Local eats, local reads
There’s so much talk out there about eating local, but I believe you can read local, too. Here’s what we’re reading about eating in the New Year.
NEW IDEAS in WRITING
Blind Pig in Asheville
blindpigofasheville.com
It isn’t so much a conventional blog as it’s a multi-media project. It’s visual arts, movie making and food with a dinner party component and we’re really intrigued by the promise of it. On the site, they’ll post a video underscored with great music, that announces a theme for a dinner or an event and a featured chef. You sign up. You put your name in the lottery, and if you get tickets, you’ll get an email the day before the event telling you where to be. So you don’t know what you’re getting into. You’re buying an idea.
Acorn Kitchen in Raleigh
acornkitchen.org
Acorn Kitchen is attempting to do something similar as the Blind Pig. They’ve only had one event to date. In college we used to say “everybody wants to go to a party, but nobody wants to throw one.” Throwing one implies that you have to clean up after it. But there’s such a food scene going on in big cities like London, San Francisco, Chicago, and people in other places want to recreate that food scene in their little corner of the world. Whether they lived there and moved here, or visited there, you want to recreate something cool in your own corner of the world, and that’s what I see this as an outgrowth of.
Four Coursemen in Athens, Georgia
fourcoursemen.com
They did some TV shows for the Cooking Network. They have a house, and the house will only fit so many people, and they’ll invite someone to cook around a theme and they’ll cook it all in this little kitchen in the house. Someone is in charge of wine pairing. That idea of “guerrilla dinners,” stripping away all the conventions of fine dining without losing focus on the food is intriguing.
COOKBOOKS
Nancy McDermott has written maybe 12 cookbooks but her most recent ones are about southern cakes and pies. Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill actually cooked their way through Southern Pies; A Gracious Plenty of Pie Recipes from Lemon Chess to Chocolate Pecan Pie, and Southern Cakes: Sweet and Irresistible Recipes for Everyday Celebrations. They would do a special dessert every day.
Sheri Castle’s first cookbook is arranged from a to z, apples to zucchini. You look up the ingredient to find recipes. The New Southern Garden Cookbook was recently published by UNC Press. It’s a smartly arranged, four-season’s cookbook. And the dishes are tasty!
Bill Smith, the chef at Crook’s Corner was recently featured in Our State Magazine, has a wonderful Carolina cookbook, Seasoned in the South.
Elizabeth Weigand lives in Raleigh and she has an Outer Banks Cookbook from which we draw our Crab and Corn soup. She also recently published a The New Blue Ridge Cookbook. She travels from Raleigh to Roanoke, VA to do recipe segments on TV, keep an eye out.
Southern Food by John Egerton. Without it, we wouldn’t be authentic. Have you had our banana pudding? It is his family’s recipe.
- Michael Hastings is the Food Editor of the Winston-Salem Journal @mhastingsWSJ
- Carl Wilson at the News & Record, Short Orders @Short_Orders
- Beer lovers @nctriadbeer
- Durham Foodie, Johanna Kramer, is an independent Food Writer @durhamfoodie
- In the Raleigh/Durham area, Triangle Localista @TriLocalista
BLOGS AND WEB SITES
Matt Lardie is a sustainable foodie and writes Green Eats Blog, and writes about “farmers, food artisans, trends, and lots and lots of cooking.”
Andrea Weigl writes for the News & Observer, her blog is called Mouthful.
Taste Carolina designs food tours in North Carolina.
Cecelia Thompson is a food writer based in Greensboro and writes Mod Meals on Mendenhall. She was also instrumental in helping downtown Greensboro lift its Food Truck vending restrictions.
The Gurgling Cod in Clemson South Carolina often writes about food, and it’s always thought provoking.
Eat My Words by Jill Warren Lucas is always interesting and now Jill is a regular contributor to Independent Weekly.
I always pay attention to Emily Wallace in edible Piedmont, Gravy and the Indy, and she wrote her master’s thesis on Pimento Cheese! Who doesn’t love that. Wonderful illustrator as well.
For more about our seasonal recipes, see our current menu at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen and our Blog Recipe Index:http://lucky32southernkitchen.com/recipes/
Posted January 2013