Okra Strut

An ode to the South’s quintessential veggie

By Nan Graham

Ladies Fingers, gumbo or okra . . . the plant has many names and even more uses. Our okra, like many things Southern, is regarded by some as inferior, an essentially unworthy vegetable. We Southerners never remark, as some do, that it is “slimy.” It’s the same as saying that Aunt Tillie’s nose twitches after her fourth bourbon and branch water. In these parts, we tend to ignore such aberrations and avert the eyes.

Okra is a cousin to our emblematic cotton as well as the hibiscus and hollyhock. After the boll weevil decimated King Cotton, the pesky bug turned to okra for breakfast, lunch and supper. Travelers noted okra cultivation in Egypt as far back as 1216, so like most Southerners, okra likes to trace its lineage back a bit. Even today, okra grows wild in West Africa and in parts of India.

It has been popular in our neck of the woods since the 18th century . . . reported by Thomas Jefferson. Aside from its veggie status, whether fried, pickled or paired with onions and tomatoes or used to thicken stews, okra is extraordinarily versatile. During the Civil War, the benighted plant was used by Confederates as plasma and a blood extender. Unable to get coffee, they also made do with a hot drink made from okra seeds, which they pretended was a macchiato from Starbucks.

Possible future uses for okra include a particle board material that is better than material we use now, even chopped into feed for livestock and using roots and stems as fuel. It has been used “for making rope and producing paper.”

But wait until you hear the medicinal benefits. It’s a great low-calorie, zero-fat (unless fried) food. Also a super fiber additive, diuretic, and even contains a male contraceptive, gossypol. Wait, there’s more. Its laxative constituent feeds you good bacteria and slows the rate of sugar in the intestinal tract, stabilizing your blood sugar. Scientists claim that okra helps with acid reflux, and aids in controlling asthma.

It all sounds a bit like the snake-oil salesman in the Wizard of Oz, but studies are recognizing okra’s value. And your mental health is not ignored. Okra is said to be excellent for those feeling exhausted and experiencing depression. Okra seems to have something for everyone.

My husband, wearing his beloved pith helmet, planted a Victory Garden in our side yard. He especially prized his lush okra plants with its star-shaped leaves and spectacular white flowers. But in the sizzling July sun, the plants were prone to fainting . . . a case of the real Victorian vapors. Extra watering revived them for a while, but soon the heat exhaustion set in again, and the okra plants bent back on their stems in a full-out swoon.

Their gardener in his pith helmet devised a rescue plan — ingenious but bizarre. He gathered every umbrella in the house, tied each umbrella to a stake next to each distressed okra plant, and opened every umbrella. Yellows, green checks, fuchsia stripes and firehouse reds (even one red, black and white Mickey Mouse vinyl number) bloomed over the garden. Dazzling!

Passersby stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of the umbrella bouquet. All onlookers agreed it was a novel horticultural solution. Despite my Rube Goldberg’s heroic and theatrical efforts, the okra succumbed. The plants were taken off life support. The umbrellas were returned to their respective closets and automobiles. The day of the whimsical flowers was over . . . the riot of color . . . gone.

Okra, prone to be the object of jokes, seems to lend itself to the theater of the absurd. In Mississippi, Delta State University even has a Fighting Okra mascot . . . no fooling. The official mascot is the Statesman, which is slightly overcome with its own gravitas, especially in contrast to the overwhelming popularity of the zany Fighting Okra.

I think our Carolina cousins to the South may be on to something. The Okra Strut in Irmo, South Carolina, began in 1974 and every September offers a parade, crafts, fried okra, of course, and a highlight event called the Shoot-out at the Okra Corral . . . an eating contest featuring what else?

So if you have been sneering at this fuzzy vegetable, please give it a second chance. We all deserve one. And that old Southern standby might even become the new kale! PS

Nan Graham is a frequent contributor with unparalleled knowledge of the South.

PinePitch

Live After 5

Live After 5 returns to Tufts Memorial Park Friday, April 13, with music, dancing, food, beer, wine and fun activities for the kids. The event is free, and you are invited to bring picnic baskets if you want but, please, no outside alcoholic beverages. Beer, wine and other beverages will be available at the park for purchase, in addition to food from Jason’s Mini Donuts and What’s Fore Lunch food trucks. The band will be Night Years. Don’t forget your lawn chairs, blankets and dancing shoes. The fun begins at 5:30 p.m., and continues until 9 p.m. Tufts Memorial Park is located at 1 Village Green Road W., in Pinehurst. For more information, call (910) 295-1900.

Meet the Author

In Frances Mayes’ new book, Women in Sunlight, three middle-aged, American women, Camille, Julia, and Susan, meet at an orientation for an active lifestyle community and decide to lease a villa in Italy. When they make friends with their American neighbor, Kit, the women begin to see new potential for themselves, rediscovering their sense of adventure over the course of a year in the land of la dolce vita. Mayes will be at The Country Bookshop on Thursday, April 12, at 5:30 p.m. to discuss the book, answer questions, and sign copies. Stop by, meet and get inspired by “the Bard of Tuscany,” author of Under the Tuscan Sun and much more. The Country Bookshop is located at 140 N.W. Broad St., in Southern Pines. Call (910) 692-3211 for more information.

Blues & Brews: A Festival at the Farm

Malcolm Blue Farm is a living history farm dating back to the early 19th century when the Sandhills area was known as the Pine Barrens. A visit to the farmstead and museum will give you a rare glimpse into the life of early settlers and on Saturday, April 21, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., you’ll get to enjoy a day of bluegrass performances by Tommy Edwards Bluegrass Experience, Unspoken Tradition, Time Sawyer, and Songs From The Road Band. You can stroll around the beautiful grounds, shaded by 100-year-old Darlington oaks as you enjoy the music and festival. Beer, cider and food will be available for purchase. Admission is $5. The Malcolm Blue Farm is located at 1177 Bethesda Road, Aberdeen. For more information, call (910) 944-7275.

Annual Home & Garden Tour

The Southern Pines Garden Club celebrates its 70th anniversary by inviting you into six gracious homes, enhanced by inspiring floral arrangements, and lovely gardens. The tour, on Saturday, April 14, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., includes “Loblolly” (the Lancaster Home), designed for Helen Boyd Dull, a Garden Club founder; the Saulnier Home, designed by Alfred B. Yeomans, a nationally renowned landscape architect who helped shape the Weymouth neighborhood in the late 1800s; and Liscombe Lodge in Pinehurst, once the home of Gen. George Marshall. Tickets are available at The Country Bookshop, The Sandhills Woman’s Exchange or www.southernpinesgardenclub.com, and are $20 in advance or $25 the day of, and include an orchid sale, a Pinehurst Resort greenhouse tour and restaurant discounts. All proceeds go toward community beautification and horticultural education projects. The tour begins at the Campbell House, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. For more information, call (910) 690-1440.

The Miracle Worker

As a baby, Helen Keller was stricken with an illness that left her blind and deaf. As a young child, she was nearly feral. Yet she grew up to graduate cum laude from Radcliffe College and become an influential social and political activist and inspirational role model. The story of that transformation, made possible by her teacher, Annie Sullivan, is told in William Gibson’s play The Miracle Worker.

Judson Theatre Company brings The Miracle Worker to the stage at Owens Auditorium from Thursday through Sunday, April 12 to 15. The production stars John James, from TV’s Dynasty series, and New York actors Lea DiMarchi as Annie Sullivan and Allison Podlogar as Helen Keller. Owens Auditorium is located on the Sandhills Community College campus, at 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Tickets are $38 in advance and $43 at the door. Student, military and SCC discounts are available at the door. For show times and tickets, visit www.judsontheatre.com.

Southern Pines Springfest

On Saturday, April 28, more than 160 vendors from North Carolina and beyond will entice you with their beautiful paintings, jewelry, metal art, photography, woodwork, designs from nature, and more. For your entertainment, there will be games, rides, food and live music. Activities for kids abound on the Kid’s Block; and the Youth Bike Races for children 10 and under will have kids competing on their bikes, tricycles and Big Wheels. Sponsored by the Southern Pines Business Association and the Town of Southern Pines, the day of spring festivities happens from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. along both sides of Broad Street in historic downtown Southern Pines. For more information, call (910) 315-6508. And don’t forget Springfest at Shaw House, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the corner of Morganton and Broad St., where tours and activities will be free for the day.

The Carolina Cabaret

Enjoy the Carolina Philharmonic’s “Broadway Cabaret” starring Jeff Kready, a suave song and dance man who appeared in A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder and Billy Elliott the Musical and Megan McGinnis, who debuted on Broadway in The Diary of Anne Frank and played Beth in the musical Little Women. With David Michael Wolff hosting from the keyboard, Jeff and Megan will take you on a journey through some of your favorite melodies, interlaced with riveting backstories. You can catch this intimate performance at either 3 p.m. or 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 21, at Owens Auditorium, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Tickets range from $30 to $60, with discounts for students and active military. For more information, call  (910) 687-0287 or visit www.carolinaphil.org.

A Spirited Evening of Music

On Wednesday, April 4, the Southern Pines Sister Cities, under the musical direction of Baxter Clement, will present a community concert with local and Irish teen musicians. As part of the Sister Cities International Music Exchange Program, students from the Southern Pines area traveled to Ireland to study Irish music and perform, and the music students from Newry, Mourne and Down District of Northern Ireland are coming here to do the same. Come to the Sunrise Theater, enjoy the music and offer some warm Southern hospitality to these young visitors. The performance is free and starts at 7 p.m. The Sunrise Theater is located at 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Call (910) 315-4323 for more information.

Greenus Envious

Tips from the tried and failed

By Susan S. Kelly

So it’s finally a warm weekend in spring, and you long to have something to pick, prune, pluck or even deadhead in your yard, garden, or the scorched-earth, weed-whacked plot that passes for it.  But you’re too busy or lazy to learn Latin names, and it’s embarrassing to go to the garden center and say, “I want those, you know, pink flowers that are tall,” or “ . . . that tree that looks pretty in the spring.”

Herewith, therefore, your tried-and-true primer, from someone whose personal dirt’s worth is incalculable due to all the tried-and-failed specimens I purchased, trucked in, planted, tended, and either rejoiced or mourned over. Or, alternatively, ripped out, chopped down, and consigned to the mulch pile. Because, in my yard, like professors seeking tenure, you either produce or perish.

Magnolia — Best climbing tree ever. But as a flower, forget it. The blooms are never low enough to cut, and besides, they only last a day. Leave it alone and just sniff the blooms big as plates. Come fall, your children can play army with the seedpods.

Gardenia — Only reliable if you live east of Raleigh. As for picked longevity, ditto the one-day warning above. Touch the vanilla petals and your invisible skin oils will brown them not invisibly. Heavenly aroma, though I rejected them in my wedding bouquet because the overpowering sweetness tends to provoke a gag reflex.  Still, nice in a teacup or that silver scallop shell your grandmother used as an ashtray.

Camellia —  Cannot be picked or arranged satisfactorily. For viewing only. Bonus: unlike azaleas, stay glossy green all year.

Orange daylilies — My neighbor calls them “privy lilies,” presumably because folks once planted them to beautify the outhouse. But they beat the heck out of the stubby gold hybrids planted in interstate medians. Go for it.

Queen Anne’s lace — Field and roadside freebies, but bring them inside and they proceed to shed fine white dust all over everything.

Marigolds — Often dumped upon as plebeian blooms, but for this commoner, nothing smells as good as one of their stems, broken.

Cleome — Pink, pretty, proliferous, and self-seeding. What else could you ask for in an airy weed that loves neglect, red clay, and 1,000-degree days? In late summer, take the seeds to the office, to a friend, or, for that matter, to another place in the yard. Strew with abandon.

Black-eyed Susans — As the Chatham Blanket tagline once boasted, they cover a multitude of sins. Require little effort and even less skill to stuff in a glass, metal or pottery container. Do not disparage that which can withstand full sun when you can’t. You call them invasive, I call them indispensable.

Knockout roses —  The Johnny-come-lately “it” flowering shrub. Utterly unpickable, but compensates for this shortcoming in sheer size and volume.

Peonies — The ultimate bloomer. Often disqualified for, as the farmers like to say, seasonality, but worth the wait, the space and the ants. Go ahead, gird your loins, and bring yourself to cut and enjoy them before a 20-minute thunderstorm causes irreparable loss and gnashing of teeth.

Hydrangeas — Bingo! Once upon a time, my mother referred to hydrangeas as “trash shrubs.” I love this. Or rather, I love reminding her of this now that no one can live without them.

Ivy — Just, no. You’ll be sorry. Plus, snakes like it. Use pachysandra instead.

There you have it. No more feeling humiliated by Biltmore with its perfect planters and borders and gardens featuring every floral texture and contrast and interest which nevertheless are superior to previously-envied Disney World’s planters and borders and gardens. Because Biltmore’s flowers actually grow, rather than simply get replaced by Snow White’s 426 dwarves every night.

Or, how not to waste your time or money on What Won’t Work Because We’re Not England.  PS

Susan Kelly is a blithe spirit, author of several novels, and proud new grandmother.

Bone Broth

Hot, healthful and nutritious

By Karen Frye

There is a strong resurgence of foods that were consumed many years ago by our ancestors. Our grandmothers made use of every part of the chicken, cow or pig in their recipes. They grew the vegetables, had fruit growing seasonally, and picked wild berries. They milked their own cows, and made their own butter. They were extremely resourceful, and creative, and worked tirelessly with love to prepare meals for the family.

Making soup is one of the best ways to utilize ingredients to make a delicious, healthful meal. Nourishing broths go back to the Stone Age. Soup is a true universal food, and the variations are endless and easy to prepare. Bone broth is one of the oldest and has resurfaced as a food highly beneficial to our health. It contains valuable amino acids, collagen, gelatin and minerals. Many of the nutrients in bone broth are not found in other foods.

Protein in the broth helps build muscles, strong bones and new cells in the body. It is one of the very best sources of natural collagen, which helps support healthy cartilage and connective tissue. Collagen helps form elastin within the skin to maintain youthful appearance, slowing the formation of wrinkles and other signs of aging.

Gelatin heals the gut and increases the growth of beneficial bacteria. The amino acid glutamine is a wonderful healer for the intestines and many digestive issues. It also aids in detoxification while helping the liver function better as it removes toxins. Bone broth is highly beneficial in boosting the immune system and increasing metabolism. In fact, if consumed on a regular basis, it can help all systems and functions throughout the body.

Bone broth can be made at home using grass-fed chicken or beef bones, organic carrots, celery, onions and leeks. Adding some seaweed boosts the trace minerals in the broth. Chef Sueson Vess is our local expert in preparing healthy foods. She regularly teaches classes on broth making and gluten-free foods. Check out her website, specialeats.com. She will walk you through the steps of making a delicious bone broth.

You can drink the bone broth as a hot beverage, and you can use it as a base for other soups. You can also find bone broth powders to add to smoothies. Increasingly, research bolsters the case for its amazing health benefits. It’s a tasty and delicious health food that could improve the quality of your life, too.  PS

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

Mysteries of the Swamp

A supernatural risk for John Hart

By D.G. Martin

John Hart, who grew up in Salisbury, is the author of five New York Times best-sellers, The King of Lies (2006), Down River (2007), The Last Child (2009), Iron House (2011) and Redemption Road (2016).

Both The King of Lies and Down River won Edgar Awards, making Hart the only author to win this prestigious award for consecutive novels. He has a bag full of other honors, including the Barry Award, the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Award for Fiction, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, the Southern Book Prize, and the North Carolina Award for Literature.

Hart declares his favorite of all these successes is the The Last Child. So it should come as no surprise that his latest, The Hush, is a sequel to that book.

Readers of The Last Child met Johnny Merriman as a 13-year-old, followed his search for his missing sister and his traumatic childhood, and came to know his troubled friend Jack. In The Hush, as Hart explained to me recently, Johnny “is living alone in the wilds of this swampy area called the Hush, which is an abbreviation for Hush Arbor, an area of 6,000 acres of rough, mostly swampland. Johnny is the owner. It is the remnant of a 40,000-acre tract that his family owned in the 1800s.

“He is withdrawn from society and lives in the swamp, by himself. His only connection to humanity really is his buddy Jack, from The Last Child. Jack is now a young attorney in town in his first week in practice when the book opens. It’s what he’s always wanted to do, to take control of his tumultuous life and get that kind of logic and reason, wrap his hands around that and live by those standards.

“But it becomes very difficult for him because the more time he spends with Johnny in the Hush, the more he begins to fear that things are not as they should be. There are mysterious things afoot in the swamp, terrifying things, dangerous things that Johnny is unwilling to talk about.

“Jack pushes, Johnny is recalcitrant, so part of the tension in the story is what grows between these two best friends as Johnny clearly is guarding some sort of secret that terrifies his best friend, and he flat out refuses to discuss it. That’s a big part of the book, what’s going on in the Hush.”

Hart introduces existence of the supernatural powers in the Hush gently. After a terrible fall from a rocky cliff on the property, Johnny is cut, bruised and bloody. Back in town for a quick visit, Johnny allows his stepfather, Clyde, to bind up these serious wounds, and then hurries to leave and go back to the Hush.

Clyde says, “You want to go, I know. I can see that, too. It’s always Hush Arbor, always the land. Just tell me one thing before you leave. Help me understand. Why do you love it so much?”

Hart writes, “He meant the silence and the swamp, the lonely hills and endless trees. On the surface it was a simple question, but Johnny’s past had branded him in a way few could ignore: the things he’d believed and leaned upon, the way he’d searched so long for his sister. If Johnny spoke now, of magic, they’d think him confused or insane or trapped, somehow, in the delusions of a difficult past. Without living it, no one could grasp the truth of Hush Arbor. Johnny wouldn’t want them to if they could.”

But some part of that magic is revealed to Jack when he visits Johnny in the Hush a few days later. Although Clyde had described Johnny’s horrible wounds, they were not apparent to Jack. Johnny “was shirtless and still and flawless. There wasn’t a mark on him.”

The reader who might have expected the usual John Hart thriller is on alert. Magic and the supernatural are going to play a big role in this saga.

Unraveling and understanding the source and the reasons for this magical power on the land provide the spine on which Hart builds this book.

But as the book begins, Johnny faces another serious challenge, a non-magical one. His title to his land is being challenged by a member of an African-American family who lived on the land for many years and whose claim is based on a deed from 1853. Johnny’s legal claim is sound, but he used all his money to pay prior legal fees. Now, although he owns thousands of acres of land, cash-wise he is broke. So he wants his friend, the brand-new attorney Jack, to represent him.

He tries to persuade Jack to fight his legal battles. But Jack’s law firm forbids him from taking on Johnny as a client. Instead, the firm hopes to represent a wealthy out-of-town money manager and hunter who wants to force Johnny to sell his land, or failing that, find another way to acquire it. Why? The hunting in and near the Hush is dangerous, exciting, and promises the possibility of extraordinary game. When that man is mysteriously killed while hunting in the Hush, Johnny becomes a prime murder suspect. Meanwhile, some members of the African-American family that lived on the land show magical powers, especially while they are in the Hush. Traumatic events in 1853 involving Johnny’s slave-owning ancestors and those of the African-American enslaved family still cause trouble on the land.

Hart’s imaginative resolution of these troubles brings the book to a powerful and violent conclusion.

But there is a risk here for Hart. His prior books have, with only one minor exception, held to the standard rules for thriller writers. Those rules call for the mysteries to be solved without the aid of magic or the supernatural.

Hart is betting that the richness of his characters, his compelling storytelling, and the story’s supernatural landscape will hold his thriller fans despite breaking his old rules. Taking this risk, he hopes, will expand his appeal and share his storytelling talent with an even wider audience.

Taking risks, even those with high stakes, is not a new activity for Hart.

In fact, he seems to thrive on risk. For instance, he gave up his job as a stockbroker about 15 years ago to complete his first novel. That risk-taking paid off when The King of Lies became a best-seller in 2006.

Then Hart, after a string of three more successful books, risked upsetting his working routine by moving with his wife and two young children from Greensboro to Charlottesville, Virginia. Although the move disrupted his writing program for several years, it finally led to Redemption Road, which became a critical and commercial success. His completion of  The Hush shows that Hart is fully back on his game.

Now, will the risk of making the supernatural an integral part of his work pay off for him?

Nothing is for sure.

However, the complex and rich stories in The Hush and the book’s supernatural but satisfying conclusion suggest that he is again on the right track. PS

D.G. Martin hosts North Carolina Bookwatch, which airs Sundays at noon and Thursdays at 5 p.m. on UNC-TV.

The Allure of March

On the cusp of good eating

By Jan Leitschuh

March can either frost us or tempt us with promises of spring. Dreams of fresh produce awaken the taste buds. It’s a good time to clean up the garden, even plant a few items.

Early March, we can put in the sugar snap peas, some beets, carrots, spinach, radishes and Swiss chard. Your odds are good. Tough transplants of broccoli, cauliflower, parsley, cabbage, chives and onions can go in now if a glance at the weather forecast looks promising. Set out your potatoes. Hold off till at least month’s end (if not longer) for corn, tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplant, basil and cucumbers.

Have a cover ready for that inevitable night in the mid-20s. Cross your fingers, and hope the deer and the bunnies steer clear.

Yet we know that many here in the Sandhills will never plant so much as a seed — and that’s fine. Life is busy, your soil is poor, there’s little interest, the neighborhood or the sun exposure doesn’t support the growing of produce, the old knees aren’t what they used to be. But, if you still love a strawberry, those sweet early greens, juicy fresh peaches, spring asparagus and tender sweet corn, the next best way to experience the freshest tastes is to buy just-picked produce from a Sandhills someone who did.

With the advent of produce programs outside the area, including Amazon moving into the fresh food space, it’s good to distinguish items grown right here by our fellow citizens, enriching our local economy and preserving our local green spaces.

“For every dollar you spend on truly local produce, it circulates within our economy,” says Lorraine Berman, acting general manager of Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative (SF2T). “If we buy local produce, and the farmer hires and spends locally, well, it really contributes a lot more than if you spent those food dollars outside the area.”

Besides, she adds, “Fresh, local produce just tastes amazing.”

I’ve said it before, but the in the early decade of this century, Moore County virtually led the nation for loss of farmland. This tide has stabilized, in part due to the support of the community in creating a market for local tastes. In fact, one essential aspect of the new 2018-2020 Moore County Economic Development Strategic Plan is simply “to keep Moore County farmers farming.”

“Because agriculture is 25 percent of our local economy,” says Pat Corso, executive director of Moore County Partners in Progress.

Your support does this. You provide the markets that keep Sandhills farmers farming.

There are a number of ways to enjoy the tastes of the Sandhills. Finest of all is to visit a local farm during fruit-picking season. Strawberries top the popular list in mid-April, and in the giddiness of early spring, what could be finer than taking the kids to a pick-your-own field? A month or two later, you can find pick-your-own blueberries, blackberries and maybe even grapes during the summer season. Don’t delay; the season for any juicy fruit crop is short. A farmer’s own stand will offer a cornucopia of summer bounty.

Another way is to visit local farmers markets for a variety of seasonal treats, meats and cheeses. At peak season, you can buy fresh almost every day of the week. You can speak to your producers directly, pick up preparation tips, learn something about how your produce was grown, run into your friends and neighbors. Local farmers markets also kick off in April, with the market on Morganton Road open Thursdays throughout the year with meats, greenhouse produce and more.

Another program with genuine impact on the local farm economy is the Sandhills Farm to Table box program, distributing the full bounty of the Sandhills season. Entering its ninth year, the community-owned program requires a certain number of subscriptions by April each year to remain viable, but the positive impact on local farmers is undeniable. “It makes a difference,” says John Blue of Highlander’s Farm. “It really does.”

Many Sandhills farmers enjoy picking a crop the afternoon before, or even that morning, and delivering wholesale quantities to the SF2T packing house, getting better than wholesale prices for their labor and the day free to do what they do best — grow food. They take their stewardship of the land and “their” subscribers very personally, going the extra mile to replace any item (packed by community volunteers) deemed sub-optimal after delivery.

This year, SF2T will kick off its subscription drive March 1, with a public community celebration at the Sunrise Theater, screening the film Sustainable, followed by local bites and spirits at 305 Trackside. Tickets for the movie-and-food event are available at the Sunrise website. Subscription to SF2T boxes of weekly or biweekly produce is available at the movie event or email info@sandhillsfarm2table.com.

“We are often overwhelmed by the news and problems of the world, convinced that we are helpless to effect change,” says Berman. “But all things large start out small; every marathon starts with that first step. Eating local food and subscribing to Sandhills Farm to Table is that first step toward better health, to protecting the environment, toward improving our local economy, and toward a kinder community and better quality of life.”

Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and co-founder of the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative.

March Books

FICTION

Gods of Howl Mountain, by Taylor Brown

This is the third novel by the acclaimed author of The River of Kings and Fallen Land set in the high country of 1950s North Carolina. Gods of Howl Mountain is a dark and compelling story of family secrets, whiskey running, vengeance and love. Maybelline Docherty, “Granny May,” is a folk healer with a dark past. She concocts potions and cures for the people of the mountains — her powers rumored to rival those of a wood witch — while watching over her grandson, Rory Docherty, who has returned from the Korean War with a wooden leg and nightmares of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. Rory runs bootleg whiskey in a high-powered car to roadhouses, brothels and private clients in the mill town at the foot of the mountains. With gritty and atmospheric prose, Brown brings to life a perilous mountain and the family who rules it, tying together past and present in one captivating narrative.

What You Don’t Know about Charlie Outlaw, by Leah Stewart

After a series of missteps in the face of his newfound fame, actor Charlie Outlaw flees to a remote island in search of anonymity and a chance to reevaluate his recent breakup with his girlfriend, actress Josie Lamar. Soon after his arrival on the peaceful island, his solitary hike into the jungle takes him into danger he never anticipated. As Charlie struggles with gaining fame, Josie struggles with its loss. The star of a cult TV show in her early 20s, Josie has spent the two decades since searching for a role to equal that one, and feeling less and less like her character, the heroic Bronwyn Kyle. As she gets ready for a reunion of the cast at a huge fan convention, she thinks all she needs to do is find a part and replace Charlie. But she can’t forget him, and to get him back she’ll need to be a hero in real life.

Tangerine, by Christine Mangan 

Lucy Mason was the last person Alice Shipley expected to see since arriving in Tangier with her new husband, John. After the accident at Bennington, the two friends — once inseparable roommates — haven’t spoken in over a year. But there Lucy was, trying to make things right and return to their old rhythms. Too afraid to venture out into the bustling medina and oppressive heat, Alice hadn’t adjusted to life in Morocco. Lucy, fearless and independent, helps her emerge from her flat and explore the country. Soon a familiar feeling starts to overtake Alice — she feels controlled and stifled by Lucy at every turn. When John goes missing, Alice starts to question everything around her: her relationship with her enigmatic friend, her decision to come to Tangier, and her own state of mind. Tangerine is a sharp dagger of a book, a tightly wound debut replete with exotic imagery and charm. Full of precise details and extraordinary craftsmanship, it will leave you absolutely breathless.

Caribbean Rim, by Randy Wayne White

Marine biologist Doc Ford has been known to help his friends out of jams, but he’s never faced a situation like this. Murder, sunken treasure and pirates both ancient and modern send Ford on a nightmare quest in this thrilling new novel. His old pal Carl Fitzpatrick has been chasing sunken wrecks most of his life, but now he’s run afoul of the Florida Division of Historical Resources. Its director, Leonard Nickelby, despises amateur archaeologists, which is bad enough, but now he and his young “assistant” have disappeared — along with Fitzpatrick’s impounded cache of rare Spanish coins and the list of uncharted wrecks Fitz spent decades compiling. Some of Fitz’s own explorations have been a little dicey, so he can’t go to the authorities. Doc is his only hope. But greed makes people do terrible things: rob, cheat, even kill. With stakes this high, there’s no way the thieves will go quietly — and Doc just put himself in their crosshairs.

Anatomy of a Miracle, by Jonathan Miles

The last place Private First Class Cameron Harris walked was in a field in the Darah Khujz District of Zabul Province, in Afghanistan. A paraplegic for the last four years, he lives with his older sister, Tanya, in their Biloxi, Mississippi, family home — a narrow, 50-year-old shotgun-style house that wasn’t designed for the turning radius of a wheelchair — in a neighborhood where only half the houses made it through the storm surge of Hurricane Katrina. One hot August afternoon on their daily trip to the Biz-E-Bee convenience store, as Cameron waits outside for Tanya, he suddenly and inexplicably stands up. In the aftermath of this “miracle,” Cameron finds himself a celebrity at the center of a contentious debate about what’s taken place. And when scientists, journalists and a representative from the Vatican start digging, Cameron’s deepest secrets are endangered. Written as a closely observed journalistic rendering, filtered through a wide lens that encompasses the vibrant characters, Anatomy of a Miracle is a remarkable story of the perils of grace.

The Flight Attendant, by Chris Bohjalian

From The New York Times best-selling author of The Guest Room, a powerful story of how an entire life can change in one night when a flight attendant wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man — and no idea what happened. Cassandra Bowden is no stranger to morning hangovers. She’s a binge drinker with a taste for adventure who lives with occasional blackouts and the accompanying self-loathing. When she awakens in a Dubai hotel room, she tries to piece together the previous night, counting the minutes until she has to catch her crew shuttle to the airport. She quietly slides out of bed, careful not to aggravate her pounding head, and looks at the man she spent the night with. She sees his dark hair. His utter stillness. And a slick, wet pool of blood on the crisp white sheets. Afraid to call the police, Cassie lies to the other flight attendants and pilots; she lies on the way to Paris as she works the first class cabin; and she lies to the FBI agents in New York who meet her at the gate. Soon it’s too late to come clean. Could she have killed him? If not, who did? The Flight Attendant unveils a spellbinding story of the devastating consequences of addiction, and of murder far from home.

NONFICTION

Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westover 

The first time Tara Westover set foot in a classroom she was 17 years old. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag.” In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. As a way out, Tara began to educate herself, learning enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University. Her quest for knowledge would transform her, taking her to Harvard and, then, Cambridge University. With acute insight, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education offers: the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.

The Beekeeper: Saving the Stolen Women of Iraq, by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Max Weiss

Since 2014, Daesh (ISIS) has been brutalizing the Yazidi people of Northern Iraq: sowing destruction, killing those who won’t convert to Islam, and enslaving young girls and women. The Beekeeper, by the acclaimed poet and journalist Dunya Mikhail, tells the harrowing stories of several women who lost their families and loved ones, been sexually abused, psychologically tortured, and forced to manufacture chemical weapons. In extensive interviews an unlikely hero emerges: a beekeeper, who uses his knowledge of the local terrain, along with a wide network of transporters, helpers, and former cigarette smugglers, to bring these women, one by one, through the war-torn landscapes of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, back to safety. In the face of inhuman suffering, this powerful work of nonfiction offers a counterpoint to Daesh’s genocidal extremism: hope, as ordinary people risk their own lives to save those of others.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Bears and Blossoms, by Shirley Parenteau

Readers who fell in love with Bears on Chairs will squeal with delight as Big Brown Bear and the four little bears welcome spring with a picnic under flowering trees.  But when a great wind threatens their yummy honey-on-bread lunch, the bears declare, “The Wind is just right!” and set off flying kites.  With rhyming text and delightful illustrations, Bears and Blossoms is the perfect read-together book to celebrate the coming of spring.  (Ages 2-5.)

The Horse’s Haiku, by Michael Rosen

From field to barn to field, the grace, playfulness and beauty of the horse is celebrated through haiku in this stunningly simple, quietly lovely picture book.  Horse lovers of all ages will smile with appreciation at author Michael Rosen’s clever insights into the cool quirkiness of horses and his genuine understanding of the connection between horse and rider told exclusively through haiku.  (Age 6-adult.)

Dory Fantasmagory: Head in the Clouds, 
by Abby Hanlon

You really just can’t help but love Dory Fantasmagory.  One of the newest kids on the chapter book scene, this series has it all:  a fun-loving character, an imaginary best friend, a goofy school buddy, an invisible arch nemesis evil witch and a good kid-problem or two.  In Head in the Clouds, Dory must rebel against the wearing of the horrible “bunchy coat,” contend with an overzealous neat freak playdate, and save the tooth fairy from an imaginary evil witch nemesis.  Chapter books really have never been full of so much fun and adventure. (Ages 7-10.)

Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire, by John August

Arlo Finch moves to a new town where he joins the Rangers program and learns about the mysterious Long Woods and the magic seeping out from within them. Arlo must face down fierce enemies and help friends in need on his way to becoming a better Ranger.  Filled to the brink with plot twists, turns and surprises throughout. Readers who like fantasy or realistic fiction will adore Arlo — review by Henry Bauer, 12. (Ages 10-14.)

Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally.

Roll, Honey, Roll…

If you’ve been there, you feel my pain

By Clyde Edgerton

If you’ve been “down in the back,” raise your hand.

If you didn’t raise your hand, you might find the following about as interesting as a pharmaceutical commercial.

But if you’ve been there, then as you read on you may nod your head in agreement here and there.

During our early January Arctic cold spell, I ventured under our house to turn off water to some outside pipes. At about six steps in through the low door that leads under the house — bending way over — I looked up and, whoops, felt a sharp pain in the middle of my lower back. A quiet voice said: “That was not good.” I finished with the pipes, got out from under the house and thought, Maybe it’s not too bad. I hauled in a load of wood for the fireplace, built a fire, messed around in the backyard, thinking: Something is wrong with my lower back. But it’ll be better in the morning.

Next morning, when I started to get out of bed, a sledgehammer hammered a spike into my lower back. A pain so severe that had it continued over a few seconds I’d been yelling constantly to the high heavens. “Stabbing pain” sort of gets at it, but I feel like I need a new word — not spasm, but: Stabazm!

I yelled, and fell back into bed. The universe had attacked. Oh my goodness.

Kristina, my wife, who’s had back problems off and on for a decade, said, “If you want to get up, you need to roll. Roll out of bed. Don’t just pull up. You’ve got to roll. And breathe.” After a long struggle and several more stabazms, each bringing a yell and sweat, I got up and slowly made my way — holding onto furniture — to the bathroom and then to the living room couch. Kristina helped me get propped up on my back with pillows under my knees, ice on my back and a laptop in lap for work. While helping me onto the couch, she said, “Roll. You’ve got to roll.” When I was later trying to get back up she again said, “Roll, honey, roll,” and the word roll got funny for some reason . . . to both of us. I started to laugh — but the laughing brought on — yikes! Stabazm!

“Please don’t make me laugh,” I whispered through clenched teeth.

Next I found that I could not cough without initiating a stabazm.

I remained inside the house, hobbling back and forth from bed to couch for one week. I would figure out yet another way to not move, and then: BAM, another you-know-what. After a week, I visited my doctor. She gave me a muscle-relaxer drug, an inflammation drug and said if it wasn’t better in another week to get an X-ray. It got a little better, but not much. I decided to wait two weeks to see if I really needed that X-ray. Inside the house I was using a cane that I was too proud to use outside the house. I finally started driving. A car entrance looked a little like . . . I don’t know — a turtle climbing onto a motorcycle?

At the beginning of the third week — two days ago as of this writing — I got that X-ray and then went to UNCW for a faculty meeting. I was somewhat better, no stabazms in three days. I was happy to be up and about — careful about every move. But I was five minutes late to the meeting, hobbling along carefully.

I met a student who said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” I said. I wondered if I was supposed to know him. He was smiling.

“Hi,” he said again.

I was a bit confused. I had pencil and pad in hand, ready to go into
the meeting.

Then he pointed . . . and said what he’d been saying all along: “Fly!”

“Oh. Thanks,” I said, grabbed at my pants, dropped the pencil, zipped up and then bent down to pick up the pencil.

Stabazm! I was unable to muffle a yell.

If you’ve been there, you know how it feels.

If you haven’t been there, then when it happens, and you have to get out of bed: Roll.

Clyde Edgerton is the author of 10 novels, a memoir and most recently, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.

Dateline: Carmichael

When good things came in smaller packages

By Bill Fields

I’m not sure how my reading ability stacked up to that of my elementary school classmates, but I’m certain having the sports pages of the Greensboro Daily News at the breakfast table didn’t hurt. There were some big words in there.

The newspaper was very specific about where it was covering an out-of-town contest. After North Carolina moved into its new basketball facility in 1965, the dateline for Tar Heel home games spilled over into a second line of narrow-column type.

CARMICHAEL AUDITORIUM, Chapel Hill—

Occasionally, if the slot man was swamped and the typesetter was sloppy, it looked like this next to my bowl of grits:

CARMICHAEL AUDITORI-
UM, Chapel Hill—

Regardless of how it appeared in the paper, the building’s name stood out because it was where my team played. It was not CAMERON INDOOR STADIUM, Durham; or REYNOLDS COLISEUM, Raleigh; or other Atlantic Coast Conference basketball venues.

We had no family ties to Carolina, notwithstanding a summer school Spanish class my UNC Greensboro sister took there. My other sister went to Wake Forest, and while I proudly wore the black-and-gold sweatshirt she gave me, I was a Carolina kid. It was one of those decisions those of us in ACC country made early, before you were even able to write the name of your favorite basketball player in cursive.

I was in first grade when the Tar Heels played their first game in Carmichael, defeating William & Mary 87-68 on Dec. 4, 1965. Although I didn’t see the place in person until I got to campus as a freshman a dozen years later, I felt I knew it.

Aside from newspaper stories and box scores, there were the radio broadcasts. In the late-1960s — when Carolina won the ACC Tournament and advanced to the Final Four three straight years — play-by-play was handled by Bill Currie, a crazy-uncle type known as the “Mouth of the South” and starting with the 1971-72 season by Woody Durham, who was “The Voice of the Tar Heels” for four decades.

Televised games were rare when I first became a fan. We had to be content when a Carolina contest was on the Wednesday or Saturday C.D. Chesley network. And “The Dean Smith Show” was weekly Sunday morning viewing, with Smith always much more effusive about assists or hustle than how many points someone had scored.

One of my first memories of basketball on television is the NCAA title game on March 23, 1968, when the Tar Heels played UCLA. It was a 7 p.m. tipoff in Los Angeles, which made it a very late night for an 8-year-old in Southern Pines. I stayed awake until early in the second half, when the Bruins were well on their way to a 78-55 victory.

Nine years later Carolina played for another championship but had its heart broken by Marquette. I attended my first game in Carmichael in the second semester of my freshman year, a two-point victory over Wake Forest on Jan. 15, 1978. Working my way up the pecking order of The Daily Tar Heel sports department, I traded a seat in the student section for one on the press row-catwalk above it. When things went well for the team wearing light blue and white, it was deafening either place. After home games, reporters huddled around Smith in a corridor outside the locker room as he smoked a cigarette and looked forward to a Scotch.

My first time on a commercial flight, on Dec. 3, 1979, I sat beside then-assistant coach Roy Williams going from RDU to Tampa-St. Petersburg to cover Carolina vs. South Florida. Prior to the start of the 1980-81 season, I had a 90-minute interview with Smith in his office. I was DTH sports editor at that point, but, needing to mind my grades as a senior, left the job well before Carolina lost to Indiana in the 1981 NCAA championship game.  The following spring, I was back on Franklin Street as a fan — and graduate — enjoying the Tar Heels’ win over Georgetown.

Carolina men’s basketball relocated to the Smith Center in 1986. It has twice the seats of Carmichael, but if one grew up with the latter, not twice the charm. Carmichael Auditorium is no more, having been renamed Carmichael Arena in 2010 following an extensive modernization. They sold small commemorative pieces of the hallowed hardwood from the old building in 1998. I didn’t buy one then, but it might be time to check on eBay.

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

A Generous Voice

The distinguished reign of a poet laureate

By Stephen E. Smith

I have seen the ones I love leave this world as shadows without wings.

The purple martins that come up every year from Somewhere

Leave as easily as they jetted into their gourds in March.

And I have held my father’s hand as he was dying

And my mother’s, lying in her lap like dried peas . . .

From Paul’s Hill

Shelby Stephenson

North Carolina Poet Laureate

With the death of Poet Laureate Sam Ragan in 1996, the office of state laureate ceased being a lifetime appointment, and sitting governors began selecting poets laureate (with recommendations from the state’s writing communities) who would promote an appreciation for an often misapprehended genre. Recent laureates have been chosen for the excellence of their work, their influence on other writers, and “an appreciation for literature in its diversity throughout the state.” The revised guidelines grant tenures ranging from a standard two-year term to five years, depending upon the governor’s readiness to select a new laureate and the willingness of the poet to serve. With the exception of a disquieting hiccup during the McCrory administration, governors have chosen poets laureate who exhibit exceptional talent and generosity — and the process has been, thank God, more or less devoid of politics.

But the job of poet laureate, the physical act of getting behind the wheel of a car and driving to every corner of the state to give readings and workshops, has turned out to be anything but cushy. In fact, it’s full-time work, offering little in the way of compensation and requiring immense dedication. Beginning with Greensboro’s Fred Chappell, who was the first of the new poets laureate and whose Midquest is the finest book (poem) written by a poet of his generation, and continuing with Kathryn Stripling Byer, Cathy Smith Bowers, Joseph Bathanti and Shelby Stephenson, our poets laureate have been barnstorming nonstop for more than 20 years.

From December 2014 to January 2018, Stephenson has given 315 readings, lectures and workshops, traveling from Hatteras to the Tennessee border, twice, and driving more than 25,000 miles within the state. Stephenson, who officially leaves office when a new laureate is appointed later this month, has gently touched the lives of thousands of North Carolinians, and he leaves us with an ambitious 52-part poem, Paul’s Hill: Homage to Whitman (Sir Walter Press), which is the logical and artistic culmination of his past work framed within the hard edges of the perplexing new world in which we find ourselves.

Raised in a large family that farmed in Johnston County, Stephenson is deeply rooted in a rural environment and possessed of a strong sense of longing for a particular time and place that’s never failed to offer the purest vision. His primary subjects, the foundation upon which he’s shaped most of his poems, are family, the natural world, the cycle of life, even the plank house where he was born, and despite a reliance on memory and the intensely personal nature of his poetry, there’s a restrained use of nostalgia in his work. When reading his leapfrogging lyrical lines, the reader is left with an overwhelming appreciation for the life the poet has lived and his eagerness to share his most personal moments.

The light plays shadows where once cordwood readied the woodbox.

My mother’s lost in the steam of her kettle.

I rub my face, as if parting curtains,

Wonder if I see myself in the rose-blue feathers smeared on the picture-window.

Bliss fades into pattern I’ll ride later, dross and all.

White moon, hold me in your arms.

Bathe my thoughts so wild onions may climb the cold

Sister Night to say to morning, “Hello, again.”

A mix of spoken language and the rhymes and rhythms, the literary tongue is interspersed with hymns, dogs, goldfinches, tulip poplars, cornstalks, collards and  country music resonating in song titles and country lyrics, even in the irony of a long-forgotten radio advertisement sung by Arthur Smith and the Crackerjacks:

If your snuff’s too strong it’s wrong

Get Tuberose get Tuberose

To make your life one happy song

Get Tuberose get Tuberose.

Stephenson’s early poems took their inspiration from the land, but in the last 25 years he’s dealt critically with the guilt posed by slavery, the destruction of the natural environment, the dangers of romanticism, the relationship of the past to the present, and the twitches and ticks of contemporary life all infused into Paul’s Hill, anchored steadfastly in the present by the inclusion of the mundane elements of daily life and a use of language that dissolves the distinction between precincts of poetry and prose. His is the voice of a man viewing the present with skepticism, occasional distaste and a trace of anxiety.

The flag of the Oklahoma-bombing holds one tiny baby, fire-scarred

And that September, towering out of words, humble beyond relief,

Some hint of lushness — and you among the moon’s heaving night —

listening to whispers . . .

Judged by productivity, Shelby Stephenson has, for 50 years, created poetry of high quality. Beginning with Middle Creek Poems and moving forward through his 10 books to Paul’s Hill, he’s demonstrated continued growth and has perfected a distinctly individual voice cultivated with a single-minded devotion to his vision of a North Carolina in transition. As he’s matured as a writer, he’s stepped out of the tobacco rows, assuming the role of critic, teacher, reviewer, social commentator — and, most importantly, a distinguished and generous poet laureate.

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.