100 foods in 100 counties: davidson & cabarrus counties

13. Cabarrus County – Concord – Cabarrus Creamery: Moon Pie Ice Cream 29. Davidson County – Lexington – Barbeque Center: Banana Split and Q Soup Checked two places off the 100 foods list this weekend. The Q Soup at the Barbeque Center is a fabulous hearty vegetable soup with a solid portion of their excellent…

carrboro farmer’s market

My buddy Jesse and his wife Hannah own a small no-till organic farm in Central Kentucky – Rough Draft Farmstead, check ’em out if you’re in their CSA area! – and last week or the week before, he mentioned that they’d recently traded produce for farm and family photos. While I’ve traded photos for a…

album review: frank turner – no man’s land

Look, let’s be honest here: this is probably not an album that Frank Turner needed to make. I was skeptical when I heard about it, and while I understand the sentiment and desire, Frank or no, I don’t need men to tell me about women anymore. At all. Ever. I don’t really need men to tell me…

a summer’s worth of canning

Trav bought me an electric water bath canner for Christmas last year, and I have made great use of it this summer with both my own vegetables and ones I was given (five pounds of carrots) and bought myself (strawberries and even more pickling cukes). So here’s some of the summer’s bounty, and the recipes…

album review: josh ritter – fever breaks

There’s a lot that can always be said about any Josh Ritter record, because that’s just the sort of music Josh makes. This one, in particular, you could use the words “lush” and “dark” and cover most of the generalities. You could mention that “I Still Love You (Now and Then)” is a pretty great…

life list: buy a polaroid

  37. Buy a Polaroid, and a Pentax K1000*. I didn’t end up buying a Polaroid, but I did buy a Fuji Instax before our wedding last year, and it was one of the best things I ever did. Loaded up on film, used it myself up until the actual wedding, and then handed it off…

100 foods in 100 counties: orange county

Orange County – Carrboro – Neal’s Deli: House-Cured Pastrami I live in Orange County. It has taken me 9 years to cross this off the list. I am ashamed to know myself, but I am not ashamed to know Neal’s house-cured pastrami, which I ate with pimento cheese on a biscuit, and it was damn…

eats: al’s burger shack

As I work my way through this list, it’s just a real pleasure to hit some of my favorite Chapel Hill spots, and to get to some that weren’t around when I was a frequent eater on Franklin St. We intended to hit Al’s Burger Shack – the location on Franklin – last Thursday, but…

eats: neopoliltan pizza at italian pizza iii

IP3 is such a Chapel Hill institution to me that it didn’t occur to me until last week that I hadn’t actually ever taken Trav there. We’ve eaten IP3, but it’s been me picking it up and bringing it home, mostly. Last week we were on a quest for a dinner out and ended up…

hot dogs everywhere: national hot dog day

Where: at ‘Sup Dogs Chapel Hill What: the Ranchero: homemade ranch, sup dog sauce, Monterey Jack and cheddar, chili. With whom: Trav Why: it was National Hot Dog Day! Grade: A. Man, I love ‘Sup Dogs. Their special sauce, the combinations of flavors. ‘Sup Dogs is the best.