LOCAL
PAGE 22 | April 28 – May 4, 2011
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM
Critter Corner
BACK IN THE DAY
laz y The dog. c k q u i fox sly p e d jum e r o v lazy the g . d o is Now time the all for o d g o to cows
15 s Yearo Ag
e c o mthe to of aid i r t h e re. pastu w N o the is e t i m all for o d g o to cows e c o mthe to
10 & 15 Years Ago in the News-Press Falls Church News-Press Vol VI, No. 6 • April 25, 1996
Special Prosecutor’s Clean Bill of Health Clears Lasso of Allegations Assistant Commonwealth Attorney S. Randolf Sengel, appointed by a Circuit Court judge in January as a Special Prosecutor to investigate allegations of misconduct levied against Falls Church City Manager David R. Lasso and other City officials, issued his findings Monday, and concluded that he found no evidence of wrongdoing. The news was met with jubilation at City Hall here Monday.
Falls Church News-Press Vol XI, No. 7 • April 19, 2001
It is no the timw e for g o all o cows d to go to the aid of the pa stu ir re. *** **
10 Year s Ago
Thr ow it up. Pour it up It now is the time for all go od cows to go the to aid
Council Slices Deficit Down Middle: Schools Lose $400,000; Taxpayers Will Pay 3 cents More For the first time since 1996, the Falls Church City Council approved an annual operating budget for the City that raised the real estate tax rate and denied the full School Board request for funding. By a 6-1 vote Monday night, the Council concluded a stormy month-long budget deliberation by voting an increase in the real estate tax rate of 3 cents to $1.13 per $100 assessed valuation... Cookie came to live with her family two years ago, after giving birth to 10 puppies under an outbuilding in Purcellville. It was a cold February night when they were all rescued by a good samaritan and then cared for by Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation. They named the group “Cookie and her crumbs.” All the pups were named after popular treats and now have warm, caring homes. Cookie is a wonderfully comical, loving dog and the brings joy to her High Street neighborhood. Cookie loves food, treats, unending belly rubs and long walks. She sometimes volunteers to be the “donation dog” at Lost Dog adoption events at Petsmart on Route 50. Just because you’re not famous doesn’t mean your pet can’t be! Send in your Critter Corner submissions to crittercorner@fcnp.com.
Red, White and Bleu is giving customers the option of drinking their favorite cabernet sauvignon, or snacking on it in jelly bean form. (Photo: News-Press)
Local Gourmet Food Shop Uncorks New Candy Creations by Leslie Poster
Falls Church News-Press
Thanks to a new candy invention, local gourmet food shop Red, White and Bleu is serving up wine not by the glassful, but by the handful. James Roth, co-owner and wine director at the store, has put his trained palate to the test this Easter season to render his favorite wines not in grapes, but in jelly beans. The store has released 15 wine flavors, delivered in packs of 10 existing flavors of jelly beans.
According to Jessy Cho, store associate, the jelly beans have been a big hit, and as of Monday the store had sold about 100 bags. Cho said that many customers bought packs over the weekend, some bypassing the wine entirely and going straight for the candy. The candies were especially popular with the under 21 crowd, who were eager to sample the flavors otherwise forbidden to them. “Kids were really excited to ‘drink’ wine in a jelly bean form,” Cho said. Cho added that “people have
definitely been coming back” to pick up more of the candy to share with friends and family as word has spread. The idea for the candy concoctions came when Roth read an article about wine aficionado John Thomas’s attempts to render wine flavors with jelly beans. “I thought, ‘how brilliant is that?’ And I took that concept and expanded,” Roth said After considering doing so for some time, Roth decided to embark upon the months-long journey of tasting wines and tast-
ing jelly beans, which took him to The Sugar Cube, a candy store in Old Town Alexandria, for supplies. Roth ran into problems, however, when trying to use the very sweet candies to depict some of the complex flavors of the wines he tried to replicate. He found himself approximating, using bacon-flavored beans to give smokiness to the blend, and toasted marshmallow beans to lend wood flavors. “On my part, I had to improvise quite a bit as far as trying to explain the rationale behind it,” Roth said. Those who partake in the candy explorations of the wine can follow Roth’s reasoning for picking the beans that make up the bag, as each bag contains a card with the “recipe” for the wine and what that flavor depicts in its model wine. But when it came to finding the “really bizarre flavors” that would make his bean blends more authentic, Roth turned to none other than the inspiration for his project, Thomas, for supplies and guidance. “I was able to obtain dirt, black pepper, rose petal, cut grass, and pencil shavings,” Roth said, listing the bean flavors he needed to capture the non-fruit flavors unique to certain wines. “These were the so-called bizarre jelly
beans that would make this project different than somebody just simply going into a candy store and trying to recreate the wines.” For Roth, the bean combinations, when eaten bean-by-bean, can teach wine lovers what different flavors go into the wines they enjoy, but he doesn’t discount the novelty of trying the whole bag at once. “There’s something fun about popping them in your mouth and seeing what that flavor profile becomes,” he said. Though Easter has passed, and the seasonal clamor over jelly beans will die down, Roth plans to keep the jelly bean wine rack as part of the store for some time. He has created 60 combinations so far, and plans to release his candy take on rose and sparking wines throughout the summer. While his project does seek to replicate the taste of the wines in his shop, Roth is still quick to pay respect to the wines, knowing that while the jelly beans may come close, they cannot echo the complexity of flavors in a nice glass of wine. “At the end of the day, it is candy, and wine will never be replicated by a candy,” Roth said. “The concept is that the individual jelly bean shows one characteristic of what makes up that grape varietal and distinguishes it.”