Author of Harvest, Chasing the White Dog, and Race Day. Occasional hack. Former regular at the Daily Beast. Former turf correspondent for the NY Sun.
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Articles by Max Watman
‘What Art Does’ Review: Brian Eno’s Mind at Play
The influential musician and producer ponders the nature of human creativity. Art—as a field of work and study and as a matter of qualitative rather than quantitative value—is threatened, misunderstood and undervalued. No doubt this is because art is not an obvious form of self-advancement—it doesn’t make you thinner or, except in very rare circumstances, richer. It does, however, improve you, and Brian Eno’s “What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory” explains how.
‘Observations of an Accidental Farmer-and a Mindful Reader’ Review: Lessons of the Land
After buying a small farm in North Carolina, Harry Kavros gets an education in the balance between man and nature. When Harry Kavros moved to North Carolina from New York City, where he’d been a dean at Fordham and Columbia (at which he taught the famous “LitHum” great books seminar), he bought a small farm and looked out upon the acreage, dreaming of managed landscapes.
Plan out your next trip to historic Mount Vernon
George Washington, a Founding Father and one of the most famous Virginians, left a trail of significant legacies, his Northern Virginia home among them. Mount Vernon, on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, is full of these notable treasures. Explore the mansion and the grounds; the estate offers in-depth tours, detailing the history behind the area, as well as a look into preservation efforts.
Best of Virginia
Each year, as we gear up for the annual Best of Virginia (BoV) issue, our statewide guide brimming with reader favorites—from restaurants to inns, music venues, breweries, and much, much more—our editorial team wades through mountains of category suggestions and reader feedback to fine-tune the survey for tens of thousands of voters. But for our 2023 BoV survey, we switched gears.
Grinding Grain on Virginia Granite
The artisanal lure of Deep Roots Milling. After nearly 200 years of operation, the water wheel at Woodson’s Mill in Nelson County is still turning. Water rises, falls, pushes the equipment of the old flour mill into motion, beginning a process that develops fine, fresh cornmeal and flour, ending with warm, fragrant loaves of bread on the kitchen table.
Grinding Grain on Virginia Granite
The artisanal lure of Deep Roots Milling. After nearly 200 years of operation, the water wheel at Woodson’s Mill in Nelson County is still turning. Water rises, falls, pushes the equipment of the old flour mill into motion, beginning a process that develops fine, fresh cornmeal and flour, ending with warm, fragrant loaves of bread on the kitchen table.
‘My Life in Recipes’ Review: Joan Nathan’s Meals and Memories
In the introduction to her landmark 1994 cookbook, “Jewish Cooking in America,” Joan Nathan wrote that “like many other immigrants, Jews went through several stages in the preservation and adaptation of their culinary culture. The first generation brought the traditions of the past with them.
‘The Age of Deer’ Review: Neighbors With Antlers
Early on in Erika Howsare’s “The Age of Deer,” a wide-ranging and deeply intelligent investigation that hunts (literally and figuratively) for the nature of our relationship with deer, the author orders half a dozen back issues of the Bulletin of Primitive Technology.
’The Book of Cocktail Ratios’ Review: Math Meets Mixology
‘I love the act of mixing a cocktail in a decorative beaker with a long bar spoon,” Michael Ruhlman writes in his latest brief book. “As one bartender told me, part of the pleasure of a cocktail is thinking about it as you make it.” That’s exactly right, I think—for bartenders and devoted home bartenders, part of the pleasure is in the ritual and the anticipation.
Seasons' Yield Bread Days
Seasons’ Yield is in the milling business, and grinding flour and grains onsite is what helps create extra-special baked goods that get snatched up every other Saturday at Bread Day. Folks in the know can’t get enough. Customers from all over flock to buy their $8.50 loaves—nearly four times the average cost of a loaf. But the Shears—the husband and wife team behind Seasons’ Yield—can barely keep up with demand. They say their secret is simple: stone-milled flour.
‘The Dish’ Review: I’ll Have What He’s Having
Midway through Andrew Friedman’s “The Dish,” the author visits the packing facility of Nichols Farm in Marengo, Ill., at 3:30 a.m. “The sky above may be dark as squid ink,” he tells us, “but here the business day is well underway.” On the loading dock, he watches as restaurant delivery specialist Marc Hoffmeister loads the refrigerated 16-foot cargo box of a Chevy Express 4500—peaches, corn, delicate greens, cherry tomatoes.
Dairy Farms and the New Agritourism
Eric Paulson, a self-proclaimed “key lime guy,” takes his job seriously. “I’m professionally obligated to eat ice cream if I see it,” he says. As executive director of the Virginia State Dairymen’s Association, Paulson’s tasted plenty of flavors you won’t find in grocery stores. Think Salty Monkey, Mexican Hot Chocolate, Olive Oil, Squid Ink—even Tomato. Ice cream makes a compelling case for a dairy farm visit, he notes.
Dairy Farms and the New Agritourism
Eric Paulson, a self-proclaimed “key lime guy,” takes his job seriously. “I’m professionally obligated to eat ice cream if I see it,” he says. As executive director of the Virginia State Dairymen’s Association, Paulson’s tasted plenty of flavors you won’t find in grocery stores. Think Salty Monkey, Mexican Hot Chocolate, Olive Oil, Squid Ink—even Tomato. Ice cream makes a compelling case for a dairy farm visit, he notes.
Max Watman
Browse Topics Currently, there is no content with this tag. Loading... By Max Watman Subscribe to Virginia Living to explore the Commonwealth! View more Most Popular In another life, I’d like to be Jeffrey, the husband of Ina Garten. His only job, it appears, is to turn up for lunch, raise a glass to his Barefoot Contessa. Read more Food At Clever Beast Botanicals, beverage creators Carlene and Chris Thomas use “cast-off” botanicals to create a sparkling cocktail wine called Tomato Vine Spritz.
‘Isaac Murphy’ Review: The Race of His Life
Late in his career, esteemed turf writer John Hervey mused over the greatest horses he’d seen. His life bridged the 19th and 20th centuries, and he had watched Man o’ War run, which seems like a natural choice for the top spot, but he reached back further and claimed that the greatest of all was a horse called Salvator. The horse was certainly impressive: Salvator held the speed record for a mile for decades. He won 16 of his 19 starts.
20 Years of Oysters
A lucky break helped put the Croxtons’ Rappahannock Oyster Co. on the map. Consider the oysterman: Ryan Croxton, who co-owns Rappahannock Oyster Co. with his cousin Travis, is a man quick to smile, with tousled hair, and a squint that recalls generations of Croxtons looking out over sun-dappled water. His ancestors left England to settle the shores of the Rappahannock River in the 1670s.
‘The Fast Ride’ Review: A Spectacular Disaster at the Track
What can be fascinating about horse racing is the way many different plot threads intertwine over the course of one quick race like the Belmont Stakes. The past performances of the horses are knit into the stories told by their bloodlines and connections, which, in turn, tie to the history of the track—a bizarre combination of agriculture, hospitality, and the industry of spectacle (as well as gambling, of course).
The Easiest Way to Upgrade Your Cooking? Gourmet Condiments
Years ago I went to Avery Island to tour the Tabasco factory. The experience filled me with a lifelong admiration for the craft and the process by which the iconic hot sauce is produced. The first stop on the tour at the time was a little movie. You’ve been through this: the odd plunge into fifteen minutes of darkness in the middle of the day, the amphitheater of risers wrapped in rough gray carpet, the strangely dislocated voiceover.
Yes, Heavy-Metal Band GWAR Has a Rye Whiskey and It’s Good
When I was in the first half of my twenties I lived in Richmond, Virginia, where I was finishing college at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and cooking on the line at The Village Cafe. I have never known another place like The Village. The booths were filled with tattoo artists, professors, hustlers—it was a Lou Reed song come to life in the South. It’s hot in Richmond, and The Village was aggressively air conditioned.
The Four Cookbooks That Got Me Out of My Pandemic Cooking Rut
Sometime last year, I riffed on the Korean soft tofu and kimchi stew called kimchi soondubu, and found a dish that I loved. It was quick and comforting, and we ate it a lot, probably once a week, and then we snapped. We didn’t need any more of that dish. It’s over. Coming into the end of an extended year of what was, for most of us, relentless cooking, even the most enthusiastic cooks have worn down some grooves.
‘I Got the Horse Right Here’ Review: Racing With Runyon
Damon Runyon wrote his first piece about horse racing in 1922, and led with an anecdote about boxing. Jim Reisler, the editor of a new collection of Runyon’s work as a turf hack, suggests that perhaps he was nervous, and so fell back upon that which he knew. I’m sure Mr. Reisler is right. Yet Runyon was bringing to the typewriter his own particular sensibility, in which heroes and villains were not isolated characters reducible to their roles.
How the Black Creators of Barbecue Were Erased From History
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beat/University of North Carolina Press Who doesn’t love a book with more than one index entry for possum? Two hundred of them were cooked at an Oklahoma City bash in 1923, along with 5,000 chickens, 10 bears, 500 beef cattle, 5 tons of coffee, etc. These are but some of the many fascinating facts in Adrian Miller’s new book Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue.
My New Favorite Way to Turn Citrus into Winter Drinks
Winter citrus is a small, affordable luxury. Citrus brings a burst of sun-filled energy and a taste of warmer climates to the dreariest of winter days. It only seems right that the coldest months are the best ones for buying citrus fruits. Every batch of groceries I now purchase usually includes a bag or a box of clementines. In the bleakest months, my family seems to live off of those small, sweet yet tart, thin-skinned mandarins, as well as the occasional blood orange, kumquat and grapefruit.
Try the Bronx Hot Sauce Supporting Community Gardens
John Crotty was looking for a building in the Bronx for his affordable housing development organization when by chance he spotted an empty lot with southern exposure. In a flash, he saw his future. “What’s going on with that space over there?” Crotty thought to himself. He immediately knew the trash strewn plot was perfect for a community garden. His next thought was about what they could possibly grow there.
Start Your New Year Right With a Pot of Black-Eyed Peas Original
In a small way, 2020 was the year of the bean. So it seems both strange and fitting that today, the first day of 2021, my family will eat a bowl of black-eyed peas over rice with a side of greens, like we do every New Year’s Day. Back in March or April of 2020, I, like so many, shored up my larder with a pile of beans.
Grilling Up Your Thanksgiving Dinner
For 17 years, Sarah Josepha Hale wrote to presidents—five of them!— hoping to convince one that the New England harvest festival called Thanksgiving might be nationalized and made into an official holiday.
Can the Ghost Pepper Save Halloween? Original
Some hot peppers have deceptively genteel names, like the Scotch bonnet, while others are more explicit about their fiery nature, like the Carolina Reaper. In the early 1990s, hot sauce production/chili pepper enthusiasm spiked, and suddenly a subculture of specialty shops and newsletters blossomed. Heat fanatics were soon bragging about their collections and even regular supermarkets began stocking an impressive assortment of these new products.
Zen & the Art of Cooking Whole Hogs with Chef Rodney Scott Original
I have been lucky enough in my life to have cooked three whole hogs. Two of which, in all fairness, were mostly cooked by the time I arrived on the scene and were someone else’s responsibility—I was just there for the homestretch and to help butcher the meat. On the third, I was a full-fledged member of the team and what I learned in the process is that cooking a whole hog is…is a lot… First of all, it takes an unbelievable amount of wood.
Forget Ketchup & Mustard: My New Obsession is Chicken Sauce
I’m not ashamed to admit this, but I’m currently obsessed with Sweet Baby Ray’s Chicken Sauce. Okay, maybe I’m a little ashamed. I’m not really a dip guy. My condiments tend towards fiery or fermented. I’m into nuoc cham, not honey mustard. So what does this magical concoction taste like anyway? Chicken sauce is tangy and smoky and sweet. Kind of like a mix of barbecue sauce, mustard and mayonnaise. It’s close to the sauce that comes on a Shake Shack burger, but with more mustard and more smoke.
Jacques Pépin Needs Your Help in the Kitchen
Jacques Pépin, who likely needs no introduction—let’s just say he’s one of the most accomplished and inspiring French cooks and educators to have ever rolled an omelet from a pan—is also an accomplished painter. His paintings are sunny, happy and funny in a way that perfectly reflects Pépin himself—radiating a hospitality that is rooted in kindness. The paintings are loose and bright, and they often depict cheery bowls of fruit and portraits of dignified chickens.
The Best Kept Secret to Rum Cocktails
Any drinker worth the ice in his or her shaker will, over time, amass a rather daunting collection of nearly-empty bottles that contain a bit too much for a shot but a bit too little for a round of cocktails. These bottles clutter up the liquor cabinet and make you feel like a lush hoarder. I’ve tried having parties where I put out all these leftovers, but the joke wears thin during the first round. People seem to resent dearth and plentitude presented at once.
For the Love of Mayo
I’ve listened to New Yorkers drone on about the abysmal quality of the bagels sold beyond the five boroughs. I’ve heard the ravings of transplanted Texans about the failings of barbecue outside of the Lone Star State. And forget about asking folks from San Francisco about burritos made anywhere but the Mission. While these opinions are well known and are now almost clichés, I’d argue the loyalty to mayonnaise brands, specifically to Duke’s Mayonnaise, runs as deep, if not deeper.
Bill Buford’s New Book ‘Dirt’ Changed How I Cook
Right in the middle of Bill Buford’s recently published book Dirt, I came across something I think might irrevocably change my life—in fact, change all of our lives. Not in a tremendous, Earth-shattering, I-found-the-coronavirus-vaccine way, but in a daily, almost pedestrian way. Before we get to that, some context about Buford.
Lessons from the Virtual Bar
A great many people have done heroic and selfless things in response to the novel coronavirus epidemic. A few have done stupid and selfish things. I can’t say I did the first and I hope I didn’t do the second. What I did do is what I know how to do, and that’s show people how to mix drinks.
Make the Most Out of Your Pantry with These Cookbooks
My apartment doesn’t have a pantry. Instead, I invested in some cabinets to hold everything that doesn’t belong in the fridge or freezer, from flour to popcorn. The pantry can be a magical place of inspiration, but it can also feel like you’re staring into the abyss. It can be paralyzing, even when you have a well-stocked one.
Cooking Through the South’s Past, Present & Future
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” The most quotable, perhaps the only quotable thing William Faulkner ever wrote, gets plucked from the sea of lengthy sentences, neologisms, and rippling complexity because it is succinct and it bends to the needs of those who use it—as it will here. It resonates with the whole South, a region that is forever wrestling with history and identity. The South isn’t the South. It’s not even a place.
Michael Ruhlman’s “From Scratch,” is the New Must-Have Cookbook
You know that dinner-party game where you’re supposed to choose your last meal? I used to stretch out like Orson Welles: “I’d start with oysters, six fine de claire, six tumbled oysters from the West Coast, and six Rappahannocks, with a glass of Krug Champagne. Then a dish of blue crab run under a broiler with butter and a couple slices of aged steak, served with an old sauterne. I want to tear off a hunk of a perfect baguette and smear it with foie gras.
Down the Thunder Road
From the Revolution until at least the 1950s, whiskey-making was simply smart farming. Whiskey and taxes, locals have long felt, mix none too well. An excise tax provoked the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion.
This Christmas You Need to Drink Eggnog Like Charles Mingus
I admit it, I love Eggnog. But every year, I have just about 60 days to drink the creamy concoction. Eggnog season, which runs from November 1 to December 30, isn’t after all flexible. Can you imagine how weird it would be, in fact, to be offered a glass of it in, say, March? Since its appearance on the metaphorical bar cart is so fleeting, I think it deserves your attention. It also deserves to be made from scratch.
The Tater Tot Revolution
Chef Brittanny Anderson is scared. She’s standing at the pass in her Richmond, Virginia, restaurant Metzger Bar and Butchery, the point where the line cooks deliver plates to the expeditors who add the final garnishes before the dishes are delivered to the tables. Anderson is the last line of quality control before a guest digs in. The plates that she sends out are clean, arranged. She’s not a tweezer food person, but her game is tight.
‘Unbreakable’ Review: Clearing Obstacles
The whole point of a challenge is that it be achievable. Unsolvable puzzles and unwinnable games are of no interest to anyone. No one would watch a foot race in which the hurdles were set at 7 feet. What would be the point? The 19th-century designers of the race called the Velká Pardubická came close to designing an impossible steeplechase, journalist Richard Askwith concludes in a book that is as much a story of the race itself as it is a biography of the only woman ever to have won it.
How Climate Change Is Helping British Bubbly to Rival Champagne
This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. If I were a French winemaker and someone called me up and asked if I’d like to put my bottles up against a dark horse in a public tasting I’d balk. You can’t blame me given the results of the so-called Judgment of Paris, where California wines trounced French ones in 1976 and, in the process, introduced America’s nascent wine industry to the world.
Our New Favorite Snack: Quail Eggs
Deviled eggs are wonderful. I love the standard issue recipe, and I love topping them with a pyramid of fish eggs, crumbled pork rinds, bits of chicken skin, shards of country ham, or a smoked oyster. However, if I may be so bold, I have found two small problems with deviled eggs. If you grab one every time you walk across a room at a dinner party, you will have eaten an omelette’s worth of eggs before sitting down for the meal. Furthermore: the perfect hors d’oeuvre is a single bite.
Our New Favorite Snack: Quail Eggs
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Shutterstock Deviled eggs are wonderful. I love the standard issue recipe, and I love topping them with a pyramid of fish eggs, crumbled pork rinds, bits of chicken skin, shards of country ham, or a smoked oyster. However, if I may be so bold, I have found two small problems with deviled eggs. If you grab one every time you walk across a room at a dinner party, you will have eaten an omelette’s worth of eggs before sitting down for the meal.
Okra Haters: You Need to Get Past the Slime
No matter how adventurous the eater, there is always something he or she just can’t tolerate. While I’m not quite Andrew Zimmern, there are only a couple of things that I don’t ever want to eat and they’re pretty pedestrian: zucchini and chopped liver. Often enough, I’ve found that culinary opposition is based on a past mistake or on ungrounded suspicion. Many people I’ve met who proclaim that they don’t like sushi usually have never actually tried it.
‘In Pursuit of Flavor’ by Edna Lewis Is Still Required Reading
Years ago, when I was a restaurant line cook who sometimes took college classes, I visited a friend at her mother’s house in Virginia. Her mom was an enthusiastic cook and a gracious host. She happily showed me around her kitchen, and we talked about food. There was a pressure cooker on the stove, and I asked what was in it. Green beans, she answered. I was about 20 and good cooking was, to my mind, a Francophilic thing, done à la minute, grill and garnish, all things al dente.
New Cookbooks to Discover, and Two Classics to Celebrate
Spring and summer cookbooks are different from their fall and winter siblings, the big-name ones who get all the airtime. The authors’ names might be new, but their voices are strong and independent.
High Wire Distillery in Charleston, South Carolina, Thinks the Future of Bourbon Is Heritage Grains
New Southern Revival Straight Bourbon from High Wire Distillery in Charleston, South Carolina, is made from a mash consisting only of Jimmy Red Corn. It’s an old hooch corn, with beautiful, ragged runs of kernels that vary from fire orange to a deep, purplish red. It’s named after James Island, South Carolina, where it was grown for decades and almost drifted off into extinction.
Duck Decoys, Hot Mustard & Celebrity Chefs: Welcome to the Southeastern Wildlife Expo
In an exhibit hall at the Gaillard Center in Charleston—a ballroom sectioned into corridors by folding tables, cheered up by extravagant backdrops—I stood near the giraffe paintings, but I was eyeing the shotguns at Westley Richards. A beautiful wooden display box held a seductive blued steel barrel with high-polished walnut stock complete with intricate filigree. Even from across the room, I knew it was out of my league (and price range), but I wanted a closer look.
‘Hotbox’ Review: Prepping the Fiesta
Catering, like psychiatric medicine, is most effective when unobtrusive. “You measure a party’s success, ultimately, by how much it focuses attention on the enjoyment of celebrants and guests, by its apparent effortlessness,” write Matt and Ted Lee in their new book.
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