Plum Granny Farm: Old Land, New Passion
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim When Cheryl Ferguson graduated from South Stokes High School back in the mid 1970’s, chances are she wasn’t planning on returning to her family’s King homestead farm to live as an adult and become a USDA Certified Organic small family farmer. But that’s exactly what she did. The land, now called […]
Would You Order Livermush at a Classic Family Diner?
by Ray Linville Want to step back in time and explore early food traditions of our state? Then stop at a family-owned diner that has been in business for more than 50 years. When you do, expect to find items on the menu that link back to days long ago. The menu boards immediately caught […]
Van Loi II. Heaven.
by Evan Hatch My parents used to live in Graham, North Carolina. The burgs of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Durham were cultural destinations. Only 20 minutes down the road were concerts, exotic food, funky places to drop money, a better selection of cheeses. In July, 2014, my parents moved to Whitsett, North Carolina. Only 20 […]
Mobile Food for the Literati
By Ray Linville Where do you go for food when you’re at a literary festival on a weekend and the places open on weekdays are closed? When the N.C. Literary Festival was held this year in Raleigh, the answers to feed the hungry public were food trucks. The festival drew thousands to author readings and […]
A Different Taste of Life
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim Recently, I was able to participate in a Burmese feast. Students and others brought dishes representing the rich cuisine of the Burmese people. I delighted in the best sticky rice I have ever eaten, enjoyed sugary potatoes, drank something I think was coconut based, and consumed foods with layered textures. This […]
Learning About Cheese Making (and Feeding a Baby Goat)
by Ray Linville To watch cheese being made, taste some artisan cheese samples, and take home a package or two, I headed to the Blue Ridge area of our state to travel part of the Western North Carolina Cheese Trail. Little did I expect to be bottle-feeding a day-old baby goat. Within minutes after arriving […]
Halgo
by Deborah Miller (with tasty comments from Joy Salyers) Joy surely wasn’t looking for a European Deli and Grocery while Googling (it’s a word now, right?) for something else. It was one of those happy accidents. From the corner came “Deborah! We’ve got to go here!” and I knew there was another adventure in our […]
My Grandmother’s Garden
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim It’s a shame I have such clean hands. I really miss them being dirty, real dirty, so dirty I have to wash them with the garden hose even before going inside to wash them again and again until my fingernails are discovered under layers of dirt. Dirty hands came easily as […]
The Past Becomes a Present
by Deborah Miller I hit my early 30’s with a couple of significant, but soon to be important, strangers in my how-fast-can-I-run life. One was my second husband, who I hadn’t quite met yet, the other was my kitchen where I mostly kept the beer cold, the coffee hot, and stashed take-out as I hurried […]
Mountain Trout Is N.C. Good
by Ray Linville Imagine fishing in a fast-flowing, rocky mountain stream and reeling in trout for dinner. Such experiences have always been part of the food culture in the Blue Ridge region, whether for the Cherokee with prehistoric ties to its hills and streams or the families who settled there after the Trail of Tears […]
The Queen of Clean Goes Sanitary
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim In my 1941 first edition of Jonathan Daniels’ book, Tar Heels: A Portrait of North Carolina, I read with delight his sentence in the ‘Frying Pan and Jug’ chapter, “North Carolinians don’t eat out unless they have to.” This was the case in my house while growing up. We never ate […]
Exploring Ramps
by Laura Fieselman I had the great pleasure of joining friends for a weekend near the Carolina-Virginia line in early May. One of these friends happens to be a forester by training and she offered us a very special gift while we were there: “I know a patch of ramps,” she said. “Want to go?” […]
Snak Shak
by Evan Hatch How much do we love collard sandwiches here in North Carolina? So much so that we’ve featured several posts over the years from Jefferson Currie II and Ray Linville, each singing their juicy, fat-back laced praises. In this case, more is more. ~Deborah Miller, Editor, NC FOOD At the intersection of NC […]
Lessons From the Churn
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim The young boy at the ice cream store eagerly requested a large portion of ice cream on a fancy waffle cone. His mother said he could get a small cone, not the large one he requested. After a few minutes of whining, the mother relented and gave him the double scooped […]
J&G Bar-B-Que
by Evan Hatch Just one more addition to our month-long celebration of North Carolina Barbecue! We couldn’t resist Evan’s eulogy to his favorite barbecue memory. ~Deborah Miller, Editor, NCFood. This love letter is long late. J & G Barbecue, formerly of Haw River, North Carolina has left this earth. On December 22nd, 2012, after two […]
Foods Made in N.C. Often Continue Family Traditions
by Ray Linville Have you ever wandered through a festival that showcases the best flavors and tastes of North Carolina? Imagine attending an event that highlights the best of N.C. agriculture and celebrates specialty foods made in our state. The three-day, family-friendly Got to Be NC Festival held each May at the State Fairgrounds in […]
THE Perfect Plate of Barbecue, Round II
by Deborah Miller Two weeks ago, Elijah Gaddis fired up a plate for debate in celebration of National BBQ Month! We asked you what would make up YOUR perfect plate of barbecue, including sides — and from where? To all of you who responded, thank you. Here’s what you all had to say: Joe S: […]
THE Perfect Plate of Barbecue
by Elijah Gaddis Somewhere high on my list of favorite conversations is the one about a favorite plate of barbecue. It’s kind of like picking a fantasy team, I imagine. You dream up some alternative world where somehow your favorite meat, fried corn product, slaw, and those all too rare sides could somehow coexist on […]
A Taste of Home, One Memory at a Time
by Deborah Miller Mother’s Day is bittersweet. For all intents and purposes, I’ve already lost my Mom. She is 5 years into dementia and no longer remembers who I am. She imagines she loves me. She even says so sometimes, just like she tells everyone she encounters from staff to stranger. She used to hug […]
A Valentine’s Day Tea Party
By Laura Fieselman The women in my family cultivate an aesthetic at the dining table that calls into question even the best decorating and food magazines. Name an occasion and serving bowls surface from hidden cupboards, table linens appear from closets in the back of the house, and flatware arrives from drawers I’ve never seen. […]
Pounds of Love
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingam It wasn’t that I hadn’t ever eaten pound cake before, I had. Mama Dunlap made a wonderful pound cake, rich with a touch of lemon. She had it on top of the pie stand in case a visitor came by and was hungry for a bite to eat. No, what made […]
Doug’s Café – the “neatest” little restaurant serving the best BBQ in Andrews, NC
by Ronda Birtha And not, “neat” as in tidy – although it certainly is the cleanest “grease” truck I’ve ever seen (co-owner Doug Lawhon boasts about the café’s 99.5 sanitation rating). But “neat” as in “good food, and trendy,” as in, “the BEST barbecue I have ever had,” according to my friend Alice who asked […]
Asparagus – Shoots and Roots
by Joy Salyers My friend (and amazing artist) Jessica Clark posted this pic on Facebook Tuesday. While she was rejoicing in it finally being the time of year when your nails are dirty for all the right reasons and things are sprouting, when I saw the beautiful asparagus spear, what I thought of was not […]
Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner!
by Deborah Miller Daddy was a traveling salesman. As regional sales director for Blue Cross/Blue Shield in the late 50’s/early ‘60’s, he drove all over North Carolina trying to sign up companies for a new plan called “group insurance.” He was gone a lot, and often late for dinner, but he was still the guy […]