Green Kitchen

» This Lexington caterer is one of few in the world
to be certified green.

By KAREN DOSS BOWMAN

For Jenny Elmes, “green living” is second nature. The Lexington native was raised to compost, recycle and eat natural products. Nowadays, as owner of Full Circle Catering in her hometown, Elmes is sharing with her employees and her clients—and anyone else who will listen—the lessons her parents taught her about sustainable living.

“My family grew a garden and recycled and composted… and I thought everyone grew up like that, canning jam every year and making homemade bread,” Elmes says. “One of the reasons I started talking about the green things I do is so that people would see that they don’t have to be ‘hippies’ to be doing great things for the environment. Normal, everyday people can take steps to make the transition into a greener lifestyle.”

Hints of green living are apparent throughout Jenny Elmes’ commercial kitchen: energy-star appliances; compact fluorescent bulbs; organic foods stacked on a large utility shelf. In one corner, a pasta drying rack is used to dry out gallon-sized plastic storage bags, which will be reused instead of thrown into the trash. And Elmes frequently cleans the kitchen’s bright orange and yellow tiled floor with natural-based Seventh Generation cleaning products, except when state regulations require her occasionally to scrub with bleach and other antibacterial cleaners.

Simple Steps When describing the efforts she has made to save the planet, Elmes makes it clear that it’s no big deal. These are simple steps anyone can take to tread more lightly on the earth, she says.

“We in the U.S. are huge producers of waste and huge users of natural resources, and I think we need to be aware of it,” says Elmes, pointing out that Lexington’s landfill is projected to fill up and close by 2012.

“There are things we can’t help, but there are things we can do better in every day living, like going to the local farmer’s market and taking your own bag.”

Going green isn’t just a gimmick for Elmes. Not only does she personally compost, recycle and shop locally, she integrates these practices into her business model. If her clients don’t have an on-site composting system or recycling bins, for example, Elmes collects the waste in airtight, leak-proof bags and lugs it home to put in her recycling and compost bins. In a typical week, Elmes composts about 30 gallons of biodegradable waste, but during her busy seasons (during Christmas, for example), she may compost up to 15 gallons a day.

“I love that I can leave my job knowing that I have nourished folks with healthy, great tasting and artfully presented food that leaves a little footprint on the environment.”

Elmes’s environmental efforts have earned her certification as a “Virginia Green Restaurant” by the commonwealth’s Department of Environmental Quality. Additionally, she is one of four caterers in the world who has been designated as a Certified Green Restaurant from the Green Restaurant Association, a non-profit organization that helps restaurants to become environmentally sustainable.

‘Militant Recycling’ A Washington and Lee University alumna, Elmes donates prepared food that hasn’t been placed on a serving buffet to her alma mater’s chapter of The Campus Kitchens Project, a national organization dedicated to relieving hunger in college communities. The food is then donated to several local charitable organizations, including an after-school program and Habitat for Humanity. The food waste that can’t be donated goes to her compost bin and is collected regularly by Elmes’s next-door neighbors, owners of Paradox Farms, to feed their chickens, whose eggs are sold throughout the community.

Elmes, who has taught her 11-year-old son, Marley, to recycle and compost, gets visibly excited when describing how others have joined in her efforts to reduce waste and save resources. Last fall, for example, she catered a party for about 100 people and was thrilled with the results: a large bag of recycling and only one piece of trash.

“All of my employees are so nice to go along with my militant recycling,” Elmes says, laughing. “All of them recycle at home—a couple did not when they started working with me, but they do now. They have gotten really excited about it, and that’s 10 more people that are on the band wagon. Then you see that [all this effort] is completely worth it.”

» GREEN YOUR KITCHEN

You can get started with these simple steps:

Read the labels. Before buying a product at the grocery store be sure to read the label. If you don’t recognize the ingredients, you shouldn’t eat them.

Milk products. Buy organic, or at least purchase milk from cows who have not been treated with hormones (check the label).

Shop at the farmer’s market. There’s something special about being able to know personally the people who raise the meat, dairy products, fruits and vegetables you eat.  And by purchasing locally grown food, you lessen the impact of fossil fuels burned to ship food from far away—and you keep the local economy strong.

Buy recycled products when possible. From paper towels to trash bags, many kitchen products are available that are made from post-consumer waste.

Eliminate (or limit) chemical cleaners. The advent of the green movement means numerous environmentally friendly cleaning products are on the market. These products are not made with harsh chemicals and do not leave behind dangerous toxins. Two effective green cleaners probably are already in your pantry: baking soda and vinegar.

Recycle and compost. Many towns, including Elmes’ hometown of Lexington, offer curbside pickup service for recycling. Nothing could be easier.

— KDB

A Career Carved in Stone

» Malcolm Harlow’s work reflects an ancient artform.

BY KAREN DOSS BOWMAN

Long gone are the days when massive cathedrals and other buildings were adorned with ornate stonework. Most building decisions now are driven by the need for quick turnaround and a healthy bottom line. Even so, stone sculptor Malcolm Harlow of Berryville had the chance more than three decades ago to contribute an ancient art form to complete one of the nation’s historic spiritual centers: the Washington National Cathedral.

Harlow was hired as a journeyman stone carver in 1972 as part of a major construction project to complete the Nave and the cathedral’s west end. It was a plum job for the young artist, who worked for the next seven years alongside some of the world’s master carvers, designing and carving gargoyles and other gothic elements for the cathedral.

“I was very grateful because it was a great opportunity to do this [to enhance] not only my carving skills, but it gave me a chance to do design work as well,” says Harlow, who studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Schuler School of Fine Arts, both in Baltimore.

Though more than 30 years have passed since Harlow completed his work at the National Cathedral, he still has a small collection of tiny scale models of the gargoyles he designed.

Sporting his signature white terry Australian toweling hat, Harlow shows off his latest projects, including restoration of a marble tombstone dated 1845 and a 7-by-4-foot piece of granite he’s helping another aspiring carver transform into an abstract butterfly commissioned by the Howard Hughes Research Center in Leesburg. Often accompanied by his cat, Bruce—who isn’t bothered by the squeaking sounds of chisel against stone, the clink of hammer on chisel or the loud buzzing of compressed air tools—Harlow spends hours each day in his carving studio, an old tractor barn located on the 13-acre farm he owns with wife Gale.

How He Does It Stone sculpting is an ancient art dating back to prehistoric days. Though the fundamentals of the art form haven’t changed, the tools have seen some innovations since the era when Michelangelo carved “David” with a hammer and hand-forged chisel. The tips of modern chisels are tipped with a hard carbide that retains its sharp point for a longer time; compressed air tools help speed up the job.

Harlow begins the sculpting process with research, sketches and a clay study of his subject. Once he has perfected every detail on the clay model, Harlow casts a plaster model that will be used as a “copy” to produce the final version. This helps him avoid making mistakes on a pricey block or slab of stone. The sculpting begins with “roughing out” the figure with a hammer and large chisel. Next, Harlow begins chipping out the details—arms, hands, legs, feet, for example—with the aid of his “pointing machine,” an ancient measuring device for three-dimensional objects consisting of adjustable metal arms and pointers that allow him to reproduce, reduce or enlarge the object in proportion. Harlow uses his smaller, delicate tools to add texture and the finest details such as eyelashes and hair. At this point, Harlow says, “I’m basically carving dust.”

“One of the questions I often get asked is, which stone do I prefer to work with?” says Harlow, who learned about stone carving and the stone industry from his summer job at the Rullman and Wilson Stone Fabrication Mill in Baltimore. “But I don’t think in those terms. I think of each material—plaster, limestone, marble, granite—as a different language, and it’s my responsibility to adapt each language appropriate to the conditions of the [project].”

Harlow’s first major public monument was completed five years ago—the bronze sculpture of George Washington as a young surveyor, which stands next to Washington’s Office Museum in Winchester. He and Gale, also an artist, worked on a scale model of Josephine Street, circa 1930, for the city’s Josephine School Community Museum, completed last year.

Future Plans The Harlows’ farm, Opus Oaks, An Art Place, offers a studio art school, internships for high schoolers and 10 weeks of summer art camps. The couple also plans to open a museum and art gallery and to build a variety of structures for secluded artists’ retreats.

Juggling a variety of projects keeps Harlow’s interest high and allows him to move on to something new when he gets stuck creatively.

“I think of it like a garden,” Harlow says. “You plant vegetables at different times, and they all grow at different rates—some new ones become mature and you harvest them. You plant new ones while the old ones are going out.”

Touring Historical Treasures

Winchester Hosts Home Tours

by Karen Doss Bowman

More than 50 years after George Schember got his first set of lead toy soldiers as an adolescent, the Winchester resident’s collection of tiny warriors has grown to include more than 400 pieces with a distinctively global appeal. The models are painted to resemble infantries from all over the world, including Argentina, Greece, Great Britain and Russia. But a significant grouping of 100 soldiers features a slice of Shenandoah Valley history, representing Revolutionary War troops led by Winchester’s own Brigadier General Daniel Morgan.

Schember’s hand-crafted models symbolize the 2,000 American and British troops that fought the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina on January 17, 1781, considered to be a pivotal victory in the war. Morgan received a Congressional Medal in 1790 for his tactical genius in orchestrating the battle plans.

The Morgan corps and Schember’s other lead soldiers will be on public display during the first weekend of December, when Schember and his wife, Jeanne, join several of their neighbors on Amherst Street in offering Holiday Home Tours, sponsored by Preservation of Historic Winchester Inc. The couple lives in the Daniel Morgan House, where the rifleman lived from 1800 to 1802, when he died in an upstairs bedroom.

“The house is basically the same [as when it was built in 1786],”says Schember, noting that the home’s historic architectural features include “Winchester mantels,” Dutch elbow locks and the original red pine floors. “We’ve always shared our home—what’s the use of keeping this thing just to ourselves?”

This wasn’t Morgan’s only home in the Valley. For a while, he lived with his lover Abigail Curry (whom he later married) and their two daughters at “Soldier’s Rest” in Winchester. After the Battle at Cowpens, when Morgan retired from military service due to a painful case of sciatica, he built his Clarke County home, “Saratoga. The home was named for the war’s two victorious Battles of Saratoga, in which he was a key figure. In 1800, when Morgan’s health began to decline, he purchased the Amherst Street home to be close to his doctor and to his minister, Schember explains.

The Schembers have a number of Daniel Morgan artifacts, including a copy of the original Charles Willson Peale portrait of Daniel Morgan, which is part of the permanent collection at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. Close examination of the portrait reveals a scar on Morgan’s left cheek—the result of a bullet wound inflicted during the French and Indian War when Morgan served in the British army. The couple, who had never heard about Morgan when they moved into the house 14 years ago, have learned more about him through their collection of first-edition copies of books written about Daniel Morgan. Visitors who wander into their home during the Holiday Home Tours are bound to get an American history lesson.

History Preserved in Homes
The Daniel Morgan House is one of six historical homes on Amherst Street in Winchester that will be open for the Holiday Home Tours on Dec. 6 and 7. Another interesting collection on the tour will be found at the Catherine B. Conrad House, owned by Robert and Genevieve Boxley. About 20 years ago, they began collecting “pond boats,” miniature boats that were built as toys, but also have been used for racing. The couple’s collection of 150 of the boats includes sailboats, rubber-band-powered ships and tugboats.

About the Event

Saturday, Dec. 6, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Cost, $35. Includes a holiday party on S. Washington St.

Sunday, Dec. 7, 12 noon to 5 p.m. Cost, $15 advance; $20 day of tour.

Ticket sales locations include The Hexagon House, Kimberly’s, The Final Yard and Celebrate!

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