Uncategorized

  by David Cecelski An enthusiasm for Bogue Sound watermelons runs deep into my family’s past. My mother says that my great-grandfather, Guy Sabiston, used to make a trip to Bogue Sound every summer to fetch the famous watermelons. He was a farmer in Core Creek, a little community next to the Newport River. He had plenty […]

by David Cecelski On the way to a 60th wedding anniversary party the other day, we stopped at Bread of Heaven Bakery in Goldsboro. This is one of my favorite bakeries. Located in a little strip mall at 301 South Ash Street, Bread of Heaven has the feeling of a dessert table at a big church supper. They […]

  By David Cecelski     One of the things I most like to do this time of year is sit out by the garden at dusk and watch the fireflies. I like the summer air and I like the way the silhouettes of the garden’s architecture look in the fading light: the trellis that […]

by David Cecelski The first mulberries are ripe now and yesterday we went picking, me, my daughter, my daughter’s friend, and my little nephew. We walked to our favorite tree, a stalwart young thing across the road from the city park nearest us. The tree was just full of the sweet, dark berries. Mulberry trees—the […]

by David Cecelski I happened to be in Wilmington the other day during St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church’s Greek Festival. I had been there once before, a year or two ago, and had a wonderful time, so I took my lunch break there on Saturday. There was traditional Greek music, dancing, and crafts, tours of the church, […]

by David Cecelski What a strange and wonderful place this is. It’s an old roadside produce stand, fish market, and general merchandise store a stone’s throw from the Northeast Cape Fear River, on a lonely stretch of Highway 421 that otherwise is home only to endless miles of marsh and a bleak industrial landscape. You […]

by David Cecelski One of the really exciting things I saw at the Statesville Rotary Farmer’s Market the other day was Floyd and Rita Hager’s homemade sauerkraut. That fermented cabbage dish was once a staple across rural America, especially in places that had a lot of settlers fromGermany, Russia, Poland, or other sauerkraut-loving countries.IredellCounty, where Statesville is, is one of those […]

by David Cecelski While we were on OcracokeIsland, my daughter and I discovered Peggy O’Neal’s fishcakes. They were the breakfast special at the Pony Island Restaurant, a friendly mom-and-pop place that has been serving island locals and visitors since 1959. Everything on the restaurant’s menu is hearty and wholesome, but the really exciting thing to me […]

by David Cecelski One night last week my daughter and I decided last minute that we needed to go to PortsmouthIsland. By dawn the next morning, we were 125 miles down the road at Pam’s Diner, in little Washington. Pam’s has been one of my favorite country cooking places for 25 years and has hardly changed at […]

by David Cecelski My old swamping buddy and I headed toward SilerCity, veered off onto Hwy. 902, then cut south on back roads down to the old coal mining villages along the Deep River. You don’t get a sunny, 75-degree day every day, so we decided last minute to grab a boat and go. We left one […]

One of my favorite places to be in Eastern North Carolina on a Saturday morning is Lovick’s Cafe in Kinston. Located on Herritage St., a stone’s throw from the NeuseRiver, Lovick’s is the kind of place where everybody feels at home. When you walk in the door, you’ll find the joint hopping—every table full, customers shouting greetings to old friends […]

by David Cecelski I always look forward to visiting “Little India” when I am in Cary. A recent wave of new immigrants has made Cary the first place in the state where there are enough Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis to support a little business district that caters mainly to them. For me it’s a delight, a way to […]

Oyster fritters 1 pint shucked oysters, whole, and juices 1 cup self-rising flour Salt to taste ½ tsp. black pepper ½ cup vegetable oil In a mixing bowl, combine oysters and juices, flour, salt and pepper. Mix until oysters are evenly coated. Drop by large spoonfuls into 1 inch of hot oil in a skillet. […]

by David Cecelski This time of night I can hear the train on the Clinchfield Railroad moving between Green Mountain and Spruce Pine. I’m writing this late at night in a potter’s studio at the Penland School of Crafts, a few miles from Spruce Pine, in Mitchell County. I’m actually here taking a blacksmithing class, […]

A CORNBREAD ELEGY Remembering Williamston’s R&C Restaurant. I’m finishing my New Years collard greens and black-eyed peas and thinking about some of the wonderful eateries that we lost during 2008. The one that really broke my heart was the R&C Restaurant in Williamston, 100 miles east of Raleigh. The R&C had been a downtown landmark […]

by David Cecelski Today I went to Saints Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Church in Cary in search of pierogi. I arrived at the little church’s holiday open house early, but the parking lot was already full and traffic was backed up down Piney Plains Road. A local newspaper had run a story on the […]

by David Cecelski My favorite oyster roast of the year is the one that we do at our farm the day after Thanksgiving. All fall I save wood for that fire. My brother brings oysters from Stump Sound and washes them that morning at the carwash in town. Then we build a bonfire in the […]

by David Cecelski I spent this past weekend at a soccer tournament in Charlotte and did all my eating in the Latin American neighborhoods around South Boulevard. They were the closest places to get a bite between my son’s games and I couldn’t have been happier. Over the last 15 or 20 years, roughly 90,000 […]

  by David Cecelski We had our first frost of the year a few days ago and the “collards for sale” signs sprouted like gourds in the night. NC 581, Wayne County Corner of Hyman’s Road and Hare Hollow, Craven County Williams Road, Goldsboro US 70, Lenoir County NC 101, Harlowe US 70 and Sam […]

by David Cecelski We were foraging for wild mushrooms by the Eno River just before supper. A walk in the woods is so pleasant now in the autumn light and with the first leaves changing color. We got there when the sun was barely coming over the ridge and we walked in the day’s last […]

by David Cecelski I visited the Rocky Mount Farmers Market while I was in Nash County this morning. I purchased some fine-looking okra, muscadine grapes, and butterbeans—probably the season’s last of all three—from a farm couple from Nashville. I also got a couple of fantastic sweet potato jacks (a fried sweet potato pie) from a […]

by David Cecelski Cooks everywhere are overwhelmed with pears just now. Me, too. The other day, my brother left us 4 or 5 grocery bags full of Kiefer pears from his tree. They’re a good, hard pear that has a long shelf life for eating fresh. A cross between a Chinese sand pear and a […]

Core Creek United Methodist Church   by David Cecelski I recently took my mother back to Core Creek, the little community where her mother grew up. We went by the long dirt road that goes by her first cousin Glenn Hardesty’s farm, and along salt marshes and oyster bays far off the beaten path. There’s […]