If you’re a Northern Virginia resident and looking for your next day trip out to the Virginia countryside, keep reading…

The two places where I have spent the most time in my life – Florida and Northern Virginia. (We will leave Georgia, Argentina, Pennsylvania, and Northern Spain aside for the time being). Both have the welcome benefit of being “agg states,” or states where agriculture flourishes almost year round. This, in concert with my mother’s perpetual distillation of food philosophy from the vapors of Florida coastal living, bred in me a deep appreciation and genuine curiosity for local agriculture, slow food movements, and organic farming. (I was, after all, raised on books like The Man Who Cooked For Himself and Ishmael). To this end, you all know I have a CSA and routinely patronize local establishments with a focus on procuring local, seasonal ingredients – produce, meat, and dairy alike. 

There are two places in particular in Northern Virginia that live into the #locallysourced theme extraordinarily well – one of those two is featured here today. 

The purveyors of Sumac, Northern Virginia’s newest local food pop-up kitchen in Sperryville, VA, are as down to earth as the stone fruits and cherries they are serving up this summer. Sumac (follow their Insta) was born from a love of local cooking.

Sumac is a spice grown in East Asia and Central Africa. A favorite flavor of mine, the Lebanese and Turkish have the most common varietals, the former a deep crimson, and the latter a lilac purple. As it turns out, Sumac grows in Northern Virginia as well. As the Sumac chef began planning his menus, it became apparent that a 100% local menu required some substitutions for common ingredients like oils, vinegars, and spices. Something that is not available in Northern Virginia is citrus, for which the sumac plant, with its citrus-y notes, became a viable substitute.