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!
Bitter Orange Marmalade made with Seville Oranges is one of life's truly great pleasures. The intensity of the orange, the bitter-sweet finish that mixes with melted butter on good toast is something that could inspire sonnets.
So humbly, I go into making marmalade from the abundance of lemons in my kitchen. It is worth noticing that some recipes ask for the white pith to be removed, some include the entire lemon, some just peel and lots of interesting versions in between.
There are many things that go into making a successful fund drive here at WFAE. Scheduling, selecting messaging, organizing volunteers and practicing what you hear on air are all key parts of each fund drive.
Turkish food is addictive. Once you have tried authentic Turkish pilav, kebab, or borek—whether back in your grandma’s kitchen or in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant during your travels—there is no turning back. You keep searching for recipes, trying every restaurant that has a Mediterranean ring to it, or make plans to go back again. You can not get enough of it.
The world may be getting smaller but 10,000 miles between friends is still an impossible distance. So when my friends Stephanie and Marc announced last fall they were moving from Charlotte to Australia, I was crushed. They bequeathed to me the entire contents of their pantry and liquor cabinet, but that did little to help.
You can fry the leaves, chop it for casseroles and quiches, candy, jelly and more. Just as the folks at May’s Chapel United Methodist Church near Maiden. They’ve celebrated kudzu dishes for years. I dropped by there last month.
Of course most consider kudzu a scourge of the South, a once-welcomed Asian import to cure soil erosion, a monster whose tendrils choke trees, smother shrubs, and turn entire fields and hillsides into snake havens.
“Those who respect law and love sausage should watch neither being made,” goes a familiar quote.*
Here at WFAEats, we don’t wade into matters of law. But we just learned October is National Sausage Month. What’s more, we got word of upcoming classes in the Art of Sausage-Making at Central Piedmont Community College. So it’s prime time for those of you who may have a hankering to make your own hand-stuffed, -shaped or smoked meat products.
Food at Heist Brewery. The new brewery in NoDa features beer but also 'twisted American' cuisine like flatbread pizza with seared duck, fried shallots, mozzarella and root beer bbq.
Credit Julia S. on Yelp
A shish kabob.... at La Shish Kabob, a Middle Eastern restaurant on N. Sharon Amity. They offer everything from lamb, grilled chicken and gyros to tabouli, hommos and baba ganoush
Credit Rod O. on Yelp
Grilled Pork Banh Mi at Le's Sandwiches & Cafe on N. Tryon St.
Credit Dion L. on Yelp
Egg and potato pizza at Wolfgang Puck Pizza Bar at Philips Place
Today on Charlotte Talks, Mike Collins and our panel of food writers discussed their favorite restaurants around town. We jumped all over from the latest in Charlotte craft beer to ethnic cuisine to new and old favorites. We've got a list of all the restaurants mentioned on the show. We were scribbling feverishly so you didn't have to! You can listen to the restaurant roundup with food writers Helen Schwab, Patricia Childress and Heidi Billotto here.
The Livermush Belt. You in the Piedmont know what I’m talking about…that string of counties from Cleveland to Guildford, where you can order a livermush sandwich on any given day.
Poor man’s paté they call it, a meat substance so indigenous to North Carolina that Tar Heel ex-pats have been known to to smuggle it out in coolers to far reaches of the country.
I first encountered the stuff when I moved here in the 1970s. I’d grown up with cornmeal mush in the Cornbelt, but livermush? I eyed the khaki-gray block suspiciously in the grocery store cooler.
No sooner had I set foot in the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral kitchen did a rather tall and imposing Greek woman hand me a hairnet, a pair of gloves and a plastic apron to wear. The Yiasou Greek Festival was just days away and there were tens of thousands of Greek pastries to prepare for sale. The kitchen was already abuzz with activity and I quickly fell in line to help with this massive culinary feat.
