Photo courtesy The River and Rail

The River and Rail, a new restaurant located inside the storied building that once housed Lipes Pharmacy in South Roanoke, will officially open on Thursday night (June 14) at 5 p.m.

The owners, two couples named Whit and Lauren Ellerman and Lee and Karri Atwood, have had the entire interior redone, right down to the beautiful hardwood floors. Everything was sourced as locally as possible, according to Whit Ellerman, including the furniture. You can see photographs of the finished interior on The River and Rail Facebook page.

Although they have not yet loaded photos onto the official website, you’ll find other information about the restaurant there, including a sample menu (meaning that it has likely completely changed since it was posted). Head Chef Aaron Deal is a rising star with a 4-diamond restaurant rating and a James Beard award nomination on his resume. He could also boast about his appearance on CBS’ “The Early Show” or accolades in such national publications as Gourmet, Southern Living and Travel + Leisure, but Deal is not that kind of guy.

In fact, when I asked him about that for this November 2011 article, he said, “I’m just a cook. Truthfully, the thing that makes me really excited about being a chef is doing it for other people and, I think, realizing that I can be creative and learn different things every day, every minute, by cooking.”

Here are a couple of highlights from the sample menu (likely to be different when you go, but this gives you an idea of the kind of food they’re doing):
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Here at the Fridge Magnet desk, I receive a great deal of information about happenings in the foodie world in Southwest Virginia. Not all of these rise to the level of a blog entry or a column, so I have created a list of tidbits that will from this point forward appear at the right of your screen.

See it there? How do you like that?

Please note that this feature is by no means the end-all-be-all of food events listings at The Roanoke Times. For all of your cooking classes, wine tastings and other wonderful happenings, please be sure to keep reading every Thursday’s issue of Inside Out.

This is just my way of highlighting a few events each month and making sure that some things don’t completely fall between the cracks. You may very well see an event listed on my blog and elsewhere in The Roanoke Times or on Roanoke.com. But that’s okay — duplications are far better than leaving something out entirely.

Feel free to offer me any feedback on this feature as it progresses. And thanks, as always, for taking a look at this blog!

According to recent news reports, Kabuki in Roanoke, which is undergoing extensive remodeling, will have a good-sized sushi bar when it reopens. It’s also supposed to have a big koi pond, but that’s beside the point. Although interesting…

At any rate, it’s got me thinking about the state of sushi in Southwest Virginia.

Once upon a time, the only two places to find sushi in Roanoke were Sake House at Lakeside Plaza in Salem and Tokyo on Franklin Road or the city market building. For a while, I had a love affair with Sake House and it’s little carpeted tea rooms. Not so much a fan of Tokyo, however. I think it was the atmosphere more than anything else.

Then, along came Metro! with its Asian-fusion thing and a whole menu of pretty good sushi. A bit more expensive, perhaps, than the competitors, but certainly not short on imagination. I’m thinking of the Angry Tuna roll here, and it’s not making me angry at all. It’s making me hungry.

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Roanoke Times photographer Stephanie Klein-Davis sends me e-mails on a regular basis with story ideas about food, cooking or traveling. Like me, she seems to have one of those topics on the brain at all times.

Yesterday, she sent me an idea that piqued my interest immediately. Where are the best salads in Roanoke and the New River Valley?

Obviously, if you’ve got the freshest ingredients at home, then perhaps that most delicious salad is on your own dining room table. But if you are too hot or tired to make dinner yourself, where do you go for a great salad when you’ve really got the hankering?

Restaurant salads don’t have to be healthy. In fact, much of the time, they are not — particularly if they are loaded down with fried chicken tenders, cheese, egg, bacon and all that good stuff. But for the purpose of this blog question, let’s throw healthy right out the window in favor of delicious.

I can think of two of my favorite salads right off the bat.

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What you’re seeing here is a family of very good cooks. And some don’t even know it yet.
If you read the Front Burner column in today’s Extra, you already know that this is the Ferris family.
They are Lebanese members of St. Elias Church on Cove Road in Roanoke, which is putting on its 10th annual Lebanese Festival this weekend.
The Ferris family has been around Roanoke for generations. Yvonne, seated in the center of the photo and wearing lavender, is the matriarch of the family. She’s widowed now and doesn’t cook as much as she used to, but her daughters told me stories that made my mouth water.
One story was about how Yvonne, 78, used to spend the entire day down in the basement making homemade lavash bread in a gas oven. She told me it took hours and hours to bake the breads golden brown. And as soon as she brought the warm results upstairs, her kids would dig in, slathering it with butter and homemade fig preserves.
If you’ve never been to the Lebanese Festival before and you consider yourself a lover of good food, I would urge you to go. Everything there, from the stuffed grape leaves to the spinach pies to the batlawa (Lebanese version of baklava, made with rose water syrup) was made lovingly by hand.
The festival takes place Friday (noon to 8 p.m.), Saturday (noon to 10 p.m.) and Sunday (noon to 8 p.m.) at 4730 Cove Road, Roanoke.
The Ferrises shared with me a recipe for their meat pies, which you can find in the column today. But since we’ve been talking about hamburgers a lot (DON’T FORGET to let me know if you have a favorite hamburger joint in Southwest Virginia!!!), I thought I’d share an interesting twist on the old favorite, in honor of the Ferrises.

Pictured: Top row, from left: Terri Ferris, Maureen McAllister, Yvonne Ferris, Renee Turk and Kristina Ferris. Bottom row, from left: Victoria Ferris, Morgan McAllister, Rachel Turk and Andrea Ferris.

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Check out the birthday card my boss made by hand and had all the co-workers sign. Isn’t it a hoot? Since my head has been superimposed over Gordon Ramsay’s head, I have very large arms and, as Seinfeld would say, “man hands.”
I love it.

If you’re looking for a place to eat dinner tonight, consider heading out to Three Lil’ Pigs in Daleville. They’re celebrating their fifth anniversary by offering free food to every fifth table. Here’s a little more info. Test your luck!

Also this weekend: Festival in the Park in Elmwood Park in Roanoke. Head out there for a variety of food and other activities. And if you’re from out of town, be sure to swing by the farmer’s market in downtown Roanoke and check out all the local products.

Finally, please don’t forget to chime in on the hamburger discussion we started yesterday. In case you missed it, the Texas Tavern has been named in a new book, “Hamburger America” by George Motz.

Do you agree with the TT’s inclusion? If not, where would you go to find the best hamburger in Southwest Virginia?

I’m taking Monday off. Thanks to all the soldiers and their families who have sacrificed for us. Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Photographer George Motz took an interesting tour around the country for his new book, “Hamburger America.”

There’s no telling how many patties on a bun he must’ve consumed to come up with the “state-by-state guide to 100 great burger joints.”

As with any food tour book, I’ve always got to find out right away whether any eateries in our neck of the woods made the list.

In this case, only one place made the list. And it’s the same place that makes just about every American road food book that hits the shelves.

Did you guess which restaurant it is? Don’t cheat! Hazard a guess before you click to the jump.

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Correction: The Spinach-Artichoke Casserole should’ve included one large clove of garlic and two green onion tops, minced and sauteed in a dab of olive oil. It makes all the difference in the world.

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I’ve been so busy cooking, eating and writing that I never even noticed when the Fridge Magnet’s first birthday came and went.

March 26 was the big day. Happy birthday to the Fridge Magnet blog!

Of course, I couldn’t have made this little blog into anything without all the wonderful comments and advice from readers. We have some very talented home cooks and chefs in Southwest Virginia and I’m happy to provide at least one place for socializing and sharing.

Some days have been better than others. While I’ve had my share of groggy Monday mornings with no motivation to write fresh, daily material on this blog (hence the random recipes), we’ve also fired up some great discussions on everything from buffalo wings to top restaurants to grilled cheese sandwiches.

One thing is certain: I’ve learned a heck of a lot from you guys. I hope you’ve learned as much from me and your fellow blog readers.

In honor of the one year anniversary, I’ll share a quick, easy, delicious side dish recipe that I created last night to go with some barbecued country-style pork ribs.

Did you cook up anything noteworthy this past weekend? If so, do share.

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I do like to talk about chain restaurants sometimes. But for the most part, I’m more interested in local establishments.
I receive tons of e-mails and press releases from the corporate guys, and I usually give them a polite scan before hitting “delete.” Today, though, a Carrabba’s spokeswoman sent me an e-mail that grabbed my attention.
That could be because the sender, Amelia Turner, opened by saying she grew up in Southwest Virginia. She had also checked out my column and my blog, which I think is nice. But it also has to do with the fact that Carrabba’s is sponsoring a contest, starting today, with a grand prize that includes a free trip to Las Vegas.
All you have to do is log on to the Carrabba’s Web site and write a love letter to your favorite food. Sounds bizarre, I know, but once you check out the site, you’ll see a few examples there. The contest starts today and runs through the end of March.
If I had to write a love letter to my favorite food, it would probably begin, “Dear Macaroni and Cheese, you are so creamy and delicious. But I love how you can sometimes be all crunchy on the outside…”
If y’all enter, good luck. If you win, I want a postcard from the Sin City.

The beautiful fruit tart you see pictured here was served to us at a dinner party on Saturday night. My friend would like for us to believe that she slaved over it herself, but it actually came from Fresh Market. But it still blew us all away with its gorgeous presentation.
And speaking of being blown away, I doubt if I’m the only one in Southwest Virginia who had my fabulous Sunday dinner plans ruined by power outages and other weather-related snafus.
We’re extremely lucky that we didn’t suffer anything more serious. But we had two beautiful filets in the refrigerator, some organic potatoes for baking, asparagus and the makings for a Caesar salad on hand when our power went out about noon yesterday.
A trip down the street confirmed the worst: that a neighbor’s entire pine tree had been uprooted and slung against a power line. We knew it would be a while before we regained the use of our stove, and hubby was not in the mood to fight the wind in an effort to grill up those steaks.
By the time power did come back on, all we had time to cook was a can of soup and a couple of sandwiches. We ate that in front of the gas fireplace and it hit the spot. But not quite like that filet mignon would have…

What supper plans did you lose out on because of the weather yesterday?

Most of the time when a restaurant attempts to master two entirely different styles of cooking at once, I am suspicious.
Take Circles, for example, a short-lived restaurant in Vinton, which served French, Italian and Thai food. I never made it out to Circles because it didn’t last long; the owner closed up shop to move downtown and open City Corner, the buffet-style joint beside Corned Beef & Company.
But just the idea of Italian food and Thai food coming out of the same kitchen baffles me. I don’t know why — they both come out of my kitchen. Just not on the same night.
Fast forward to now, when I actually find myself advocating that you guys try out a quirky little place on Williamson Road that turns out Latino and Italian food.
El Buen Gusto opened near Civic Mall within the past several months. It’s located in a nondescript little brick building that looks like it could have once housed a check cashing service or something.

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Just a reminder: I’m still collecting your recommendations for a list of the sparkliest food gems in Southwest Virginia. Whether it’s a terrific chef, a specific dish you cannot stop craving or a great stop for fresh, unusual ingredients, I want to know.
I’m putting the final list together for next week’s column. Thanks to everyone who already commented. Your great ideas can be seen here.

Okay, I realize it’s not exactly the same, but if Saveur can find 100 extraordinary food finds around the world every year, we should be able to list at least 25 of our favorite dishes, restaurants, markets, chefs and more here in Southwest Virginia.
I’ll go first. Here are five picks. Give me yours!

1. Carlos Brazilian’s Artichoke-Brie Soup.
2. El Palenque desserts (which are still available, in case you didn’t know.)
3. Southwest Virginia Farmer’s Markets. The fingerling potatoes! The heirloom tomatoes and beans! The tiny cabbages! The fresh peaches! The possibilities are endless.
4. Floyd County. Face it, they rate high in fine local food producers.
5. Roanoke- and Blacksburg- area ethnic markets. Must explore more.

Next Wednesday’s Front Burner column will have a rundown of the top food news from 2007. While I was preparing to write it, I jotted down a list of all the restaurants that have opened and closed around Roanoke during the past year.

The list was much longer than I thought (and way too long to print). Surprisingly, the list of eateries that opened was about twice as long as the “closed” list. So it seems that every time a restaurant closes around here, two more open to take its place.

Maybe this is why we’ve been lucky enough to see an increase in the diversity of cuisine around town. We have three Thai places, three Indian places, a Caribbean/Creole joint, three new barbecue eateries, a handful of sushi places and much more.

I’m sure I didn’t come close to thinking of every single restaurant that moved in or out of Southwest Virginia this year, and that’s where you come in. Tell me what I forgot. And while you’re at it, tell me which new restaurant you think is the best of the bunch! Or at least the most beautiful, or the most likely to succeed…

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Roanoke Times retail business reporter Jenny Kincaid Boone has started a new retail blog on this site called “The Storefront.” There, she will explore business openings and closings, shopping, trends and other retail-related news on a daily basis.
I am not mentioning this on the Fridge Magnet blog just to promote the work of a very talented reporter and friend. I think those of us who are interested in new restaurants in Southwest Virginia should keep an eye on Jenny’s blog for that kind of news. I try to keep an eye on restaurant openings and closings and my readers are good about passing along tips. But Jenny has been writing a retail column for The Roanoke Times for about 4 years now, so she often hears about a new restaurant even before I do.
Her latest entry, in fact, is about a new El Rodeo opening soon on Orange Avenue. Jenny explores the business angle of such restaurant news, but I would like to press my fellow foodies about what this means for us– can this area really handle another El Rodeo or El Toreo?

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