Jared Walden makes a pizza at Fire & Frost at Wintergreen Resort on Jan. 19. Walden built the wood-fired pizza oven at the former DeVine Cafe building.
Paige Dingler photos, The News & Advance
Jared Walden makes a pizza at Fire & Frost at Wintergreen Resort on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023.
Paige Dingler photos, Nelson County Times
Owners Ellen and Jared Walden at Fire & Frost at Wintergreen Resort on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023.
Paige Dingler, Nelson County Times
Fire & Frost at Wintergreen Resort on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023.
The centerpiece of the new Wintergreen restaurant Fire & Frost is an enormous wood-fired pizza oven behind the service counter. It’s a functional work of art, decorated with shards of orange, gray and green tile that spell out the eatery’s logo on one side.
A pizza sits in the wood-fired oven at Fire & Frost at Wintergreen Resort on Jan. 19.
Paige Dingler, The News & Advance
Anyone going to buy a dozen eggs these days will have to be ready to pay up because the lingering bird flu outbreak, combined with soaring feed, fuel and labor costs, has led to prices more than doubling over the past year. The price of a dozen eggs hit $3.59 per dozen in November, up from $1.72 a year earlier, according to the latest government data, putting stress on consumer budgets and the bottom line of businesses that rely heavily on eggs. Grocery prices that were up 12% continue to drive inflation higher even though the overall pace of price increases slowed a bit through the fall. But egg prices are up significantly more than other foods — even more than chicken or turkey — because egg farmers were hit harder by the bird flu. More than 43 million of the 58 million birds slaughtered over the past year to control the virus have been egg-laying chickens. Purdue University agricultural economist Jayson Lusk said he believes the bird flu outbreak is the biggest driver in the price increases. Unlike past years, the virus lingered throughout the summer and made a resurgence last fall when it resumed infecting egg and poultry farms. The CEO of the American Egg Board trade group, Emily Metz, said she believes all the cost increases farmers have faced in the past year were a bigger factor in the price increases than bird flu.
Jared Walden makes a pizza at Fire & Frost at Wintergreen Resort on Jan. 19. Walden built the wood-fired pizza oven at the former DeVine Cafe building.
