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I have had a love for Italian food and culture since a young age. When I was little, Mutti—which means mother in our native German—had a best friend from Rome named Silvana. She taught me how to roll pasta and make dishes at a skill level far beyond my years. As I got older, my family spent most of our Summer vacations traveling in Tuscany, and some of my fondest memories were in the small seaside towns we stumbled upon during our trips. Living in Alexandria, I’ve had many conversations with fri

Sitting outside Virtue Feed and Grain on a beautiful spring day, you would think it was business as usual. Yet even with people walking up to the local staple, business is far from normal right now. Staff walking around in masks and gloves serving take-out orders on their second day working, having reopened after taking a month off to help with flattening the curve. That was not the vision Will Smith and his family had when taking over the restaurant two years ago, but this is their (hopefully t

Story by Jeanette Wages | Photography by Jeanette Wages & Courtesy of Catoctin Creek Distillery

Known for their unique, local rye whiskeys and gin, Catoctin Creek Distillery took a sharp left detour when COVID19 changed the restaurant and alcohol industry as we know it during an effort to flatten the curve. Once used to working evening hours, stopping by local restaurants to help develop and promote their cocktail menus with their products, John Shope and Avalon Haas now join their production t

We all have that moment at some point in our lives — that moment when the world is crashing in around us, when it feels like your life just drove off a cliff and you don’t know what to do.

When that moment happens, you have to get up off the bath-room floor and wash your face, slap on some mascara and go about your life like it isn’t falling apart. Everything is fine