Every highway and byway in the state is a potential jumping off point for a food adventure, whether discovering the Restaurante Rosa de Saron in Sampson County or the Pakse CafĂ© in Greensboro.by David Cecelski My 88-year-old cousin Edsel had the pig’s feet ready by the time I got to his house tonight.  A friend at a local barbecue joint had given them to him and our cousin Bill Dickinson’s wife, Irene, in Core Creek, had cooked them. Like a lot of older people around here, Edsel… Read More →
Home-Canned Tomatoes
by David Cecelski I picked up 10 quarts of Linda Simmons’s canned tomatoes yesterday when I passed through Newport, a little town in Carteret County.  A delightful woman who loves baking and canning, Linda makes the finest home-canned tomatoes on God’s green Earth as far as I am concerned. She sells them out of her home… Read More →
Dried Mullet Roe
by David Cecelski My mother and I found a pair of big jumping mullet at the fish market last week and they turned out to be heavy with lovely golden roe. Striped, or “jumping,” mullet roe is a delicacy here on the North Carolina coast, especially between Cedar Island and Stump Sound. This time of… Read More →
Oakwood BBQ
by David Cecelski On my way to my niece’s wedding last week, I had to zig-zag through the back roads of Onslow County to avoid all the washed-out bridges and flooded roads left by tropical storm Nicole. More than once, I had to turn around and try another way to get to the wedding. Half the time, I… Read More →
Homeland Creamery
by David Cecelski This morning I happened on Homeland Creamery in the little rural community of Julian, in the southern part of Guilford County. I was on my way to see my son run in a cross country meet outside of Greensboro and had taken the old Greensboro-Chapel Hill Highway and US 62 so I could stay… Read More →
Flour Burgers
by David Cecelski Yesterday I stopped for a flour burger at a little restaurant on NC 41 in Chinquapin. Flour burgers are a local delicacy in the little country places there in southern Duplin County. They’re made out of roughly equal parts of hamburger, flour, and onion, served on white bread, and, in my case, eaten with mustard… Read More →
Pickled Corn on the Cob
by David Cecelski I found this jar of pickled corn on the cob at the Clay’s Corner country store on Old Highway 64 in Clay County. The store’s proprietor told me that he grew the sweet corn himself. To pickle the corn, he simply put the ears of corn in the jar, filled the jar with water… Read More →
Loaves and Fishes
by David Cecelski At dusk I love walking through the old family campgrounds aroundLinville Falls, in Avery County. The campers come from all of the country, though I think mainly from Tennessee, South Carolina,Georgia, and here in North Carolina. This time of year they make their own community, sweet and fleeting. Tonight crowds of children raced through our campground, giddily happy…. Read More →
Brightleaf Flea Market
by David Cecelski On my way to the farm early this morning, I found a wondrous array of street foods, backyard cookery, and fresh produce at the Brightleaf Flea Market in Smithfield. Located in and around an old tobacco warehouse on US 301—once famous as “Tobacco Road”—the flea market attracts hundreds of vendors, most (but hardly… Read More →
Big T’s on a Saturday Night
by David Cecelski One of the loveliest places you can be on a late summer Saturday night is Big T’s in Hope Mills, a town a little south and west of Fayetteville. I was down there tonight to watch my son compete in a cross country meet and I thought the scene around Big T’s was… Read More →