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Greetings from Carrboro, I think gift bags added five years to my life. Though, admittedly, I do have serious issues making the all-important tissue paper look, well, right. It’s the crinkling part. By and large, if you stare at any one of my gift bags for more than a few seconds it looks more like an […]

Greetings from Carrboro, Someone taught me that the key is to sing it fast. To get that first word out in a hurry. So I’d practice once before I called. Her voice was always full of feigned surprise, as if her caller ID was some kind of illicit secret. As if I hadn’t followed through with […]

Greetings from Carrboro, I know that I’m not alone. If asked for what I’m grateful, I freeze up and say something remarkably banal like puppies or rainbows or those new flavors of LaCroix. A lot of that stems from a decade’s worth of familial scarring at the Thanksgiving table of my childhood. How in the hell […]

November 15, 2018 Greetings from Carrboro, That first time, his father drove. He was 8 or 9. And it took them nearly a week from Ohio. Some stretches of road were hard dirt and gravel. Gas station maps were often worthless and road signs were rare. But my father didn’t remember any of that. No. […]

Greetings from Carrboro, DIY has a certain panache. A certain self-reliant bravado. Any number of times I’ve repaired something at the restaurant, I’ve then proceeded to assume a Leonardo DiCaprio-esque post bear fight swagger/limp having looked the enemy in the eye and not blinked, real man style. Chef/father/hero; that’s me. Admittedly there’s a willful disregard surrounding the […]

Greetings from Carrboro, I’m still an optimist. And for a veteran of the restaurant world that’s saying something. It amplifies the usual glass-half-full analogy to a more robust it-may-be-empty-but-at-least-the-glass-isn’t-broken-yet version. Putting nature or nurture aside, I clearly recognize my rampant optimism as some crazy home-brew of naiveté, furious ambition, and stubbornness. And, well, a healthy […]

October 26th, 2018 Greetings from Carrboro, Perched on the couch I always think it’s silly. Someone is handed an Oscar or Emmy and then tries to thank a million different people before the get-the-hell-off-the-stage music starts. Can’t they just thank everyone succinctly and generically? Come on, does their middle-school drama teacher really need a shout-out? […]

Greetings from Carrboro, I just got a whiff yesterday. A little hint of what’s to come. The wind changed and brittle leaves rattled down the street. The sky was a deep, Carolina blue. You know, that all-too-familiar mantle of fall. And so, for me, a season began – not the one marked by dates on […]

Greetings from Carrboro, The pilgrims would assuredly cringe. And then probably do something Puritan-esque, like throw holy water on me and run willy-nilly out of the Acme kitchen and hide behind the bar. Oh, it wouldn’t be the turkey or the green beans or the sweet potato part of this modern-day Thanksgiving tableau that would evoke […]