Greetings from Carrboro, I start to sweat at the first whiff of potpourri. That certain pre-industrial age ethos that can infiltrate Thanksgiving – sort of a Norman Rockwell meets Virginia Dare meets Survivor cocktail – gives me the heebie-jeebies. For the uninitiated, you have to be careful. Once consumed, I don’t believe that there is […]
Elk Cove Wine Dinner: October 26th
October 14, 2016 Greetings from Carrboro, Peter was more than a little bit crazy. Affable, but crazy. Quitting his pharmaceutical day job in RTP, he struck out on his own to find his rightful fortune in the world of wine distribution. Easy, right? Cue all of us cringing. Somehow we know that stories like this never […]
Acme Pie Day 10/7
September 30, 2016 Greetings from Carrboro, She had two kids by then. Infants, really. The small kitchen jutted out behind the small, clapboard house. By 4 a.m. most mornings she’d be working. There were buckets of leaf lard, flour, and sugar. Eggs that she left out overnight covered with a cloth. Maybe butter. And before the sun turned that […]
Oysters are back!
Greetings from Carrboro, Boxes of oysters were wheeled into the kitchen on a red hand truck. Real beauties. Tom Gallivan’s Shooting Point Salts from the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Opening the top box, I could smell the ocean. On the stove, the last of the year’s peaches were cooked for chutney. Figs were sliced for […]
Failla Wine Dinner 9/28/16
Greetings from Carrboro, It’s so easy to hate Californians. Driving through wine country in a rented Ford, I found my self sandwiched between an impatient Lamborghini and a tricked out Tesla. I couldn’t even appreciate the bucolic view, fearful that one little driving mistake would encumber my progeny’s progeny with a lifetime of unrelenting debt. […]
Weekend at Acme 8/26 – 8/28
Greetings from Carrboro, I cheffed my way around North America this summer. Snowshoe, WV. Stratton, VT. Aspen, CO. Lake Tahoe, CA. Whistler, BC. Mont Tremblant, QC. I know – lucky me. This continent is spectacularly beautiful. I cooked farm to table dinners on the top of 9000 ft mountains with glacier views and supermodels. But the […]
The Acme Calabash Night – August 24th
Greetings from Carrboro, I was at the beach when Nixon resigned. It was the first summer that we ever rented a house on Ocean Isle – the Time & Tide – that even had a TV. My mom made us all sit down, cross-legged, and watch in our bathing suits. My brother had to stand […]
Weekend at Acme 8/12 – 8/14
Greetings from Carrboro, It was a shock – and I mean shock – to learn in my first semester taking French at UNC that “sercy” was not, actually, French for “surprise.” Because, well, I had heard that proclamation oh-so-many times. Even in church! The fact that I almost argued the point with a native French-speaking […]
Weekend at Acme 8/5-8/7
Greetings from Carrboro, If you haven’t heard, the US Olympic basketball team is living on a cruise ship anchored off the coast of Brazil. It has a spa and several restaurants. Even a cigar lounge. That image seems a far cry from that of the jubilant kids that won gold in the Montreal Olympics of […]
Weekend at Acme 7/28-7/31
Greetings from Carrboro, Some things take root. Just as often, there are things that don’t hold on and are lost. The South isn’t for everyone. You can’t walk outside, midday, and not feel that truth. Kudzu took root. A little too well. People swear that in this ridiculous heat you can watch it grow. And […]
