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by David Cecelski Last week, on her 81st birthday, Mrs. Wanda Willis made a big pot of her famous stew beef and rutabagas with cornmeal dumplings. She lives on HarkersIsland and she made it for a lunch gathering at the island’s CoreSoundWaterfowlMuseum andHeritageCenter. She’s part of a hardworking crew of the museum’s volunteers who can whip up a few hundred […]

by David Cecelski When I was driving through eastern North Carolina today, I had a come-to-the-altar experience at a little barbecue shack inGreeneCounty. It’s called Jason Grill & BBQ and it’s in the tiny community of Jason on a very rural stretch of NC 903 between Snow Hill and La Grange. The Jason Grill doesn’t look like much. […]

by David Cecelski This is a recipe for a kind of venison stew that is popular in hunting camps from the Roanoke River bottomlands to the Great Smoky Mountains.   Ingredients   2 lb. venison 1/2 lb. kielbasa, sliced 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil ½ cup chopped onion ¾ cup chopped celery 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 […]

by David Cecelski Today Mexican and Central American immigrants here in Durham have been celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany. In Christian tradition, Epiphany, or Día de Reyes (Day of Kings), is the day that the three Magi, or Wise Men, reached Bethlehem and first paid homage to the infant Jesus. Epiphany is one of the most important days […]

by David Cecelski I was driving on a very rural stretch of NC 181 when I came to a little Mennonite settlement between Vanceboro and Grifton. As I understand it, approximately 40 Mennonite families have made their homes in that part of CravenCounty. They have established a church, a school, and a general store that carries […]

by David Cecelski This is a photograph of what’s left of the state’s last menhaden factory. It’s on Lennoxville Road in Beaufort and it closed five years ago. The demise of Beaufort Fisheries has left a lot of people inCarteretCounty, including me, with a Christmastime craving that we can’t satisfy any longer. Elsewhere, people probably don’t miss […]

by David Cecelski First established in 1927, Hux Grocery in Rocky Mount is a shrine to chitterlings. Preparing, cleaning, and cooking pig intestines is just about all this little store does in a big way. The sign painted on the brick wall next to the parking lot says it all: “Hux Grocery—the Chitterling Capital.” You can buy […]

by David Cecelski When my sister and my brother-in-law arrived yesterday, I had the chicken broth ready for them. Following my brother-in-law’s instructions, I had boiled a chicken with onions, garlic, carrots, and cilantro. As soon as he took off his coat, he removed the chicken from the pot, put it in the oven to […]

by David Cecelski I was picking up pecans in our front yard this morning and I got to thinking about the old trees that dropped them. My grandfather planted those trees when he was a young man in the late 1910s or early ‘20s, soon after he returned from the First World War. They’ve been […]

by David Cecelski Around dusk last night, when I got out of the Black River swamps, the only place I could find a hot meal within 15 or 20 miles was Tienda y Restaurante Doña Mary, a Mexican store, pool room, and café at the corner of US 210 and US 701. From the outside […]

by David Cecelski Julia’s Talley House is an old and much-loved restaurant in the little town of Troutman. I stopped there for the first time when I was in IredellCounty the other day and now I understand why it’s so popular. It offers good old-fashioned Southern fare for one thing—fried chicken, country ham, chicken and pastry, country fried […]

by David Cecelski Durham ’s Latino bakeries were filled today with the aroma of anise seed, the traditional flavoring for pan de muerto, the bread of the dead. They are getting ready for the Day of the Dead—El Dia de los Muertos— and anticipating shoppers looking for the sweet egg bread that has been part of the holiday […]

by David Cecelski The other day I was driving through Enfield, a small town 25 miles north of Rocky Mount, when I saw a sign for “Aunt Ruby’s Peanuts.” I had a little time to spare, so I made a quick turn off NC-581 and found the A&B Milling Company’s office, warehouse, and retail shop at the […]

by David Cecelski A hot meal isn’t easy to find near the Great Dismal Swamp if you don’t know your way around the back roads of Camden, Pasquotank, and GatesCounty. It’s wild, remote country, with only a few villages anywhere nearby. Fortunately, I got help from a crowd of rangers and swamp rats at the Dismal SwampCanalVisitorCenterwhen I […]

by David Cecelski For a quiet country place, the little farming community of MillBridgeholds all kinds of interest. The other day I passed through there on the Mooresville Road west of Salisbury, in RowanCounty. It’s beautiful countryside—golden fields of soybeans, green pastureland, and meadows full of goldenrod and sunflowers. Weary of driving, I paused to look around and really fell […]

by David Cecelski Yesterday I was in HalifaxCounty and had dinner at one of my favorite country-cooking restaurants, the Resettlement Café in Tillery. This wonderful little establishment is located all by itself deep in the country, close by the Roanoke River, and surrounded by great fields of sweet potatoes, cotton and soybeans. The proprietor, Ms. Evangeline, runs the […]

      by David Cecelski I put up 5 quarts of muscadine grape-hull preserves yesterday. My daughter and I picked the grapes from a vine that my grandfather planted in the 1930s. I picked on the side of the arbor near the chicken coop, she picked on the side near the barn. She sang […]

by  David Cecelski You can tell the shrimp are running Down East. My daughter and I drove from our farm to HarkersIsland yesterday, which is only 20 miles, and everywhere we looked there were signs for fresh shrimp—in front of fishermen’s homes, little roadside stands, and fish markets. Other roadside signs announced community fundraising suppers featuring fried […]

by David Cecelski When I was in downtown Raleigh today, I had lunch with an old college friend at the farmers market that’s held every Wednesday in Moore Square. I hadn’t been there before, but I really enjoyed seeing a market in the middle of a busy city. The market is held in the shade of old oaks […]

by David Cecelski Yesterday my daughter and I kept her godfather company while he cooked a pig. We found Tim in a field by the railroad tracks. Bathed in sweat and smoke, he was shoveling fresh coals into a heavy cast-iron cooker. The air smelled of hickory wood burning, pig cooking, vinegar and red pepper. […]

by David Cecelski A few days ago, I visited my cousin Eloise to pick up a half-gallon jar of sweet pickles.  Her pickles are famous in these parts and it’s a trip that I look forward to every summer, partly because I like her pickles so much, partly because I enjoy her company so much, and […]