It is an odd time of year. The temperature has cooled slightly in Virginia, and in the digital world, a metaverse virus is teaching epidemiologists about the spread of disease.

Two weekends ago, while everyone I know was speedreading 759 pages of some tome, I set out in search of magic and culinary wizardry in Central Virginia. I had already been to the Charlottesville City Market, but I couldn’t find peaches to my liking, so I drove toward Henley’s…