The Triangle, Day 3: Lisa’s Culinary Journey to the U.S. Southern States.

Day 3, final day. Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Pastrami Biscuits and Indian Fare.

THE CHAPEL HILL/CARRBORO FOOD TOUR.

(THIS IS A CONTINUATION OF MY PREVIOUS POST ‘ON THE WAY TO DINNER‘)

After a good night’s sleep on a belly full of biscuits and raspberry bars, we wake up ready for the day ahead. We drive straight to Carrboro, a town adjacent to Chapel Hill. We skip breakfast in anticipation of what lies ahead – THE food tour. Carrboro is the home of the University of North Carolina, which, unlike the ‘walled’ Duke campus, sprawls through the streets. We feel like we are in a College town with students walking, talking, hanging out everywhere we look.

We meet Susan, our guide from Taste Carolina Food Tours . This crew has a most comprehensive website with many tour options. There was nothing available for the day we needed, so they put together the (usually Saturday) Carrboro/Chapel Hill tour for us on a Wednesday. It’s just the three of us – Esther, Stef and moi – so we have our own private tour for $50 each. Not bad at all.

First stop is a highlight. It is Neal’s Deli  where we meet Sheila, wife and partner of Matt Neal, who takes time out to chat to us. The minute we are seated, plates of the most delicious looking biscuits are put in front of us. This is a biscuit they make from scratch every day, using butter and shortening as well as local buttermilk.

They also make their own ‘New York Style’ pastrami, which, Shelia says, has been hot-smoked for around 8 hours with juniper berries, coriander seed and pepper. It is so very good. The biscuit is perfect. There is a swath of mustard on the biscuit and it is one of the most delicious things I’ve eaten in a while. I think it’s worth coming to Carrboro just for this sandwich.

An OMG moment. Pastrami biscuit.
An OMG moment. Pastrami biscuit.
Pastrami Biscuit nearly done. Savouring every last bite.
Pastrami Biscuit nearly done. Savouring every last bite.
Neal's menu.
Neal’s menu.

We don’t have time to try their best seller, a hot-dog-roll-shaped brezel (pretzel) with a NYC hot dog and all the toppings. Next visit for sure. Sheila and Matt work very hard to make their business a success. The Deli started up thanks to the local Revolving Loan Fund  that enables to town to support the creation and growth of local business.

Next door is the Open Eye Café, where we are treated to a lesson in perfect fair trade coffee filtration at Carrboro Coffee Roasters. It was quite alluring. Perhaps we should all ditch out Nespresso machines and go back to the real and honest basics of coffee making?

The art of making coffee.
The art of making coffee.

Walking about 1 km to the adjacent Chapel Hill, we stop in at Vimala’s Curryblossom Café.  We do think it is a bit odd for a (Southern) food tour in NC to include an Indian restaurant on its itinerary. When we hear Vimala’s heartwarming story, we understand. Vimala moved here many years ago from India and fed the needy for years and years until the council shut her kitchen down. The community pooled together and purchased the restaurant where she now cooks the most delicious Indian fare.

We sit down for a taste and we are literally served a feast. Highlights are the tender tandoori chicken and her two versions of dosa. One is prepared like a crepe which is then rolled up in a sort of triangular prism. The other is cooked like a frittata with potato and spices. Both are very good. We meet Vimala and she is quite lovely, sharing snippets of her life and her cooking.

It seems that Vimala’s is indeed a strong part of the Carrboro/Chapel hill landscape.

 

Dosa, version 1.
Dosa, version 1.
Dosa, version 2.
Dosa, version 2.

 

An Indian feast in North Carolina.
An Indian feast in North Carolina.

A few blocks down the road we go to TOPO distillery , a microbrewery in the middle of town. We meet Esteban, the very charming ‘spirit-guide’, who gives us a great tour of the small but impressive outfit.We are amazed that the same organic Carolina grains of wheat can produce completely different spirits thanks in part to their gleaming German copper and stainless steel stills.

The tasting is fun. Esteban gives us moonshine (ewwww), freshly distilled whisky (less ewwww but ewwww), slightly aged whisky (getting better) and freshly distilled vodka (not bad at all). This is the only organic and local distillery in the area, and it is interesting to see how it works. I do wish I could bring home a couple of ‘Age your own Whisky’ kits for whisky-drinking friends, complete with mini aging-barrel.

Most interesting is the liquor control system in NC. You can’t buy hard liquor (spirits) from any ordinary store or bottle shop, as those stores only sell wine and beer. For spirits you need to go to the State-run ABC stores. You may think it sounds restrictive but it actually makes distribution much easier for a producer as they only have to deliver to the central ABC depot, which then sends out to 400+ stores across the State.

Gleaming Copper still from Germany
Gleaming Copper still from Germany
It all starts with organic South Carolina wheat kernels
It all starts with organic South Carolina wheat kernels

 

Tastes at Topo.
Tastes at Topo.

 

 

Organic Carolina Whisky and Vodka
Organic Carolina Whisky and Vodka

Next stop (we haven’t eaten for 30 minutes) is Acme, a popular Carrboro restaurant owned and manned by local chef Kevin Callaghan  . The restaurant is closed, but we are ushered in and seated. We meet the delightful Kevin, who brings us one of his specialties to try. It is a pickled shrimp salad. The shrimp have been boiled and then steeped in a pickling brine of lemon juice, olive oil, onion, garlic and peppers. He serves the shrimp with a simple salad of arugula (rocket) and black eyed peas. And I now know that black eyed beans and peas are the same thing.

Acme is definitely on my list of restaurants to visit when I return.

Prawns-a-pickling
Prawns-a-pickling

 

Pickled Prawn Salad at Acme
Pickled Prawn Salad at Acme

We miss out on the most famous of restaurants in Chapel Hill, Crook’s Corner.  It is only open for dinner during the week and is sadly not part of our tour. We don’t have the time to eat there, so it will have to wait till next time.

We hop in the car for our final stop at what must be the standout food store of the State, Southern Season . It is certainly the most iconic. In planning my trip, every person I asked told me that I MUST go to Southern Season.

This is quite a store! Actually, not just a store. It is the size of a small department store and comprises superb coffee and tea bars, fresh food (bakery, salads, cooked food), packaged food (delicacies from around the world), confectionary, wine and beer, cookbooks, cooking equipment, tableware and homewares galore. We have just missed Curtis Stone who was here demonstrating his new cookware range last week. And if this isn’t enough, there is a GORGEOUS state of the art cooking school kitchen upstairs. Maybe one day the MMCC girls will be ‘on stage’ here…we can only hope!

We taste a sorghum molasses salted caramel. We nibble of piece of pie from a Betty Crocker lookalike. We have a few sips of different wines and a local ale. We snack on locally produced cheese crackers. I find a perfect gift for the lazy cook (me). I buy packets of pre-cut baking paper circles and rings to fit all sizes of cake pan. How lazy is that!

If this were my hometown, Southern Season would be on my weekly route for sure.

 

Jars and jars of sweets....
Jars and jars of sweets….
Sorghum Molasses Salted Caramel. Right up my alley!
Sorghum Molasses Salted Caramel. Right up my alley!

 

Fried Green Tomatoes.
Fried Green Tomatoes.
I like my friends (this is Stef) to drink with both hands. Tastes at Southern Season.
I like my friends (this is Stef) to drink with both hands. Tastes at Southern Season.
This is a GROWLER. A very large bottle of beer.
This is a GROWLER. A very large bottle of beer – a half gallon in fact, almost 2 litres.

 

Esther in the Aussie wine aisle at Southern Season.
Esther in the Aussie wine aisle at Southern Season.

Our food tour ends here and we are full. Stuffed to the brim once again. I think it was the Indian feast after the pastrami sandwich that pushed us over the edge.

Back at the ranch, later in the evening, we get a message from the lovely Lisa S, who was one of our party last night at Poole’s. She wants us to pop by her place (she won’t be home) as she has made us a little something. Stef drives us over to her house. The door is open and we walk inside. In her gorgeous kitchen, she has left two treats for us: a chocolate malt pie and a tray of raspberry crumble bars. We had been chatting to her last night about these two dishes, and what do you know, next thing she has made them for us. There is a pile of plates and forks, as well as some takeaway containers and serviettes, and a note for us that we are to help ourselves. WOW. What a gorgeous surprise and yet another experience of true Southern hospitality. We take a piece each to have later when our appetites return.

The Raspberry Crumble Bars recipe that Lisa made comes from The Barefoot Contessa. They are outstanding!

 

Ina Garten's Raspberry Crumble Bars, as made by the lovely Lisa S.
Raspberry Crumble Bars, as made by the lovely Lisa S.
Chocolate malt pie, as made by the lovely Lisa S.
Chocolate malt pie, as made by the lovely Lisa S.

 

It’s farewell to Raleigh, Stef and the Tech Triangle. We have experienced the MOST wonderful hospitality here, from Stef and her family, from Lisa S, from Nancie, Jill, Sandra, Beth and the Southern #letslunch crew, and every single person we came across in our travels. It has been awesome. Thanks y’all!

We are heading off to Charleston in the morning for the next part of our adventure. Stay tuned. Goodnight!

 

Raspberry bar with a glass of milk. A match made in heaven.
Raspberry bar with a glass of milk. A match made in heaven.

 

DETAILS OF PLACES VISITED TODAY:

Neal’s Deli – 100 E. Main St, Carrboro

Open Eye Cafe – 101 South Greensboro Street, Carrboro

Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe – 431 W. Franklin St. Suite 16, Chapel Hill

TOPO Distillery – 505C West Franklin St, Chapel Hill

Acme – 110 E Main Street, Carrboro

Southern Season – University Mall – 201 S. Estes Drive, Chapel Hill

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. Karen

    OMG How exciting, everything looks so good. I want to make it all. PLEASE convince Lisa S to part with her recipe for Chocolate Malt Pie………that looks to die for 🙂

    1. Lisa Goldberg

      Hi Karen
      Yes, great idea…I will try to coerce Lisa S to share her recipe. Watch this space!
      L.

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On Sunday, we will celebrate the festival of Purim.
Here’s the simple version of the story:
Some time around the 4th C BCE, Esther, the Jewish queen of Persia, was told by Mordechai, her cousin, that Haman, the King’s advisor, 
was planning to kill all the Jews. Esther rallied the King, thwarted the genocide and became a heroine.
We celebrate, wear fancy dress and eat hamantashen, a three cornered pastry that represents evil Haman’s three cornered hat.

In a nutshell,
THEY TRIED TO KILL US,
WE SURVIVED,
LET’S EAT!

This is a phrase that I always said lightly (and almost jokingly!) about the festivals of Pesach, Chanukah and Purim. The stories of those festivals were from times so so so long ago. 
We never imagined that in 2024 we would be fighting to survive all over again.  And it seems we’re not quite ready to eat.

We all need to keep standing up and fighting - for Israel and for the Jewish people.
Am Yisrael Chai. 

P.S. Since it is Purim, eating hamantashen is a must. If you want to make your own (these are a batch of mini hamantashen straight out of the oven) you can find recipes in MMCC books 1 and 4.

There’s also a link in my profile to our MMCC recipe.
And Chag Pesach Sameach.

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Today I turned 60.
Crazy, huh? (Yes I think so too!)

I’m grateful for so many things.
I’m grateful that I live in one of the most beautiful cities in one of the best countries in the world.
I’m especially grateful for my wonderful family and friends (and my dog Winston).

But it’s a really tough time to celebrate as it feels like the world is falling apart.
My country has changed. It feels like a divided nation with so many fuckers just full of so much hate.
And the ongoing hostage situation and war in Gaza is unfathomable and devastating.
I have managed to step away from the news/instagram for the day today to enjoy this HUGE😳milestone. I’ve done all the things I love to do (walk, eat, chat, drink, eat some more and start the day with a spicy bloody Mary) with almost all of the people I love the most. What more could I ask for?

Well, since you asked, I have 3 tiny wishes for my birthday, and unsurprisingly they are all related to Israel:
1/ I wish that each and every one of the hostages comes home now,
2/ I wish that Israel completely demilitarizes Hamas ASAP so the war can end, and
3/ I wish that the Palestinian people acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and just let Israel live in peace.
Not too much to ask?
Am Yisrael chai! 💙💙💙

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