Locally Notable

The New Yorker Covers NC’s East vs West (Barbecue) Battle

North Carolina’s East versus West battle over barbecue makes this year’s annual food issue of New Yorker. Writer Calvin Trillin doesn’t waste any time setting the line:

For some years, I’m now prepared to admit, I somehow labored under the impression that Rocky Mount is the line of demarcation that separates the two principal schools of North Carolina barbecue. Wrong. The line of demarcation is, roughly, Raleigh, sixty miles west.

Great read and appropriate attribution to long established purveyors of this debate.

Quoted

Allure

“I came down and it changed my life. I figured that must be what North Carolina was like every day.”

Quoted

South

“I’m a big believer in the New South, and the South that I know is an extremely giving, compassionate and beautiful place.”

Locally Notable

The Sisterhood of the Burgeoning Restaurants

The Triangle food scene has exploded in recent years and people are taking notice near and far. Andrea Weigl is certainly on top of things. Her recent write-up for the News & Observer formed a narrative around the recent spate of female entrepreneur chefs and blazed a trail for a subsequent piece coming from the New York Times by Kim Severson.

First, a bit of level-setting primer from Weigl:

But the capital has a growing crew of women running successful downtown drinking and eating establishments. Some owned their own places long before Christensen was named best chef in the Southeast last spring by the James Beard Foundation; others, inspired by her success, took the leap.

To, perhaps, a little more depth from Severson:

The North Carolina food sisterhood stretches out beyond restaurants, too, into pig farming, flour milling and pickling. Women run the state’s pre-eminent pasture-raised meat and organic produce distribution businesses and preside over its farmers’ markets. They influence food policy and lead the state’s academic food studies. And each fall, the state hosts the nation’s only retreat for women in the meat business.

I especially love the pork chop analogy that Severson uses to open up her piece to highlight the more-the-merrier atmosphere the permeates all of this growth.

Both articles are short and well worth a read. Weigl does a great job of highlighting some of the new hotspots while giving a little bit of background for the ladies behind them. Severson digs deeper into the complete farm-to-table phenomenon while also highlighting the strong female influence at each stop along the chain. The positive socio-economic impact is significant, but most importantly to me, the food is great and I’m just happy to be around to enjoy the spoils.