Six spots remain for best Mother’s Day gift in the Triangle

Posted on April 15, 2011 by

Sure you could surprise your mom with a bouquet of peonies and a bottle of her favorite Pinot on Mother’s Day this year. Awww, honey, bless your heart, that’s so sweet! Or you could help her forget that well-intentioned Red Hat Society membership you bought her for Christmas and gift her with the Best Mother’s Day Present Ever.

On Saturday, May 7th, from 2:00pm – 4:00pm, Herons at The Umstead Hotel in Cary will host a chocolate and wine tasting that sounds like it just may be the balm for any damaging deeds done in the last year and, more importantly, the way to win the title of Favorite.

Chef Scott Crawford and his crew will lead participants through the following pairings:

Chocolate + Wine Menu

White Chocolate Cake, Citrus, Toasted Coconut, Sesame
Tocai, Movia Winery, Brda, Slovenia

Milk Chocolate, Salty Caramel, Popcorn, Peanut Butter
Chardonnay, Stoller, Willamette Valley, Oregon

Dark Chocolate Mousse, Medjool Date Puree, Rosewater
Malbec, Catena, Mendoza, Argentina

Foie Gras Torchon, Chocolate Sauce, Hazelnuts, Sea Salt
Sauternes, Chateau St-Vincent, Bordeaux, France

Although you may get a bit tipsy between the Tocai and Sauternes, the Chef himself is not available for purchase. Ladies, behave.

Scott Crawford, Executive Chef of Herons at The Umstead Hotel and Spa.

The event is $45 per person inclusive of tax and gratuity. For reservations please call (919) 447-4200 send an email request to guestservices@theumstead.com.

Posted in Daily Specials, Durham small business, Events, Food and Booze, Locavore, North Carolina food, North Carolina small business, Southern Food, Travel, Triangle Locavore | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Uuuuumami, that’s good!

Posted on April 15, 2011 by

This week my favorite houseguest and BFF since 1985 visited me in Chapel Hill for a few days. While scrutinizing the labels of fancy Italian jarred pizza sauce at A Southern Season, we came across Taste No. 5 Umami Paste. We bought it. And we are now currently obsessed with it. A tiny door to a worldly, complex flavor profile opened when we punctured the tube and tested the paste. So this must be how the people who discovered salt felt. Game changer.

Taste No. 5 beauty shot, courtesy of Dean & Deluca.

Laura Santtini, whiz behind Taste No. 5, essentially smashed up tomato paste, garlic, anchovy paste, Porcinis, parmesan and other chewy ingredients, concentrated that into a little tube of heaven that sells for around $6.

The website generously shares recipes and photos of her looking like Nigella Lawson’s equally goddess-y blonde cousin. I would hate her, but I am too busy gushing over my new favorite flavor enhancer. I want to put Taste No. 5 in grits, blend it into compound butters for grilling veggies, smear it onto toast before topping it with eggs, and finish the rim of Sunday’s bloody mary with this stuff. Meals this weekend, be prepared to meet your new best friend. Grape Nuts, that includes you.

Available online at Dean & Deluca, Amazon, and fine food shops nationwide.

Posted in Chapel Hill-Carrboro cool stuff, Crazy food items in the Marketplace, Durham locavore, Durham small business, Food and Booze, Locavore, North Carolina food, North Carolina small business, Recipes, Slow Food, Southern Food, Travel, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Joel Salatin at UNC tonight!

Posted on April 13, 2011 by

Taking a break from happy hour this evening? Check out Joel Salatin from PolyFace Farm for FREE tonight at 5:00pm on the UNC campus in bloomy Chapel Hill. More details in the Upcoming NC Food Events page of Vic Pop.

Posted in Chapel Hill-Carrboro cool stuff, Crazy food items in the Marketplace, Daily Specials, Durham locavore, Events, Food and Booze, Locavore, North Carolina food, Slow Food, Southern Food, Travel, Triangle Locavore, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Heritage Foods USA: For that hard to source half lamb carcass

Posted on April 13, 2011 by

This morning the cherry blossom petals started falling off the tree in my courtyard. Powdery ducky colored pollen coats and re-coats and re-coats again every surface outside my home. CVS and Rite Aid shelves spill out cheap chocolate bunnies with freaky candy eyes. This time of year I’m craving lamb like nobody’s business.

Living in the Carolina Piedmont, I have several producers from within a 60-mile radius at my local farmers’ markets that offer happily-raised lamb ribs, chops and ground. Fickle Creek and Captain John S. Pope Farm are two favorites. (FYI, both will be included on the Piedmont Farm Tour this weekend. On the evening of the 16th Chef Chad McIntyre of Market Restaurant in Raleigh will prepare a 5 course wine dinner at Pope Farm. Cost is $75.00 per person, all inclusive.  Space is limited so make your reservations early by calling 919-621-1150).

Not everyone has this level of access. Sigh. That’s why Brooklyn-based Heritage Foods USA rules. Tons of celebrated chefs around the country rely on Heritage Foods USA to supply their restaurants with breeds like Berkshire and Red Wattle pork, bison, goat, and rabbit. The Heritage Foods site also offers dozens of recipes from chefs Alice Waters (Chez Panisse, CA) and Dan Barber (Blue Hill, NY) and more.

Heritage Mulefoot and Red Wattles from Lazy S. Farms, a Heritage Foods USA producer.

This week they sent an email announcing heritage breeds for sale from their partners at Sandstone Ridge (Tunis Lamb) and Clover Creek Farms (Katahdin Lamb). Depending on the breed, you’ll pay between $220-$299 for an entire half lamb, including overnight shipping. That’s a lot of shank, rack, shoulder and loin. Invite me to that party. Maybe your postman too, it’s going to be tough to squeeze all that in your mailbox.

Lamb cuts!

Posted in Chapel Hill-Carrboro cool stuff, Crazy food items in the Marketplace, Daily Specials, Durham locavore, Durham small business, Food and Booze, Locavore, North Carolina food, North Carolina small business, NYC, Slow Food, Southern Food, Travel, Triangle Locavore | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Loving andreareusing.com!

Posted on April 6, 2011 by

Check out the fabulous new site andreareusing.com – perfect timing with the release of Cooking in the Moment yesterday. Loving the events listing. Vic Pop can’t wait for the signing and tasting at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill Saturday afternoon. Favorite recipes from the book so far: campfire bacon and eggs in a bag and asparagus with butter and soy…can’t wait to see what she’ll make on the Today Show tomorrow morning.

 

Hello gorgeous!

 


Posted in Crazy food items in the Marketplace, Daily Specials, Durham locavore, Durham small business, Events, Food and Booze, Locavore, North Carolina food, North Carolina small business, Recipes, Slow Food, Southern Food, Travel, Triangle Locavore | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Shiitakes happen: mushroom cultivation seminar in Durham

Posted on April 6, 2011 by

It makes perfect sense to me that the pork chop and sausage and bacon and all beef hot dog obsessed person that I am also happens to be madly and profoundly in love with mushrooms. It’s an umami thing, I go bananas for a chewy, rich, savory, full-bodied flavor. Give me a pile of sautéed shiitakes over apple crisp any hour of the day.

On the Piedmont Farm Tour last year, the highlight for me happened at John Soehner’s Eco Farm, where he taught a group of jaw-on-the-ground city dwellers like me to drill holes in a log, stick in some spores, be patient, and BOOM, grow shiitakes. He may as well have been pulling white doves out of his overalls. The process seemed magical to me.

Farmer John demos how to grow shiitakes, Piedmont Farm Tour, 2010.

The idea of just sort of “winging it” and trying to grow my own personal, controlled fungus collection doesn’t work for me, but the final product sounds like a delight. I could absolutely make room for a stack of logs on my property to host my shroomies, but no way would I do this without a little more coaching.  Sure I like gazing out at the pansies and camellias in my yard, but grazing on the stuff growing out there would be way more delicious.

Durham-based Bountiful Backyards hosts an edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation seminar this weekend that sounds like a blast. Below, I’ve included the details from their email announcement.

“Learn the basics of how to grow gourmet & medicinal mushrooms and incorporate them in to the garden this weekend in Durham! In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn to grow Shiitake and Oyster mushrooms on hardwood logs and edible Garden Giant mushrooms! Participants will take home one 4 ft log, an inoculated sample of Garden Giant spawn, and the confidence to grow mushrooms at the home and community scale.  Led by Duke mycologist Greg Bonito, and hosted by local mushroom entrepreneur Nick Fox, take the time to embrace the fungi this Saturday: one of the most essential tools in every gardeners toolkit!
WHEN: Saturday April 9th, 2-4pm
WHERE: 1107 Glendale Ave, Durham, NC 27701
SUGGESTED DONATION: $25 (no one turned away)
Please Join Us! – Register Here“

Posted in Chapel Hill-Carrboro cool stuff, Crazy food items in the Marketplace, Daily Specials, Durham locavore, Durham small business, Events, Food and Booze, Locavore, North Carolina food, North Carolina small business, Slow Food, Southern Food, Travel, Triangle Locavore, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Our Local Deal from WCHL: Like Groupon, only local-er

Posted on April 5, 2011 by

Sometimes when I find out about a new deal I’m loving, I get a little out of control and tell like everyone I see about it. There must be a name for this disorder. The person casually browsing the yogurts at Weaver Street Market, my bus driver, the stranger asking for directions to Memorial Hall on Franklin Street–no one is spared. You don’t even have to make eye contact with me and I’m all up in your business telling you about some random deal I found. Days like today I am so psyched I have Vic Pop to tell you about my latest crush.

WCHL 1360 and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce have united forces to bring the people of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County a super local version of Groupon called Our Local Deal.

So far, it is just plain super. Today’s local deal is at A Southern Season — $30 worth of merchandise for $15. Not to good to be true…check it out on Facebook, which never tells a lie. Oh the damage I will do to their cheese department with this coupon. Crucolo, Sweet Grass Dairy, and Grayson, be warned. Vosges, Moravian cookies and cheese straws–game on.

Posted in Chapel Hill-Carrboro cool stuff, Crazy food items in the Marketplace, Daily Specials, Durham locavore, Durham small business, Food and Booze, Locavore, North Carolina food, North Carolina small business, NYC, Slow Food, Southern Food, Travel, Triangle Locavore | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment