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!
Children sometimes follow in the footsteps of their parents and for Bobby Deen the journey was short - straight into the family kitchen. His mother is famed TV cook Paula Deen. Like his mother, Bobby loves comfort food, but mother and son came to realize that comfort food can come at the expense of weight management. So Bobby Deen has been exploring ways to create low calorie comfort food recipes. His latest book. From Mama's Table to Mine, chronicles the evolution of much loved Paula Deen recipes from a new perspective. We'll visit with Bobby Deen, find out what it's like to grow up in a famous food family and learn how to eat guilty pleasure food without the guilt when Charlotte Talks.
Giving chocolate is easy. But what if you want to send a different message this Valentine’s Day? Never fear, we’ve got great gift suggestions for those tasteless or unsavory people in your love life.
How about a life-sized gummi snake? You can curl it around your arm when you deliver it to that poisonous person, or let the recipient be surprised when he or she opens the box.
Overpriced steaks, rubbery shrimp, fallen soufflés – Valentine’s Day dinners can be memorable, but not always for the reasons we hope.
If you have a food-themed Valentine story - heartwarming or horrendous - we want to know about it. From now through Valentine’s Day, we’ll be accepting submissions from WFAE listeners and WFAEats readers.
If you’ve got recipes to share, send them along, too. Winning entries may be featured on WFAEats.
In some ways, January seems longer than any other month. It’s cold and rainy, and spring is still weeks away. There aren’t any holidays that we celebrate by cooking, baking, or gathering for a big indulgent meal.
Unless you count National Cream Puff Day, which flew by on January 2 while most of us were still recovering from Christmas and New Year’s Day. Or National Spaghetti Day on January 4, which some would rightly argue we should celebrate much more often.
There’s a reason why chicken soup has a legendary reputation. Not soup you start from a can or a carton… the kind that begins with an actual chicken - and specifically the bones. Bone broth from animals and fish with vertebrae is healing, energizing, and just possibly magical. Those cuts of meat and bits and ends of animal that, incidentally, are easy on the wallet, harbor culinary and therapeutic secrets which you deserve to know.
Eating out. We do it when we want to meet up with friends, have a particular craving or just don't want to mess up the kitchen. But dining in restaurants is also a community building practice and has evolved over time. Charlotte has a rich and interesting restaurant history and we'll explore it. Restaurant Week is coming up so we'll visit with its creator and also with Molly O'Neill. The nationally known cookbook author and food writer explores the link between food and community and she's back in town for another Place at the Table event. Make a reservation when Charlotte Talks.
Recently I shared a cookbook that my Dad gave to his mother at Christmas 1936. The old book is an endearing collection of hand-written recipes and clippings from magazines and newspapers.
The first recipe I tested was a dish clipped from a 1936 newspaper - "Pepper Chuck Steak," subtitled "Brookfield Sunday Dinner." The silhouette illustration drew my attention - a skier tumbling down a slope, obviously falling for this dish.
