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Articles by C.A. Carlson
A Small Town Tradition Endures at Southern Porch
Graceful curves and turrets and a white-pillared front porch face Canton’s Main Street. The brick Queen Anne they belong to — now known as the popular lunch spot Southern Porch Kitchen & Drink — has been a landmark in the mountain town since the late 19th century. Just a few minutes’ walk from the Pigeon River, the elegant establishment has lived many lives: It was first built as a private home in 1876.
Phillips Place Fall Shopping Spree Giveaway
Enjoy an exciting day of shopping at Phillips Place, Charlotte’s finest open-air shopping and dining destination, with exclusive gift cards to several stores including alice + olivia, Jenni Kayne, Peter Millar, and more! Plus, pamper yourself with a blowout or spa service at Phillips Place’s Modern Salon & Spa during your visit.
Where to Discover the Outer Banks’ Wild Side
SPONSORED BY “When people come to the Outer Banks, they think they are coming to the beach. They don’t realize that they’ve come to one of the wildest places on the East Coast,” Jamie Moore says, who owns and operates Outer Banks Adventures. Through Outer Banks Adventures, Moore leads people on airboat tours of the local waterways and guided bus tours through the pocosin wetlands of Alligator River National Refuge.
11 Our State Recipes You Loved in September
RECIPE ADAPTED BY LYNN WELLS This classic custard pie is sweet, buttery, and simply delicious. MAKE IT RECIPE BY SHERI CASTLE A Southern interpretation of an English trifle, banana pudding knows no season, only devotion. MAKE IT RECIPE BY LYNN WELLS A buttermilk soak promises fried chicken that’s crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. MAKE IT RECIPE BY LYNN WELLS A simple recipe with a spicy surprise: Winston-Salem’s own Texas Pete.
Confection Perfection at Edelweiss Pastry Boutique | Our State
Oksana Shchelgachova can’t sleep. Not yet. She’s up late, the scent of chocolate wafting through her kitchen as she folds together layers of butter and dough. She’s baking airy chocolate sponge cake and whipping up fluffy mousse and melting Belgian chocolate that she’ll then cool and craft into delicate flourishes that she promptly freezes. The pastry artist and chocolatier will be up early, too.
Gogo’s Cinnamon Rolls Continues a Sweet Legacy | Our State
Wendy and Jerry Lewis were enjoying a quiet afternoon on their front porch in Old Fort with Wendy’s grandmother Mary Golden Piercy, affectionately known as “Gogo.” The only sound they heard was the breeze rustling their potted ferns — that is, until Jerry’s phone suddenly sang with notifications. Earlier that day, Jerry had posted a photo of Wendy’s first batch of cinnamon rolls for sale.
Quirky Detours: Maggie Valley’s Great Red Rocker | Our State
Chuck Cummings can’t help but chuckle at the wayward tourists who call to tell him that they can’t seem to find his business, Country Time Swings in Maggie Valley, nor the huge red rocking chair that sits out front. “How in the world can you not see an 11-foot-high, safety-red rocking chair?” asks Cummings, who has owned the business for 25 years. How, indeed.
A Story of Sisterhood Within the Appalachian Women’s Museum | Our State
Rising from Dillsboro’s grassy valley, a three-story farmhouse cuts into the western North Carolina sky. The 1908 house is now home to the Appalachian Women’s Museum. In celebration of the annual Airing of the Quilts festival, colorful blankets hang from the white wraparound porch, swaying in the fresh mountain breeze. When museum volunteer Dave Russell first attended the festival five years ago, he felt like a kid again. “I fell in love with the place,” he says.
Quiz: Western North Carolina Fishing
12 Bones Smokehouse, a beloved barbecue joint near the banks of the French Broad River, has gone through many changes: location, owners, a new brewery. But no matter where it goes or what’s on the menu, the tables are always full and the ’cue always tender.
Linville Caverns
About 2,400 feet beneath Humpback Mountain in McDowell County, Steven Mistichelli leads a tour group through Linville Caverns with his flashlight. Stalactites hang down in various shapes and sizes, almost a mirror image of the Blue Ridge skyline that rises about half a mile above. As he rounds a corner, the low ceilings — on average about seven or eight feet tall — jump to 23 feet. “This is what we call our cathedral room,” he says.
A Gallery of Hope in Mission Hospital | Our State
Sunlight breaks through scudding clouds and caresses the Blue Ridge Mountains, those undulating indigo waves cresting in the distance. It’s the view you see through the floor-to-ceiling windows in the intensive care unit waiting room at Mission Hospital in Asheville — and it’s the view that artist Becca Joy Allen has captured in the painting that hangs on the waiting room wall.
Finding a Voice at Dark City Poets Society
As the sun slides toward the dark peaks that give Black Mountain its name, a young woman with a pink ponytail nervously steps up to the microphone on the patio of Oak and Grist Distilling Company. The crowd has been growing over the past hour, and Jess Delong is about to address an audience of 60 or so — some balancing piles of notebooks on their laps, some scrolling on their phones to find the pieces they plan to read, some just there to listen and drink local whiskey at picnic tables.
Settle in at the Mars Theatre Brewing Company
Opened in the wake of World War II, the little Mars Hill movie house — with its white brick facade whose shape echoes the mountains in the distance — was a destination for locals. “Back in the 1950s and ’60s, when I was growing up, the Mars Theatre was about all there was here,” says Ronnie Wallin, a retired teacher who has spent his whole life in Madison County. When Wallin and his wife started dating as teenagers, they spent most weekends sharing popcorn and a double feature.
Stories & Recipes from Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque | Our State
Long before “nose to tail” became a common catchphrase, Black pitmasters like Ed Mitchell were cooking whole hogs in North Carolina’s tobacco country. The same oak used to cure each year’s harvest fueled the pits where pork slowly melted and crisped. Mitchell recalls that process in his new cookbook, memoir, and communal history, Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque, which he coauthored with his son, Ryan Mitchell, and Wilson-born filmmaker and scholar Zella Palmer.
Weaving a Community Through Local Fibers in the Blue Ridge
One freezing night a couple of winters ago, as a bracing wind swept through the streets of Asheville’s River Arts District, a group of textile artists gathered for a class inside the cozy Local Cloth studio, surrounded by baskets of soft yarn and shelves of bright fabric. The organization’s founder and CEO, Judi Jetson, was leading a team in washing and dyeing wool sheared from sheep in the region.
OWL Bakery’s Festive & Foraged Christmas Treat
A few days before Christmas, a polar vortex is scouring the Appalachians and driving an icy wind through the streets of Asheville, punishing last-minute shoppers. Inside the spice-scented kitchen of OWL Bakery on Haywood Road, though, the afternoon couldn’t be cozier.
Book Review: Appalachia on the Table
Crafted from an old photo album and nibbled by mice in the family smokehouse on South Turkey Creek, where it had lain for years, the homemade cookbook that Erica Abrams Locklear inherited 20 years after her grandmother’s death in 1996 surprised her. The professor of humanities at the University of North Carolina Asheville expected to find only recipes for dishes that used homegrown produce and reflected her family’s seven generations in the mountains.
3 Spots to Go Out For Trout
Long before anglers first cast into the streams of the Smokies, trout was a treasured food. Using weirs, nets, and baskets, the ancestors of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians harvested brook trout, the only species native to North Carolina. They dried and smoked their catch, a preparation that’s still a favorite of trout lovers today.
Tea & Toasts in Hendersonville
Mountain Moods series: In western North Carolina, there’s a place for everyone: artists and epicures, locals and visitors, explorers and kick-back-and-relaxers. Down in the valleys, high on the peaks, around every bend in the road, communities with identities all their own remind us that our mountains contain multitudes. Decked out in a tiara and a glittery pink gown, a shy princess arrives with a family entourage to celebrate her birthday.
The Asheville Bar That Launched 1,000 Restaurants
Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes. With a flexible spatula, remove strata to Mountain Moods series: In western North Carolina, there’s a place for everyone: artists and epicures, locals and visitors, explorers and kick-back-and-relaxers. Down in the valleys, high on the peaks, around every bend in the road, communities with identities all their own remind us that our mountains contain multitudes.
UNC Press: A Literary History
Photography courtesy of UNC Press Southern Pioneers in Social Interpretation 1925 • edited by Howard W. Odum Don’t be fooled by the dry title: This collection of biographies — gathered and edited by Howard W. Odum, a longtime UNC Chapel Hill faculty member in sociology and a UNC Press founder — is nothing less than revolutionary. By giving attention to both white and Black leaders, including President Woodrow Wilson and author and educator Booker T.
100 Years of the People’s Press
Brooks Hall houses the Press’s offices, including that of Editorial Director Mark Simpson-Vos (left) and Director John Sherer. photographs by Anna Routh Barzin After a fire destroyed the home of UNC Press, Brooks Hall was rebuilt and reopened in 1993.
Book Review: The Asheville Bucket List
From a 10-foot-tall mural of a rooster in Chicken Alley to a busker pounding out poems on a typewriter in Pack Square, I thought that I’d seen it all in the six years since I moved to Asheville. As it turns out, I’ve only ticked off 47 of the quintessential experiences cataloged in 100 Things to Do in Asheville Before You Die. Author Kristy Tolley has been visiting the mountain town for almost three decades, and she’s witnessed its growth into a mecca for dining, art, beer, and nature.
Book Review: The Month of Their Ripening
Steer wrestling, a practice credited to legendary cowboy and rodeo star Bill Pickett, usually involves leaping onto a steer from the back of a specially trained horse. At the Madison Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes. With a flexible spatula, remove strata to Georgann Eubanks’s The Month of Their Ripening (UNC Press, 2018) is an homage to local, seasonal eating.
Book Review: Writing Appalachia
Steer wrestling, a practice credited to legendary cowboy and rodeo star Bill Pickett, usually involves leaping onto a steer from the back of a specially trained horse. At the Madison Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes. With a flexible spatula, remove strata to Writing Appalachia (University Press of Kentucky, 2020) won the Thomas D. Clark Foundation’s Medallion Award in 2020.
Made in NC: She Digs Wild Clay
Ceramic artist Tori Motyl is beginning a new piece — not at the potter’s wheel in her Weaverville studio, but on the grassy banks of nearby Reems Creek. Wearing a bright pink stocking cap over her spiky brown hair, holding a lavender polka-dotted pillowcase in one hand and a long-handled shovel in the other, Motyl squats down at a half-bare patch of earth, scrabbles up a handful of dirt streaked with red, and sniffs it.
Warming up to Whiskey
BY C.A. CARLSON | PHOTOS BY ERIN ADAMS Note: This excerpt was taken from a full-length feature that appeared in our Holiday 2019 issue. Little Jumbo has been closed since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, but announced in December that it will definitely reopen in 2021. “There are so many great drinks that were invented in the golden age of cocktails, from the 1860s through the 1920s,” says Chall Gray, co-owner of the Asheville bar Little Jumbo.
A Blue Ridge Mountains Vacation Spot Where You Can Feed the Bison
Guests staying in the cabins and old railroad cars on Harold and Harriet Clackett’s ranch can help feed their 30 bison. photographby Erin Adams As Harold Clackett revs up his tractor, 30 bison come running across a hilly pasture on the 70-some-acre Buffalo Creek Vacations property in Haywood County. Massive, shaggy bulls jostle for first dibs as Harold’s wife, Harriet, and their daughter Cheryl Hillis, balanced on a front-end loader, dump buckets of grain into a long trough.
The Microbrewers of Hummus
photographby Matt Hulsman If it weren’t for the nets carefully stretched over staff members’ beards and, of course, for the great heaping hoppers of garbanzo beans everywhere, the new Roots Hummus production facility could pass as a trendy nightclub in Asheville. Bright, psychedelic murals painted by artist Gus Cutty span the cavernous 27,000-square-foot space, a former movie studio.
Home Brewed at Sideways Farm
While Jon brews the beer, Carrieann focuses on the farming, raising everything from hot peppers for a spicy saison to flowers that are sold at the brewery and through a CSA and summer you-pick program. photographby Tim Robison As you enjoy a pint of the Mildly Bitter Blonde ale on the patio at Sideways Farm & Brewery, you can look out to a nearby field and see the beer’s namesake, a grumpy white ewe named Charlotte.
Enjoy a Roof With a View at The Horton Hotel
The average annual snowfall in North Carolina is five inches. Boone, on the western edge of the state, gets nearly three feet each year between the end of Appalachian State University’s football season and the start of spring hiking at nearby Grandfather Mountain. Instead of hunkering down at home this winter, though, many locals and visitors will gather on the roof of The Horton Hotel, the city’s first boutique inn.
Five Points Restaurant Is a Blue Ridge Treasure
In a corner where several North Asheville streets converge to create a neighborhood known as Five Points, Ilias “Louie” Sellas is flipping what may be, by his estimate, the seven millionth egg in his career. He started as a dishwasher at a Bronx diner soon after landing in the U.S. from Greece almost 45 years ago, worked his way up, and eventually bought the joint. He’s probably cooked 450 eggs a day, nearly 365 days a year, ever since.
Find Christmas Magic Aboard the Jingle Bell Trolley
’all ready to see Santa Claus?” Conductor Braiden Burgess shouts over the shriek of metal wheels on a metal track. In response, two trolley cars full of passengers — young and old, locals and visitors — enthusiastically shake the jingle bells they were given when they boarded at the little station in Woodfin, just north of Asheville.
A Clean Start for a Hickory Soapmaker
With their creamy colors and “flavors” like black raspberry vanilla and sweet orange chili pepper, the products at Hickory-based Artisan Soapery seem good enough to eat — not surprising, since owner Katye Fredieu ran a successful cake-decorating business in her hometown of Las Vegas for years. After a near-fatal motorcycle accident in 2011, though, she was forced to give up that profession.
Raise a Glass at This Paris-Inspired Bookstore and Champagne Bar
If it weren’t for the Blue Ridge Mountains, visible in the distance from downtown Asheville, you might think that you had time-traveled to 1920s Paris when you arrive at Battery Park Book Exchange & Champagne Bar. Dark wooden bookshelves offering about 25,000 volumes fill three levels. Leather couches on the first floor and club chairs tucked into nooks throughout the space are spots for tête-à-têtes over cups of coffee or glasses of wine (from a list of nearly 100).
The Seeds of Change
After choosing new careers, a farmer and a chef are transforming the tastes of Asheville diners BY C.A. CARLSON| PHOTOS BY ERIN ADAMS If you’ve ever found yourself at an Asheville restaurant eating a vegetable you’ve never heard of, chances are that Evan Chender grew it.
The Tobacco Barns of Madison County
In the hushed and dusty loft of Evelyn Anderson’s barn, not far from Mars Hill, time has come to a hard stop. Someone could have gotten up from that old chair, put down that yellowed newspaper, and finished the soda in that empty bottle just a few minutes ago, if it weren’t for the cobwebs. A child might have thrown that bicycle down when he was called in to supper.
Headwaters Outfitters in Rosman
“You never know who you’re going to meet at mile marker zero,” David Whitmire says. He’s standing beside the French Broad, right where the river takes on that name and just steps away from Headwaters Outfitters, the business that he and his wife, Debi, started in Rosman almost 30 years ago. Today, they share their love of the river with about 15,000 customers a year through tubing, guided canoe and kayak expeditions, and fly-fishing trips.
The Ceramics at This Gallery are Made to Be Admired *and* Used
On their first wedding anniversary, Andy Palmer gave Silvia Ferrari-Palmer a vintage bicycle built for two as an homage to the one her grandfather owned in Milan, Italy, where Silvia was born and raised. Now, it hangs on the exposed brick wall of In Tandem Gallery, symbolizing the life they’ve made together as owners of the showcase for ceramic art. The couple moved to Bakersville in 2013 to manage a gallery — a new career for both. A year later, they started their own.
Pollination Nation
Asheville is a hive for widespread efforts to protect bees and other species By C.A. Carlson/Photos by Erin Adams Imagine your favorite meal. Maybe it’s a beautifully composed plate from one of Asheville’s farm-to-table restaurants, with
tender spring vegetables and a few edible flowers. Maybe it’s a summer supper with squash from your own garden and a homemade apple pie. It could be just a good old-fashioned burger with lettuce and tomato and onion and fries on the side.
The Modern Mountain Retreat
For years, an enormous Chinese screen hung in Eunice Ward and Rosaire Nottage’s law office in downtown Chicago. Now, the artwork fills the north wall of the living room they share on a mountainside in western North Carolina. The delicate painting of a tree echoes the forest landscape framed by floor-to-ceiling windows to the south. On warm days, those windows can be pushed back into hidden pockets behind the fireplace.
Savoring Winter Squash
From candy roaster to kabocha, Asheville chefs are celebrating its versatility By C.A. Carlson | Photos by Erin Adams Every kid knows the vegetables of virtue: Brussels sprouts, beets, squash. Their good- for-you reputation has kept generations out of the Clean Plate Club, but in recent years, farm-to-table chefs have been bringing back these winter staples one by one. They value long-storing produce for the same reason our forebears did, as a way of keeping fresh food on the table year-round.
Cider City, USA | Fall 2018 | Edible Asheville
As bartenders bring back classic cocktails and beer fans geek out over traditional European styles, cider is poised to be the next retro beverage revival. Whether you’re interested in artisan brewing, local sourcing, or gluten-free living, the cider scene—especially in the Asheville area, with its easy access to the apple crops of Henderson County—offers a taste of history, updated for modern palates.
Appalachian Apple Stack Cake Recipe | Our State
Yields: 12 to 16 servings.
Pecan — How Do You Say It? | Our State
If you put two Tar Heels together, you’d better call a referee, because you’re going to need a third opinion. You see, we Tar Heels are an arguing people. We debate basketball, barbecue, even beaches. One word, in particular, leads to prolonged debate: pecan. More specifically, how you say pecan. As the author of Pecans, I’ve crisscrossed the state to talk about the nut. And I can tell you this: Politics is peanuts compared to pecan pronunciation. Pee-can or pah-cahn?
Hell and High Water: The Flood of 1916
It was Sunday morning, July 16, 1916, just outside of Biltmore Village, and the sun had not yet peeked over the horizon. Kathleen Lipe Carter was just three weeks before her 18th birthday, and she heard her father stirring. He was tying chickens and turkeys to the front porch. Carter’s mother and ailing family members had already left the riverfront home to stay with friends in a second-floor apartment inside the village.
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