PinePitch

In Search of the Mighty Salamander

The Weymouth Woods-Sandhills Nature Preserve will seek out the salamanders of the Sandhills on Sunday, Jan. 6, at 3 p.m. Free and open to land dwellers and amphibians alike. The nature preserve is located at 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. For information, call (910) 692-2167 or visit www.ncparks.gov.

The Great Dismal Swamp

Learn about the incredible history of the Great Dismal Swamp — a refuge for escaping slaves; a source of timber and water; and the impetus for novels by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — in a three-part series of presentations at the Weymouth Center for Arts & Humanities beginning Jan. 20 at 2:00 p.m. The first speaker, park superintendent Adam Carver, has managed the swamp for the past four years. Subsequent speakers will be Bland Simpson, author and University of North Carolina professor, on Feb. 10, and Eric Sheppard, genealogy researcher and descendant of slave Moses Grandy, on March 17. Cost is $10 per person for each presentation. For reservations, call (910) 692-6262.

A Peek Behind the Curtain

Go behind the scenes of North Carolina’s most famous outdoor drama with Dwayne Walls, the author of Backstage at The Lost Colony, to get a view the audience never sees — the toil, the mishaps and the moments of grace. Walls will be at The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad St., in Southern Pines on Wednesday, Jan. 9, at 5 p.m. For information, go to www.thecountrybookshop.biz.

Rodgers and Hammerstein

The Sandhills Repertory Theatre will present “A Grand Night for Singing” with a Broadway cast that includes Amanda Lea LaVergne, Autumn Hurlbert, Stefanie Brown, Zachary Prince and Devin Ilaw, with a local orchestra directed by Michael Pizzi, at the Hannah Center Theatre, The O’Neal School, 3300 Airport Road, Southern Pines. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 18, and Saturday, Jan. 19, and at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 20. For tickets and information, go to www.sandhillsrep.org.

Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema

A story of love, death and vengeful judgment set in India, La Bayadère is one of the great works in classical ballet. Part of the Bolshoi Ballet’s HD Live Series, it begins at 12:55 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 20, at the Sunrise Theater, 244 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. For information, call (910) 692-3611 or visit www.sunrisetheater.com.

Gathering at Given

Dressed in period attire, retired Col. Trent Carter will go back in time to visit America’s Colonial past and the Revolutionary War at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 10, at the Given Memorial Library and Tufts Archives, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. The program will also be held that evening at 7 p.m. at the Given Book Shop, 95 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. For information, go to www.giventufts.org.

King Memorial March

All members of the community are invited to march on Monday, Jan. 21, during the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial March honoring the life and legacy of the civil rights icon. Sign up at the Southern Pines Library and meet at Downtown Park, 145 S.E. Broad St., Southern Pines, at 10:30 a.m. For information, call (910) 692-8235 or go to www.sppl.net.

Carolina Philharmonic

Maestro David Michael Wolff performs a piano recital exploring the Paris of Chopin, Liszt, Baudelaire, Debussy and Monet on Saturday, Jan. 12, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., at the Lee Auditorium at Pinecrest High School, 250 Voit Gilmore Lane, Southern Pines. For information, call (910) 687-0287 or go to www.carolinaphil.org.

The Rooster’s Wife

Friday, Jan. 4: Danny Burns. Cost $15.

Sunday, Jan. 6: The Gibson Brothers at 12:46 p.m. and 6:46 p.m. Cost $35; brunch $8. 

Friday, Jan. 11: John Cowan with Darin and Brooke Aldridge. Cost $35.

Sunday, Jan. 13: Tellico and John Doyle. Cost $20.

Thursday, Jan. 17: Open mic with the Parsons.

Friday, Jan. 18: Taarka. Cost: $10. 

Sunday, Jan. 20: Ben and Joe. Cost: $15.

Sunday, Jan. 27: The Stable Shakers. Cost: 10$

Unless otherwise noted, doors open at 6 p.m. and music begins at 6:46 at the Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. Prices above are for members. Annual memberships are $5 and available online or at the door. For more information, call (910) 944-7502 or visit www.theroosterswife.org or ticketmesandhills.com.

Good Natured

Be Awe-Inspired

It’s good for your mind and body

By Karen Frye

Do we take seriously the power the mind has on our health? 

The way we see the world can be of great benefit and, maybe with a little effort and daily practice, this year can be a shift in your health in a most beautiful way. This unique way of thinking is a quality we are all born with, but the challenges of life can diminish the gift. Children are quick to laugh and find amazement in the most ordinary things. We all possess this condition of wonder and awe and it doesn’t have to fade with age. Researchers at the University of California-Berkeley conducted a study with a group of freshmen in the field of positive psychology that provided valuable insights on how strongly our emotions influence our overall health. With positive feelings we actually increase the power of our immune system, and reduce inflammation in the body. 

Studies in the positive psychology of emotions and physical health are often combined with the common thread of the negative effects emotions such as anger, fear, sadness and so on can have on us. At UC-Berkeley, the participants with feelings of happiness, contentment and awe with life had stronger immune systems and lower inflammation markers. The strongest of these were the feelings of awe  — information that we can use in our lives daily to improve our health. It’s as important as taking your vitamins, eating a healthy, balanced diet, and getting regular exercise. 

Feelings of awe can happen when you see a sweet baby, a beautiful flower, a stunning sunset, any of the miracles of nature. There are so many things all around us that can produce “awe” if we allow ourselves to experience the beautiful things life provides. Perhaps you are one of those people who feel great amounts of awe, but never thought about the physiological benefits your body is receiving. Or, if you need a little help in creating more of these powerful emotions, this is the perfect time of the year to practice. Awe is linked to a feeling of social connectedness. So, the first step is to get out and become more engaged with others. Make an effort to plan things with friends on a regular basis.

Encourage positive relationships. We are never too old to learn how to be a better listener, friend, parent and so on. Join a church or a club of interest. Volunteer your time and energy toward something you feel passionate about. The opportunities to find healthy, positive places to socialize are all around us. 

The benefits are waiting to happen for you. Find the things that create a feeling of awe daily. It’s very easy. Just look around you and see the incredible beauty in nature, or your children, and especially your grandchildren. Whatever it is that can give you an awe-inspired new year.  PS

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

Food for Thought

Winter Salads

Eat well — and wild

By Jane Lear

Salad in the cold months can be tricky. The mild, tender lettuces available at any supermarket are all well and good, but most other salad staples — tomatoes are an obvious example — are disappointing out of season.

More important, though, a typical garden-variety salad doesn’t suit the heartier, richer food we crave at this time of year. Serving a plate of nicely dressed hothouse lettuces after braised short ribs or cassoulet, for instance, can seem tacked on and curiously unsatisfying. Dinner guests tend to pick at it and wonder what’s for dessert rather than appreciate the punctuation in the meal, so to speak, and feel revitalized. 

For the sort of bracing counterpoint I’m talking about, look to bolder greens such as endive, watercress, arugula, the pale inner leaves of escarole, or springy, spiky frisée. Slivers of sweet, earthy celery root, tangy green apple or aromatic fennel will help matters along. 

One of my favorite winter salads always puts me in mind of the Mediterranean — in particular, Provence and Sicily. The recipe stars fresh fennel and any members of the mandarin citrus family, which includes satsumas, tangerines and clementines. The large, relatively new hybrid marketed as “Sumo” (easily recognized by its prominent topknot) has a superb balance of sweetness and acidity, and the fruit segments, which can be neatly slipped out of their ultra-thin membranes, keep their shape on the plate.

Dandelion greens — which have become more readily available — have a clean, sharp flavor that also reminds me of the Mediterranean. That’s where their use in the kitchen was developed, and you can trace the word “dandelion” from the Latin down through the French dent-de-lion, or “lion’s tooth.” This is no big surprise, given the jagged shape of the leaves, but personally I have a fondness for the common French name, pissenlit, which reflects their purported diuretic properties. 

Wild dandelion greens have intense flavor, but these days, I prefer them cultivated unless I know that the grass they’ve been plucked from is pesticide-free. Wild or cultivated, they have a great affinity for a hot skillet dressing. It won’t necessarily wilt the greens, but it mellows them and softens their rawness. Toasted nuts give the vinaigrette a suave sweetness.

The evolution of salad from a side dish or separate course into the main focus of a meal has come into its own, and this makes scratching together a nourishing, delicious weeknight supper — one of life’s greatest challenges — just a bit simpler. Two staples that I swear by are lentils and sausage, especially the smoked Polish variety called kielbasa.

Lentils are a great gateway legume. Unlike most dried beans, there’s no need to soak them beforehand, they cook quickly, and slide from homey to haute with aplomb. I suppose you could say they’ve been around the block and know a thing or two: After all, they were there in the beginning — er, Beginning — as the pottage for which Esau gave up his birthright in Genesis 25:34.

Although I’ve never met a lentil I didn’t like, I’m a sucker for the pretty green French ones called lentilles du Puy. Yep, I know they’re more expensive than other lentils varieties, but they’re worth it. Their characteristic flavor — peppery and minerally yet delicate — comes from the good volcanic soil and dry, sunny climate in which they’re grown. And because they contain less starch than other varieties, they exhibit a lovely firm-tender texture when cooked. In fact, if your opinion of lentils was formed by one too many mushy stews at indifferent vegetarian restaurants, then these will be a revelation.

French green lentils are delicious in soup, of course, or scooped into the hollow of a baked winter squash, or tossed with small pasta shells and crumbles of fresh goat cheese. What I do most often, though, is serve them in a bistro-style warm salad with kielbasa. Add some crusty bread, good butter, and a glass or two of red, and life will feel very civilized.

All three of the salads described above are incredibly versatile. As you’ll see in the recipes — think of them more as guidelines — one ingredient can often be switched for another, and as you go along, don’t be afraid to improvise, based on the contents of your refrigerator. Odds are, it will taste wonderful.

Mandarin-Fennel Salad

Serves 4

Add some cress or arugula sprigs if you like; substitute green olives for the black. Ruby-red pomegranate seeds would add sparkle and texture, and parsley leaves, an herbal punch.

1 large fennel bulb, trimmed of its feathery stalk and some fronds reserved

3 mandarins, peeled

1/4 cup brine-cured black olives

Your favorite best-quality extra-virgin
olive oil

Fresh lemon juice

Coarse flaky salt (Maldon adds a wonderful crunch) and freshly ground black pepper

Cut the fennel bulb in half lengthwise and discard the tough outer layer or two to expose the cream-colored heart. Then cut the bulb into very thin slices with a handheld slicer or a very sharp knife. Put them in a salad bowl.

Remove the weblike pith from the peeled mandarins (children love doing this and are very good at it). Separate the segments and, depending on the thickness and tightness of the membranes that enclose each one, remove those or not; it’s entirely up to you. Cut the fruit in half crosswise and add it, along with the olives, to the fennel.

Drizzle the salad with olive oil and lemon juice to taste and gently combine. Scatter with salt and a few chopped fennel fronds. Season with a few grinds of pepper.

Dandelion Salad with Toasted Pine
Nut Vinaigrette

Serves 6

I’ve called for sherry vinegar below, but balsamic or red wine vinegar would be fine. If you don’t have pine nuts, use pecans, hazelnuts or homemade croutons. Dried cranberries or cherries would be a nice embellishment, too.

6 handfuls tender dandelion greens, washed, spun dry, and tough stems removed

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

3 tablespoons pine nuts 

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar, or to taste

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

Shaved or very coarsely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Tear the greens into generous bite-size pieces and mound them in a large heatproof bowl.

Heat the oil in a small skillet over moderate heat until hot. Add the garlic and pine nuts, cook, stirring them often, until the garlic is golden. Stir in the vinegar, then pour over the greens. Season with salt and pepper and toss to coat. Add the Parm and toss once more. Serve right away.

Warm Lentil Salad with Kielbasa 

Serves 4

This salad, a staff favorite at Gourmet, varies according to my time and inclination. It’s perfectly delicious with nothing more than onion and garlic, or carrot and garlic. As for the kielbasa, feel free to substitute another smoked sausage, country ham, pancetta or lardons — thick-cut strips of bacon sliced into matchsticks and cooked until crisp. Serve it on a bed of watercress or tender leaves of a Boston or Bibb lettuce. If desired, gild the lily by topping each serving with a fried egg.

2 cups French green lentils (lentilles du Puy), picked over and rinsed

6 cups water

1 bay leaf

A couple of sprigs of fresh thyme or, if you can find it, winter savory

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided

1 cup finely chopped onion

1 cup diced carrot

1 cup diced celery, plus chopped celery leaves for garnish

1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic

1/4 cup redwine or sherry vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 smoked kielbasa sausage, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch slices

Bring the lentils, water, bay leaf and thyme sprigs to a boil in a 3-quart pot. Reduce the heat and simmer the lentils, covered, until they are almost tender, about 15 minutes. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and keep simmering until tender but still firm, about another 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic and cook, stirring every so often, until the vegetables are just softened and smell delicious, 8 to 10 minutes.

While the lentils and aromatics are both working, make the vinaigrette: Whisk together the vinegar and mustard in a small bowl and then whisk in the remaining 1/2 cup oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Drain the lentils in a colander, discarding the herbs. Return the lentils to the pot and stir in the vegetables and vinaigrette. Cook over low heat a few minutes until hot, remove from the heat and cover to keep warm. Wipe out the skillet and brown the kielbasa on both sides. Stir into the lentils and garnish with celery leaves.  PS

Jane Lear was the senior articles editor at Gourmet and features director at Martha Stewart Living.

Drinking with Writers

Pulling the Thread

In Asheville, learning the untold story with Denise Kiernan

By Wiley Cash   •   Photographs by Mallory Cash

My friendships with writers are unlike other friendships I have. Most solid, enduring relationships take years to build. This is true of my longest friendships, but it is not true of my friendships with writers; these relationships are intense and honest from the moment of inception. I have often wondered what sets writer friendships apart, and I have decided that it is a combination of our solitary work and our inclination toward inquiry. People who spend so much time alone have a lot to share when they get together. All of this is true of my friendship with New York Times best-selling author Denise Kiernan. 

I first met Denise in Asheville, North Carolina, at a literary festival in the summer of 2014. Her book The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win WWII had been released the previous year, and at the literary festival in Asheville she was easily the best known writer in the lineup. You could not mention her name without someone exclaiming, “Oh, she was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart!” Denise’s fame and success appeared instantaneous, but like nearly every other writer I have befriended over the years, her journey has been long, circuitous and interesting.

On a chilly day in early December, Denise and I sat down at Little Jumbo, a cocktail bar on Lexington Avenue in Asheville’s Five Points district. The bar is housed in a building that has served a number of purposes since its construction in the 1920s: general store, office space and delivery service, among them. Regardless of what has come before Little Jumbo, co-owners Chall Gray and Jay Sanders have managed to marry the feel of the Prohibition speakeasy to a flair for Gilded Age indulgence. The ceiling is composed of original tin tiles, which reflect the soft light of sconces and chandeliers. The glass-paned front door is set between two huge display windows that house wood-topped tables and leather-wrapped benches. Past the imposing bar, where dozens of bottles hover above dark-stained wood countertops, elegantly appointed sitting areas featuring period appropriate armchairs and sofas await patrons. Little Jumbo has a sophisticated, mysterious feel that is also welcoming and warm. 

Chall Gray was behind the bar during our visit, and after Denise and I ordered and received our drinks — an old-fashioned martini for her and a whiskey for me — we found seats by one of the display windows. 

“Something just dawned on me,” I said. “I know you as the friend who published The Girls of Atomic City and The Last Castle (the story of the Biltmore House), but I don’t know much about your life and work before those books.”

Denise looked out the window as if she were opening and closing the drawers and cabinets of her memory while searching for a way to respond. The weather had turned dreary. It was raining. Cars rolled by, and people on foot passed our window with their collars upturned. Denise smiled and looked back at me, whatever she had been looking for apparently found.

“That’s a long story,” she said. “But it all started with me playing the flute right down the road in Brevard. I was a rising high school junior, and I was at a summer camp at the Brevard Music Center. Someone there suggested I attend the North Carolina School for the Arts. I did, and it changed my life.”

From there, a story I had never heard and never could have imagined unfolded over the course of the afternoon. After high school, Denise moved to New York City to pursue a pre-med degree from NYU. While there she fell in love with the city, especially its arts scene. 

“All of my friends were artists,” she said, “but something was telling me to pursue a practical career. I had decided to apply to medical school, but I wanted to spend the summer in Europe before studying for the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test).” That summer in Europe extended to more than a year abroad. 

“When I came back to the States I wasn’t interested in medical school anymore,” she said. “I was interested in environmental education, so I enrolled in graduate school at the University of Washington.” It was there that a flier for the university’s student newspaper caught her eye. “I had no journalism experience,” she said, “but I had always written, and I wanted to do something with my writing. That was enough for the editor to give me a chance.”

After graduate school, her love for journalism won out over her love for environmental education. “I pursued an internship with The Village Voice,” she said. “And I mean I really pursued it. I called and learned there were no internships available, so I traveled across the country and showed up at The Village Voice’s New York office and asked them in person.” What happened next changed her life.  

“I worked under a legendary investigative reporter named Wayne Barrett,” she said, her eyes growing misty. “He passed away a few years ago. He was one of the last great investigative journalists. He didn’t care who you were; if there was a story to be uncovered, he was coming after you.”

Denise, a doggedly determined young person with a nose for news, had met her match: a similarly dogged, seasoned journalist who, like her, did not take well to being told no. Over the next several years as an intern and then as a freelance reporter who regularly published investigative stories in The New York Times, The Village Voice and Ms. Magazine, Denise found herself covering the 1995 United Nations Women’s Conference in Beijing, shooting pool with The Cure, writing about the Beastie Boys, and organizing her own crew as a field producer covering European soccer for ESPN. 

“All of those experiences taught me how to chase down leads, to pull at the thread of a story, to organize and focus my work.” 

These skills clearly served her well in writing her two best-known books, the aforementioned The Girls of Atomic City and The Last Castle, both of which dig into the backstories of American history that most of us never learn. Girls explains the largely unknown role of the women in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who helped develop the atomic bomb. Castle plumbs the lives of George and Edith Vanderbilt in the years before and after they built America’s largest private home.

During our conversation, Chall had left the bar and delivered a setup known as the Jumbo Service. Ours was a special chilled Manhattan accompanied by elegant stemware and a side of maraschino cherries, all literally served on a silver platter. Denise and I poured another round of drinks and toasted to stories, both the stories we have written and the stories that have made us writers. PS

Wiley Cash lives in Wilmington with his wife and their two daughters. His latest novel, The Last Ballad, is available wherever books are sold.