Throwing a Conniption

A delicious spirit in search of a local shelf life

By Tony Cross

In previous columns, I’ve been subtle here and there with my jabs at our local ABC stores. Yes, it’s hard to get certain artisan spirits and liqueurs; yes, it’s unfortunate that other ABC stores in surrounding counties have great selections that we (somehow) aren’t privy to; and yes, it’s really annoying that if I want to grab a bottle of Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur, I’ll need to buy six to 12 bottles as a minimum order. This month I’m going to go deep. I originally planned on just showcasing a local distillery that makes phenomenal gin. However, after chatting with the owners/distillers about why I never see them in my Southern Pines ABC store, I decided to intertwine the two.

I first became familiar with Durham Distillery’s Conniption gin during the first quarter of last year. What struck me at first was how balanced the botanicals were with the citrus. In short, a fantastic gin for sure, but what really amazed me was how this was produced 75 minutes away from the Sandhills. This might not be a big deal to some, but lately there have been some great distillers popping up in our vicinity. I used the Conniption gin for lots of specialty drinks last year. Everyone loved the gin, and many were surprised to hear of its origin. I was so busy with work that I never got a chance to meet Lee and Melissa Katrincic, take a tour of their distillery to see how they operate, and chat about their gin and liqueurs (they also make Damn Fine Chocolate, Coffee and Mocha Liqueurs). I finally made it up there in March, and we had a lot to talk about.

Out of the 100 counties in North Carolina, Moore County ranks ninth for gin sales. Pretty good. I’d think that a local gin distiller would have an easy time getting into one of our ABCs, but that’s not the case. “Not many consumers know this, but in North Carolina, we need to talk to one person (the ABC general manager) in every North Carolina county to ask them if they will carry our products (and they can say no). In Virginia, which is also a control state, if they accept your products you can automatically be in every ABC store statewide if you wish,” Lee says. “It is an uphill battle in North Carolina because we cannot just pitch our products to someone else down the street. If Food Lion did not want to carry my product, I could go to Harris Teeter, for example. We met with Moore County to present our products but they will not carry our gins.” Though they are not on local shelves, I was able to order Conniption through Nature’s Own. It was a six bottle minimum order.

OK, so we have two scientists (I didn’t mention that both Melissa and Lee are freaking scientists and Lee still works as one when he’s not crafting gin) who live an hour away, and make delicious gin. Our Moore County ABC outlet isn’t sold. But here’s a list of awards Melissa and Lee have won:

Durham Distillery’s awards include:

No. 2 Craft Gin Distillery in the U.S. (2016, 10 Best USA Today)

North Carolina Gin Distillery of the Year (2016, New York International Spirits Competition)

— North Carolina Distillery of the Year (2015, New York International Spirits Competition)

Their Conniption Gin has won:

— Gold Medal: 2016 The Fifty Best Gin competition

— Silver Medal: 2016 San Francisco Spirits Competition

— Silver Medal: 2016 New York International Spirits Competition

— Silver Medal of 89 Points: 2016 Tastings.com Beverage Testing Institute

— Silver Medal: 2016 American Craft Spirits Association

— Silver Medal: 2015 TheGinIsIn.com

— 89 Points: 2016 Wine Enthusiast magazine

— Bronze Medal: 2016 New York World Wine & Spirits Competition

Their Conniption Navy Strength Gin
has won:

— Best in Show Gin, Best in Show Unaged White Spirit and Double Gold Medal: 2016 New York World Wine & Spirits Competition

— Platinum Medal of 96 Points: 2016 Tastings.com Beverage Testing Institute

— Gold Medal: 2016 San Francisco Spirits Competition

— Gold Medal: 2016 The Fifty Best gin competition

— Silver Medal: 2015 New York International Spirits Competition

— Silver Medal: 2016 TheGinIsIn.com

— Bronze Medal: 2016 American Craft Spirits Association

That’s an impressive list, I think you’ll agree — I just wish our local distributors would get onboard with an outstanding hand-made spirit locals will love. Talk about “buying local!”

So, what are Lee and Melissa up to? Creating new products, of course. Cucumber vodka is the next big thing coming out of Durham Distillery. It’s going to be a hit; I’ve tried it and I can’t wait to get more of it. That thing’s good. “Many specialty vodkas on the market are artificially flavored, and the products that do use natural flavors typically use extracts,” Lee says. “What we are doing here is taking hand-selected fresh cucumbers and distilling them at room temperature in small 5-gallon batches in our vacuum still (rotary evaporator). This preserves the cucumber’s delicate flavor, producing a super clean and crisp vodka without applying heat. A large proportion of our Conniption American Dry gin has this cucumber vodka in it, so this was a natural next step for us.”

Maybe it will be in our Southern Pines ABC. I mean, it is a flavored vodka after all.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines. He can also recommend a vitamin supplement for the morning after at Nature’s Own.

Wagner Family Values

A continuing Napa Valley legacy

By Robyn James

When it comes to iconic families in the wine industry, the list is short. There are the Jacksons, the Mondavis — and then there is the Wagner family.

It would be difficult to find a rival for this family’s roots in Napa Valley.  Multiple generations of Wagners have spent their entire lives there.

Chuck Wagner’s history in the Valley traces back to the 1850s, when his great-great-grandfather on his mother’s side captained a wagon train to California from Bible Grove, Missouri, and purchased 70 acres of farmland in the Oak Knoll district. In 1906, Chuck’s paternal grandfather, Carl Wagner, who came from a French Alsatian wine family, bought land in Napa to start his own winery. Producing bulk wines, the family did well until Prohibition kicked in, and they had to turn to fruit and walnut farming. 

One year after Prohibition ended, Carl’s son Charlie married a local Napa girl, Lorna Belle Glos, and they later bought acreage in Rutherford to plant fruit orchards and wine grapes.

Charlie couldn’t resist the notion that the American market wanted top quality wines, and he ripped up his fruit orchards and planted cabernet sauvignon from clones he purchased from Stag’s Leap winery. He grew quality grapes and sold them to local high-end wineries. Charlie’s only son, Chuck, caught the passion, and father and son would gather at the dinner table mixing different wines in glasses to find the perfect blend to accompany their food.

  However, Charlie wasn’t achieving the financial success he had envisioned.  When Chuck was only 19 his dad presented an ultimatum.  He wanted Chuck to join him full time in pushing the success of the winery, or he and his wife would sell everything and move to Australia. Chuck didn’t hesitate and committed himself to joining his dad in the quest for great Napa cabernet on their winery named Caymus, after a Mexican land grant.

Charlie and Chuck noticed one year that they had a few exceptional barrels and decided to create a reserve wine, Caymus Special Selection.  The business was going well when the big break came in 1989. The Wine Spectator named the 1984 Caymus Special Selection as the No. 1 Wine of The Year.  Five years later they won again with the 1990 Caymus Special Selection becoming the only wine in the world to win that accolade twice.

It is probably safe to say that Caymus is the most well-known winery in California and perhaps in the world.  Their reputation for cabernet is impeccable and untouched.

Chuck enjoyed blending so much that he introduced a white wine called Conundrum, a mix of chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and muscat, to their portfolio, and although his dad thought the wine was too sweet, it became so popular they introduced Conundrum Red in 2011 and two more wines in 2016, Conundrum Sparkling and Conundrum Rosé.

Chuck Wagner’s dream was that his own four children would continue his legacy in the family business. All of them had worked in the winery and vineyards after school and in the summers all of their lives. He created a variety of new brands to allow each of them to create their own opportunity.  The oldest son, Charlie Wagner, is responsible for production of Mer Soleil, Wagner’s chardonnay project.  He is also the director of winemaking for Conundrum Red and runs the family’s newest venture, Red Schooner, whose fruit is grown in Argentina, shipped to Napa and finished in the Caymus style.

Chuck’s older daughter, Jenny Wagner, joined the family business as winemaker for their Emmolo project, launched by and named after her mother, Cheryl Emmolo, who dreamed of keeping the family name alive by making a wine label using her father’s vineyards. Their focus is on sauvignon blanc and merlot.

The second oldest son, Joe, took over Wagner’s pinot noir project, Belle Glos, named after his grandmother, Lorna Belle Glos Wagner.  He came up with the idea of a lower priced pinot noir called Meiomi, hitting the mother lode with this idea of a higher alcohol, big, full-bodied, fruity wine that proved to be a direct hit with American consumers.  He did what Chuck never would have done and sold the Meiomi label to Constellation Brands for $315 million. 

Joe left the Wagner umbrella to create his own wine company, Copper Cane, housing seven different brands he hopes to pass on to his own six children, guaranteeing the Wagner name will remain synonymous with top quality and innovation in Napa Valley for generations to come.  PS

Robyn James is a certified sommelier and proprietor of The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines. Contact her at robynajames@gmail.com.

A Telling Tale

Things worth more than money

By Bill Fields

On Mother’s Day, I think of a working mom: mine.

Growing up in a time when more mothers than not stayed at home, Mom always had a job. Although she has worked in a department store and a small dress shop in her later years, when it comes to life outside the home, she is a bank teller in my mind’s eye.

No matter what it houses, I will never think of the building set back from Broad Street as anything but Citizens Bank and Trust, Southern Pines’ first and, until the early 1960s, only bank. It became part of First Union in the early 1970s and went through other mergers and acquisitions along the way and is part of Wells Fargo today.

Mom’s years at the bank spanned from the 1950s in the Broad Street location into the 1980s at the branch in Pinecrest Plaza. Although I can’t say having a bank teller for a mom was as exciting as if she had been a zookeeper, basketball coach or pilot, there were advantages.

I might not have gotten larger denominations than other kids from the Tooth Fairy, but I bet nobody found more shiny quarters under his or her pillow. When I began a coin collection, it was easy, with Mom’s help, to get started on filling the slots in those blue folding books — Buffalo nickels, Mercury dimes, even the occasional aluminum penny from World War II would show up.

I got to tour the place, of course, beyond the teller windows. The break room was nifty, but getting to step in the vault was better than a school field trip out of town. When I was real little, I asked her why we couldn’t take all the money and move to Mexico. But life on the lam, even in a warm, sunny place by the water, wasn’t in her dreams. I did, however, get a gross of No. 2 pencils once that she bought at wholesale from the office supply salesman. I also got one winter of Tuesday nights at the bowling alley when she was part of the Citizens Bank team, and her white shirt with green lettering was the best sporting attire I’d seen that wasn’t in Carolina Blue and white.

Mom went to work whether she felt good or felt bad. Pretending a sniffle was something more in order to get a day off was considered on the order of burglarizing a neighbor’s home — something you would never even think about. Sometimes she came home on her lunch break to watch a bit of As the World Turns, but she always returned to the bank at the appointed time, even if some good stuff was going on in Oakdale.

And when the workday was over, she did not have the luxury of being able to pick up a roasted chicken at Harris Teeter or takeout from dozens of restaurants. Dad occasionally cooked supper, but it was mostly Mom’s responsibility. We had a home-cooked hot meal — tasty, filling — for supper almost every night.

Mom did these things — one job for which she was paid and another for which she wasn’t — without fanfare or complaint, that being the way things were and the way she was. If, over my working life, I have met deadlines and for the most part not had colleagues who wanted to throw things at me in frustration, I owe a lot of that to her example.

She never failed to be courteous to customers, whether they were insurance agents, shop clerks, doctors or factory workers who endorsed their paycheck with an “X” instead of a signature because they didn’t know how to write. There was a dignity in her job and in everyone she waited on.

I’ve been to plenty of banks from Georgia to Connecticut since my middle school days when my mother made me put most of the money from a brief summer job into a new savings account instead of blowing it on something I didn’t really need. Some of these tellers have been nice and helpful, perfectly fine folks, but I am a very tough grader.  PS

Southern Pines native Bill Fields, who writes about golf and other things, moved north in 1986 but hasn’t lost his accent.

May Bookshelf

By Romey Petite

This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare, by Gabourey Sidibe

Oscar nominee Gabourey Sidibe tells the captivating story of her life prior to starring and debuting in Lee Daniel’s Precious (2009) and her rise to international fame. Sidibe’s memoir charts a course from growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant/Harlem, raised by a polygamist Senegalese taxi-driving father, an R&B/gospel singer mom (who supported their family by busking in the subway), and her aunt — feminist activist Dorothy Pitman Hughes. From getting her first job as a phone sex operator to her breakthrough role, Sidibe candidly covers a variety of subjects, including friendship, depression, and ongoing struggles in an industry that thrives on enforced beauty standards.

How to Be Human: A Novel, by Paula Cocozza

Still adjusting to life alone in a large house in a London suburb without her ex-boyfriend, Mary finds a baby girl belonging to her neighbors — Eric and Michelle — bundled on her doorstep. The baby isn’t the only unexpected visitor. She’s also acquired a gentleman caller in her garden by way of the back gate — a fox. Mary’s attitude toward the intruder is decidedly more live-and-let-live than her neighbors, who are determined to have the beast exterminated. Mary finds herself between two worlds, the human one she was born into, and one that lies beyond the bounds of her fence in the overgrown enchanted wood behind her house. Cocozza has written for The Guardian, Vogue, The Telegraph and The Independent, and this is her first novel.

A Speck in the Sea: A Story of Survival and Rescue, by John Aldridge, Anthony Sosinski

Ripped right from the headlines, A Speck in the Sea is soon to be a major motion picture by the Weinstein Company. On July 24, 2013, between 2:30 and 3 a.m., lobsterman John Aldridge found himself plunging off the deck of the Anna Mary into the Atlantic Ocean, adrift without a life vest. What awoke in him then was a sudden, violent desire to survive despite his being hours from Montauk Harbor. A Speck in the Sea is, at times, bloodcurdling — Aldridge finds himself being appraised as a potential meal by a shiver of blue sharks. At others, it’s insightfully unabashed — forced to adapt, Aldridge fills his heavy fisherman’s boots with air to create a pair of makeshift flotation devices. Readers of Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void will appreciate this story of survival in the face of desolation and what seems like impossible odds.

Novel Destinations, Second Edition: A Travel Guide to Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s Key West, by Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon

A guide for both sightseeing and time travel, Schmidt and Rendon have the unique ability to endow an inanimate locus (whether a small town, bustling metropolis or a winding road) with a distinct voice, preserving it as a timeless place through their prose. Consider how, to this day, images of Joyce’s Dublin, Virginia Woolf’s London and Kafka’s Prague endure despite each city’s respective changes in architecture and pace of life. Readers will enjoy retracing the steps of Shakespeare, Wharton, Kerouac, Harper Lee and Mark Twain from the comfort of their own armchairs, as well as making travel plans for future excursions — road trips to museums, restaurants and festivals nestled in out-of-the-way destinations.

The Loyal Son: The War in Ben Franklin’s House, by Daniel Mark Epstein

Benjamin Franklin — the First American, Prophet of Tolerance and the Newton of Electricity — is a Founding Father synonymous with success and prosperity. Few, however, know of Benjamin’s son, William. Born out of wedlock, William Franklin was 21 years of age the day he aided in his father’s experiments with electricity and at his peak, attained public office as governor of New Jersey. During the American Revolution, William was seized by militiamen, held under house arrest for being a Loyalist and eventually driven into exile. Epstein paints a complicated portrait of both men, one who remains an immortal American patriot another who died an obscure expat.

Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, by Ada Calhoun

Following up on her eponymous New York Times essay for the Modern Love column, Calhoun continues her unvarnished approaches to the subjects of marriage, intimacy and the discrepancies therein. Citing friends, poets, priests, rabbis and even unlikely authors (such as J.R.R. Tolkien), Calhoun presents readers with a plethora of post-nuptial advice. Fans of Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle Melton will appreciate this exercise in soul-searching as well as its matter-of-fact tone on life happily ever after.

The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South, by John T. Edge

Columnist John T. Edge delves into the inextricable relationship of politics to food in the South from Huey P. Long to Jimmy Carter. Beginning chronologically in the 1950s with the role of black cooks and maids in the civil rights movement, Edge creates a through line to 2015 with the arrival of what he designates as the culinary New South — the widespread popularity and integration of dishes from Mexican, Vietnamese and Lebanese Americans. Among numerous culinary delights, is the book’s namesake, the nutrient-rich greens of simmering pot liquor. Expounding on the soup’s origins in the homes of poor Southerners, the hotly contested debates over whether the cornbread should be crumbled or dipped, to its eventual inclusion as a quintessential pillar of cuisine Americana, this is a book no true connoisseur would dare to miss.

The Leavers, by Lisa Ko

Through her winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction, Lisa Ko gives insight into issues facing immigrants in America today. Deming Guo, 11 years old, finds himself up for adoption when his mother, Polly, an undocumented Chinese immigrant working at a New York nail salon, disappears without a trace. Separated from his mother by thousands of miles, it is not until they are reunited that they realize leaving is not bad if it’s a choice you make yourself. Readers of Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah won’t want to miss this tale of longing and reconciliation.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS
By Angie Talley

Children’s Book Week is May 1-7. Share a book with a child and look for children’s events all this week in The Country Bookshop and your local library.

Bloom, by Deborah Diesen and
Mary Lundquist

From The Pout-Pout Fish author Deborah Diesen comes a lovely celebration of planting, growing and together time.  Wrap this lovely picture book up with a pair of garden gloves for the perfect spring gift for a young nature lover. Ages 3-6.

The Forever Garden, by Laurel Snyder

Whether singing to her plants or gathering speckled eggs, Honey is in her garden every day. But when she has to move to take care of her sick mother, who will care for the garden once she leaves?  This sweet, beautifully illustrated story is at once an homage to nature and an ode to the beauty of friendship. It’s the perfect gift for a young child when a friend must move away. Ages 4-8.

I Just Want to Say Good Night,
by Rachel Isadora

This absolutely gorgeous book is anything but the typical going-to-bed book. Lala wishes goodnight to a monkey, her chickens and to the ants, but the most stunning image is Lala wishing goodnight to her goat by resting her head on his flank — providing a poignant visual of just how closely connected African children are to the land. Ages 3-6.

Defy the Stars, by Claudia Gray

Noemi, 17 years old and a fighter pilot for her world, stumbles upon Abel, an advanced android-type warrior abandoned for years in a ship left behind after a battle between his world and Noemi’s.  Adventure, romance and ethical decision making drive the story in this un-put-downable read. With Defy the Stars, Claudia Gray has hit the mark for a perfect summer read for fans of Illuminae or Across the Universe. Ages 14 and up.  PS

True Masterpiece

The joy of rediscovering True Grit

By Stephen E. Smith

In the late 196s, a friend who’s an avid reader of popular fiction plowed through the novel True Grit and saw the John Wayne/Kim Darby movie on the same day, immersing himself in Charles Portis’ yarn set in Indian Territory in the late 1800s and acquiring what must have been a disconcerting insight into
Hollywood’s inherent ability to mangle art (at the very least, the movie moguls could have spared us the sorry acting of Glen Campbell). About the same time, I read True Grit and concluded that the novel was chockfull of memorable characters and the quirkiest dialogue ever uttered by fictional beings who aren’t working overtime at being funny. 

My friend and I have been quoting lines from the novel for almost 50 years — not constantly, of course, but when our conversation happens onto a subject that might be illuminated or made humorous by a sentence or two attributable to Rooster Cogburn or Mattie Ross, we’ve never hesitated to employ Portis’ superbly crafted dialogue. I’m particularly fond of quoting from the exchange between the horse trader Stonehill (played in the original film by the inimitable Strother Martin) and Mattie as she attempts to wrangle a refund for the ponies her late father had purchased. Stonehill threatens to go to a lawyer and Mattie responds, “And I will take it up with mine . . . He will make money and I will make money and your lawyer will make money and you, Mr. Licensed Auctioneer, will foot the bill.” Who hasn’t wanted to utter that sentence when dealing with a litigious tormentor?

My friend is fond of quoting passages from Rooster’s hilarious, self-serving explication of his checkered past, as when he alludes to the wife and the son he abandoned: “She said, ‘Goodbye, Reuben, a love of decency does not abide in you.’ There is your divorced woman talking about decency . . . She took my boy with her too . . . You would not want to see a clumsier child than Horace. I bet he broke forty cups.”

But enough. You can quote almost any passage from the novel, including sections of Mattie’s deadpan first-person narration, and you’ll likely set the table on a roar.

I’m not in the habit of rereading novels, but that’s exactly what I did after seeing the Coen brothers’ adaptation of True Grit. I decided to give Portis’ novel a thorough reassessment almost a half century after my first encounter with Mattie Ross. After all, America was a very different place in 1968: the women’s movement, the war in Vietnam, the counterculture. Would the novel hold up to changes in mores and tastes? Is it as well-written as I remembered?

I completed the reread, taking my time and occasionally re-evaluating scenes I judged particularly memorable, and here’s what I concluded: True Grit is great American fiction — not a great American Western — but great American fiction period, worthy of study as a literary masterwork and occupying a station commensurate with
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Unfortunately, True Grit has never attracted the academic attention that Twain’s masterpiece and Harper Lee’s sentimental story of the South have garnered. It is a genre Western, and what self-respecting academic would publish a monograph titled “Repression, Revision, and Psychoanalysis in the Soliloquies of Rooster Cogburn”? But from the novel’s opening sentence — “People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day” — Mattie Ross establishes herself as the archetypal American hero, an individual so self-possessed that she’s capable of rejecting collective wisdom. In that one sentence, Portis establishes a form and voice that embodies an entire sensibility, a collection of manners, mores, thoughts and feelings, faithful to the spectrum of American experience and emblematic of a rich inner and outer life. As Clarence Darrow wrote: “. . . he (an American) is never sure that he is right unless the great majority is against him.” That’s Mattie Ross, and the reader is instantly smitten.

And it’s Mattie’s steady voice and an unwavering determination — as profoundly established as that of Scout Finch and Huck Finn — that propel the reader through the multiplicity of experience that confronts her. Rooster Cogburn is Mattie’s antithesis — alcoholic, vulgar, pragmatic, possessed of almost every human weakness but redeemed by fortitude and a strained, awkward sense of loyalty and a disarming honesty. “I found myself one pretty spring day in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in need of a road stake and I robbed one of them little high-interest banks there. Thought I was doing a good service. You can’t rob a thief, can you? I never robbed no citizens. I never taken a man’s watch.”

When it comes to the major themes around which literature teachers construct their lessons, True Grit touches subtlety on each and every one — the frontier, the American dream, East vs. West/North vs. South, the journey from innocence into knowledge, sense of community, sophistication vs. a lack thereof, etc. — and it does so without a trace of burdensome preachiness. But mostly, the novel is a story that suspends time, freezes the reader in a moment in our history that evolves finally into the present, giving us a sure knowledge of who we are and how we came to be here. What more can we ask of an American novel?

The John Wayne and Coen brothers’ cinematic interpretations of True Grit are entertaining and reasonably faithful to the original work, but it’s Portis’ novel that’s the real deal, a solid piece of Americana that deserves to be read and studied for generations.

It occurs to me, finally, that I should have said all of this 50 years ago — True Grit was as deserving of praise then as now — but as Mattie Ross articulates succinctly in the novel’s conclusion: “Time just gets away from us.”  PS

Stephen E. Smith is a retired professor and the author of seven books of poetry and prose. He’s the recipient of the Poetry Northwest Young Poet’s Prize, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for poetry and four North Carolina Press awards.

The Salty Truth

By Karen Frye

What would life be like without that saltshaker? We reach for it without even thinking. We love salt. We crave salt. It makes food taste better. Our bodies need sodium; we cannot survive without it.

There are many different kinds of salt. There’s pink Himalayan salt, Celtic salt, Hawaiian salt, black salt, red salt, sea salt and plain old table salt. Choosing the best can make a difference in the functions of the body and the flavor of the food you are seasoning.

Table salt (sea salt) is harvested from the ocean. The salt is heated and evaporated, iodized — changing the color to purple — and bleached to return it to white. The bleach changes the salty flavor to bitter, so sugar is added. All the natural occurring minerals are removed and sold to increase the profit from the harvest. The two remaining minerals are 99 percent sodium and chloride. After the denaturing of the salt, all that remains is a health-robbing concoction that dehydrates the cells and can cause an imbalance in the bloodstream. It’s not your best choice.

I prefer the taste and the health-giving benefits of Celtic salt. Jacques de Langre, Ph.D., a biochemist, researched and brought Celtic salt to the market in 1970. His daughter and granddaughter now operate the family business in Asheville, which is in its 41st year. This lovely salt is now sold all over the world, and many famous chefs appreciate the delicate flavor it adds to their food.

Celtic sea salt is one of the richest sources of organic, naturally occurring minerals. Calcium, magnesium and potassium, as well as all the other important trace minerals, enhance the mind, nourish the body and keep the cells well hydrated. These vital minerals help to provide proper electrolyte balance, sustaining energy and stamina.

Celtic salt is harvested in farms off the pristine northern coast of Brittany, in France. In 1991 the French government classified the salt producing region as a national shrine, and the practice of making Celtic salt a national treasure. The salt farmers use only traditional methods. The salt is collected in ocean pools occurring on the shore. After the pools are dried by the sun and wind, these master salt crafters harvest the crystals by hand with wooden rakes. Machinery is never used in the production. When it’s finished, the salt retains its natural grey color.

Celtic salt has 84 naturally occurring minerals, and once re-dissolved in water, or in the moisture of food, it bears an amazing resemblance to our blood and body fluids, maintaining and restoring health and vitality. Twenty-four of these elements are essential to maintain life. It has countless medicinal benefits: assisting in balancing acidity; restoring proper digestion; relieving allergies; boosting energy and heightening resistance to infections. It is also delicious. Many health care professionals recommend adding it to your food rather than sea salt or table salt. You can get Celtic salt in fine or coarse crystals or in a grinder. You won’t be disappointed.  PS

Karen Frye is the owner and founder of Nature’s Own and teaches yoga at the Bikram Yoga Studio.

Almanac

By Ash Alder

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. – Claude Monet

May is a month of magic. A single flower is proof. But the Earth spills fragrant blossoms with the fervor of a child in a spring wedding, hands dipping into that shaky wicker basket until the aisle resembles a sea of brush strokes — a Monet painting come to life.

May is a month of abundance. Plump strawberries. Rhubarb pie. Tomato vines winding up rustic garden trellises.

On May 1, an ancient fire festival called Beltane celebrates this fertile season with feasts and rituals. Midway between the spring equinox and summer solstice, Beltane was traditionally a celebration of light that marked the beginning of summer, a Gaelic May Day festival during which cattle were led between two sacred fires, the smoke from which was said to purify and shield the herd from disease before they were driven into open pasture. Villagers and couples danced round and leapt over the flames to cleanse their souls and invoke fertility and good fortune.

May is a month of flowers. In her book of essays and meditations inspired by a retreat to Florida’s Captiva Island in the early 1950s, Anne Morrow Lindbergh mused that “arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day — like writing a poem or saying a prayer.”

Mother’s Day falls on Sunday, May 14, two days after the full Flower Moon. Gift her wildflowers. A sprig of dogwood. Irises from the garden. Gather them in the early light and feel the magic of May pulsing within them.

Spring in a Bottle

Remember picking your first dandelion? How it yellowed your clothes and fingers? How its tiny florets rendered it the most perfect specimen you’d ever seen? Before you knew it as weed or edible, dandelion was faithful companion. You wove it into wildflower crowns, you gathered them for Mother, and gasped when you found one gone to seed. Even as a child, you somehow knew that dandies spread like laughter. For that, you were grateful.

In the spirit of that playful inner child, harvest a basketful of dandelions on a warm May evening. Make wine. Pop off the blossoms. Soak them in citrus juices. Boil with ginger and clove. Bottle the sweetness of spring to enjoy all year.

Dandelion wine recipes are nearly as easy to find as the star ingredient. Just be sure to harvest from someplace free of pesticides. And when the blossoms stain your fingers, don’t be surprised by a sudden impulse to turn a cartwheel or somersault across the lawn.

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.— A. A. Milne

The May Bush

The first maypoles were made of hawthorn, a mystical tree whose pale blossoms represent hope and supreme happiness. Also called thornapple, hawberry and May bush, the ancient Celts believed this magical tree could heal a broken heart. If you stumble upon a wild hawthorn, especially one growing among ash and oak, legend has it you have found a portal to the faerie realm.

The Celts sure love their nature spirits. According to Celtic tree astrology, those born from May 13 – June 9 draw wisdom from the sacred hawthorn. Creative and charismatic, hawthorn types are often found performing for a crowd. They’re most compatible with ash (Feb. 18 – March 17) and rowan signs (January 21 – Feb. 17).

And wouldn’t you know it? The hawthorn is one of two birth flowers of May, the other being lily of the valley — less fabled but far more fragrant.

The Happy House

A young family appreciates the old and enjoys the new

By Deborah Salomon  •  Photographs by John Gessner

In the 1940s, with the world deep in World War II, Walt Disney created Happy Valley as a Technicolor backdrop for animated films. Here, the sun forever shone, flowers bloomed, birds chirped, bunnies hopped and all was well — a remarkable resemblance to the grounds surrounding the home of Dr. Ed (dentist) and Ginger (interior designer) Monroe. Tucked out of sight on a forested Weymouth lane, the brick ranch rooted in the ’60s but now painted vanilla practically glows.

Rosie, a black Lab puppy, wiggles greetings but does not bark. The manicured grass is brilliant early-spring green, the swimming pool crystal azure and the azaleas — some from Pinehurst’s famous Clarendon Gardens — a dozen shades of pink.

Inside, 9-year-old Janie plays the piano and guitar while 5-year-old twins Charlie and Hunter construct Lego vehicles. Almost every evening the family gathers around the dining room table for dinner and conversation.

“It’s our time to regroup,” Ginger says.

This scene — quintessential feng shui — fulfills a note Ed wrote to their Realtor, when acquisition of the property seemed uncertain. He promised to “fill the house with love and laughter.”

The story of this acquisition matches the results.

“We sold our first house when Janie was 4 and I was 7 1/2 months pregnant with the twins,” Ginger begins. “We hadn’t expected to sell it in one day so we had no place to go.”

Not a pretty predicament.

“Then our Realtor called. ‘I think we found a house, but it’s not on the market yet.’” Ginger walked up and down the driveway, enchanted by the rhododendrons in bloom, hardly noticing the house. “I called Ed. His parents came and looked. I was so afraid we would lose it because somebody else was bidding.”

They made an offer which, with the help of Ed’s letter, was accepted.

Ed grew up with three brothers in a ranch house in West End, where his family has lived for 100 years. “We wanted this neighborhood; the house has a great layout for little ones.” Now, Ginger, in advanced pregnancy, faced moving into space which needed freshening and moderate renovations. “We moved in on June 4; the twins were born on July 30,” Ginger says. “By then, the work was 90 percent complete.”

She remembers feeding the babies while the range hood was being installed.

In truth, before Ginger-the-designer waved her wand, the brick ranch built in 1963 was — inside and out — quite ordinary except for an odd floorplan. Imagine, no living room. Instead, the U-shaped kitchen extended to a pine-paneled “family room” with vaulted ceiling, sliding glass doors and fireplace surrounded by built-in bookshelves. Guests could view whatever transpired in the kitchen — a preview of “great rooms” popular in the ’90s. No breakfast room, either, although the long counter has bar stools and a small multi-use table is pushed against one wall. Also missing, a master suite with spa bath/dressing room. Instead, a mother-in-law wing was added by the second owner, creating an L for Janie’s room, an office, laundry room, two children’s play areas and a guest bedroom exiting to the terrace.

Even a moat filled with alligators could not spoil this location.

Here stood the Highland Inn, which burned in the 1950s. “We still find old bricks and pottery in the ground,” Ginger says.

Weymouth, once an enclave of imposing residences built as winter homes for wealthy Northerners, is slowly recycling to younger families. On a nice day, moms in Spandex push jogging strollers along the narrow, winding streets. Historic “cottages” of the 1920s sport glamour kitchens and entertainment centers. Smaller gems like the Monroes’ are screened by pine groves.

Ginger (from Winston-Salem) and Ed (a Moore Countian) met in Charlotte, in 2004. She was familiar with the Pinehurst resort but knew little of Southern Pines. “For a small town it has such history and beauty,” which she compares to the charm of Winston’s historic residential districts. Ed wanted to establish a solo practice, easier in a familiar location. They purchased a house with tiny yard in Weymouth; after five years, given their growing family, relocating became a priority.

The Monroes are only the third owners of the house built by John Valentine, who occupied it until the 1980s. The pool is original — Ginger and Ed added a handsome wood fence — but the second owners built the L-wing. Ginger could either convert this space into a master suite or redo the kitchen. She chose the latter but opted to keep and paint the dark cabinets, replace wall-and-ceiling-mounted ones with simple shelves, enlarge a small window, push out the dividing counter, and install new countertops and appliances.

Flooring was already satiny hardwood.

The absence of a formal living room didn’t bother them at all. “The outside is our living room,” Ginger says. She brightened the dark floors, ceiling and built-ins with white-patterned rugs and white washable shabby-chic slipcovers on chairs, which stand up to three kids and a dog. A Seth Thomas clock, circa 1855, belonging to Ed’s great-grandfather, dominates the mantel, while his grandmother’s “secretary” desk anchors a corner.

Ginger loves fabrics — pillows are her trademark — using them for bursts of color everywhere, turquoise against burnt orange, bright navy awning stripes, deep money-green toile, faintly Asian reds and pink. Her showplace is the oversized dining room flooded with light from a bay window with window seat, a charming ’60s holdover. These vibrant colors, reflecting a year Ginger spent in Spain, play off her turquoise china displayed in an antique breakfront, also painted vanilla, from a consignment shop. They picked up the dining table at a yard sale.

One exception: an elegant crystal chandelier in the Paris Fern motif illuminating the front hallway.

Otherwise, Ginger admits, “We went furniture shopping at our parents’ houses.”

Somehow, this 3,000-square-foot house seems full without being cluttered. “I’m a minimalist,” Ginger continues. “Paint is the easiest and least expensive way to transform a room.”

Landscapes by local artists, family photographs and portraits line the walls, including one of the children dashing into the ocean by Ginger herself. Miraculously, she has embraced the passé architecture and décor of the ’60s, adapting it to the needs of a young family instead of moving walls. The children have ample play areas, including a room with a floor-to-ceiling world map and a raised playhouse overlooking the pool. The gracefully landscaped yard, nearly an acre, is fenced so Rosie can romp off energy. The wide veranda works well for summer entertaining. Ginger added shutters and window boxes for cottage charm. A detached double garage — what a bonus.

Ed is pleased with the result. “I kinda go along with what my bride likes,” especially since she included Woody, his cowboy mannequin floor lamp.

“The most important thing is how the house makes you feel, a warm, welcoming place,” Ginger concludes. Someday, she might replace the sliding glass with French doors, perhaps alter the footprint by extending the L, or build a proper master suite. But for now, “This is a loved house,” she says, where all is bright, all is practical, all is well and, as promised, all is happy.  PS

Fox Tails

A fresh pair of eyes sees a theme

Story and Illustrations by Romey Petite

After the pines, it was the first thing I noticed. They’re everywhere you go.

Foxes.

You find them on signs, mailboxes and in murals. I’ve seen them in shops, too, just like the auspicious calico bobtail figurines found in Japanese restaurants. Even one particularly amusing hood ornament featured a fox in a wolf-in-sheep’s clothing scenario. He was dressed as a hunter, complete with riding hat, sitting astride the back of a hound, giving chase, seemingly to himself. The hound was quite confused.

You can find the word “fox” fossilized in the names of the street signs and subdivisions from Fox Hollow, to Foxfire Road, and Fox Creek.

For a stranger, it’s a bit surreal.

In the short while I’ve been here, a little over seven months, I’ve had as many nature sightings as tourists see fleur-de-lis in my native New Orleans. I’m a city boy — give me time. The novelty will wear off.

In the late summer, I was taken with the evening sounds of a neighboring catbird, one that trilled each day in the hour or so between 4 and 5 o’clock.

One winter morning, on my stroll to work, I found the lawns and pines crowded with robins. I removed my headphones to take in the soundtrack on Massachusetts Avenue.

From the comfort of my girlfriend’s family’s dining room, I glimpsed a rabbit going about its business. Its ears were darting around in the direction of the glass window as if the little creature could hear us. I was sure of this: He knew we were there, but he could not see us.

I’ve stumbled on the telltale signs of a beaver’s handiwork at the reservoir — a downed tree and woodchips — while turtles bobbed like apples just beneath the surface and waterfowl glided along.

I’ve counted two crows mobbing a Cooper’s hawk. I remember thinking of something I’d read about crows — that they are very wise with a terrific memory capable of recalling anyone, human or otherwise, that do them a bad turn. That hawk would do well not to show himself again.

And yet, not a real fox to be found. Not yet.

In time, I’ve accepted foxes as a kind of Sandhills totem. But why? I kept looking for an explanation. Or a story.

There is an ancient Greek myth of a fox sent by the gods to punish Thebes, the city where Oedipus became king. She devoured chickens, sheep and children. No one was safe. People hid in their homes from the blur of a beast that left a whirlwind in her wake. So terrifying was this vixen and so elusive she could neither be caught nor felled. Not even, at first, by the mightiest of generals, Amphitryon.

Had this place harbored such history?

Not exactly.

If you visited New Orleans, you’d notice our recurring symbols. We flaunt them. From the trundling streetcars, to the uncanny carnival masks, to the cheap plastic beads hanging from the oak trees intermingled with Spanish moss, to the ubiquitous symbol of the Bourbon Dynasty — adopted by the Creole colonials for their own purposes.

Perhaps it’s in my blood, but as an expatriate from a city that celebrates its ties to France (and mainland Europe), there was nothing more unfamiliar to me than the spiritual fervor in the air during the annual Blessing of the Hounds. Particularly the men in red coats — sorry, hunting pink — on horseback.

I grew up with stories of Br’er Rabbit. They gave me an affinity for tricksters, the characters that foxes often embody in folktales. Naturally, I couldn’t help feeling for the poor fox in this predicament — chased, cornered. I was comforted beforehand by an assurance from a hobbyist foxhunter that these days the hounds mostly chase coyote. Ah. Coyote — a trickster of yet another mythos.

Strangers tend to notice the things locals no longer see. So, what became of the vixen-vexed town of Thebes and its tormentor, the fox?

At first, Amphitryon cursed his luck. He knew he’d been given an impossible task. He would grow old and die before he’d manage to catch that fox on his own. So the wise general decided he wouldn’t waste his time. There were more important battles to be fought and won.

A special hound was bred and summoned, a hound worthy of this task, one who would give chase for as long as it would take. Laelaps was his name, and he was let loose to bark, snarl, and spring at the heels of the fox.

This tireless thief was chased by the relentless pursuer until, once again, the gods intervened, offering mercy to mortals. Zeus placed both monsters in the sky forming Canis Major (the hound) and Canis Minor (the fox).

It is hard to leave New Orleans. It spoils you with good food, with good music, with a culture not found anywhere else in America. Sold to the United States by Napoleon who needed money to fight the British, it’s a European city on this side of the pond, with African and Caribbean cultures mixed into the gumbo crockpot.

Some nights, walking a fox-eared Corgi, I look up as the stars give chase to one another in the sky. Through the pines, and far from the city lights, I can see the constellations considerably better from here. PS

Romey Petite is a writer and illustrator, a recent New Orleans transplant and a contributor to our Bookshelf column. He can be contacted at romeypetite@gmail.com

PinePitch

The Rooster’s Wife

The Rooster’s Wife May lineup bursts into spring with high energy and vitality.

Sunday, May 7: Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley, blending contemporary bluegrass with classic ’60s and ’70s country music, are the real deal. $20.

Friday, May 12: Laney Jones and the Spirits. Jones is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist whose music reflects modern folk rock as well a style that’s all her own. $10.

Sunday, May 14: Haas Kowert Tice. With fiddle, guitar and upright bass, these exciting instrumentalists create unique melodies in the tradition of American roots music. $15.

Sunday, May 21: Two favorite songbirds, N.C.’s own Laurelyn Dossett of Triad Stage fame, and Red Molly’s namesake, Molly Venter, bring their newest work to the Poplar Knight Spot. $15.

Friday, May 26: Dark Water Rising is a Native American group with an indie rock/blues sound. $10.

Sunday, May 28: Front Country, a progressive roots/pop acoustic band from San Francisco, features mandolin, guitar, bass, violin, and amazing vocals. $15.

Doors open at 6 p.m. and music begins at 6:46 at the Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. For more information, call (910) 944-7502 or visit www.theroosterswife.org for tickets. Prices above are advance sale.

For Your Summer Reading Pleasure

On Thursday, May 25, at 5 p.m., The Country Bookshop welcomes Phaedra Patrick, author of The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper. Patrick will discuss her new novel, Rise & Shine, Benedict Stone, in which the title character is a middle-aged English man stuck in a rut and out of touch, similar to the protagonist of her first novel. Redemption comes through the charms of a hidden bracelet in her first novel. In the new one, it is a bag of gems. Both books are treasures. This event is free and open to the public. The Country Bookshop is located at 140 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. For more information, call (910) 692-3211.

Life’s Layers

The Arts Council of Moore County is showcasing works this month by Deborah Kline and Tommy B. McDonell, who are hosting the Opening Night Reception from 6 to 8 p.m., Friday, May 5, at the Campbell House Galleries. The exhibition runs from May 5 to 26. Open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, and from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 20, the gallery is located at 482 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. For more information, call (910) 692-2787 or visit mooreart.org.

Polocrosse in the Pines

The Carolina Polocrosse Club invites you to an action-packed tournament weekend featuring equine and human athletes. Polocrosse, which dates back hundreds of years to Persia and its sister sport of polo, resembles the American Indian game of lacrosse on horseback. Players catch, carry, and throw a ball with their racquets. The CPC is one of the largest in the country, with top-notch players and coaches who compete internationally and participate in international exchanges. The Carolina Classic Tournement will be played at The Pinehurst Harness Track, 200 Beulah Hill Road S, on May 21 and 22, from 8:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call (910) 235-8456 or visit www.carolinapolocrosse.com.

Come Dance with Me

On Saturday, May 13, enjoy an evening under the stars at the historic Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities in the elegant tradition of the estate’s original owners and frequent hosts, James and Katherine Boyd. The Weymouth Heritage Affair Gala will include dining and dancing; Vegas-style entertainment, reminiscent of the Rat Pack; a silent auction of specially packaged Weymouth Experience items; and dance demonstrations by Carolina DanceWorks. The festivities begin at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $115 for members and active duty military, $125 for non-members. This evening is sponsored by The Pilot and PineStraw. The Weymouth Center is located at 555 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. For more information, call (910) 692-6261 or weymouthcenter.org.

First Friday on a New Stage

Markus King Band – photo credit: Jacob Blickenstaff

On Friday, May 5, The Marcus King Band will kick off the First Friday 2017 Season and inaugurate the First Bank Stage, the Sunrise Theater’s new outdoor stage in the Sunrise Greenspace. Combining funky R&B, Southern soul and Americana played on brass, guitar and organ, Marcus King and his masterful musicians are quickly becoming one of the country’s most popular live acts. Starting at 5:30 p.m., enjoy food and beverages along with the entertainment at this family-friendly event, but no dogs, please! Admission is free. The Sunrise Greenspace is located at 250 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. For more information, call (910) 692-8501 or visit firstfridaysouthernpines.com.

 A Comic Evening

Vision 4 Moore presents this show for the entire family on Friday, May 12. The evening will begin with young, local stand-up comic Caleb Elliott, who has performed his brand of good-natured, but edgy, comedy at stages across North Carolina, including Charley Goodnights in Raleigh. Caleb is followed by Steve Brogan, a stand-up comic ventriloquist who has performed with his “dummy” friends nationwide. Steve’s comedy is clean, crisp and suitable for any audience. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 day of. Profits to be equally shared with our non-profit partners: Caring Hearts For Kids Of Moore, Meals on Wheels of the Sandhills and The MIRA Foundation, USA. The show is from 7:30–9:30 p.m. onstage at The O’Neal School – Hannah Center, 3300 Airport Road, Southern Pines. For more information, call (910) 365-9890 or visit explorepinehurst.com.

Cameron Antiques Fair —Rain or Shine!

Whether you are a serious antique shopper or a casual browser, you are sure to find something that strikes your fancy at the Cameron Antiques Fair. On Saturday, May 6, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., more than 300 dealers will be displaying their antiques and collectibles in village shops and along the streets in the Historic District of Cameron, which is itself worth a visit. Built by railroad men, farmers, merchants and entrepreneurs in the late 19th Century, Cameron retains its turn-of-the-century character and village atmosphere. 485 Carthage St. (NC 24/NC 27). For more information, call (910) 245-3055 or (910) 245-3020, or antiquesofcameron.com.

Movie in the Pines

On Friday, May 12, The Town of Southern Pines presents Moana, a 2016 Disney computer-animated film, in which the daughter of a Polynesian chief must save her people from a blight; and on Friday, May 26, the film will be The Secret Life of Pets. The films run from 7:30 to 9 p.m., but bring a blanket or a chair and come early for good seating and to play some games before the screenings start. Concessions will be available on site. The movies are free to the public at Downtown Park, 145 SE Broad St., Southern Pines. For more information call (910) 692-7376 or visit
www.southernpines.net.

Live after 5

On Friday, May 12, The Village of Pinehurst presents The Embers at a special Live after 5 free concert in The Village Arboretum. The Embers will be performing beach music, a genre they have practically defined and one that bandleader Bobby Tomlinson refers to as “music with a memory.” Food trucks will be on-site with a great selection of sandwiches and desserts. Beer, wine, water and soft drinks will also be available for purchase. Picnic baskets are allowed, but outside alcoholic beverages are not permitted. Come out and enjoy the music and the memories — and maybe make a few. The Village Arboretum is located at 395 Magnolia Road in Pinehurst. For more information call (910) 295-1900 or visit pinehurstrec.org.