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Greetings from Carrboro, Naming a business is hard. Naming a winery is next to impossible. It’s too fraught. There was a good stretch in the 80’s and 90’s where the rule was pick a romantic animal, provide a suitable adjective and, voila, your winery was named. You know the ones. Wild Horse. Screaming Eagle. Flying Fox. It […]

Greetings from Carrboro, Drag Brunch is having a moment. To be clear to all my fellow southerners, Drag Brunch does not involve race tracks or funny cars or the NHRA. That would definitely be more of a Busch Light and Twinkies and nacho cheese kind of brunch. And, no, it’s also not a show on ESPN2. Personally, I […]

Wednesday, August 21, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, When you take away the chef coats and fancy clogs, the sous vide wands and chamber sealers, restaurants are still pretty primitive. We use sharp metal to cut things and hot metal to cook things. Water boils and oil sizzles and line cooks swear. Hogs smoke overnight and […]

Greetings from Carrboro, Sometimes English doesn’t cut it. Call it culinary intuition, but I have the strong sense that Eggs Benedict would not have the same yum-appeal if Hollandaise instead was hung with the moniker “lukewarm citrus butter gravy.” You with me? Needless to say, the french version sounds much more delicious. It may just be […]

Thursday, August 8, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, My first shift was brunch. It was August and hot as hell. I washed dishes. Pots and pans, really – and anything else my manager told me to clean. No one told me that my shift was over until that same boss yelled at me close to 6:30 […]

Thursday, August 1, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, Poor August. It’s the only month without a major holiday. Though, to be honest, it really looks like Grab Some Nuts Day on the 3rd is poised for a serious calendarial breakout. In modern lingo, it’s #trending. But for now, August remains bereft of any honest-to-god, signature day. […]

Thursday, July 25th, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, You know you’re in the right place if your menu doubles as a placemat. With an artistic rendering of a shrimp boat in front of a sunset. And if they call the bill your “ticket.” As in, “Here’s your ticket, honey. You can pay Joanne up front by […]

Friday, July 19th, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, I’m not easily impressed. By humans, to be clear. It takes quite a lot to get my attention. For the most part, I reserve any sense of awe for those who craft their life out of passion and a deep sense of purpose – damn the consequences. People […]

Greetings from Carrboro, Tomatocracy (tə-mā-tä-krə-sē) noun — rule by the tomatoes and for the tomatoes. OK. So it’s not a real word. Yet. But, c’mon. “Hangry” wasn’t a word 5 years ago either. And it’s like, everywhere now. I feel the time for tomatocracy may be now. It’s in the air. But being sensitive to this fraught […]

Friday, June 28th, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, This will shock you. But my family liked to eat. It gave almost any weekend or holiday an ardent culinary theme. My parents took an earnest, multi-pronged approach. The most troubling scenario involved my father with cookbooks and clipped recipes and his stash of coupons dutifully cut out […]