Thanks for taking the time to open and read this newsletter. I've worked really hard at limiting the time to read this to under five minutes. I know how busy you are. Of course, you can spend all day following the links over to my blog and reading the articles, if you so choose.

We're shifting gears now getting ready for spring. The menu is tilting back to seafood now that it is both lighter and warmer, and we have some pretty creative dishes to unleash on the spring lunch menu, due out in the next couple of weeks.

We had a great write up in the March Virginia Living magazine; finally the word is starting to get out to the rest of the state! I really do like this magazine and have been a subscriber for years. Look for my ugly mug in your March edition.

A quick note on some other news: we will open for Easter Brunch, the restaurant is now up on Facebook, and my cookbook will be out this month.

Thanks for all your support! I hope to see each of you in the dining room soon,

Ed Matthews
Chef and Owner

An interesting benefit of this down economy is that because of lessened demand for products, I am able to find all kinds of wonderful products that I was unable to find at a reasonable price a year ago. There is literally more affordable variety on the market now than ever before. Prices of things such as ostrich, elk, wild boar, foraged wild items such as mushrooms, ramps, and nettles, and so forth are holding steady to decreasing. And I am buying. I'm making lemonade out of these lemons! Come taste some!

For the first time ever, we are opening on Easter Sunday for brunch on Sunday April 12th. I expect this event to sell out; it will most likely be reservation only. This is your advance notice that we start taking reservations on March 12th. We will not announce the event to the public until the 13th, so you will be able to get your reservations first. Menu, pricing, and seatings are all still TBD. I will post this information to the Events Page this week.

The rate of our Chef's Tastings has picked up dramatically in the past six months. These are multi-course extravaganzas where customers give us a budget and Brandon and I do our best to amaze them. Some of the dishes are a little edgy and experimental and often lead to dishes that go on subsequent dinner menus. These dinners are great outlets for our creative muses. Do you need to escape? Perhaps you just want to just come to dinner and let us pick what you eat? For more information, see our Chef's Table page. To book, call me at 540-662-1455 or email me at info@oneblockwest.com.

In the last year, we've seen a dramatic shift in the way our customers interact with us. We went from 15% of reservations for new bookings from the web in January 2008 to 85% in January 2009. Clearly, traditional media are playing a much smaller role in connecting us while new forms of social networking are playing a vastly larger role. So, One Block West is up on Facebook. Come join us and become a fan.

Some recent blogposts about wine that you might enjoy reading:

• House Wine, a foreign concept at One Block West.
• Petit Chablis, a good buy in this economy.
• Why am I the Bad Guy? BYOB in Virginia.

I only managed to post one recipe since the last newsletter—all the rest went into my forthcoming cookbook:

• Persimmons, a really great salsa recipe.

Many of you have been asking for some recipes from the restaurant and I have finally gotten my act together with a small volume on cooking with herbs. I have just finished my editing pass through the e-book and I have to say that it looks amazing and professional. The photoshoot was scheduled for last Friday. We need to put my revised text together with the new photos and after a final read through, we're done. The book should be up on the web site, on my blog, and on the restaurant Facebook page later this month. Look for it.

I'm cooking better now than ever; in fact, it seems painful to look back at menus from two and three years ago. I'm sure most chefs think the same thing. It is the relentless drive to learn and do new things that keeps us going. If you have a few minutes to spare and want to get a bit inside my head about how I am approaching food and menus currently, I put some thoughts down in a long post on my blog entitled An Eclectic Menu.

Of course, you could just come on down and we could chat in person! See you soon and thanks for all your support.