Neighborhood Groceries

BY ALIX HINES

Issue: January 2013

Posted: 12/27/12 10:59 AM

Little House Green Grocery is run by Jessica Goldberg (left)
and Erin Wright in the Bellevue neighborhood. Photo by Rachel
Weatherly

A couple of Richmond neighborhoods are gaining new grocery stores that specialize in local and organic products. The first to open, Little House Green Grocery, at 1227 Bellevue Ave., was almost ready to stock the shelves when we spoke with co-owners Jessica Goldberg and Erin Wright in late November.

Image courtesy of Tay-Ho Restaurant

BY ALIX HINES

DATE POSTED: 12/17/12 4:17 PM

     Kim, Yuki and Sam Tu have been in the food industry for 23 years; they grew up in the Tan-A Supermarket, which their parents own. Now the three siblings have gone into business for themselves. On Nov. 18, the three siblings opened Tay-Ho Restaurant, (7927 W. Broad St., 346-0889), and began serving traditional Vietnamese food in a modern atmosphere.

Contestant Reflects on 'Next Great Baker'

Chesterfield County resident Melissa Payne was among 13 competitors in the
TLC show "Next Great Baker." (Photos courtesy Melissa Payne)

BY ALIX HINES

DATE POSTED: 12/17/12 11:22 AM

Last year, Melissa Payne, owner of Couture Cake Creations and co-owner ofSweets Couture in Chesterfield County, tried out for TLC’s Next Great Baker.After not being chosen as a contestant on season two, she decided to try one more time and was hand-picked by Buddy Valastro, star of theCake Boss, to compete on the show for this season.         

Magai Nyok: Lost Boy of Sudan

Amour Shows Some Love

     Amour Wine Bistro in Carytown wants to show its appreciation for Jo and Rob Pendergraph ofManakintowne Specialty Growers for the fresh produce they provide year round. “The Farm Table” event on Wednesday (Dec. 5) beginning at 5:30 p.m. will include a four-course meal prepared by chef Rob Hamlin as well as wine pairings.

Swap Food, Decorate Gingerbread

     Sampling homemade goodies is part of the program at Slow Food RVA’s annual meeting and Holiday Food Swap on Sunday (Dec. 2), from 4 to 7 p.m. at Pasture (416 E. Grace St., 780-0416).

Dine Out, Help Others

      A few Richmond chefs will be heating up the food scene on Monday (Nov. 19) to benefit hurricane relief and local food security efforts. Heritage restaurant will have a Hurricane Sandy Relief Fundraiser, with proceeds from the event going to the Stephen Siller Foundation, which will distribute the funds to families in need in New York and New Jersey.

Inked in Richmond

A World of Possibilities

      Sitting at a small table on the edge of Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market patio on a crisp fall afternoon, Ingrid Schatz, the new bakery manager, describes her passion for making French macarons.

Photo by: Isaac Harrell

      Schatz grew up traveling the world, from Russia to the Dominican Republic. She began her career as a pastry chef after spending three years working in finance and marketing in London, where she baked for friends on the side. It wasn’t until she told her mother about her dreams of becoming a pastry chef that her mother revealed that Schatz comes from a long line of Swedish bakers, including her great-grandfather and his brother.

Food Day promotes sustainability at VCU

Students, experts and activists gathered to promote healthy, sustainable dining and to learn how to eat well on a budget during three days’ worth of events for National Food Day.

Representatives from VCU, the Fulton Hill area and other organizations working across the city met on Oct. 22 to discuss access to healthy food in Richmond in a “Food Justice in Our Community” panel discussion.

VCU Qatar student compares campuses after visit to Richmond

After seeing VCU’s Monroe Park Campus, VCU Qatar student Marianne Bermejo noted that there are vast differences between VCU’s Richmond campuses and her home campus at VCU Qatar.

VCU Qatar is made up of around 250 students, she said. This is a far cry from the Richmond campuses that enroll over 31,000 students. Bermejo explained that all majors are housed in a single building at the VCU Qatar campus, which is located in an area known as Education City in the country’s capital of Doha. Education City houses satellite campuses from a number of American universities, including Georgetown, Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon.

Food Day is Coming

Kids at Richmond Public Schools will have a chance to see if they like kale chips as part of the community’s second annual celebration of Food Day on Wednesday (Oct. 24).

     “Richmond Public Schools have put together a menu of options that different schools can select from, says Stacy Luks, a member of Slow Food RVa’s leadership board and the coordinator of Richmond Food Day 2012. “They are going to be doing kale-chip tasting on Food Day, if not the whole week.”

The Second Presidential Debate

Last week I was given the opportunity to attend an Obama watch party and tweet for NBC 12's Decision Va. blog. Check out the reactions from the crowd via my tweets:
http://blogs.nbc12.com/decisionvirginia/2012/10/nbc12-liveblog-give-us-your-reaction-to-the-2nd-presidential-debate.html

A Red Flag on Dating Violence

New bus system causes delays at VCU

Richmond Action Dialogues: conflict within the group

     Last week’s dialogue left nearly everyone with a heavy heart, wondering what could be done to mend some of the rifts within the group. At the previous Richmond Action Dialogue the students were asked to anonymously write their inner conflicts as well any group conflicts. When the conflicts within the group were revealed, the tension in the room was palpable. Some were feeling hurt because they felt judged by people they just met, while others felt there was a lack of concern for other people within the group.


IYLEP visited Peter Paul Development Center
and taught the Children about Iraqi Culture



Just the Beginning

By: Alix Hines

“Don’t look at people with one eye,” is a common phrase in Iraq that reminds us all to not judge someone on a mere first impression, but rather to look much deeper to see what’s on their hearts.
     It’s amazing to see how a group of 24 Iraqi students and five American mentors bonded and have already formed friendships in less than a week. Before our group had even spent 24 hours together we were dancing to salsa music on the boardwalk in Virginia Beach, bonding over pizza and even singing some long lost Eminem songs.

Richmond: a city still in the midst of segregation

Latrease Gregory moved to Creighton Court after her home in the Blackwell community was demolished for revitalization. Now she said her home is once again being threatened by the promise of a healthier community, but she says the redevelopment in the Blackwell community left some people homeless.

Driving along I-64, a newcomer to Richmond may not be fully aware of what is directly in their line of vision as they enter the city. Creighton Court, one of Richmond’s public housing communities, is one of the first public housing projects that can be seen from the interstate. On a short, 10-minute drive through Church Hill in Richmond’s East End a newcomer may unknowingly drive past five of the public housing sites all within a two mile radius of one another.

John Moeser, professor emeritus of urban studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said that this concentration of poverty in the East End wasn’t an accident, but rather a means of maintaining the social construct of poverty. Moeser explained that the high density poverty that is concentrated in the East End is a result of segregation and ultimately the lingering effects of the Civil War.

Fighting cancer, one relay round at a time

EDITOR’S NOTE: This semester WTVR.com has partnered with VCU’s School of Mass Communications “iPadJournos” mobile and social media journalism project. Those VCU students reported the following story.

By Alix Hines and Tina Irizarry (Special to WTVR.com)
RICHMOND, VA – Shaun Kelley has already survived one round of cancer, but is now battling the disease again. To support his own and others’ fight against cancer, he came to VCU’s Relay for Life event on Saturday with his daughter Adrienne Wass and his wife Sue.
    The VCU organizers counted more than 50 teams and 505 participants who walked the track one round at a time at West Cary Street. At the end, the organization had raised $37,000 for the American Cancer Society, just short of its annual fundraising goal of $40,000.

Porn as revenge, complete with Facebook links, unnerves many

EDITOR’S NOTE: This semester WTVR.com has partnered with VCU’s School of Mass Communications “iPadJournos” mobile and social media journalism project. Those VCU students reported the following story.

By Alix Hines and Tina Irizarry (Special to WTVR.com)
RICHMOND, Va. – Dani Wynn received a call from her boyfriend last month, saying that she was featured on “Is Anyone Up,” a pornographic submission website. It is a site people use to post nude photos of others and take screen shots of their social media accounts so site visitors can contact them.