Welcome to WFAEats - a fun adventure where we explore all things tasty and interesting in the Charlotte food scene. We want to share stories, recipes and culinary escapades and hear about yours!
We've all heard about the benefits of "eating local." Well, you can't get more local than your own backyard! If you haven’t planted yet, or even if you have, we'll explore the best practices for planting and maintaining your beds for the most delicious and nutritious vegetables, even with little yard space to work with. Before you know it, you'll have more tomatoes, zucchini and cucumbers than you know what to do with! So we'll fill you in on creative ways to cook them to get the most out of your summer harvest - from salads, soups and salsas to grilling and more. Join us for summer gardening advice from the experts, tips for preparing and enjoying your summer bounty, plus a look at the health benefits of eating from your own garden. Gardening meets cooking, when Charlotte Talks.
Listen to Charlotte Talks on Friday morning at 9:00am for a conversation about growing and cooking veggies from your own back yard. Recipes below for Roasted Corn Salsa, Oven "Fried" Okra, Stuffed Poblano Chiles and Buttermilk Ranch Dressing.
A twenty minute drive south brought me to the home of Raul Alatorre and his wife, Alicia, a newly transplanted couple of Mexican origin. The Alatorre’s moved eighteen months ago from Albuquerque, New Mexico to their suburban home in Ballantyne. Raul’s job of 22 years brought the couple here. He works for Mission Foods, the largest tortilla manufacturer in the United States.
I bumped in to Nan Chase at the Blue Ridge Book Festival last May. The Asheville author was discussing her book, Eat Your Yard.
Riding the crest of the Eat Local movement, she has produced an attractive, helpful book to help backyard farmers. But instead of ripping out the sod to grow squash and beans, Nan takes an aesthetic approach—mix food-producing plants into the landscape.
Food meets design with Michael Graves. The internationally-renowned designer and architect has designed lines of toasters, timers, tea pots and more kitchen essentials for Target, and now for JC Penny's.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and I despise it.
Lumps of low-fat cereal afloat in a sea of soymilk. Goopy, gelatinous oatmeal. Protein shakes the color and consistency of mulch - and every bit as appetizing.
Recently I vented about this on Facebook. And thanks to the wonders of virtual communication, my longtime "friend" Kym Motley responded right away with an offer to help.
Few things excite me more than morel mushrooms. Hunting them is a rite of spring where I come from. My hometown, Shelbyville, Illinois, holds a mushroom festival Spores ‘n’ More, with a contest and auction. That’s serious mushrooming.
There’s something about that delicate nutty taste, the crispy-fried texture that makes my mouth water. Morels are the epitome of eating local, in season. If they were available every day, I wouldn't care so much.
Ah, spring! Time for rebirth, renewal, celebration - and the dreaded chores of spring cleaning. Ironic, isn't? Just when longer days are luring us outdoors to play, there’s housework demanding to be done.
Each year at springtime, flat, unleavened bread called matzo appears in stores as Jews prepare to observe Passover. But non-Jews may not realize that modern-day spring cleaning has roots in the holiday, too, as a ritual that reaches back thousands of years.
Grab your little drink umbrella and join us for a liquid version of the Charlotte Talks monthly food show. This time we belly up to the bar and explore the popular rise of interest in cocktail making, or 'mixology.' Mixology has become a serious exercise with classes offered by well known culinary schools. We'll look at the science of mixing a drink and at the explosion of cocktail choices. We'll also look at a growing debate between traditional bartending and what makes a bartender a 'mixologist.' It's 5 o'clock somewhere, when Charlotte Talks.
