, foraged for sea snails and seaweed and voila! Dinner.

"There's an outdoor shower at your beach house designed for getting rid of all the things I was going to feed my guests," he laughed.

I go to the beach every summer so I'm already looking forward to trying ocean risotto in a few months. And don't even get me started on the pleasures of an outdoor shower.

It was an interesting talk about a journey I'm unlikely to make (hunt and butcher? probably not) but am happy to hear about from one braver than me.

And while he'd taught his son to forage for dandelions, my lunch companion wanted red meat, tough to forage for in the Slip, so we somehow ended up in the '80s time warp of La Grotta.

Honestly, I don't think that dining room has changed one iota since I first walked down the stairs into it decades ago.

Over sauteed fillet of sole with diced tomatoes, pine nuts and basil in a chardonnay sauce, Friend and I caught up on each other's goings on in an empty dining room.

I was only slightly pea green with envy over his upcoming trips to Charleston and Savannah for R & R, but I let it pass because he was full of good gossip.

Given the enormous portions of food on my plate- two fillets, a cheese-covered square of polenta, crispy green beans and an eggplant roll-up- I was really too full for desert but he insisted so coconut cake and chocolate mousse cake soon arrived at our table.

When the two dessert plates were cleared, very little remained.

Sometimes nothing strokes the palate like a book reading followed by lunch in a dim basement with a friend who wants to kvetch.

Tales from a Female Tongue

So now I know the first rule of Fight Club.

And only because they said it so many times because I gotta admit, my eyes were closed for a fair amount of such a violent movie.

But at least now I can say I've seen the cult classic (thanks VMFA and your 60 films in 60 days) and have some context for the quotes and references I've been hearing for fifteen years.

My favorite? "I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect."

Every day in every way.

Cultural homework accomplished, check. As a serene counterpoint to the film, I got to see Chihuly's "Red Reeds" coming out of a frozen reflecting pool, a very different yet beautiful look for them.

After watching men beat each other to a bloody pulp, I needed a little something for the soul, finding it at a reading at the Library of Virginia.

Literary types are apparently a cautious bunch since only a dozen people showed up, far fewer than LVA's usual readings attract.

Mingling at the reception beforehand, I struck up a conversation with a woman only to find we had lots to talk about, including her recent trip to Philly to go to the Barnes, a notable post-Impressionist and early modern art collection recently moved into the city to the consternation of many traditionalists, and one currently on my short list of museums to visit.

When she raved about the hotel she'd stayed in there, I wasn't surprised to hear it was a Kimpton Hotel which delighted her no end to find someone else who'd become one of their devotees.

Turns out I go to readings to discuss the merits of certain hotel bars with strangers.

Getting off on travel topics, she regaled me with her multiple trips to Italy, even two weeks alone in Florence last year, bragging a little about a visit to a church open only one hour a week to see its frescoes.

"It's great to share that with somebody who can appreciate it!" she enthused.

We gabbed right up until Renaissance literature scholar Sarah Kennedy was introduced to read from her new historical novel, "The Altarpiece," set in Henry VIII's time.

Unexpectedly, she began by reading from one of her many books of poetry, saying she'd begun as a poet and had thought she'd be a poet forever, not surprising given lines like, "Watching the moon skid through clouds," from "Revelation 1373."

A fine reader (not all poets are, I've found), we heard "The Changeling" about faeries and "The Visions of Marjorie Kemp," about the second woman to write (well, dictate) her autobiography, with the line, "A female tongue is best silent."

Good thing we got beyond that nonsense.

The reading ended with the first chapter of "The Altarpiece," a book about what happened to nuns in convents after Henry broke with the Pope and started the Church of England.

Let's just say if you didn't come from money or have connections, you were set adrift, not an easy place for a woman of the era to find herself, but a ripe starting point for conjecturing what might have happened to one of them.

When our little reading group broke up, it was time for me to eat, so I started up the slippery slope to Church Hill and the Roosevelt.

My barstool was occupied by a guy complaining about gym membership payments being taken out of his account automatically when he hadn't been to the gym in five months (did you read the small print, buddy?), so I ended up on the long side of the bar, a good thing actually, on a night when every crack of the door delivered an icy blast to my tights-clad legs.

Seeking a glass of blood-thickening red wine, the barkeep recommended the easy-drinking Potomac Point Abbinato, a Chianti-style blend with lots of fruit and soft tannins.

It was nice to see Evrim of Sub Rosa come in and sit down for dinner, a welcome reminder that his bakery is finally up and running across the street again.

I'd ordered one of tonight's specials, chicken liver slathered on toasted, thickly-sliced bread with cucumber slices on top, an earthy and welcome start to my evening when suddenly a friend arrived, spotted me and sat down next to me.

Now things were getting good. We hadn't gotten together in ages, so an unexpected meeting felt like a gift to us both.

She ordered a glass of Abbinato and we let go the conversational floodgates with talk of past, present and futures, hers and mine.

Our non-stop chatter was interrupted repeatedly as one friend after another - the poet, the traveling baker, the curator- came in and over to say hello.

During one particularly funny exchange with some of those friends, we were talking about breakups where one or the other of the ex-partners ends up suddenly engaged or married within record time after the relationship ends.

The poet's brother had a phrase for women guilty of dating men purely as marriage potential -"Bitches be shopping!" - that cracked everyone up.

As someone who avoids shopping (except for food) at all costs, the idea of having to shop for a husband is about as appealing as kissing a snake. But props for the clever description, sir.

Seeing an order of white bean hummus with crudites go by, the veggies on it looked so good I immediately ordered one without breaking stride in conversation with my long-lost girlfriend, who didn't seem to mind me crunching carrots and radishes in her face.

Absence makes the heart grow more tolerant perhaps.

During another conversation, a friend shared a killer story, immediately insisting that I not include it in my post.

No need to worry, my friend.

The first rule of "I Can Go On and On" is that I keep the really juicy stuff to myself.

In other words, never be complete.

Cheetos, Snails and Heartache

I felt frisky with a full moon due tonight, starting my evening at a motel.

Well, not an actual motel, but a motel-themed movie complete with motel-themed snackage.

In conjunction with the Library of Virginia's "No Vacancy: Remnants of Virginia's Roadside Culture" exhibit about motels along Route 1, which I'd seen and raved about here, they were showing Wes Anderson's directorial debut, "Bottle Rocket," a film which (no surprise) I'd never seen, much less on the big screen.

It's an established fact that my personal filmography is appalling.

They did it up right, too, with a spread of items you might find in motel vending machines, stuff like banana marshmallow pies, bags of chips, candy bars, Twinkies and glass bottles of soda.

Munching on Cheetos, I mingled with the small group of oddballs who, like me, would come to the state library for a crime comedy caper, overhearing a young woman say she'd never had a Twinkie.

I don't even want to know how this is possible.

After an introduction about the film (Owen and Luke Wilson's debut feature roles), we got down to the story of three guys in Texas, a 75-year plan for a life of crime and, most surprisingly, a sweet, little love story within all that.

The movie began with Owen Wilson uttering "ca caw!"

I don't know if you've ever had a man "ca caw!" under your window to alert you to his presence, but I have. Let's just say the film hooked me from the get-go.

To allow time for additional snacking, there was an intermission in the middle of the 90-minute film and during it, a guy I've run into at events before came up to talk to me.

He always asks me what bands I've seen lately and this time he also wanted to know who I thought was the best songwriter in Richmond.

For the fanzine he's planning on writing. And as if my opinion matters.

When the movie got ready to restart, he asked to join me in my row, which turned out to be interesting mainly because he laughed at stuff I didn't find funny and what made me chuckle didn't seem to effect him at all.

Translation: he'd never be dating material.

After the film and despite the junk food consumed in the name of motel culture, I headed south to La Parisienne for dinner.

The lights were low and a half dozen tables held duos and trios, so I took a seat at the bar where the dateless sit.

My server recommended the Laurent Miquel Nord Sud Syrah and who am I to ignore a recommendation from a Frenchman for an earthy wine with just a touch of minerality?

The music was stellar, pulling in songs by Donkey and Thom Yorke, although I think I was the only one paying attention when his "Black Swan" came on with its endless lyrics of "Cause this is f*cked up, f*cked up."

An autumn salad of greens, cooked apple slices, blue cheese and walnuts was followed by escargots and lots of crusty bread sopping of garlicy butter.

I was ready to stop there, but my server was having none of it, asking if I wanted more wine.

When I declined, he poured some in my glass anyway. "Just a taste," he winked.

It was half a glass, I pointed out. "That's a French taste," he insisted. As it happened, it went just fine with my dessert, a bittersweet chocolate mousse with Chantilly cream.

We got into a discussion of good chocolate, with his vote going to the Spanish for the best chocolate going. Well, he admitted, except for the Belgians.

"And I do buy Lindt," he said sheepishly, explaining it was an easy go-to because of widespread availability.

I didn't have the heart to tell him I buy Chocolove and not just because of the poetry inside.

True, it's made with Belgian chocolate but it's also made in Colorado, surely an abomination to a Frenchman.

I kept my secret so he wouldn't lose all respect for me.

My last stop was Balliceaux to see Those Manic Sea, a three-piece dressed in black, and with a twist on the cliched lead singer role: he isn't a real person.

Instead, a TV is mounted atop a mannequin and the singer's face and voice are on the TV singing while the band plays live.

I'd seen them last May and recognized the singer, Ben, at once from any number of other bands he's been in.

So I knew the drill and started scanning the room, sure that Ben was somewhere in the audience and, sure enough, there he was, near the back and grinning like a fool as the crowd watched him sing to muscular post punk sound coming from the live members of the band.

And speaking of that crowd, it was interesting, if a tad vanilla.

An unusually high percentage of guys were wearing suit jackets or blazers, including one who had on a navy pin-striped suit jacket while sporting a nose ring.

No judging here, just fact reporting.

I saw a girl in a black and white geometric sweater I swear I had in 1985. Who knows, maybe she bought it at a thrift store after I donated it.

It was some time after the song "Outlier" and before "Headache/Heartache" that the drummer left the stage and passed out his drumsticks to eager fans.

Remember the good old days when drummers used to just throw them into the crowd? When did things get so civilized anyway?

Next thing I knew, Ben was coming toward me, arms outstretched. Nothing like hugging the man whose face is singing the songs everyone is listening to.

We talked about the non-moving crowd, how they didn't seem to know how to react to the music. His theory was that usually the lead singer puts off an energy for the crowd to respond to so with only a monitor, they had nothing to feed off of.

The obvious thing would have been for him to jump on stage, but he's supposed to keep a low, unobtrusive profile at their gigs, so that wasn't going to happen.

After a discussion of shows I'd recently seen (he always asks) and how we both need to see new local super-group Avers, he melted back into the crowd who were still unaware of his double presence in the room.

"Thanks for helping us celebrate our birthday!" the guitarist said before the final song, about the time that balloons suddenly appeared bouncing around over the heads of the crowd.

Their set wound down with the guitarist playing that last song standing on the bass drum and the drummer attempting to fire something (confetti? t-shirts? a bottle rocket?) out of a tube which failed to ejaculate.

He shrugged, grinned and gave up, ending the set.

It was enough.

Short of a night in a Route 1 motel, I'd had a French taste of everything I needed for one full moon night.

"Ca caw" aside, that is.

Grape and Thrash

Of all the ways to enjoy two of my favorite worlds - food and wine - tonight's may have been the most unlikely segue yet.

Beginning with legislators in bowties at the Library of Virginia for the 25th anniversary of October Virginia wine month soiree, I had a chance to taste wine from 32 Virginia wineries, although even I didn't come close to tasting them all.

Several (Akida Ridge, Rosemont, RdV, Rockbridge) I'd already tasted off of the Roosevelt's all-Virginia wine list and several I'd visited in the past year (Stinson, Keswick, Barboursville).

One, Chatham, had come up in conversation just the other day as a date and I had tried to figure out where they were.

Turns out they're on the eastern shore on the other side of the bay and yet, somehow, not part of the Chesapeake Bay wine trail. Go figure.

I had a fun conversation with a winery rep who told me she used to live in Richmond and work at the Tobacco Co.

When she asked what it was like now, I gave her the unvarnished truth and we got off on a tangent about how they used to have cigarette girls and shooter girls.

Whoa. I hadn't thought about those shot-slinging babes with belts since the '90s.

Moving around the room through political wonks and occasional restaurant people, I particularly enjoyed the display cases set up to showcase the history of winemaking in the Commonwealth.

There were books on grape-growing recommendations dating back to the 19th century and large-format photographs of vineyards, including one of a man in a white shirt, trousers and a bowtie cutting grape clusters off the vines.

Ah, the good old days, when men looked sharp to work the fields.

We listened to remarks by former governor Gerald Baliles, who'd started Virginia wine month, but the real humor came when I talked to his son, my former neighbor and now city councilman.

Praising his father for his forward-thinking wine savvy, Jon laughed and said all he remembered was a lot of really bad Virginia wine they had to drink back in 1988.

Baby steps, my friend.

After absorbing as much viticulture as possible (meaning once the tasting floor closed), it was on to the food portion of the evening.

That's right, Food Fight 2 at Strange Matter.

I'd had a blast at last year's, here, so there wasn't much chance I was going to miss another opportunity to support GirlsRock RVA and hear local restaurant staffs make music.

While they got set up, my date and I ordered cheeseburgers and fries to offset the wine that we'd had and lay a base for the show.

Last year's had featured nine bands and tonight's was only five, making for a more organized evening than I remembered.

We'd been fortunate enough to score bar stools from which to enjoy the bands,my Espolon and his beer, making for a far more civilized experience than last time.

First up was 525 at the Berry Burke, easily the most unlikely of all the restaurants represented, with a singer in a short, cute blue dress and not much else.

Black Sheep was next and like 2012, they were all wearing chef coats.

They'd been a highlight last year, with their written-for-the-occasion songs, and brought it again with gems like "Kitchen Blues," "Letter to My Mother," written from the point of view of a cat fish and "Fuck You," a tribute to Yelp and customers who want special orders.

Lamplighter's group was huge with multiple guitarists, a rapper and a spotlight hog of a singer/guitarist making for as much sound as Lamplighter itself on a Saturday morning.

Proper Pie's quartet was all thrash with two drummers and demonstrated the kind of energy restaurant people only have at the beginning, never the end, of a shift.

Franklin Inn closed the show with a singer with a terrific voice and a red satin top.

Less than a minute into their set, one of the musicians who'd already played leaned in to us and said, "We have a winner."

Proof positive came when they launched into Concrete Blonde's "Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)," not a song just anyone can pull off. And yet she totally did.

Somewhere, Johnette Napolitano was smiling.

After that, it was up to the judges to tabulate their results and pass them on to us.

Not exactly pros at this, there was a lot of confusion as they spit out the rankings: 525, Franklin Inn, Lamplighter, Black Sheep and top honors went to the bash and pop of Proper Pie.

My date and I were a tad incredulous at the rankings and more than a few people seemed genuinely surprised that Franklin Inn hadn't won it all, but that's the way the music biz rolls.

At least it is on Food Fight night.

What really mattered was that they'd raised $500 for GirlsRock RVA and Yelpers had been taken to task.

Simple pleasures on a Monday night.