Review: Violino Ristorante Italiano, Winchester, Virginia

A Pleasant Surprise

Located in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, the northern Virginia city of Winchester is known for a lot of things. It was the first city south of the Potomac River to install electric light. It's home to Shenandoah University and to the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley. Since 1924, the city has hosted the annual Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival. George Washington slept there – many times. The founding father spent much of his young life in and around Winchester, working as a surveyor. The city has a deep Revolutionary War connection and an even richer Civil War history. And country music icon Patsy Cline called Winchester home and is buried there in the city's Shenandoah Memorial Park.

Add one more thing to the list: one of the finest authentic family owned and operated Italian restaurants in which I have ever enjoyed an outstanding meal.

We were in town for business and, at the end of a long day, were looking for a good Italian place for a late dinner. Not knowing much about the area, we just Googled. It seems there are lots of Italian places in Winchester, including a few that delivered to our hotel. But my wife was adamant: she wanted a “nice” place. So we picked one that looked especially “nice.” It turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

Violino Ristorante Italiano is located on North Loudoun Street near the intersection with East Piccadilly Street on the northern end of the quaint pedestrian mall that spans several blocks of historic Old Town Winchester. It is one of several “Italian” places dotting the mall landscape but the only one that is un ristorante italiano vero. The others are probably very nice places, but like the mall on which they are located, they are pedestrian; typical Italian-American pizza and/or pasta joints. Violino Ristorante Italiano is much different.

Friuli-born Franco Stocco attended culinary school in Venice in the late 1960s. He and his wife, Marcella and their children moved to Washington, DC in 1985 where Franco continued to hone his craft in DC-area Italian eateries. While visiting Winchester, they spotted the building on the mall, found that it was available, and in 1995 fulfilled their dream of opening a place of their own.

But unlike your typical red-sauce joint, Franco kept his focus on his northern Italian roots and specialized in dishes not normally found in “Italian” restaurants. For instance, there's Portobello D’Autunno, Franco’s creation of baked portobello mushroom topped with a wild mushroom puree, goat cheese, and rosemary. Or Coniglio di San Remo, a Liguria-style braised rabbit, prepared with fresh herbs, white wine, and Taggiasche olives and served over soft polenta. Or perhaps a Galletto al Limone, a grilled boneless cornish hen marinated and pressed with rosemary, garlic and lemon and served with roasted potatoes. How's that stack up against the usual offerings of chicken parm and spaghetti and meatballs? See why I was thrilled when I walked through the door?

The décor and ambiance are delightfully authentic. There's outdoor seating available on the mall, but my wife and I opted for an intimate tavola per due inside the small but tastefully and artistically laid out dining room. Functional but comfortable wooden chairs and tables covered with gold linen tablecloths populate a room painted a rich Tuscan gold and accented with aesthetically pleasing artwork, much of which reflects the dominant musical motif one might expect of a place called “Violino.”

Service was unfailingly friendly and impressively professional. The staff was the perfect blend of attentive and invisible, just the way they should be. Specials were described, orders were taken, and food was delivered promptly and efficiently. Water glasses were kept full and, although never seeming to hover, servers were available exactly when you needed them. We came in about an hour before closing and, even though we were aware of the fact that time was marching on, in typical Italian fashion, we were never made to feel that way. Being in the business ourselves, we're savvy enough to know not to linger, but nobody gave the slightest indication of the, “Hey, don't you dummies know it's almost closing time?” you sometimes get at some places.

The food was indescribable. My wife, a sucker for seafood, was almost set on the Lobster Pansotti Gondoliera, lobster ravioli in a lemon Parmesan cream sauce crowned with a whole cold water lobster tail. But when the server described a delectable-sounding duck dish with orange sauce and house-made gnocchi as one of the specials, she went there instead and was so glad she did. She savored every morsel of the perfectly prepared anatra, a dish that's easy to screw up, and thoroughly enjoyed the fresh, tender gnocchi. My fatta in casa linguine aglio e olio was superb; a simple dish executed exceedingly well.

To my unrestrained delight, they featured my favorite Birra Moretti, a traditional golden lager with nice aromas of malt and hops and with a slightly bitter finish. I much prefer it to the more commonly served Peroni, which was also available on the extensive wine and beer list. My wife was very pleased with her selection of a house moscato.

We deliberately saved room for dolce. Our choice was a decadent molten lava chocolate cake topped with a wonderful vanilla and honey gelato and garnished with an appropriate little chocolate treble clef.

Not only was it a delicious evening, it was a fun one as well. Somebody was having a birthday and instead of having the waitstaff come out and clap while singing “Happy Birthday,” the chef/owner himself, Franco Stocco, went to the table and sang a traditional Italian folk song. And while in the midst of our postprandial torpor, my wife and I had a very pleasant conversation with chef/son Riccardo Stocco.

Is Violino a little pricier than the run-of-the-mill “Italian” joint? Yep. Is it worth it? Oh, yeah, emphatically so. Violino Ristorante Italiano is now at the very top of our “must stop whenever we're within a hundred miles or so” list and we would highly recommend it to anyone seeking an authentic Italian dining experience.

Violino Ristorante Italiano is located at 181 North Loudoun Street in Winchester, Virginia. They are open for lunch Tuesday through Friday from 11:30am to 2:00 pm and Saturday from noon to 2:00 pm. Dinner service is Tuesday through Saturday from 5:00pm to 9:00 pm. Violino is closed on Sundays and Mondays. Outdoor dining is available, weather permitting. Reservations are accepted but not required and attire is business casual. The street directly in front of the restaurant is part of the pedestrian-only mall, but parking is available on Piccadilly Street and in nearby parking areas. Call them at 540-667-8006 or visit the website at violinoristorante.com.

We may have found Violino to be a pleasant surprise, but don't be surprised to find us there whenever we're in the area.

A Few “For Life” Things No Kitchen Should Be Without

Essentials That Will Probably Never Have To Be Replaced

Maybe you're like me and you've got kids getting ready to set up housekeeping. Or maybe you're just setting up housekeeping for yourself. Either way, there are a few kitchen essentials you must buy, either for yourself or as a gift. These are things that will be used over and over and the beauty is that once you've bought them, provided you take proper care of them, you'll likely never have to buy them again. They are the “for life” things no kitchen should be without.

First of all, a good chef's knife. And I do mean “good.” Don't go down to Walmart and spend twenty dollars on a set of five generic “kitchen knives.” Go someplace like Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table and drop a hundred or so on one high quality 8 or 10-inch chef's knife. Henckels, Wüsthof, and Global are among the gold standard brands. Or you can do what a lot of pros do – myself included – and hit a restaurant supply store to get the same kind of knife without the expensive brand name or price tag. Dexter-Russell, Mercer, and Victorinox make knives that restaurant line cooks use to mow through literal tons of meats and vegetables over the course of years and they can be purchased for about half (or less) of what the big name kitchen store brands will cost. I've got both kinds, but I'm a notorious overachiever.

A cheap knife is a bad investment. In the first place, you'll wind up replacing it in a fairly short time. It'll be dull right out of the package and will pretty much stay that way. You'll be constantly sharpening a cheap knife which will never hold a decent edge. And there's nothing more dangerous in a kitchen than a dull knife. Then the blade will break or the handle will come off or something. You can buy a ten-dollar knife ten times or you can buy a hundred-dollar knife once. Your choice. Make it the smart one.

A word of advice, though, when buying a knife for a gift: don't. A knife has to "feel right” in order to be of any use. The shape of the handle, the comfort of the grip, the overall balance, the weight. These are all things that factor in to owning a good knife, so maybe it's best to give a gift certificate of some sort and let the person you're buying for pick out their own. Just a thought. And if you're buying for yourself, don't buy anything you can't pick up and hold in your hand at the store.

Once you get a good knife in your hands, maintain it. DON'T throw it in a drawer with a bunch of loose junk and DON'T run it through the dishwasher. Get a honing steel and learn how to use it and keep the knife sharpened. You don't actually “sharpen” a knife with a steel; the steel helps maintain the alignment of the edge but it doesn't “sharpen.” For that you need a good manual or electric sharpener, a double-sided whetstone, or a professional to do it for you. But if you get a quality knife and maintain it, you'll likely never have to buy another one. I have knives in my kitchen that my mother got in the 1950s. They're right up there on the magnetic strip with my Henckels and my Victorinox. Talk about a “for life” purchase: they have been in Mom's kitchen or mine literally my entire life. (So far, anyway.)

Two more kitchen essentials that will wear like iron are – you guessed it – made of iron. Cast-iron. “Oh, that's so old-fashioned” or “Oh, that's so heavy.” Yeah, fine, whatever. I've got all the fancy-schmancy stainless steel and anodized aluminum non-stick cookware there is and I still wouldn't trade my 10.25-inch Lodge cast-iron skillet or my 6-quart Lodge enameled cast-iron Dutch oven for any or all of it.

There is nothing – let me hit that word again – nothing as durable and as versatile as cast-iron. I can't think of anything I can't do in one or the other of those essential kitchen tools. Fry, sear, braise, boil, bake. Yeah, bake. You can make killer cornbread in the skillet and great raised yeast bread in the Dutch oven. I've got a real, honest-to-goodness electric deep-fryer in my kitchen and I've got a 6-quart enameled cast-iron Dutch oven and a thermometer. Guess which I use more often. I make a lot of soups and sauces. Care to ponder what I make them in? And you want to talk about a non-stick surface? My well-used and well-seasoned fifty-year-old cast-iron skillet has a shiny patina that is as smooth as glass and there ain't nuthin' that sticks to it. Not even eggs. I challenge anybody to get the same kind of a sear on a steak cooked in cast-iron using an aluminum non-stick pan. And try taking that fancy aluminum pan off the stovetop and throwing it directly into a 450 degree oven. Nope. Give me cast-iron any day.

Besides being durable and versatile, cast-iron is dirt cheap. You can get a decent pan for twenty-five or thirty bucks tops. An enameled cast-iron Dutch oven can be had for less than a hundred, depending on the size. Unless you really want to go out of your mind and drop $250 to $350 on a Le Creuset brand. Talk about paying for a name. Good ol' American-made Lodge, right out of South Pittsburg, Tennessee, does everything the overhyped and overpriced French stuff does for less than half the cost. And it's just as “pretty.” Best of all, if you take care of it, you'll pass it on to your kids or grandkids someday. Seriously. Cast-iron is the definition of a “for life” kitchen purchase.

And then there's the appliance I couldn't imagine being without: a KitchenAid stand mixer. Yeah, this one's gonna cost ya: around $250 for the base model, about $350 for the fancier ones, and as much as $600 for the pro-line models. Why would you want to pay that much when you can get a Sunbeam Mixmaster at Walmart for $59.99? You want to know how many Sunbeam Mixmasters I burned up before I answered that question myself?

KitchenAid stand mixers can do anything but fly – and I wouldn't put it past some creative genius to get one to do that, too. They've certainly got the power for it. The company has been around for a hundred years. It was started in 1919 by the Hobart Manufacturing Company, the same folks who still make the commercial mixers you'll find in restaurants and bakeries all over the country. Doesn't matter if you're whipping up light, fluffy egg whites or bearing down on double batches of the heaviest bread dough, the KitchenAid can do the job. (It was those double batches of bread dough that did in the aforementioned Mixmasters, by the way.) Look in any restaurant kitchen today and you'll probably see a KitchenAid. Watch all the cooking shows on TV. KitchenAids again. (Alton Brown's has flames painted on it.) And KitchenAid has been the standard in home kitchens for a century. Okay, so it's heavier than a broken heart. It's also dependable as a sunrise and durable as a mother's love. A KitchenAid stand mixer is one “for life” purchase you won't want to be without.

Hey, I'm not saying these things are all you need in your kitchen. I've got everything in my kitchen from bread machines to induction burners to immersion circulators and even the latest “go-to” gadgets like the air fryer and the instant pot. But the four things I mentioned; the knife, the skillet, the Dutch oven, and the stand mixer, are essentials that, if properly cared for, will continue to serve your needs for years to come and will probably never have to be replaced. “They don't make things like they used to,” you say? Yeah, sometimes they do. You just have to go out and look for them.

Buona fortuna e buon appetito!

Why Must Restaurants Be So Damn LOUD?

It Used To Be Merely Annoying. Now It's Nearly Intolerable

As I frequently remind readers – and family and friends and just about anybody else who will listen – sono vecchio: I'm old. And sometimes cranky and ill-tempered as well, especially when something gets me started on a path toward a rant. And one such thing is the current trend toward ludicrously loud restaurants.

Now, in fairness to myself, it's not just a matter of temperament. Within the last year or so I have developed something the audiologists refer to as “hyperacusis,” defined as “a highly debilitating hearing disorder characterized by an increased sensitivity to certain frequencies and volume ranges of sound (a collapsed tolerance to usual environmental sound).” Thankfully, mine is a very mild case and its only manifested itself in one ear. But believe me, it's enough to make me wince, cringe, and occasionally cry out when, say, the screams of an infant echo off the hard, bare walls, floors, and ceilings of a modern eatery and reverberate through my skull. Before hyperacusis, I found this merely annoying. Now it's nearly intolerable.

Once upon a time, restaurants – finer dining establishments in particular – were lush, plush places. There were rich draperies adorning the windows, carpeting covering the floors, paneling on the walls, acoustic tiles on low ceilings, thick padding on the chairs and booth seats, heavy fabric table linens, and wall hangings of various sorts. If there was music playing, it was of a soft background nature. All of this cushiness resulted in a gentle, refined, muted atmosphere. One in which you could sit down in quiet enjoyment of the food on offer and engage in conversation with your companion or companions.

Nowadays? You're lucky if you can hear yourself think.

Used to be, two of Guy Fieri's three “D”s – diners and dives – were the only spots where this was a problem. Usually a little farther down the upscale spectrum, such places were pretty low-fringe. Lots of tile and chrome and plastic and very few plush accoutrements. You generally expected a noisy atmosphere and you were seldom disappointed. But today it seems like even the finest of five-star establishments are out to strip down to the bare walls and to be as “industrial” as they can be.

Case in point: Meril on Girod Street in New Orleans. Billed as a “casual Emeril Lagasse spot” serving “New American” fare, the service at Meril is unreproachable and the food indescribable. I had an Iberico ham dish I'm still praising weeks later and my wife still salivates over her perfect rib eye. But if you've ever been in a packed sports bar in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on an Iron Bowl game day at the moment the Crimson Tide definitively rolls over the Auburn Tigers to clinch the win, you'll get an idea of what the atmosphere at Meril is like on an average Friday dinner service.

My wife and I sat at a beautiful hardwood table in beautiful hardwood chairs amidst a plethora of hard, unyielding surfaces at a roughly ninety-degree right angle to one another, hands touching above the table and knees touching beneath, scarcely an arm's length apart and completely unable to hear one another without leaning in and shouting in each other's ears or faces. Romantic it was not. When the waiter came over and shouted at me regarding my order, I shouted back at him, attempting to explain my hearing difficulty and directing him to attempt to communicate with my wife, who could at least nominally understand what he was saying/shouting. She would, in turn, point, sign, and shout to me and thus convey whatever information the server was striving to disseminate. There were at least two large tables nearby filled with people celebrating birthdays or something and being served dishes that featured literal fireworks. And even at the surrounding “quieter” four and six-top tables, diners were all reduced to shouting at one another, adding to the general din of unrelenting sound bouncing off unpadded, unadorned walls, floors, windows, and ceilings and hard furnishings. We were expecting my son to arrive in town at any moment and when he called me, I felt rather than heard his call and had to step out into the relative peace and quiet of a busy New Orleans street to answer it, the crowd gathered outside being much quieter than the one inside. Four of my five senses will always remember fondly the experience they had at Meril. The fifth one? Hearing? Not so much.

And it's not just the high-dollar, big city places. There's a new eatery downtown in the tiny rural hamlet where we live. My wife and I decided to check it out the other night. Shades of Meril! Brick walls, stone floors, high metal ceilings, wood furnishings. Only this was a “family” bar and grill, so in addition to the boisterous bedlam created by the adult diners, there was the added element of screeching children and bawling babies factored in to the general cacophony. The food was good, but as we were leaving we noticed an adjacent outdoor patio. Guess where we'll sit next time. Even if it's raining.

On the other side of the coin, we were dining at one of our favorite family-owned Italian places recently. And it was packed; easily a hundred-twenty people or more occupying nearly every available seat. And yet, as we sat in the midst of this sea of noisy humanity, we were able to talk to one another and to interact with our server in normal, conversational tones. Why? Because it's “old school:” low, acoustic-tiled ceiling, padded seats, draped windows – lots of sound-absorbing elements in the construction and décor.

It's not just me being annoyed by this raucous new trend. Others are noticing and commenting on the same thing. A quick Google search of “loud restaurants” yields numerous results: How Restaurants Got So Loud - The Atlantic; Why restaurants became so loud — and how to fight back – Vox; Why Are Restaurants So Loud? - Eater; Are Restaurants Getting Too Loud? | Here & Now – WBUR; Why Restaurants Are So Loud These Days | HowStuffWorks; It's not just you: Restaurants really are louder than they used to be; and a host of other similar offerings on the subject. Respondants to restaurant surveys by both Zagat and Consumer Reports list excessive noise as their number one complaint.

Several sources cite the same motive behind the noise: profit. They claim that restaurateurs are deliberately cranking up the volume in order to turn tables more quickly, the theory being that you'll find the loud atmosphere so unpleasant you'll simply wolf down your food and leave. Could be: I didn't linger at either of the aforementioned loud restaurants one second longer than I had to.

Another reason for the unreasonable noise has to do with the personal tastes of upscale chefs like Mario Batali, David Chang and others. Back in the '90s, Batali was among the first to inflict his personal musical taste on his customers. Restaurant kitchens have always cranked up the tunes for kitchen employees even though more subdued music usually played in the dining area. Batali felt that his head-banger faves “energized” the overall atmosphere and created what he considered a “New York vibe.” And it wasn't long before other chef/restaurateurs followed in the aural assault.

But the main factor behind the noise seems simply to be the newest architectural “trend.” Whereas in the middle of the last century, “upscale” and “elegant” were equated with plush opulence, today's “high-end” establishments follow a “minimalist” or “industrial” trend started in the 1970s. Lots of glass and steel and exposed brick. Soaring high ceilings featuring open ductwork. These are the “elegant” spots of the new dining era. And they're killing us. Or, at least they're not doing us any good.

The author of one of the Googled articles took a calibrated decibel meter into several places and found that the noise level in a brewpub situated in a rehabbed fire station reached ninety decibels. That's approximately as loud as an approaching 737 or a DC-9 one mile out. It's as loud as a motorcycle that's twenty-five feet away or as loud as a running newspaper press. And more important than the aggravation factor is the health concern for people who have to put up with it for extended periods of time. Exposure to ninety decibels can damage your hearing after several hours. Okay, so diners don't sit at tables for six or eight-hour stretches, but employees are another matter.

Even short-term exposure is not altogether healthy. Acoustic engineers studying what one MIT engineer terms “aural architecture” have discovered that the atmosphere, the noise level, the “voice,” if you will, of a space can adversely affect the physical and mental health of people occupying the space. Scientific research suggests that noisy settings have been proven to annoy people, and noise annoyance itself has been linked to depression and anxiety. I know extremely noisy places have always tended to set my teeth on edge. And now, with the additional complication of my hearing problem, well......I've been known to pull out an earplug and stick it in my ear just to get through dinner.

One more factor contributes to the overall noise problem in American restaurants and that factor is Americans. By and large and with few exceptions, Americans are the loudest, most boisterous people on the planet. I've been around groups of Chinese who might come in a close second, but most folks who study and evaluate such things agree that Americans are a bunch of loudmouths. Theories on why this is so vary from Americans being accustomed to having a lot of space, hence the tendency to shout, to Americans loudly expressing their individualism to cultural and social influences. But for whatever reason, put two or more Americans in a quiet room and it won't be quiet for long, especially if you lubricate their vocal cords with a little booze. Even stone cold sober, though, Americans tend to exhibit an “I'm having a good time, dammit, and to hell with anybody who doesn't like it” attitude, and if you're unfortunate enough to be seated near a group of these individualists, well......

The solutions to the problem aren't abundant nor are they very promising. You can always complain to management, which will usually get you a polite if insincere apology and very little else. You can “shush” or stare angrily at offending noisemakers – as long as you have A) good health insurance and/or B) bail money. You can go at “off peak” times: personally, I love having dinner at three in the afternoon. Or you can avoid noisy places altogether: in other words, eat at home.

Seriously, people who like a more tranquil dining experience, one with perhaps a bit less “energy,” are pretty much stuck bucking the still-growing trend toward minimalist industrial chic. And it's a trend which I doubt a few complaints to management is going to reverse. Restaurant owners have jumped on the bandwagon big time and they're not getting off until the next big thing comes along. For one thing, it's cheaper to go “industrial.” Sound dampening elements cost money, although there are a few customer conscious innovators out there who manage to be “trendy” while still keeping the atmosphere in their establishments from deafening their patrons and employees. Kudos to them, but good luck finding them. No, we're basically screwed. The noise is going to continue unabated until enough diners lose their appetites – or their hearing – to make it stop.

In the meantime, stop by a Walmart or a sporting goods store on your way to dinner at that fancy “upscale” place you've been wanting to try. Earplugs are cheap.

Review: St. James Cheese Company, New Orleans, Louisiana

Move Over Emeril's, Brennan's, et.al

Brennan's, Commander's Palace, Antoine's, K-Paul's, Dooky Chase's, and, of course, Emeril's. These and other iconic eateries are the places for which New Orleans is justifiably famous. And with just a short time in town, I didn't get to go to any of them. I can see Archie Manning's eponymous place, “Manning's,” from my hotel window. Ditto for Mulate's, the establishment that bills itself as “the original Cajun restaurant.” But I didn't go there either, mostly because half of the Crescent City seemed to have gotten there ahead me. Everywhere I looked I saw three and four dollar sign restaurants, most of which had only one name and none of which offered the simple, affordable lunch I was seeking. Until I Googled nearby restaurants and saw the St. James Cheese Company just a couple of blocks away.

The menu was right up my alley: a simple and straightforward selection of sandwiches and salads along with cheese and charcuterie boards, an English “Ploughman's Lunch,” and “Cheesemonger's Mac & Cheese.” How can you go wrong with choices like those? So off to St. James my wife and I went on a sunny early summer afternoon.

Located in the Warehouse District, St. James Cheese Company occupies space in an old renovated building on Tchoupitoulas street that could be described as “hole-in-the-wall.” Now, that's not at all a bad thing: some of the best restaurants you'll ever find are holes-in-walls. It was evident as you walked through the door that the place was bright, vibrant, scrupulously clean and well-kept, and nicely appointed. It was also quite loud. Bare floors, exposed brick walls, and high ceilings may be chic and trendy, but there's a lot to be said for the good old days of heavy fabric and other sound-deadening elements that allow for conversation without the need to say, “What?” and “Huh?” every other word. Oh, well. I'm old. So sue me.

The sign at the door requested we order up front during peak times and this was definitely such a time. My wife looked at the menu, made her selection, and scampered off to snag one of the last remaining tables while I stood waiting in line. It wasn't too bad; the line moved quickly and within a couple of minutes I had ordered our sandwiches and taken a seat.

In addition to being a sandwich shop, St. James Cheese Company is also a bona fide cheese shop, replete with a familiar wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano on display as well as an impressive selection of other delicious cheeses, both common and somewhat exotic. St. James Cheese Company was started up post-K (after Katrina) by Richard and Danielle Sutton, transplants from the London neighborhood of St. James, who decided in 2006 that they wanted to bring artisanal and farmhouse cheeses to New Orleans. The Suttons began their “life in cheese,” as they call it, at London's Paxton & Whitfield, one of the oldest cheesemongers in England. Holders of two royal warrants, one from the Prince of Wales in 1997 and one from Queen Elizabeth II in 2001, you could say P&W knows something about cheese. And the Suttons have brought that level of quality, knowledge, and sophistication to the Big Easy.

I noticed bagged loaves of fresh artisanal bread for sale in a basket at the front counter. And there was a nice variety of “gourmet” foods on offer as well. I was pleasantly surprised to see both carnaroli and vialone nano rice for sale. Everybody has arborio these days, even Walmart. Carnaroli and vialone nano? Not so much. St. James' mission statement proclaims, “We aim to provide our guests with a meticulously selected and unexpectedly diverse assortment of perfectly ripe cheeses, charcuterie, and gourmet grocery items.” Mission accomplished.

After a wait of no more than five minutes the food arrived. And we were absolutely transported. Move over Emeril's, Brennan's, et.al. Give St. James Cheese Company some elbow room. There aren't enough “o”s in “gooooooood” to describe what we had.

I opted for a basic grilled cheese sandwich, what they billed as a “Rustic Grilled Cheese.” It starts with white cheddar from world champion Wisconsin cheesemaker Tony Hook. Add some unidentified but undeniably delicious smoky bacon and sandwich it between slices of fresh country sourdough bread from New Orleans' own Bellegarde Bakery, throw some kettle-cooked potato chips on the side, and you have a simple sandwich that is simply divine.

My wife chose the “Smokey Blue,” a magical combination of roast beef, house smoked blue Mycella cheese, lettuce, tomato and Worcestershire mayo on toasted multigrain bread sourced from another local bakery, WildFlour. With apologies to Louisiana's own Justin Wilson, I guar-ron-TEE she will be talking about that sandwich for days to come. Her comment after the first bite said it all: “Chefs always talk about 'layers of flavor.' That's exactly what this sandwich has; layers of flavor. Nothing is muddled together. Each element stands on its own and contributes a distinct layer of flavor to the overall sandwich. It's just remarkable.” And that's from somebody whose palate I respect immensely.

The staff at St. James is friendly, knowledgeable, and efficient. It's not a very big place, but it's light and airy and clean, both in terms of decor and of physical condition. The menu is small; fewer than a dozen sandwiches, a handful of salads, and a couple of specialties like the aforementioned cheese and charcuterie board and the ploughman's lunch. They have a kids menu and a great beverage selection, including the usual soft drinks as well as a rotating selection of craft beers on draft, ciders and wines, and some specialty cocktails. Obviously, we couldn't sample everything, but based on our experience with the wonderful plates we had, we give the place four thumbs up and just wish we had more thumbs.

The location we visited is in the Warehouse District at 641 Tchoupitoulas Street. I understand there is also an uptown location. The downtown store is open Monday through Wednesday from 11am to 6pm, and on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 11am to 8pm. Closed Sundays. Prices are reasonable and parking is.....well, it is the Warehouse District, okay? Don't get your hopes up. There's limited onstreet parking and a number of nearby lots and garages, but the location is also within easy walking distance of some of the district's major hotels. Call them at (504) 304-1485 or check out their website at https://stjamescheese.com

Emeril's, with its “Andouille Crusted Gulf Drum” and its “Pressed Pickled Ham & Cheese,” is only a couple of blocks down the street. But for my money – and for a lot less of it – you can't ask for better than the humble but outstanding fare at St. James Cheese Company. Laisser les bons fromages rouler!

Let's Stop Constantly Yanking The Flag Down To Half-Staff

We Have Lowered Our Standards On The Lowering Of Our Standard

Even as I write this I know I'm swimming against the tide and shouting into the wind, but I'm old so indulge me.

I went into a McDonald's the other day, noticing as I entered that the flag was flying at half-staff in front of the restaurant but not at any of the neighboring businesses. Pretty sure of the response I'd get, I nevertheless asked the teenage counter person why. I was not disappointed: she had no idea. “Let me ask my manager.” When the manager came forward she was similarly clueless. “I don't know,” she said. “I just got an email from corporate telling me to lower it.”

Traditionally, lowering the nation's flag to half-staff (or half-mast if aboard a naval vessel) is a mark of honor and a symbolic gesture of solidarity in mourning. But how can you have a gesture of solidarity when no one knows anymore what that gesture symbolizes? In this modern day and age of nearly weekly bombings, mass shootings, and other insane acts of violence, we find ourselves hauling Old Glory halfway down the pole on a frighteningly regular basis. And unfortunately, at some point it becomes meaningless.

The first time I actually remember seeing the Stars and Stripes flying at half-staff was in the thirty days after November 22, 1963. I'm sure it was similarly lowered for the death of former Vice-President Alben W. Barkley in 1956, but I was far too young to remember that. The point is, it used to be that when you saw the flag flying at half-staff, you knew why: a president, vice-president, senator, governor, or some other highly-placed and highly-regarded government figure had died.

Or maybe it was Memorial Day. That was the McDonald's manager's guess: it must have had something to do with Memorial Day. Except, as I pointed out to her, Memorial Day was last week and in any event, the flag is only supposed to fly at half-staff on that day until noon. When I suggested that perhaps it was in reaction to a recent mass shooting in Virginia, she agreed that that was likely the reason. Except we weren't in Virginia.

But that doesn't seem to matter anymore. Nowadays if somebody dies – if anybody dies – anywhere in the country, especially if they do it en masse, down comes the national banner. Think I'm exaggerating? Uh-uh. Remember the flag being lowered when singer Whitney Houston was found dead in her bathtub? Or when baseball great Yogi Berra passed? Or how about upon the death of that great American statesman, Nelson Mandela? Oh......wait. My favorite instance was when the honor was afforded to a recently deceased Ohio police dog. Or maybe it was the Oklahoma road worker who died while helping to fill a sinkhole.

The United States Flag Code, as adopted by the National Flag Conference held in Washington, D.C. on June 14-15, 1923, and revised numerous times over the years, has this to say about flying the flag at half-staff:

The flag, when flown at half-staff, should be first hoisted to the peak for an instant and then lowered to the half-staff position. The flag should be again raised to the peak before it is lowered for the day.

On Memorial Day the flag should be displayed at half-staff until noon only, then raised to the top of the staff.

By order of the President, the flag shall be flown at half-staff upon the death of principal figures of the United States Government and the Governor of a State, territory, or possession, as a mark of respect to their memory. In the event of the death of other officials or foreign dignitaries, the flag is to be displayed at half-staff according to Presidential instructions or orders, or in accordance with recognized customs or practices not inconsistent with law.

In the event of the death of a present or former official of the government of any State, territory, or possession of the United States or the death of a member of the Armed Forces from any State, territory, or possession who dies while serving on active duty, the Governor of that State, territory, or possession may proclaim that the National flag shall be flown at half-staff and the same authority is provided to the Mayor of the District of Columbia with respect to present or former officials of the District of Columbia and members of the Armed Forces from the District of Columbia. When the Governor of a State, territory, or possession, or the Mayor of the District of Columbia, issues a proclamation under the preceding sentence that the National flag be flown at half-staff in that State, territory, or possession or in the District of Columbia because of the death of a member of the Armed Forces, the National flag flown at any Federal installation or facility in the area covered by that proclamation shall be flown at half-staff consistent with that proclamation.

The flag shall be flown at half-staff 30 days from the death of the President or a former President; 10 days from the day of death of the Vice President, the Chief Justice or a retired Chief Justice of the United States, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives; from the day of death until interment of an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a Secretary of an executive or military department, a former Vice President, or the Governor of a State, territory, or possession; and on the day of death and the following day for a Member of Congress. The flag shall be flown at half-staff on Peace Officers Memorial Day, unless that day is also Armed Forces Day.

Did you see anything in there about celebrities or dogs? Or even victims of mass murders? I suppose the “in accordance with recognized customs or practices not inconsistent with law” provides the loophole there.

Anyway, after the questions raised at McDonald's, I looked it up: yes, indeed, a Presidential Proclamation was issued “honoring the victims of the tragedy in Virginia Beach” and directing the flag to be lowered from June 1 until sunset on June 4. But where do you draw the line? As I have only somewhat facetiously opined, considering the nearly constant state of mourning in which we find ourselves today, perhaps half-staff should become the default position and we could then celebratorily raise the flag to the top of the pole to note the increasingly rare occasion in which somebody or some group of somebodies didn't die violently or tragically.

And then there's the matter of participation. Okay, so McDonald's corporate got the memo and passed it along. But the hotel next door and the auto parts store across the street didn't get said memo and so their flags remained at the top of the staff. The flag at the post office is down but the flag at the gas station is up. The flag at the bank is lowered but the one at the funeral home is not. And if anybody ever tried to lower that massive banner that flies proudly over the automobile dealership out by the interstate they would likely create a traffic hazard, so that flag stays all the way up regardless of circumstance. It definitely makes for a mixed message. And what about you folks at home and the flag you fly on your front porch? Yes, there are ways to rig it to fly at an approximation of half-staff, but do you bother?

And at what point does the gesture become meaningless? According to an Associated Press analysis, in 2015, the flag of the United States flew at half-staff somewhere in the country for 328 of 365 days. At what juncture does the “honor” become so commonplace as to lose its significance? The short answer to that question is when nobody knows why the flag is at half-staff on a given day to begin with and I think we've already reached that point.

The problem is jerky knees. Somebody dies heroically or tragically and the immediate emotional knee-jerk reaction is to “honor” them. And the quickest, cheapest, and most expedient way to do that is to drop the flag a few feet down the pole. There. All nice and neatly honored and we can move on to the next tragedy. Which will likely occur next week. Unless the local dogcatcher – “who served our community proudly for fifty-seven years” – dies in the interim. Down goes the flag.

I say all this because I am an admitted flag-nazi. (Oxymoron? Perhaps.) I'm the guy who calls your business and demands that you remove that tattered pink, beige, and periwinkle remnant of what was once a proud flag from the pole in front of your store and replace it. I'm the guy who sicced the American Legion on a little group of Bible-thumpers who flew the so-called “Christian flag” above the American flag on the pole in front of their church. I'm the guy who stopped in a driving rainstorm to lower a flag that had torn away from one of its grommets and was unceremoniously and disrespectfully streaming loose in the wind in front of a local store. I'm the guy that will let you know if your state or business flag is an inch bigger than your American flag and if it's flying a quarter of an inch higher. I don't care that the flag code was long ago revised to allow a flag to be displayed in the rain as long as it is an “all weather flag.” Poppycock! You'll never catch my flag out in the rain. Or in the dark, either. My flag means something to me beyond being an ostentatious bit of pseudo-patriotic décor that I tack up and forget about. I respect it and what it stands for and that's why I refuse to support the current politically correct and emotionally driven trend toward turning it into a red, white, and blue yo-yo.

And by the way, did you know that Flag Day is next week? And do you care? Or is it just an irrelevant leftover from a bygone day when the flag, its origins, and its meaning truly mattered? My flag will be out and at full-staff, thank you, unless there is a recognized, legitimate reason for it to be otherwise. (Death of a president, vice-president, governor, etc.) And if some brownie-point-seeking politician tells me to lower my flag to “honor” the passing of a Nigerian dwarf goat at the National Zoo or something, I think I'll just bring it in instead.

The flag is often referred to as our “national standard.” I think perhaps we have lowered our standards on the lowering of our standard just a bit too much.

Don't Tremble And Quake Every Time Ancestry.com Turns Over A Leaf

It's On The Internet So It Must Be True

I've written on this topic before so stop me if you've heard this one: beware of online family tree sites and “make-it-fit” genealogy.

Let me take off my Italian cook hat and put on my genealogical researcher shoes for a minute. And let me tell you about those shoes. I started climbing my family tree back around 1970. It was a tough climb because the few elder relatives I had left didn't want to talk about “that old stuff.” I had to dig and root and ferret in courthouses and churches and cemeteries and libraries and archives and historical society records for years just to get a decent start. There was, thank goodness, no Internet or Ancestry.com back in those days. I'll explain that sentiment in a second.

By the time the US Bicentennial came along in 1976, I had enough experience in working the records that I became a genealogical records searcher for several counties in the state in which I lived. Clerks in these counties were being flooded with requests from people trying to prove they were related to George Washington or Benjamin Franklin or somebody famous they could brag about. The perpetually overworked and understaffed staff in these jurisdictions started farming out these requests to qualified local researchers who would, for a fee, handle all the legwork. Enter me. Thus I got a lot of experience dealing not only with my own family tree but with a whole forest of trees from all over the place.

Fast forward about forty years and I finally published a comprehensive book on my family. It was rich in detail, replete with copies of old records and lots of sometimes faded photographs. It definitively traced the path of my ancestors from their mid-nineteenth-century European emigration up to and including my own generation. And it sold tens of copies, not counting the ones I donated to the local library and the historical society. Oh well, I didn't do it to become rich and famous.

Part of why I did do it was an attempt to counter the enormous influence of all the new cyber-sources that cropped up as the Internet grew and developed. Ancestry.com was and is at the top of the food chain in this regard, but there were and are lots of other sites like those sponsored by the LDS church, for example. Don't get me wrong: these are tremendous resources – if you know how to do basic research before you start. That's why Ancestry's horrible “you don't have to know what you're looking for; just start looking” campaign a few years ago just ground my gears. Of course you have to know what you're looking for! Otherwise how will you know when you've found it? That's like saying you don't have to be an electrician in order to wire your house; just play with the wires until something lights up. There's bound to be a YouTube video somewhere that shows you how to do it, right? Uffa! (That's Italian for sheeeeesh!)

Gentle readers, please listen to me when I tell you you can't, can't, CAN'T just plunder around on the Internet for a few minutes and come up with a fully-developed and completely accurate version of your family tree based solely on the extremely questionable work of somebody else who probably did the same damn thing. “Ooooh, I saw it on the Internet so it must be true.” Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh! (I think that translates the same in Italian or English.)

Here's an example: my sister and co-researcher called me this morning with the latest “update” from Ancestry. It was a link to somebody who was supposed to be related through our maternal grandmother. One problem: we already knew this bird. He had all this great and apparently thorough research going on. Names and dates and pictures of people we knew we were related to, all right. But he had our grandmother living nine years longer than she actually did and had her buried a thousand miles from where she is actually buried. Had her name right, had her married to the right guy and all, but when it came to the end, he was all wrong. And the worst part of it was, you couldn't tell him anything because he was convinced he was right. He had found all the records on the Internet and they all matched up. Never mind that my sister visited the woman in question for decades and was present at her funeral. Or that I lived with her the last fifteen years of her life and was one of six who carried her to her grave in Osgood, Indiana in 1980. What did we know? His grandmother, of apparently the same or similar name, died in 1989 and was buried in Woonsocket, Rhode Island and he was at her funeral and because he had found everything he needed to know about her online, he was right and we were wrong. And thus shall it ever be.

We've got another nut hanging on our family tree who took up genealogy as sort of a retirement hobby a few years ago and he is the undisputed king of the Internet. I doubt that he has ever been in a library or the records room of a courthouse, but he has all the answers and he found them all right there at his fingertips in his living room or wherever he does his “research.” In fact, he is so proficient that he way outclassed me. It took me nearly fifty years to trace my family back to the mid-eighteenth century. He has been on the job for about five years and he already has the family linked to seventh-century Saxon royalty! Wow! Who'd a thunk that the farmer who left England in 1844 to become a farmer in America had royal blood in his veins? And again, he saw it on the Internet so there's no use in questioning his methods or his results. We're just waiting to see the link to Adam and Eve.

And then there's the well-intended cousin who is about half right about half the time. Another offspring of the Internet, he has in recent years at least made a pilgrimage or two to the old hometown to back up his findings. The problem is that he interprets what he finds in the wrong way and then posts it as gospel to the Internet for others to do the same. No, Cuz, that wasn't my sister standing in that photo with Grandpa. That was our uncle's step-daughter of the same name. How do I know? Well, A) she was my sister and B) she had severe cerebral palsy and never stood up a day in her brief life. A minor detail, right? A detail that I'm sure wasn't on the Internet. So, no that wasn't her, but thanks for telling the whole gullible online world that it was. I'm sure I'll be seeing that misidentified photo now on at least a dozen other “family tree” sites.

See, that's the real issue. I wrote a freakin' two hundred-page book jam packed with precise detailed information that took me nearly a half-century to dig out of dusty old record repositories spread out over several states. And a small handful of people read it. My plugged in and connected cousins mainline their misinformation directly to the World Wide Web and millions of “family researchers” dutifully scribble it into their permanent records and claim it as their own.

Please. Don't. DO. This. Don't accept anything you read online at face value. Not even the most experienced and competent researcher is infallible. I'm working on a second edition of the book I published ten years ago because I've found new information and, yes, discovered a couple of errors in my own previous work. But the sheer volume of absolute dreck masquerading online as reliable data is nothing short of astounding. I have seen with my own eyes examples of children whose birth dates were listed months after the death of their mother. I have seen a man recorded on the Internet as dead and buried on a certain date when I had in my hand his death certificate that showed his passing eight years later. How about the woman who gave birth to her son when she was six years old? Or my uncle whom a reliable Internet resource had married to two different women two years apart? They were both the same woman: one marriage was listed by her first name and the other was by her middle name. And how they happened two years apart I'll never know.

Don't get me wrong. I have used the absolute hell out of online resources since they first became available a couple of decades ago. It was an online source that enabled me to find the name of the ship upon which my paternal immigrant ancestors sailed from England. BUT.....I already know from which port they sailed and what their departure and arrival dates were. And that information I got from plain old grunt work in old family records. I was able to find their street address by accessing England's census online. BUT.....I already knew in what town they were living at the time. The Internet enabled me to detail the settlement of my Italian ancestors in Canada without actually having to go to Canada. BUT.....because I talked extensively to my grandmother when she was alive and available, I knew exactly where in Canada to look. Internet sources and resources have enhanced and improved the quality of my research, but they have never been nor will they ever be the fundamental source of it.

I don't tremble and quake every time Ancestry.com turns over a leaf. I don't get all twitterpated every time I see what appears to be a full-blown genealogy of any branch of my family online unless that genealogy is in absolute lockstep with what I already know to be true. I don't graft a limb, a branch, a twig, or even a leaf onto my family tree until I can verify it through multiple empirical sources. I don't take anybody else's word for anything I can't personally authenticate through at least one other source. No matter how tempting it might be, I don't engage in “close enough” or “make-it-fit” genealogy that piggybacks on somebody else's often questionable work. That's called “responsible research” and it's unfortunately becoming less and less common in the burgeoning “information age” in which we live.

I suppose it's possible my grandmother arose from her grave in Indiana and lived another nine years in Rhode Island. Maybe my totally incapacitated sibling did stand up for a photograph and perhaps I am descended from old Saxon royalty. After all, it's on the Internet so it must be true.

But I'm not counting on it.

Review: The Clocktower Restaurant & Bar, Staunton, Virginia

Time's Up For The Clocktower

Every now and then I come across a place in my travels that so impresses or delights me that I vow to put it on my “let's go there again” list and recommend it to family, friends, and readers. Such a place was The Clocktower Restaurant & Bar at 27 W. Beverley Street in historic downtown Staunton, Virginia.

Please note: “was” is the operative word here.

When my wife and I visited The Clocktower about a year ago, we were absolutely captivated by the place. Located in the trendy downtown area of a small Virginia college town otherwise known as the birthplace of both President Woodrow Wilson and the Statler Brothers, the Google listing said: “Circa-1890 clock tower with a retro interior is the locale for Italian eats, sandwiches & drinks.” Sounded like our kind of place. And it was. The atmosphere was delightful, the service was friendly and efficient, and the food was superb. We immediately added The Clocktower to the aforementioned return and recommend list.

Alas, The Clocktower's time on that list has run out.

My son and his family were traveling through that part of Virginia the other day. They were overnighting in nearby Verona and my wife and I arranged to drive over to meet them. We had only a limited time to visit. Basically we were making a nearly four hundred mile round trip in order to have dinner with my son, his wife and her parents, and our four grandchildren. We raved about The Clocktower, just fifteen minutes or so down the road from where they were staying, so we all caravanned over to Staunton for a memorable dining experience. Well.....it was memorable alright.

The Google listing still touts The Clocktower as “the locale for Italian eats, sandwiches & drinks.” Don't believe a word of it. The place is about as Italian as Rome.....Georgia! No more four-cheese ravioli al forno. Ciao ciao homemade baked lasagne. No chicken parm, no chicken marsala, no “pastabilities” where you could create you own pasta dish from their selection of housemade pastas and sauces. All the delectable Italian dishes my wife and I had so enjoyed a year previous were gone, replaced by a pedestrian assortment of “pub grub” offerings. (Sigh) But we had come all that way, so we decided to see it through.

The waitress was perky and friendly and quite clueless. My son's father-in-law ordered a “Seven & Seven” from the bar for his wife and drew a totally blank look from the server. He explained it and then ordered a particular whiskey and Coke for himself. The server returned to inform him that the bar did not stock his brand and offered a substitute whiskey instead. When his drink arrived, it was a whiskey on the rocks with no Coke. The girl must have had a thing about ice because my wife's sweet tea, which she had ordered with no ice, came in a glass full of ice.

We had lots of time to contemplate the new menu; it was about fifteen minutes before anybody showed up to take our orders. That was another thing: in addition to being perky, friendly, and clueless, our server was also largely invisible. And it wasn't because the joint was jumping. There were only six other patrons seated at two tables when we arrived and they had already been served.

The kids got macaroni and cheese and French fries from the kid's menu. The rest of us ordered a variety of burgers, sandwiches, and fairly simple stuff. My wife opted for a “deconstructed shepherd's pie” while the in-laws chose to split a nominally Italian-American chicken and broccoli fettuccine Alfredo. And since no decent Italian would deliberately adulterate good pasta with chicken or broccoli, I chose to get just plain fettuccine Alfredo (which in and of itself is not truly Italian, but that's another story.)

The kid's stuff was out in about ten minutes. And it arrived with an extra ingredient. Fortunately, someone spotted the long strand of.....something......hanging from my granddaughter's fork before it made it to her mouth. It was too thick to be a hair. We didn't really know what it was. And there was nobody around to ask. I finally put the offending substance on a napkin and took it over to the bartender, the only staff person in evidence. A few minutes later, the manager/co-owner came out of the kitchen and apologetically informed us that they had identified the object as a thread from an apron. And they, of course, replaced the dish.

Good thing, too, because over the course of the next forty-five or fifty minutes, we adults were staving off starvation by snitching fries off the kid's plates. Yeah. You read that right. Nearly an hour for a burger, a sandwich, a “deconstructed shepherd's pie,” and a couple of pasta dishes. As the numerous clocks festooning the walls ticked inexorably through the minutes toward that one hour mark and as we hungrily contemplated the kid's leftovers, the food finally arrived. When I semi-seriously noted that my wife and I were cooks and that we were about to head back to the kitchen to lend a hand, I was told that there was only one cook on duty, the other having been dismissed earlier in anticipation of a slow night.

I guess this would be a good point to bring up a fact I discovered too late to save the evening. It seems that immediately after the wonderful visit my wife and I enjoyed last year, the building and the business were sold. The restaurant operation has been taken over by a triumvirate of people who have no restaurant background and who have admitted to experiencing a “learning curve.” It seems they want to "spruce up the place, add a couple of new dishes, and start a new legacy." Pssssst! Lousy start.

On the plus side, the food was good. Other than the extra fiber in the macaroni and cheese, nobody had any complaints and everybody cleaned their plates. We even ordered some desserts: a couple of decent cannoli and a gargantuan hunk of chocolate cake that probably would have fed the whole party.

So here's the bottom line: if you want Italian food in Staunton, Virginia, you ain't gonna get it at The Clocktower. If you want fast food in Staunton, Virginia, you ain't gonna get it at The Clocktower. If you want perky, friendly, clueless, and largely invisible waitstaff, that they've got at The Clocktower, along with good food that isn't anything to write songs about.

For what it's worth, The Clocktower is located at 27 W. Beverley Street in downtown Staunton. Dress is casual, reservations are not required and parking is onstreet. They're open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. until 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday. Call them at 540-213-0665 or visit their website at https://clocktowerstaunton.com

Buon appetito......e buona fortuna.