Category Archives: Music (re: the Food of Love)

City Market, Raleigh, NC

PIG WARS/CITY MARKET, RALEIGH, NC
I have mail!  Yes, indeed … and it’s piling up after an article Tuesday in the N&O about the upcoming Pig Wars (yep, it’s tonight) at City Market in Raleigh where I’m a guest judge.  Proceeds benefit Easter Seals, so it’s a great cause that also tastes good.

I hope they know that I’m not a “Chapel Hill restaurateur” as I’m described.  I know Chapel Hill restaurants. I love Chapel Hill restaurants. I’ve over-enjoyed myself in many of them, but I don’t now or ever want my own.

So here’s what’s happening tonight:  Historic City Market and Big Ed’s host City Market Pig Wars on Fri., Dec. 2 in downtown Raleigh.  Five professional and non-professional teams will face off in this new First Friday event, which has been designed to attract lovers of great barbecue, live music and a great charitable cause –  Easter Seals UCP.  At 5:30 p.m., official judging by local celebrity and retired WRAL-TV5 news anchor Charlie Gaddy and 1360WCHL SideDish host/Simmer2Sizzle blogger Deborah P. Miller will take place.

After the winner is announced, spectators will have the opportunity to taste the barbecue prepared by all five cook-off teams by purchasing barbecue sandwiches and pints of barbecue cooked up for the event. Live music provided by The Craig Thompson Duo.  

More later!

Pagan Hellcats at Papa Mojo's

Friday night a week ago. Fixin’ to rain. Enough chill in the air that a night at Papa Mojo’s Roadhouse seems … well, fittin’ somehow.  Some good old Cajun cookin’ with a lot of smokin’ music along with good friends Robert, Susan, and Adam (who make damn good running buddies, if I may say so myself) had all the makings for a hot night out.   I’d never seen Pagan Hellcats, but with a name like that a person could get expectations, doncha think?  After all, I was the instigator and my reputation was at stake. Would these people ever follow me blindly out into the world of local music again if the band sucked? Not freakin’ likely.   

A bowl of crawfish Étouffée later and as the band set up, my confidence was sitting as pretty as the glazed cornbread on the table.  But, just because I had had a glass of the house Cab, I reminded myself … good-lookin’ musicians and reputable instruments do not a good band make.  Case in point – Hanson. Or Milli Vanilli. Don’t get me started ….

What a wonderful surprise!  Mel even hung around to jam with them.  If you haven’t seen them, go. If you have, go again. GO rediscover these “bluesy, rootsy rockers” … after all, my rep is on the line here.

THIS & THAT

Chirba Chirba Dumplings

Chirba Chirba! 
What do you get when you have four friends who love to eat and make dumplings? If this was a band, Chela Yu, her dumplingness, would be “the girl singer.”  But since this is a food truck, you get “Chirba Chirba” (translation: Eat, eat!). Chela and the boys, Yin Song, Nate Adams, Ali Safavi, make up the Dumpling Squad. If you’ve missed one of their dumpling raids, tsk, tsk. Now get out there and find them. You will NOT be disappointed.  And listen to my SideDish interview with Chela airing Sunday, 11/27 on 1360WCHL.

Am headed out tonight to Cat’s Cradle with my friend Larry to hear Hayes Carll, a singer/songwriter from Texas.  Know next to nothing about him, so stay tuned.

MUSIC ON SHUFFLE

Y’all know you can click on these to watch and listen, right? 

I’ve Got This Friend (The Civil Wars),  Driving North (Chris Pureka), Honey, Honey (Feist),  Lost (Anouk),  Running on Faith (Eric Clapton)

Foodimentary

FOODIMENTARY
Nov. 8 is National Cappuccino Day! 

Nov. 10 is National Vanilla Cupcake Day … better go warn my favorite folks at Sugarland!!

Good grief, have you ever had a week fly by so fast that you barely had a chance to gracefully segue from one day to the next?  Me neither.  Actually this was one of those weeks, and I shoulda cloned myself so I could do it all as I ended up having to sacrifice a few things.  But maybe I was just resting up for today … it’s Oktoberfest at Saxapahaw!

SIDEDISH/1360WCHL

Sugarland Bakery

Had way too much fun on Thursday at WCHL recording two upcoming shows for SideDish.  First up was Sugarland Bakery Czarina Katrina. Ryan, that is, and her new Marketing Coordinator Emily Pierce … and they brought cupcakes!  New flavors!  YUM!  They are going to kill me for not remembering exactly which ones we tasted, but they were unbelievable … Apple Cobbler, Bock Beer, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip, one with bacon, and more. Emily, HELP!  Remind us what you brought. 
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Page Skelton on SideDish

And then along came Mr. Cackalacky, his own damn self … Page Skelton and Greg Hirsh (the new Cackalacky Kid) … pulling a cooler filled with a warm crockpot full of grilled chicken drummies just floating away pretty as you please in a pool of Cackalacky sauce.  He included the recipe which I’ll link here as soon as I’ve made it into a pdf.  I don’t know what I enjoy most … hearing Page tell stories -or- his finger-lickin’ good sauce.  Ok, both equally. 
 

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The Cave

MUSIC ON SHUFFLE:   What was really shuffling was me … and Larry … off to The Cave to fill our ears.  The Cave (or CavernTavern) is unlike anywhere else you might have ever been.  Something like 40 years worth of stories that place could tell if it could talk. Imagine the beginnings and endings, not to mention the middles. We’re here to hear Lynn Blakey, uno Tres Chicas with a silken voice and an acoustic guitar and singer/songwriter Dave Wilson, Chatham County Line.  I love this place.  Just wish they had good wine. Hell, I wish they had wine at all.  Not much of a beer drinker, I asked if they had any Jack Daniels.  Bartender says “No, but we have Jameson.”   I did my best Scooby Doo head tilt  … I spent too many years in Tennessee to be fooled into Irish whiskey.  I’ll leave it to you to imagine what kind of night it was.  

FOODIMENTARY:  Today is National Nut Day .. so I’m going to head out and do my part to be one 🙂

Full moonrise in Vermont

Vermont is beautiful this time of year. I almost think I could live there until I hear my sister talk about 8 months of cold and snow.  Then again …that would be just too far away from a warm beach.  BUT … being the spa sisters that we are (and we do it really, really well), we headed off to the Topnotch Resort & Spa in Stowe. It may very well be one of my favorite spas anywhere.   Topnotch holds my heart with 3 pools and 3 whirlpools, one with a thundering waterfall. Lunch = Miso Glazed Salmon over greens, cabbage, soba noodles, broccolini, mango, ginger-lime vinaigrette. Sheer heaven. And an 80 degree high that let us be out by the pool all day. I actually got sunburned. In October. In Vermont. 

Driving the back roads through mountains and valleys was astonishing. First, realizing that entire towns and valleys were as much as 21 feet under water just a month ago … and second, that this progressive, stock-hardy state polarized and rallied back in time to clean-up and welcome what accounts for some 40% of its annual tourism income … the leaf peepers.

Sam Guarnaccia

Another highlight was an evening around my sister’s backyard fire pit with gourmet s’mores and meeting Sam Guarnaccia, composer of the Celtic Mass for Peace. I’d love to see this performed in Chapel Hill. Can y’all help me work on that?

Remind me to tell you my theory on the great flip-flop plot. Blame it on the campfire and the full moon.

Don’t miss my SideDish interview with Jimmy Reale, Executive Chef at Carolina Crossroads at The Carolina Inn!

FOODIMENTARY:  Today is National Peanut Festival Day AND National Yorkshire Pudding Day.  Thanks, John-Bryan Hopkins/Foodimentary Guy!

 More later … I gotta run interview Fullsteam Brewery’s Chief Executive Optimist, Sean Lilly Wilson for SideDish.

MUSIC ON SHUFFLE:
8:05 (Moby Grape)
Mr. Tambourine Man (The Byrds)
I Got a Line on You (Spirit)
End of the Line (The Traveling Wilburys)
I’m in Love with a Girl (Big Star)