Tag: Department

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

And guess who has to cope with it

 

By Susan Kelly

A friend called
me in a panic. “Sally is bringing her boyfriend home for the weekend. Tell me what to do. You do this all the time.” Having older and more children than my friend, I did have significant experience with Significant Other visits. But I’m here to tell you: You never get used to them.

I trace my trauma to visits to my mother-in-law. It’s one thing to have stacks of Southern Living magazines on the den window seat. In 1981, it was quite another to have stacks of Southern Living from 1966, and 1969, and 1971 in your den. Who does that? (My husband’s decades-long calming chant to me — “You have got to stop being incredulous” — began about then, and is a particularly helpful mantra if you have sons.)

But back to significant other visits. You know that Bible verse: Judge not lest ye be judged?  Well, hello girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse. Hello, judgment day.

Understand that your kitchen is a veritable minefield. My personal greatest slovenly/discovery fear is the refrigerator produce bin. Celery limp as yarn, parsley gone to mulch, unidentifiable runnels of pale yellow liquid at the bottom — few vows can withstand produce gross-out. Wrestle bin from runners, and scour. Pitch anything in Tupperware or tinfoil, lest the SO become curious and unearth leftovers — like I once did — that resemble the dog’s dinner.  This cannot be unseen.

When it comes to meals, breakfast is the most delicate issue. Setting a table for breakfast? Too weird. People want coffee at different times, drift to the kitchen at different times. They want a newspaper, they want a run, they want their social media. Stock the larder, stack the cereals and utensils attractively on the counter, and leave a DIY note. Eliminates the fret for all those Do I set the alarm, appear fully dressed and perky, spatula in hand? concerns. Besides, depending on the SO age — and therefore their likely hangover status — the lovebirds will decamp for the closest fast-food biscuit joint.

Note: If the SO claims to be something complicated like vegan or gluten free, commence subtle bust-up procedures. You’re in for a lifetime of culinary misery, never mind boring table conversations. There are plenty of fish in the sea, even if the SO won’t eat them.

Next to the fridge, the bathroom is the most vulnerable chink in your “like my child, please like me” armor. So sit on the guest bathroom toilet.  You heard what I said. Stare at the walls and cabinets. Get to those scuff marks and thumbprints you see, because she’ll be staring at them too. For the shower, go ahead and sacrifice the Moulton Brown products you stole from the Eseeola or Umstead and ditch the Dial. Dig your thumb into the scrubby. Glimpse any brown? Replace instantly. Snip stray strands from towels evolving to strings. Iron the sheet, but you can get away with just the counterpane. Make bed, then start all over upon realizing the monogram is inside out. Spray with scented sheet spray, a must for significant other hostessing. Cover pillow drool with pillow covers, then add the regular pillow case, making sure zippers go in first so she doesn’t scrape her fingers when she shifts at night, and in case her mother taught her to do the same thing, and she checks on you. (Like I once did.)

Provide Kleenex. Do not make her take off her mascara with toilet paper. She will never, ever forget. (Like I never have.)

Make sure that the significant other’s significant other is as equally represented in framed photographs around the house as your other children.

Note: If SO is male, slash all effort by 50 percent.

In retrospect, the above can be summed up by (another of) my mother’s edicts: Spend a night in your own spare/empty nest/guest room now and then. Flaws will be self-evident. Alas, however, what’s relegated to history are the folded bills she used to stuff into my palm when I visited anyone: Money For The Maid.

Me.   PS

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

Steady-as-She-Goes!

With the stars in level-headed Libra, balance is everything

 

By Astrid Stellanova

Librans are no airheads, even though y’all know it is an air sign. Libra is the sign of balance. A true Libran likes nothing more than a balanced bank account and a balance beam. But they also have a very off-kilter sense of humor. Funnyman Zach Galifianakis is a Libran (born in Wilkesboro). Susan Sarandon, Vladimir Putin, Lil Wayne, Serena Williams and Will Smith are Librans too. Imagine having that list of guests for a big ole Libra birthday party, Sweet Things. — Ad Astra, Astrid

 

Libra (September 23–October 22)

Sugar, last month you spent too many hours of your life rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Now, you’ve found a whole new (read: not lost) cause and that makes you happy. But do take a tee-ninesy bit of time to stretch out on a lounge chair and just look back over the past year. You’ve weathered some mighty storms, but paddled your way back to shore and survived those stormy seas. This is the month to allow yourself some time for friends and family although you feel pressured to keep your eye on work issues. You have got a good year ahead, with many of your biggest life obstacles faced and overcome.

Scorpio (October 23–November 21)

You’ve never seen a mirror you didn’t like — c’mon, you know there is a secret little part of you that does like your own reflection. You invest in yourself and it shows. But consider the hard fact that you cannot eat makeup and become a more beautiful person on the inside . . . that is going to require you to put somebody else ahead of little old you.

Sagittarius (November 22–December 21)

Is Bigfoot real? As real as your windfall fantasies are. Honey, you can keep on buying those lottery tickets and spending your hard-earned cash like you already won, but it ain’t going to get you where you need to be. The truth is this: People admire you for your imagination. But use it to create, not to build castles in the air.

Capricorn (December 22–January 19)

You got a shock and a bad break. Things should have gone differently. Life can be a lazy Susan of crap cakes, and we all get a serving sooner or later. But here’s the nice part: The month ahead will not be more of the same. In fact, something you missed out on is gonna present itself again — a second chance, Sweet Thang.

Aquarius (January 20–February 18)

It has been a lonely chapter for you, and you went into full-on hermit crab phase and buried yourself at the home front. Look, Honey, your best friend is not your salad spinner. You have a lot of friends who miss their pal. If you only knew how many consider you a role model, you’d put the lettuce in the Frigidaire and get out more.

Pisces (February 19–March 20)

Your never-ending urgency is like a 24/7 emergency. Are your pants on fire or is that just smoke you’re blowing? Have you noticed how often you ring the bell, crack the whip and sound all alarms, only to have bewildered looks or eye rolls follow? Maybe try being a little more sensitive; try meditating. Just keep your hands off the alarm.

Aries (March 21–April 19)

This is when the stars move into your complementary opposite, but you sometimes lack the gumption to appreciate it. October is when Aries will grow nostalgic for the green promises of spring, and miss out on the beauty of the fall. Balance in all things, if you want to be a sure-footed Ram. Look up to the night sky!

Taurus (April 20–May 20)

As much as you like to think of yourself as a trendsetter, a few people see it differently. Like, rumor has it that the last original thought you had was probably back when vinyl still ruled. That galls you, right? Ain’t fair, right? So prove the rumormongers wrong. How? Stop dragging out the same old same old.

Gemini (May 21–June 20)

The crazy train had not even left the station before you decided to kick all the passengers off. Sugar, you are the conductor. The destination is sometimes to the town of Wonderful Madness and sometimes somewhere else. Don’t leave friends guessing — where exactly is this train going, and why are we all here?

Cancer (June 21–July 22)

The year has been so topsy-turvy you have had a tough time calibrating. This is a good month to chill and watch the leaves change, Baby. Take a road trip to some place you like and try and find solid ground. It isn’t possible to balance by standing on one foot and playing it all Zen, when you really feel Elvis-like and all shook up.

Leo (July 23–August 22)

The Leo nature can be melancholic. You call it philosophical. But, face it, Honey; some think you’ve just been in a bad mood for several years. If you decide to be less philosophical and more grateful, you would find that you have talents you haven’t used and friends who don’t even know you miss them.

Virgo (August 23–September 22)

If this year taught you anything, it’s pithy things like have an attitude of gratitude. Stitch that onto a pillow where you can see it. When you take stock this fall, notice that it is life changing to let those who made your good fortune possible know you are aware. Unseen hands have helped you; now move your lips and say “thank you.”  PS

For years, Astrid Stellanova owned and operated Curl Up and Dye Beauty Salon in the boondocks of North Carolina until arthritic fingers and her popular astrological readings provoked a new career path.

Golf at The Gap

A pure mountain journey

 

By Lee Pace

Imagine the journey from
Pinehurst to Roaring Gap in the 1920s — 150 miles of two-lane roads west to Candor, north to Asheboro and Winston-Salem, then up Highway 21 into Alleghany County, the last 5 miles replete with steep grades and sharp turns. In the early 1930s, considerable private funds were spent planting rose bushes along the road, ergo the appellation “Road of Roses,” and an early ad for Roaring Gap described the 16-mile passage from Elkin as a “picturesque four-hour drive.”

“My grandfather, my grandmother and their six children all loved going to Roaring Gap once their house was built in the 1920s,” says Jim Gray, a Roaring Gap member into the third generation and native of Winston-Salem. “They would get on a train in Winston-Salem and go west to Elkin, where they spent the night. Then it was up the mountain by horse and buggy — taking a full day. Of course there were cars then, but no decent road up the mountain.”

Today the entrance to the summer residential colony is decidedly understated — a right turn off Highway 21 onto Roaring Gap Drive. I’ve been there twice in my life and both times had to make a U-turn at the gas station half a mile farther north. From there it’s another twisting, winding avenue past the 67-acre Lake Louise on the left and through the deep rhododendrons and oaks until the Donald Ross-designed golf course reveals itself to the left, with the sweeping double fairway of 15 and 16 and the wispy brown grasses on the edges.

“We like to say, ‘If you go downhill, you’ve gone too far,’ referring to the fact there’s no sign to alert you to the entrance,” says director of golf Bill Glenn, who with his late father, Bailey Glenn, has run the golf operation since 1956. “I love how you get a glance at the lake, and then as 15 and 16 come into view for the first sight of golf, it’s like seeing the lights in Vegas. It makes you ready to play.”

Roaring Gap is a direct offspring of Pinehurst, with Leonard Tufts, son of Pinehurst founder James Tufts, partnering in the mid-1920s with the Chatham family of Elkin and several Winston-Salem business magnates with last names like Reynolds, Hanes and Gray to give the winter-oriented Sandhills resort a sister destination for the warm-weather months.

Of course Tufts tapped Ross, who’d conceived and built four golf courses at Pinehurst by 1919, to design the course on a tabletop stretch of 1,200 acres perched at 3,700 feet above sea level. For inspiration for a hotel, Tufts borrowed from George Washington’s Mount Vernon home and constructed the three-story, 65-room Graystone Inn. The community had been named decades earlier for the speed with which the winds whipped through the mountains, and the hotel for the native Blue Ridge masonry used for the exterior.

“What Pinehurst typifies as a winter resort, Roaring Gap will represent in the summer field,” one early newspaper account said. Another added the club was created “to continue the delightful obligations of entertainment for a six months period when Pinehurst relinquishes it in May.” Yet another proclaimed that “Everyone knows the popularity of the Pinehurst hotels, and with Mr. Tufts at the head of this one, makes it a success to start with.”

The golf course and inn opened in 1926, and the layout (measuring just under 6,000 yards at the outset) was billed as “the aristocrat of courses.” The Pinehurst connections were many, from Carolina Hotel manager E.G. Fitzgerald running the Graystone in the summer and Ross’ assistants in Pinehurst, among them Alex Innis, Palmer Maples and Ellis Maples, directing the golf operations at various junctures. There’s even a street named Chinquapin at Roaring Gap, just as there is in the village of Pinehurst.

The Tufts were hustling in the late 1920s, business quite sporty during heady economic times and their Sandhills tentacles expanding to Southern Pines in 1921 with Mid Pines and 1928 with Pine Needles. All of those ventures as well as Roaring Gap took smack downs during the 1930s, though, rendering the original mountain vision null and void in 1932, when Tufts forfeited his interests in the club.

“This ‘Pinehurst legacy’ has gone largely unheralded,” says Roaring Gap member and historian Dunlop White III. “Even today, many Roaring Gap regulars are unfamiliar with the story. I think the fact that the club was formed at the height of Pinehurst’s golden era has always served as the foundation of Roaring Gap’s enduring appeal.”

That endearment remains strong today, for one reason the quality of the vintage Ross design, enhanced with a 2012-14 restoration project directed by White and golf architect Kris Spence, and another the club’s total lack of pretention. The quaint clubhouse from 1939 remains intact, with a modest grill that used to serve Bailey Glenn’s tomato sandwiches — “With peeled tomatoes, that was a detail he insisted on,” says son Bill — and today is proud of its cheeseburger tradition. 

“It’s absolutely my favorite place to go and play golf,” says Spence, who began his relationship with the club in the early 2000s. “It’s so laid back and comfortable and relaxed. You go in one screen door and out the other, and right there you’re on the 18th green. The ambience is one-of-a-kind.”

The visuals are unsurpassed, from the view up the fourth fairway to the stately old inn in the background, and from the 17th green, perched on a ledge and looking east toward Pilot Mountain 25 miles away.

The topography requires golfers to plan not only the flight of their shots, but the roll as well. Several fairways are so severely canted that a ball landing on the high side can often roll into the rough on the low side, 40 yards away. The seventh and 11th are par 5s with such dramatic land forms and difficult greens that Ross designed them sans bunkers.

And the greens demand razor-sharp touch and execution, some pins tucked into hillocks in a corner, others rendered nearly inaccessible from the high side. Spence found rounded, “pancake shaped” putting surfaces when he first toured the course, the borders having crept in over time. He and his construction crews peeled the surfaces away, dug below and found the remnants and dimensions of Ross’ original greens. Those have been restored as well as bunkers that got buried or lost their shape. Spence also found several hundred more yards, expanding the course to nearly 6,500 from the black tees.

“I watch people play it year after year, and they always come in and say they’d like another crack at it,” Glenn says. “They think they should have scored better than they did. That’s a pretty magical thing for a golf course to have.”

“Roaring Gap has a great and authentic set of Ross greens, in my opinion,” says Spence. “That whole golf course was laying there, but it was buried under that buildup of many, many years. The wind whipped through there — hence the name ‘Roaring Gap’ — and it blew sand and soil around and the course lost its definition.”

Fortunately in 2017, you can get from the Sandhills to Roaring Gap along some pretty smooth and expansive roads. But it’s still slow going the last 6 miles, making the anticipation all the more intense. PS

Lee Pace has been the golf columnist for PineStraw since 2008 and has recently created a new blog about some of the Carolinas’ top walking golf courses, Roaring Gap among them. Learn more at www.randomgolfwalks.com.

Silver Pride

Airstreams have gone mainstream

 

By Tom Bryant

Joel Kilby is exactly the All-American, clean-cut individual I would expect to be managing the Out-of-Doors-Mart, just off Interstate 40 in Colfax, a mile or so from the Piedmont Triad International Airport. His is one of the oldest Airstream dealers in the country. I was in his office on a whim recently, talking to him about his operation and Airstream travel trailers in general.

“Our business is actually one of the leading RV dealerships on the East Coast and, as a matter of fact, we’ve been selling and servicing Airstreams longer than any dealership in the world.”

That got my attention. We were in Joel’s office, and like any busy executive in the country today, his phone was ringing and computers were beeping. It seemed that a lot of business was going on that required his time.

“In the world?” I questioned.

“Yep, Airstreams have become popular all over the world — Japan, France, all of Europe. It seems that everybody wants to own what has become an icon in the travel trailer industry.”

The Out-of-Doors-Mart is truly a family affair. Grady Kilby, Joel’s father, who turns 86 in November, started working with the existing company in 1962. Later, he and a partner bought the operation and brought it to where it is today.

Joel said, “Dad comes in three or four times a week. He’s what I call my watchdog.”

“When did you get started with the company?” I asked.

“I was just a youngster and would work after school and weekends washing trailers and cleaning up. Anything my dad would let me do. I graduated from UNC Wilmington in ’92 and came to work full time after that.”

Joel and his wife, Alyson, have two daughters, who are now in college. “The business is really a family affair. Speaking of that, you’re going to have to talk to Ben, our parts guy. He’s almost family.”

At that point, we took a break so Joel could send off an email, and I walked over to see Ben Goslen, the parts manager. He has been with the company for 33 years and is a fixture in the business. He has the “aw shucks” personality of the actor Jimmy Stewart, and I could tell he was proud of the part he has played in the company’s success.

“We have one of the best and most fully stocked Airstream parts departments in the country. If we don’t have it, we can get it in a day or two.” I told him it was a pleasure seeing someone who really liked his job.

“After 33 years, I’d better,” he replied, laughing.

I went back over to Joel’s office to finish our conversation before getting a photo of the three: Joel, Grady and Ben. “You’ve got quite a number of Airstreams on the lot,” I said as I pulled up a chair in front of his desk.

“That has become something of a problem,” he replied. “Not our Airstreams, but getting more. They’re producing them in Ohio as fast as they can and can’t make enough because the demand is so strong. When the big recession hit back in ’07, Airstream had only 189 employees. Today, there are over 800 workers at the plant in Jackson Center (Ohio), working as hard as they can. Something else has changed since you bought your little Bambi. The demographics of Airstream buyers have turned around dramatically. Once it was mostly older, retired folks or people trading up who would buy a unit, but now over 50 percent of our customers are first time buyers and are relatively young.”

I’ve been an Airstream fan for many years, having been first introduced to the travel trailer in the 1950s, when my grandfather bought a small one to use as a base camp when he fished in Florida. He parked it on land he owned on the St. Johns River, and he and my grandmother lived in it during the colder months. When the winters, even that far south in Florida, got too frosty for him, he pulled up stakes and towed the Airstream farther south to Everglades City. Again, it was home for him as he fished Chokoloskee Bay and the Ten Thousand Islands.

Later, Granddad bought a big 32-foot Airstream and parked it semi-permanently on his land on the St. Johns. He added a front screen porch and outbuildings with storage for boats and fishing gear. All of this was good for early in the winter months, but he still had the little Airstream to use in the Everglades when it turned colder.

Those early days when I would camp with him on his fishing expeditions reinforced my desire to someday own an Airstream; and the year I retired from my day job, Linda and I drove up to the Out-of-Doors-Mart, looked at a spanking brand new Bambi and bought it.

The folks at the shop did everything to get us hooked up and rolling. I dealt with Jason, a super salesman and, of course, the ever-present Grady overlooked the sale. It was a pleasurable experience. Our first major trip in the Bambi was from Southern Pines to Alaska. It took us two months up and down the Alaska Highway, and we drove over 11,000 miles with only one punctured tire on our towing vehicle. The trip was a real testament to the reliability of the Airstream.

Joel and I rounded up Grady and Ben for a photo outside the building in front of a new Airstream for sale.

Grady, always the salesman, said, “I remember you. Aren’t you that newspaper guy from Southport?”

“No, Grady. I’m from Southern Pines.” I replied.

“Oh yeah, I remember, got the little Bambi. You ready for a new one?”

“It would be like getting rid of one of the family,” I said.

We went out to the front of the building, where I made my photo, said goodbye, then walked past a big new Airstream on my way to the car, where Linda, my bride, was waiting.

“You know,” I said to her as I fired up the Cruiser, ready to leave. “That big new one sitting right there would look great in our backyard.”

“Only if we can keep the Bambi,” she replied, smiling.  PS

Tom Bryant, a Southern Pines resident, is a lifelong outdoorsman and PineStraw’s Sporting Life columnist.

Fast and Furious

In spite of its name, the nimble American redstart usually appears as a flash of orange

 

By Susan Campbell

What’s in a name? For one, misleading descriptors, especially where bird names are concerned. Take, for instance, the American redstart. Although it is indeed found in the Americas, it is hardly red. Nor is it related to redstarts found in other places across the globe. The adult male is mostly black with splashes of orange on its breast, wings and tail. Females and young birds have corresponding yellow patches but are a more muted olive and gray. Both males and females blend in well against the foliage of the hardwoods they frequent in spite of their striking plumage, it can be quite tricky to spot the males. Their rapid movement, as they flit to and fro after insects, certainly adds to the challenge.

American redstarts have an unusual strategy for finding food. These tiny insectivores display what appears to be nervous fanning of their tail and wings. But the flash of color is apparently an effective means of startling prey, which they will then swiftly lunge at and consume with incredible speed and precision.

Redstarts are common migrants through the Piedmont and Sandhills of our state. The rare redstart that breeds in North Carolina can be found as early as the first week of August. Migrants on their long way to Central America will still be trickling through in late October. 

You can spot them clustering in small groups or mixed with migrant vireos, tanagers or other species of warblers. As with so many of our songbirds that winter in the tropics, these birds follow the southern coast of the United States down into Mexico in the fall. However, come spring, they head out and cross the Gulf of Mexico on their journey back north. They need to almost double their weight to survive the trip. Twelve or more hours of nonstop flying over open water is certainly a grueling test. Although they may alight briefly on ships or oil rigs along the way, it is a long haul.

Interestingly, some American redstarts breed as far south as in the bottomlands of the Sandhills. But they are more likely to be found in open woodlands north of the clay line. In the United States, they prefer larger wooded tracts, which are increasingly harder to find. So it is no surprise that the bulk of pairs nest well to the north nowadays, across much of Canada. Another noteworthy detail: Some males of this species are polygamous, which means a lot of extra work since they may fly as much as a quarter mile between families during spring and early summer.

This species is one of a handful in which males do not attain adult plumage until the end of their second summer. Although they do sing prolifically their first spring, it is unlikely they will succeed at attracting a mate until they acquire the distinctive black and orange feathers of maturity.

So should you hear a high, squeaky chip note or catch sight of a tiny flash of color high in the trees this fall, take a closer look. It just might be an American redstart.   PS

Susan would love to receive your wildlife observations and photographs at susan@ncaves.com.

Paper Tiger

A most uncommon household appliance

 

By Renee Phile

I hadn’t seen her for a few days, which was weird, since she has been a constant in my life ever since my (now) ex-husband surprised me with her for my birthday 10 or so years ago. Yes, I know that this type of gift may be more functional than fun, but it (she) worked for me. Sometimes, she and I would visit multiple locations in a single day. I confess, there were other times I neglected her, but never for long now that the black hairs from my 65-pound Rottweiler form clumps in the corners of every room in the house.

On this particular day, though, I could hear her, which was strange.  She was gurgling from my 8-year-old Kevin’s room.

“Bev! Where are you?”

“Life sucks, Renee.” She seemed despondent.

“Bev, that doesn’t sound like you. Besides, life is supposed to suck. That’s what you do. It’s who you are.”

“You don’t need me.”

“What the hell, Bev? I always need you! Didn’t I empty you out three times last Saturday? All that dog hair. And remember those Legos?” We both grimaced.

“You used to use me every day.”

“I still use you a lot and you know it. The boys aren’t as messy as they used to be, and Bailey isn’t shedding as much since the weather is cooling off. Plus I’m taking her to get those de-shedding baths, remember?”

“I just don’t feel well, Renee. Not at all. I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Bev. I do need you, though, and you know it. You’ve always been there for me.” I searched for the right thing to say. “I thought you would appreciate a break here and there.”

“You shoved me in Kevin’s room last week and left me there.”

“I didn’t mean anything by that. I have just been a little lax these days. I will work on that. Promise.” It’s not you, it’s me.

We talked about her and me over the years. Us. She’s been my right hand girl at five different houses in the past 10 years. While others her age have passed on, she hasn’t stopped moving. She’s so strong and I had taken her for granted. I thought she was feeling better, when she coughed another gurgled cough.

“Bev, you don’t sound good. What the . . . ”

“Help me, Renee!”

I mashed down her “off” button but it wouldn’t work. I unplugged her. She groaned and nearly passed out.

I opened her up as I had done thousands of times over the years, and other than some dirt and dog hair, the usuals, I saw nothing that would be causing her such distress.

“Further down.” Her voice was weak, almost a whisper.

“Hold on, Bev, hold on.”

I reached down into her and my hand skimmed over a crumpled paper. I pulled gently, and the paper ripped, but I pulled it out in three parts.  I pieced together some of the words. “Welcome to the third grade. I am glad to be teaching your child this year . . . ”

“Oh great, so here is where that paper went. He needed it signed yesterday and we couldn’t find it.”  It was nearly unrecognizable.

“There’s more,” she coughed.

I moved my hand around some more and felt something else.

“Stay still. I’ve almost got it.”

I pulled out one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . . seven Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup wrappers. A record.

“How did these get in here?”

“The younger one . . . he . . . did this.”

“Kevin? When was this?”

“Yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think I would feel this bad, Renee. And I didn’t want him to get in trouble. He’s kind of cute.”

“Well, you just ate seven Reese’s cup wrappers and a ‘welcome back to school’ form, Bev. That’s not good for anyone.” I pulled something else out of her. Another wrapper.

“Make that eight.”  PS

Renee Phile loves being a mom, even if it doesn’t show at certain moments.

Walking the Line

Cafeterias evoke mixed feelings

 

By Deborah Salomon

I was standing in line at Aldi when the man behind me held out a box of frozen White Castle burgers and said, “I can’t believe that these taste the same as when I was growing up on Long Island.”

How did he figure I’d know what he was talking about?

My instant response: “My mother wouldn’t let me eat hamburgers out. But do you remember Chock Full o’Nuts (luncheonette chain) frankfurters with the fancy mustard?” Those she allowed, probably because they weren’t called hot dogs.

After writing about food for 30-plus years I can attest to its deep, sometimes bittersweet impression on our psyches. Mine go beyond New York bagels and Carolina biscuits. The location holds sway: cafeterias, especially the S&W in Asheville, and many Horn & Hardart Automats in Manhattan. I’ve seen grown men cry at the mention. 

Besides, cafeterias taught people-watching, a skill that has served me well.

In the line of duty I have eaten at four-star restaurants in the U.S. and abroad. What, I don’t remember. But if I could resurrect anything it would be baked beans, liverwurst on rye, scallops, Harvard beets, chicken a la king and huckleberry pie from the Automat, especially the one across from Radio City Music Hall, the one with the hot chestnuts vendor outside the glass front.

Second best, S&W of the 1950s, a bastion of Southern manners and cuisine. The Asheville location, famous for Art Deco architecture, eventually made the National Register of Historic Places. I knew it well, since my mother shirked cooking. She’d use any excuse to hit the S&W — also because she loved pie, especially pecan, but never baked and couldn’t bring herself to buy a whole one. However, with it right there, flanked by lemon meringue and apple . . .

At breakfast, John Grisham attorneys and wheeler-dealers let busboys carry their trays upstairs to “reserved” balcony tables, soon engulfed in Lucky Strike smoke. They tipped 50 cents instead of the customary quarter. Smiling women traybearers —  “Hi honey, how’re you doin’ today?” — wore starched yellow uniforms with hankies fanned out like flowers growing from their pockets.

I shudder, then blush to recall that these polite, cheerful employees were the only African-Americans visible.

Round family tables filled fast on “maids’ night out” Wednesdays.

The best part was seeing the food arranged on steam tables, under bright lights, which made it glisten. What you saw was what you got. Customers slid trays along a shelf made from chrome pipes. Cutlery came wrapped in cloth napkins. First the salads (mostly tossed and gelled), then the meats, the vegetables, desserts, cornbread, biscuits and tea over crushed ice. Breaded fish and Salisbury steak never tasted so good. Creamy mashed potatoes, fluffy rice, stewed tomatoes and okra, shiny beans, fried chicken, carved roast beef (for special occasions), limp greens preceded achingly sweet caramel layer cake.

True, you had to stand in line, so little old ladies wearing flowered cotton dresses and sometimes hats arrived “before the rush.”  Nobody wanted to sit at tables along the line where standees stared down hungrily.

Then, everything changed: fast food, pizza, all-you-can-eat buffets, “family restaurant” chains. The Asheville S&W closed in 1974 to reopen as an uppity steak house, which faded fast. Other locations operated until the mid-1990s.

I’ve tried J&S in Asheville, K&W in Chapel Hill. The fish is tasty, the cornbread hot and authentic, the desserts tempting. But there’s a microwave to warm things up and hot sauce in the condiments rack. Old folks still arrive early, “to avoid the rush.” Most succumb to dessert. The modus may be intact but, sad to say, the esprit is gone.

When Mellow Mushroom closed on U.S. 15-501 I imagined a K&W —  great idea given the demographics. On second thought, probably not. Some institutions cannot be resurrected. Better they survive only as aromatic memories.

I still appreciate a sum-of-its-parts cafeteria meal. Nothing fancy, just plain Southern food typical of an era when restaurants advertised “home cookin’” because home cooking was the gold standard. When folks ate dinner at noon. When country-fried steak meant smothered in cream gravy and nobody ate kale raw. When every table had an ashtray and desserts weren’t shared.

When cholesterol was for spelling bees and doctors advertised Camels. Gone forever. But once in a while, I sure could use a sliver of pecan pie.  PS

Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

Strawberry Fields October

Getting a jump on your shortcake

By Jan Leitschuh

Strawberries? Now? The first fruit to ripen . . . in spring?

Yes, even though our seasonal taste buds are turning toward crisp fall apples, your local farmers are busy planting strawberries right now through mid-October.  Come next April, they will be enjoying the fabulous, juicy, shortcake-making sweetness of the tender Sandhills strawberry —  hardly a cousin to those sturdy but bland California strawberries, bred for shipping great distances rather than for taste.

Of course, come spring you can buy their berries at local farm stands, markets and co-op boxes, and I hope you do — who ever gets enough strawberries in spring?

But you, passionate kitchen gardener, lover of the soil and connoisseur of the freshest homegrown tastes, can do the same as your local farmers. The strawberry is one of the easiest fruits to grow. And like your fellow producers, now is the best time to put a patch in your garden.

In September, your local strawberry growers prepped their soil, throwing up raised rows that were then covered with plastic. The strawberry plugs they buy get planted in holes punched through the plastic at regular intervals. This keeps the weeds down and makes for a very clean bed for You-Pick operations. 

“We’ll go until about mid-October with the planting,” says Steve McNeill, a Lemon Springs farmer who not only plants several acres of strawberries for fresh production but runs a strawberry nursery. He is one of four N.C. farmers growing “tips,” or runners rooted in plug trays for sale to other large-scale producers.  After planting, the plastic-covered rows are then watered and fertilized — “fertigated” in the lexicon — through special drip tape under the plastic.

But the home gardener, with no need to bet the farm on a crop, can pull this off much more simply. Commercial growers tear out their strawberry beds each year and plant anew each fall to prevent disease. “One disease can mess you up for the season,” says McNeil, ruefully.  “For the farmer, it’s a high-risk crop.”

Home gardeners need not tear out their beds until year three or four, nor do they need plastic and drip tape. You can consider your original berry plant purchase an investment in the future. You can let them run.

The kitchen gardener, pursuing ease of culture and ambrosial taste, may do better going with a “matted row” system. That is where the original plants go right into the garden bed (no plastic) and are allowed to “set” the “runners” the mother plants make after their first spring. These runners will form new strawberry crowns for the following year. Along with the original plants, these new free plants continue to increase your harvests. Indeed, 25 original plants, allowed to run and fill out, can produce up to 25 quarts of ripe, juicy berries for the happy gardener, and do it for a couple of years. At supermarket prices, that’s a good payback on your investment.

You can buy your plants online, shipped as bare-root plants, or perhaps luck into a farmer with some extra plugs. Friends often trade extra plants, but that can spread disease if the patch is infected. Home gardeners also want June bearers — save the ever-bearing varieties for Northern gardens.

While local farmers are planting varieties like Chandler, Camarosa and Sweet Charlie, specially adapted for plasticulture, home gardeners aiming for a matted row might try Atlas, Earliglow, Titan, Tribute, Apollo and Earlibelle. The early-bearing Sweet Charlie would also work in a matted row.

Have a sunny, weed-free area of the garden, accessible to the hose? A raised bed? That’s your potential patch. Strawberries love a sandy loam with a good amount of organic matter. A strawberry plant loves good drainage, and that is what the Sandhills possess in spades. New plants are happiest when evenly moist — not too soggy, but not extended dry periods that let these shallow-rooted plants wither. 

Till in some well-rotted manure, near-composted straw, old sawdust or decaying, chopped leaves to improve the organic part of your sand. Mix in a little slow-release organic fertilizer or 10-10-10 to help your young plants get a jump start, and of course, adjust pH according to your soil test — you did test, didn’t you? (Soil test kits are available from the N.C. Cooperative Extension in Carthage.) Chances are, you need a little lime, so toss some in when tilling. A 5.8 to 6.2 pH is ideal for peak production.

One farmer I know waters his plants with a little well-diluted epsom salts from time to time. Apparently, the magnesium therein makes for the sweetest-tasting berries. You could also include Sul-Po-Mag in your prep and tillage for not only magnesium but also essential potassium and sulfur.  

When your plugs or bare root plants come, give them a good soaking so they are well-equipped for the rigors of transplanting. If they are moldy, take pictures and call the company at once for replacements.

Cut a stick about 18 inches to use as a marker for spacing. Plant the crowns at the soil line, no deeper. The crown is the place where the top and the roots come together, and you don’t want to bury it.  Water in well, and then keep the soil evenly moist but not soggy.

You’ll see your new plants leaf out nicely and grow. Then, wham, a cold snap will seem to kill them off. Never fear, your plants may look dead, but they are just near-dormant, slowing down on top while continuing to strengthen underground. Keep them well-watered during dry spells.

I like to drift some chopped leaves lightly over my beds after the first frosts have knocked back growth. Crape myrtle and maple leaves are my favorites. I don’t know if it helps in the winter, but it does offer a little weed-suppressing mulch and adds to the soil’s organic matter. Don’t smother them, just a light drift.

Come spring, flowers can pop as early as February here if the weather is unseasonably warm. Last winter, farmers were picking a few strawberries in a warm December /January. It is probably best to pick off the earliest blossoms. This saves the young plant’s energy, and the earliest berries, if they survive the cold, are not the best. 

In mid-April to early May, depending on what variety you chose, your efforts should, literally, bear fruit.  Don’t fertilize while they are fruiting. Too much nitrogen will make soft, mushy berries and too much leaf growth at the expense of a crop. 

You may want to keep picking off blossoms to further boost the future crop, letting the energy go toward strengthening the original plant and letting it put out runners, a drain on a plant’s resources. After all, this first year you’re establishing a multi-year planting, unlike our farmers. But if you’re like me, you’ll eventually let some first-year berries come to fruition, because, well . . . strawberries.

Birds may peck a few, but at our house deer are the worst. Same goes for producer McNeill: “Deer are a problem. They will eat the plant in the winter.” He uses an electric fence to deter Bambi’s strawberry depredations.

About June, your original plants will start sending out runners to make daughter plants. Feel free to engineer these, directing the daughter to likely bare spots in your bed. Continue the even moisture throughout the summer, and you will be rewarded with an even better second harvest the following spring. Stress times will be the hot, dry July/August time periods, so a little attention to watering them can increase your flower buds, and thus fruit, for next spring.

Your matted row can grow into a third year, but you may want to renovate it, removing plants to about a 6-inch spacing. Some folks till all but a 12-18 inch strip in the middle, letting the bed fill out again. Others mow the bed, setting the blades high at 4 inches. Fertilize at this point, brush the fertilizer off the leaves with a broom, and then water deeply.

Keep your bed going as long as you can, three years, four years. Weed control will probably be the deciding factor. When you notice your patch losing vigor, it’s time to tear it up and start a new one in another area of the garden. 

Besides being delicious, strawberries are among the healthiest of fruits. Ten berries offer 130 percent of your daily vitamin C requirement. A whole cup of berries contains only 55 calories. In addition to their abundant vitamin C, strawberries also offer thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B6, folate, vitamin B12, vitamin A and vitamin E.

So, enjoy your cinnamon-spiced apple pies, your ginger-apple-butternut soups. Just spare a thought for the spring right now to cultivate your very own strawberry field — if not forever, at least for a few years.  PS

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

Zombie

Quick history on a walking dead classic

By Tony Cross

In my selfish quest to explore the myriad rums out there — drink the myriad rums out there — I’ve actually figured out a way to tie it into October with a brief history lesson on the Zombie cocktail and its original 1934 recipe. There have been many different specs for this drink, and many bartenders (myself included) have built and served it incorrectly. That’s all changed now, thanks to one man, and his never-ending search for the earliest recipe.

I first read about Jeff “Beachbum” Berry years ago when my newfound love for rum began. His recipes were in Imbibe magazine, and I’d seen his name pop up in references from other bartenders across the U.S. Berry graduated from UCLA film school but, after minimal success, found himself committing full time to bartending and uncovering lost recipes from the early to mid-1900s. He’s opened a bar, Latitude 29 in New Orleans, and written a handful of books with extensive coverage on beach drinks. And if that’s not enough to make you break out in a hula, he recently developed an app for your phone, Total Tiki, that makes cocktailing easier, especially when you’re on the fly.

Berry’s search for the authentic, original Zombie recipe began with the man responsible for its creation, Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt, otherwise known as Donn Beach. In 1934, Beach opened up Don the Beachcomber’s in Hollywood. The tiki craze began. All of Beach’s creations were the real deal: fresh juices, intricate syrups, and different rums. Fifty-plus years later, Berry was having quite the time hunting down the Zombie ingredients. Apparently, Beach kept his creations a close secret, and it seemed next to impossible for Berry to unearth the original specs.

Beachbumberry.com recalls:

“In 1994 the Beachbum began a quest to track down Donn’s original Zombie recipe. Ten years and several blind alleys later, he was still none the wiser. But then the gods finally took pity on him. In 2005 their messenger, in the form of Jennifer Santiago, appeared with the drink recipe notebook that her father, Dick, had kept in a shirt pocket during his 15 years at Don The Beachcomber’s. Several of the notebook’s recipes had been reworked, renamed, or cut altogether from the Beachcomber’s menu by 1940 — proving that Dick’s notebook dated from the 1930s, possibly 1937, the year he was hired. Which meant that the notebook’s Zombie could very well be the original 1934 version.

“O cruel Fate! But there, on the last page of the notebook, scribbled in Dick’s own hand, was a recipe for New Don’s Mix: two parts grapefruit juice to one part . . . Spices #4″? Another code name!

“Bowed but not broken, the Bum asked Mike Buhen of the venerable Tiki-Ti bar if he’d ever heard of Spices #4. Since Mike’s dad, Ray, was one of the original Beachcomber’s bartenders in 1934, if anyone knew, Mike would. ‘Ray would go to the Astra Company out in Inglewood to pick up #2 and #4,’ Mike told the Bum. ‘A chemist would open a safe, take out the ingredients, and twirl some knobs in a big mixing machine, filling up a case while Ray waited. Then they’d close up the secret stuff in the safe. Ray took the bottles — marked only #2 and #4 — back to Don The Beachcomber’s.’ All well and good, but what did #4 taste like? ‘I have no idea,’ Mike shrugged. ‘Astra was owned by a guy named John Lancaster, who died of cancer in the ‘60s. The company’s long-gone.’

“And so the original Zombie Punch recipe sat, Sphinx-like, the solution to its riddle so close we could almost, well, taste it. Months went by. A year went by. And then the Bum made the acquaintance of a veteran Tiki bartender named Bob Esmino. Did he know what #4 was? ‘Oh, sure, from John’s old company,’ chuckled Bob, who hadn’t thought about the stuff in 40 years. ‘It was a cinnamon syrup.’”

Berry used to say that he’d never serve his guests more than two of his prized prescriptions at a time. That’s marketing at its finest, true or not. Though there’s more than one way to create this cocktail (Total Tiki has six different recipes that range from the 1930s to 2007), I’ll leave you with the original. You’ll see that a few of these rums are hard to obtain here in Moore County. May I suggest ordering online? As for glassware, there’s always cocktailkingdom.com. More recently, I stumbled upon a shop in Oregon that creates unique and beautiful tiki mugs: munktiki.com. The Zombie is a high-test treat; imbibe responsibly, and be even more careful if you’re playing host. Playing babysitter shouldn’t have to be a prereq in your party syllabus. 

Zombie

1 1/2 ounces Gold Puerto Rican Rum (I use Bacardi 8, flavors of tropical fruit and spice)

1 1/2 ounces Gold or Dark Jamaican Rum (I use my trusty Smith & Cross. That being said, Smith & Cross is Navy Strength, clocking in with a 57 percent ABV. I use 1/2 ounce. Otherwise, I’d use Appleton Estate Reserve.)

1 ounce Lemon Hart 151-proof Demerara Rum (distilled in Guyana, this big boy is a must-have ingredient for this cocktail; flavors of vanilla, caramel, and dried fruits)

1/2 ounce Falernum (a syrupy, very low-proof liqueur with flavors of clove, lime,and almond)

3/4 ounce fresh lime juice

1/2 ounce Don’s Mix (two parts white grapefruit juice and one part cinnamon syrup*)

1 teaspoon grenadine (Rose’s Grenadine is not grenadine, it’s corn syrup — Google it)

6 drops pernod or absinthe (I opt for the latter)

1 dash Angostura Bitters

3/4 cup crushed ice

*Cinnamon syrup: Create a simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar) and add 10 ounces of syrup to a blender along with 8 grams of cinnamon sticks. Blend on high for 20 seconds. Pour into a container, sealing it, and leaving in the fridge over night. The next day, fine-strain out bits of cinnamon. Keep refrigerated.

Blend all ingredients for 3-5 seconds. Pour into a tall glass (again, very cool Zombie chimney glasses that Berry created are available online), and add ice if needed. Garnish with mint. Put on a “Cramps” record, and go to town.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.