Turning Southern

On the menu for our home cooked dinner tonight were:

• Grilled pork chop
• Sauteed mustard greens
• Red cabbage and carrots slaw
• Quinoa with onions and red pepper

I must be turning Southern.

And just yesterday, at Home Depot, I caught Scott saying "Just f-eye-ine" to an employee who asked how we were doing. I couldn't stop giving him a hard time.

At least I threw in the quinoa as a nod to my California roots. And the fact that we still only eat in twice a week speaks to New York's lingering effects.

But it may just be a matter of time before the drawl f-eye-inds me.

A New Year Kick

So the New Year gave me a kick in the arse, as it should, to get motivated. Finally, I signed up for a writing class.

It was another manifestation of what’s good about Charlotte. The 6-week class cost $142, vs. the $330 I would’ve had to shell out for a similar class at Hunter College in New York, or $324 at the Gotham Writers’ Workshop. Plus, the campus is 2.5 miles away from home, which means I could bike there if I wanted.

The class is offered by Central Piedmont Community College, which I hadn't realized had such an impressive selection of Continuing Education courses. The Spring catalog is 64 pages thick, 2/3 of which is dedicated to “Job and Career Enhancement” and the rest on “Personal Enrichment.”

I could change my career by taking courses in forklifting, carpentry, plumbing, bank telling, vehicle inspection or personal training. Who knows? I could become an adept emergency medical technician if only they don’t require me to see blood.

For now, I’d better stick with the second part of the catalog.

In the Home Improvement and DIY department, the Intro to Hand and Power Tools would come in handy, then I could move on to Build an Adirondack Chair. Scott would love nothing more than The Art of Sausage-Making but I’d be more in line with Indian Vegetarian Cooking.  For Fitness and Sports I could take Pilates, Tai Chi, Tennis, Kayaking, and even Guided Sleep. Scott would register me for The Art of American Football if there were such a thing. Thank goodness there isn't.

There’s also Planning Your Home Landscape Design, which would have to wait until we have more than a 4’x5’ patch of dirt. There’s also The Night Sky: Amateur Astronomy and Stargazing, and The Fine Art of Magic – Sleight of Hand, Skulduggery and Chicanery for Fun and (Maybe) Profit, which sounds like wicked fun. (Even if I have to look up what skullduggery and chicanery mean as soon as I get off this blog.) There’s even a Couponing Workshop for $25. What a bargain!

The possibilities are dizzying, and at less than $100 a pop for a good number of them, I want to take them all. But as Scott likes to point out, I shouldn’t try to do everything at once.

So for now, creative writing it is. In the next couple of months, you’ll get to see the results.

The New Dentist

A couple of months ago I went to my Charlotte-based dentist. It was a small step for mankind, but a giant leap for me.

Considering that it had been almost a year since I moved to Charlotte, every time I visit NYC, I still get my haircut at the Japanese salon a block and a half from my apartment, where my stylist would always ask “May I give you a neck and shoulder massage?” (Yes please!)

I also beeline to the Indian eyebrow threading place where I could get my brows trimmed and shaped for $5 under 5 minutes. I can usually do this in the time that I place my order at my favorite ramen shop and when it’s ready for pick up.

I used to give my friend, who moved to London three years ago, a hard time for coming back to New York twice a year to see her acupuncturist, kickboxing instructor, Vietnamese pork chops, and her friends, sometimes in that order. “You should find places in London so you feel more at home there,” I’d say.

Clearly I’m not one to follow my own advice.

However, I did decide to find a local dentistry. Not that I didn’t like my dentist in New York. She was a huge improvement over the previous one who tried to sell me veneers every time I visited. For $10K a tooth, of which I’d need eight for a beautiful smile, according to the dentist, he tried to convince me that it would be a good investment if I wanted a husband.

I didn't think there was anything wrong with my smile. Or the lack of a husband.

His understudy was no better. I once went in for a routine cleaning when he announced that I had two new cavities.

“That’s kind of disconcerting. I haven’t had a cavity since I was six,” I said, as I noodled over the news.

“Getting cavities is not disconcerting,” he said. “Getting cancer is disconcerting,” he added.

My new dentist's office is virtually a spa.  On my first visit, there was a sign in the lobby welcoming me as a new patient. The office is big, clean, and awash in soothing colors. In the waiting room are photo books like The Most Awkward Family Photos and Crap at My Parents’ House that have you cracking up even before they put on the laugh gas. They have a real receptionist. My last dentist’s receptionist was also my hygienist.

Once in the treatment room, the hygienist comes in, gives you a pair of goggles and headphones, and offers you a remote control for the TV before reclining the chair. (A few moments later the TV screen would turn into a horrifying view of your teeth magnified 100 times.)

Then she asks if you would like the chair massage.

“The what?” I asked the first time I was there.

“The chair massage,” she said again.

“You’re joking,” I almost bursted out but was too astonished to utter a sound.

At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if she also offered a mani-pedi while I waited. It almost makes me look forward to getting back in the chair in another six months.

I don’t know if that’s a common experience for others, but it sure wasn’t mine in New York. It’s safe to say that I won’t feel the need to go back to New York every time I need my teeth cleaned. If anything, if I ever move back to New York, I might just have to come back to Charlotte to visit my dentist.

Urban Critters

We were driving home after dinner tonight when, a few blocks away from home, Scott suddenly said “What’s that flying over there?”

I looked up and saw a large pair of wings flapping slowly up ahead, at about the same height as a traffic light. It stopped and stood perched on an electric wire.

“I think it’s an owl!” Scott said.

We parked the car and walked right up to it for a closer look. There, at the corner of South Blvd. and Park Avenue – just ten blocks from the heart of Bank of America – the owl was enjoying a balmy night out.

It was the first time either one of us had seen an owl outside of captivity. It’s wild, and THAT’s wild.

We wondered if it was responsible for the disappearance of our possum.

For weeks, we had a possum that came everyday to our backyard parking lot to scavenge the leftover cat food that our neighbor Dave feeds twice daily to his adopted stray/feral cats. There were always leftovers, the possum had discovered, and the cats could care less.

He was not at all afraid of humans and would come as close as a couple of feet away from us to get to the food. Even after Scott shoos him away, he would come back within seconds to take a second bite out of the cat food bowls. (Yes, there are different bowls for different cats.) And he would go around to empty each bowl, climbing up a cinder block to reach one that was purposefully placed high to be out of his reach, then scour the ground for spillovers. Once I sat watching him for a long time. He would get so close that I could hear the crunching of the food pellets as he ate.

I half suspected that given a few more weeks, Dave would cave in and put out a new bowl for him.

But he hadn’t reappeared in the last couple of days. He was a small creature, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the owl, or one of the hawks we’ve seen in the area, finally got to it.

If that’s the case, I hope I don’t find any of its leftovers.

Yom Kippur, Chinese Food and Whole Foods

It was Yom Kippur and Scott woke up late to shorten his 24-hour fast. If I were Jewish, I would have lucked out since you don’t have to fast when you’re sick, and I’ve had a cold for the last few days. But in keeping with the tradition of resting on Yom Kippur, I took a nice cat nap and woke up only when the sun peeked through the curtains directly into my eye.

We went to Temple Beth El in the evening for break fast – my third time there in 10 days and fourth for Scott. By now I can say Shanah Tovah as good as the best of them. We joined the synagogue just in time for the High Holidays – just one more membership to add to the Charlotte City Club, the Carolina Raptor Center, Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden and the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. If there were ever a full immersion program for Charlotte, this would be it. I didn’t even tell you that Scott is now known as the Facebook Guy who organizes the Texas Exes and the Big 12 groups in town.

At temple we sat through the last 15 minutes of a 3-hour service before breaking for bagels and cream cheese. I don’t know how people do it, sitting through such a long service, especially the ensemble up front that had to read the Torah, sing and sermon. Maybe that’s why at intervals the congregants had to stand up for a song or prayer, then sit down again – it’s their way of letting people stretch every fifteen minutes. I didn’t quite earn my pumpernickel bagel since I didn’t fast, and didn’t sit through the service, but no one had to know.

After temple, we contemplated where to go for dinner. Naturally, we went for Chinese because everyone knows that Chinese food and Jewish holidays go hand in hand. We decided on a popular restaurant which we feared would be too Americanized, but I wanted to give it a shot anyway.

To my delight, the dish I ordered was thoroughly Chinese – so much so that Scott wouldn’t touch it. It was braised vegetables wrapped in tofu skin atop a bed of spinach. I was in vegetarian heaven. Scott said his mu shu pork wasn’t bad either.

The staff was a collection of Chinese people who’ve lived in Vietnam, Japan and Hong Kong. Scott likes it when I speak Chinese so I thanked each server alternately in English, Cantonese and Mandarin. The lady who lived in Japan, but who is Taiwanese, gave us an enthusiastic recommendation for a Japanese restaurant which is actually run by a Japanese proprietor. All the others she dismissed as being run by the Chinese or Korean or worse, some fusion place that serves up everything that sounds Asian on the menu. I’m definitely adding her recommendation to the top of my list of places to try.

The Chinese restaurant is across from the new Whole Foods – the first in Charlotte. So we decided to go check it out. Despite worrying about it taking business away from Earth Fare – a regional chain of health food markets that we like – I must admit that shopping at Whole Foods was very pleasant. The employees were solicitous and one fetched us a shopping cart when we asked where to find one. We saw bulk bins of salt that we never knew existed – like the jet black salt – and ears of dried mushrooms that I normally only see in Chinatown.

At the meat section we checked out the offerings from Profitt Farm, which used to be at our farmer’s market but has since left because they now supply Whole Foods. There’s a picture of the Profitt family – whom we met when we visited the farm last year and I even blogged about them. The Profitts were one of many local producers that they proudly display, which we thought was an impressive effort to support the local economy.

Further down, there is an attractive tasting area for wine and local microbrews, and a mezzanine where one can taste 1oz pours of wine from an automated machine. At the bakery, we found Duke’s Bread, which we know and love from our farmer’s market. Then there was the house-made gelato which we couldn’t pass up, even though Scott was holding his belly for eating too much just 30 minutes ago. We left with a delicious cup of orange and pineapple and basil sorbet, plus a half dozen items that we didn’t know we needed. We even met a nice older couple who Scott already wants to invite over for dinner.

We may have just found our newest hangout.

Blue Ridge BBQ Festival and Other Adventures

On the same day that we went to the Clay on Fire pottery exhibit (see previous post) we also planned to go to the Blue Ridge BBQ Festival, located in Tryon, NC, about two hours away. Scott had looked forward to it for weeks. You would think 2 hours is a long way for assorted smoked meat but them Texans take their BBQs seriously.

Along the way, we stopped at Stowe Dairy Farms where we paid a visit back in December. There’s no dairy to be had but plenty of fresh cut Christmas trees that were so plump and fragrant that even Scott wanted to bring one home (for those who don’t know, he’s Jewish). This time, we found a vegetable garden sprouting young squash and pepper plants, a family of goats bleating in unison at the runaway lamb that was wandering around the yard, chickens pecking at bugs in the dirt and squawking roosters fighting over a fresh egg. Gwen the proprietress made a mean lemonade (with a secret recipe she guards as tightly as Coca Cola does with Coke) and sorghum cookies that were soft, chewy and wholesomely delicious.

After a quick stop for lunch in Saluda – a cute town so small that you have to zoom in super close to spot it on Google map – we arrived at Hendersonville late in the afternoon where Scott wanted to visit a new novelty shop whose owner he’s friendly with.

By now we’ve seen quite a few small towns in the Carolinas, many of which are eerie places with dusty antique shops manned by equally antiquated shopkeepers, and rows of store fronts that look shuttered for the better part of the decade. Hendersonville, by comparison, was vibrant with commerce and filled with people dining on sidewalks in front of restaurants. A live band at a street corner played 50s tunes that pandered to a retirement aged crowd seated in neat rows of chairs. The street in between was closed to traffic and was turned into a dance floor where a couple or two swirled to the music. It took some pleading, but I successfully dragged Scott to join in.

It was now early evening, time for the grand finale of our day – the BBQ fest – where we expected to come away happy with a meat-induced stupor. After paying $8 a piece for admission and buying $30 worth of food tickets, we eagerly walked in to survey the scene. We saw funnel cakes, corn dogs, curly chips, fried onion blossoms… and a crafts fair. But… WHERE WAS THE BEEF?

There were exactly four – four vendors out of a couple of dozen – that sold BBQ. One was closed in the afternoon after it ran out of food; the second ran out right after we got in line (luckily after everyone fled the scene, we went to the front and Scott was able to scrounge together the last bits of brisket to make a sandwich); the third ran out of ribs when we were still 30 people deep in line, and the fourth announced they were about to be out of everything after we had already waited for half an hour.

Dejected and hungry, we decided on Plan B – back to Saluda to try the BBQ restaurant whose sign we spotted earlier.

On our way out of the festival grounds, we walked past the campers that were parked in the lot. We noticed that each of them had a smoker but most seem to be vacant. Scott approached one that appeared to have trays of BBQ meats available. The man there explained that the festival was mainly a competition where contestants arrived from all over and spend the weekend in their campers. After the competition, they are not allowed to sell their BBQ, though they could offer “samples” for a “donation.” We tried a bite of brisket but didn’t like it enough to make a donation, so we moved on.

Further down, Scott spotted a few guys hanging out by their smoker. I was complaining that we should never come back again when, as a last ditch effort, Scott approached to see if they would sell us something.  While we made conversation with a couple of the guys, I noticed that one stood up to pick at something in the smoker. I was hoping that he was assembling some samples for us. Moments later, he came toward us not with a couple of bites, but with a huge pile of meat on a plate.

(These are their official competition entrants)

They were the B4 BBQ Team who fed us a heaping portion of pulled pork and brisket. The amount would have been two full orders at a restaurant. Once we sat down at their table, they even brought us an icy cold beer to go with it. Despite our insistence, they refused any form of payment. That was Southern hospitality in its finest. (A BIG “thank you” to Mike, Bill, John, Ryan, Dan, Joe and Gary!)

It was an experience that warmed our hearts as much as our bellies. It sure took a lot of effort to get to our plate of BBQ, but in the end, it was more than worth it.

Clay on Fire

One Saturday on our way out of town for the Blue Ridge BBQ Festival – which warrants its own post – Scott wanted to make a quick stop at the Clay on Fire Festival. He showed me the promotional postcard, which made me think we were going to a satanic fair sponsored by the Hellfire Hot Sauce Company and accompanied by live music and beer.

The only devils we actually met were made of clay. Turned out, it was a pottery show that featured a dozen potters who made all things demonic and fantastical.

The first potter we met made grotesque heads stacked on top of one another, a couple of them sporting beautifully molded copper antlers. Apparently, the heads and other versions of them – face jugs they’re called – are a tradition dating back 200 years in the South. Legend has it that they were used to hide alcohol from children who were too scared to mess with them. I'd be scared too.

I was drawn to the next potter who had a tent filled with creatures that were grinning, sticking their tongues out, smacking their dismembered lips or popping their eyes out at me. That was from Mud and Guts Studio by Steve Weslow. Each one of those creatures was a hand carved ceramic mug, jug or vessel of sorts. There were cats, bears, monkeys and tigers with fearsome teeth that would give a dentist nightmares, and monsters with periscopic eyes. I half expected them to come alive in the dark as characters in a Tim Burton movie.

Then there was this pair of frightful satans from Get Clay by Dan. One had a sliced off skull and bloodshot eye smoking a cigar, and the other had a snake wrapped around his head where his gouged out eyes should be  – both seemingly having a grand time and laughing.

Another delightful stop was the Big Duluth Studios where we mimicked the screaming red lips reminiscent of the Rocky Mountain Horror Picture Show. I contemplated taking one home but shuddered at the thought of being licked by the protruding tongue if I happened to sip from the mouth side of the mug.

We spent a long time admiring the creations by Kevin of Turkey Creek Pottery, who couldn’t have been more than 25, yet he had been sculpting clay for something like 10 years. There was a snake whose scales he carved out one by one, an iguana-in-progress so lifelike that it looked about to crawl off the table, and a couple of characters from the original Alice and Wonderland who we couldn't recognize but who were striking in their human-like expressions.

Then there was the gruff cowboy whose scratchy stubbles you could almost feel, and the pair of vibrant roosters in a face-off that Scott was fond of.

We left the exhibit thoroughly surprised and in awe of the talent that should be discovered by major museums. The show left us grinning and delighted. Nevertheless, I was relieved that Scott didn't decide to bring a monster's head home with us.