by David Cecelski This time of night I can hear the train on the Clinchfield Railroad moving between Green Mountain and Spruce Pine. I’m writing this late at night in a potter’s studio at the Penland School of Crafts, a few miles from Spruce Pine, in Mitchell County. I’m actually here taking a blacksmithing class,… Read More →
A Cornbread Elegy, Homage to a Red & White, and My Lord, Honey
A CORNBREAD ELEGY Remembering Williamston’s R&C Restaurant. I’m finishing my New Years collard greens and black-eyed peas and thinking about some of the wonderful eateries that we lost during 2008. The one that really broke my heart was the R&C Restaurant in Williamston, 100 miles east of Raleigh. The R&C had been a downtown landmark… Read More →
Pierogi at Saints Cyril and Methodius
by David Cecelski Today I went to Saints Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Church in Cary in search of pierogi. I arrived at the little church’s holiday open house early, but the parking lot was already full and traffic was backed up down Piney Plains Road. A local newspaper had run a story on the… Read More →
Thanksgiving Oyster Roast
by David Cecelski My favorite oyster roast of the year is the one that we do at our farm the day after Thanksgiving. All fall I save wood for that fire. My brother brings oysters from Stump Sound and washes them that morning at the carwash in town. Then we build a bonfire in the… Read More →
South Boulevard, Charlotte
by David Cecelski I spent this past weekend at a soccer tournament in Charlotte and did all my eating in the Latin American neighborhoods around South Boulevard. They were the closest places to get a bite between my son’s games and I couldn’t have been happier. Over the last 15 or 20 years, roughly 90,000… Read More →
Collards for Sale
by David Cecelski We had our first frost of the year a few days ago and the “collards for sale” signs sprouted like gourds in the night. NC 581, Wayne County Corner of Hyman’s Road and Hare Hollow, Craven County Williams Road, Goldsboro US 70, Lenoir County NC 101, Harlowe US 70 and Sam… Read More →
Black Walnuts
by David Cecelski We were foraging for wild mushrooms by the Eno River just before supper. A walk in the woods is so pleasant now in the autumn light and with the first leaves changing color. We got there when the sun was barely coming over the ridge and we walked in the day’s last… Read More →
Rocky Mount Farmers Market
by David Cecelski I visited the Rocky Mount Farmers Market while I was in Nash County this morning. I purchased some fine-looking okra, muscadine grapes, and butterbeans—probably the season’s last of all three—from a farm couple from Nashville. I also got a couple of fantastic sweet potato jacks (a fried sweet potato pie) from a… Read More →
Pear Preserves
by David Cecelski Cooks everywhere are overwhelmed with pears just now. Me, too. The other day, my brother left us 4 or 5 grocery bags full of Kiefer pears from his tree. They’re a good, hard pear that has a long shelf life for eating fresh. A cross between a Chinese sand pear and a… Read More →
Beatrice Mason’s Pickled Green Tomatoes
Core Creek United Methodist Church by David Cecelski I recently took my mother back to Core Creek, the little community where her mother grew up. We went by the long dirt road that goes by her first cousin Glenn Hardesty’s farm, and along salt marshes and oyster bays far off the beaten path. There’s… Read More →