This Feeds Me Hungry Musings of a Gastronomic Gypsy – NC-based freelance writer Victoria Bouloubasis

Kitty Banks runs the kitchen at InterAct, a shelter for domestic violence victims. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange.

A piece on hunger runs the risk of feeling stoic or redundant, full of statistics and absent of hope. I struggled with this as I researched and spoke to numerous people involved in local hunger relief projects. Then I  met Ms. Kitty Banks, who gave me the honor of telling me her compelling story.

“Not only am I doing what I want to do,” Banks says, “but it’s part of my dream to have my own kitchen. This is as close to mine for now.”

Thirteen years ago, this wasn’t the case. Banks says she was a “functioning drug addict, trying to hang on” as a single mom working two jobs to support her kids and her habit. Though smiling, she still can’t avoid the tears welling in her eyes when she recalls an incident that happened many years ago: She sat at her kitchen table and ignored her children’s pleas for breakfast.

“They knew mama was hung over, that she started her day with a BC [powder] and a Sunkist.”

Read the article here.

Ben Horner cools freshly roasted beans at Counter Culture. The local company works directly with farms to ensure the coffee is fairly traded under economically and environmentally sustainable conditions. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange

Fair Trade USA has changed its standards for fair trade coffee certification, pulling from the Fair Trade International model. Among the changes: expanding the criteria to include farms that are not part of a cooperative. My story’s focus explores the local perspective via Counter Culture and Carrboro Coffee Co. These two prominent Triangle, North Carolina roasters apply their own ethos, methods and certification to their product, with varying opinions on both the former and new certification standards. The issue itself, as well as other issues surrounding the coffee economy, is extremely complex. An interesting debate follows in the comments, so be sure to read them.

Read the story here.

*NSYNC's Joey Fatone chows on Chirba Chirba juicy buns. Photo by Victoria Bouloubasis

It slipped my mind to post this on the site. How could I have forgotten about my day with a former boy-bander turned food personality? Thanks to Chirba Chirba, the Triangle’s official dumpling raid on wheels, I spent some time hanging out with the Chirba crew and Joey while he filmed for his new show, My Family Recipe Rocks, to air on the Live Well Network in January. Read my Indy Big Bite blog post about it!

From bean to bar at Escazu Chocolates in Raleigh. Photo by D. L. Anderson.

Chocolate has a convoluted history tantamount to the saga and intrigue of a tragic heroine. Powerful men throughout time, be it Aztec kings or Spanish emperors, pursued her with vigor–an elusive object deemed precious, indulgent. European conquerors claimed to discover cacao in a world they assumed to be new, cheapening her title as “food of the gods” and stripping her sacred seeds from indigenous hands.

Now, many local chocolatiers honor these roots of cacao, creating a historic, delicious tribute to what is now a globally revered staple beyond just the dessert plate.

Read the story, featuring Cocoa Cinnamon, Escazu Artisan Chocolates and Elemental Chocolate, plus a list of more local purveyors.

Porcino and its gorgeous pasta colors. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange.

The latest DISH issue focuses on food made by hand. One of my contributions was a look at the homemade pasta artisans here in the Triangle. The allure of fresh pasta features Porcino of Carrboro, Dur’m Pasta Co. of Durham and Melina’s Fresh Pasta of Raleigh. Each purveyor had a passionate story to tell, including Carmella Alvaro of Melina’s, who confessed many joys of being raised by immigrant parents obsessed with good food, including the following: “I was a vegetarian for five years because I went to get the laundry one day and there was a lamb hanging from the ceiling.”

Great cover shot, too, with the help of Porcino’s delicious curry macaroni!

TROSA Grocery file photo by Jeremy M. Lange.

More than 20,000 residents live in the 300 blocks of Northeast Central Durham. It’s also an area that has been labeled a food desert, with many of its residents lacking access to fresh food. This week’s story, Hungry for choices: Fresh food finds its way to Northeast Central Durham, details plans made by the community to bring more choices to the area, especially within walking distance of most residents’ homes.

“I think it’s a really important moment right now,” says Sam Hummel of Everlaughter Farms. “There are still many adults in the Northeast Central Durham neighborhood who have a food tradition that involves fresh local vegetables. We don’t have to import a food culture from foodie West Durham. There’s already a food culture in Northeast Durham that knows what to do with fresh ingredients, but the ingredients haven’t been there for it to be practiced and passed on.”

“Why can’t I have the same options as Southpoint, Brier Creek, Trinity Park? Why can’t I have that same quality of food and freshness as everybody else?” Dawn Hill-Alston asks. “Just because we live here doesn’t mean we’re going to settle. Because we know we’re worth more than that.”

Please also read this related story by Maggie Smith: N.C. ranks 11th in child food insecurity.

BURLAP. Portraits of Piedmont Farmers by Raymond Goodman

I’ve posted a couple of dispatches on Indy’s Big Bite blog from last weekend’s Carolina Farm Stewardship Association‘s 26th Sustainable Agriculture Conference, held in Durham.

BURLAP. Portraits of Piedmont Farmers opens with a reception tomorrow at Bull City Arts Collective and Piedmont restaurant. Read why local photographer Raymond Goodman sought inspiration from the personas of local farmers.

And why did Watts Grocery chef Amy Tornquist tell a crowd “I need people to drink more at breakfast?” Read the post on a panel discussing farmer to chef to consumer relationships, moderated by Lantern chef/owner Andrea Reusing.

Children of farmworkers play in the dusty backyard of a Wilson County labor camp, where their family lives in bunks with other workers. Photo by Victoria Bouloubasis.

One hundred and three farmworkers were interviewed last year for a report released in September by OxFam America and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). The report, “A state of fear: Human rights abuses in North Carolina’s tobacco industry,” brings an adamant argument to the table that human rights abuses exist in NC’s top industry. The result is an eye-opening awareness of exploited labor as the backbone of a direct consumer product—tobacco. Read the Independent Weekly story.

These collard green tamales have me intrigued. Photo by Sandra A. Gutierrez (sandraskitchenstudio.com)

My lunch interview with Sandra A. Gutierrez unleashed an intriguing history lesson peppered with cooking tips.

For the food-obsessed, snuggling up to The New Southern-Latino Tablecookbook is akin to a new love affair. It comes with all the warmth of tender familiarity while simultaneously sparking an impassioned interest in what is more compatible than imagined.

As a chef, culinary instructor, food writer and historian, Guatemalan-American Sandra A. Gutierrez has documented what she describes as “a natural marriage” of the culinary similarities that our South and 21 Latin American countries have shared all along. She noticed the trend in the 1990s while dishing out columns on the topic at The Cary News for eight years. Her book unleashes 150 original recipes, from country ham drizzled with chimichurri sauce to collard green tamales and chocolate chili brownies, plumped up by hefty chunks of information detailing the Mayan legend of corn or the history of the casserole.

Her cookbook explores the “natural marriage” of Southern and Latin American cuisines. Click here for the full Indy interview.

George Chen, baker-owner at Bread and Butter. Photo by Victoria Bouloubasis.

A bread bakery and coffee shop quietly opened last month at 503 W. Rosemary St. in Chapel Hill. Like a sourdough starter that requires time to bubble and flourish, Bread and Butter is rising with the demand for fresh, artisan, locally baked bread in town.

Had a great time chatting with George Chen about his new bakery, Bread and Butter, in the former Oriental Garden space, the Chinese eatery run by Chen’s family for more than 20 years. Read all about it in this week’s Now Serving.

A few weeks back, I had some other great conversations with new  local food artisans Monuts Donuts (doughnuts off a tricycle!) and This & That Jam (with canning workshops accessible to all). Read that column here.

Feta is betta. Photo by Victoria Bouloubasis.

A trio of ceviche. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange.

You don’t have to go to Queens any more to find amazing ceviche. We’ve got some in Raleigh, por fin. Here’s my First Bite on new restaurant MachuPicchu Peruvian Cuisine. For North Carolina, a Peruvian restaurant with such an intricate menu–executed with quality–is huge: “In September, The Wall Street Journal declared Peruvian cuisine “food’s next big thing.” Peru’s intriguing gastronomic hot pot caught the attention of international-food aficionados long ago. Next conquest: the States, to pepper American palates with aji chilies and sharp notes of lime.”

Donia Khalaf and her husband, Ghazwan, lift a home-made leg of lamb out of the oven. Photo by D. L. Anderson.

This week’s Indy DISH issue encourages a well-traveled palate, featuring ethnic eats around the Triangle with guides to diverse flavors via restaurants and spice markets.

My contribution to the issue profiles home chef Donia Khalaf and her family–Iraqi refugees–as they assimilate to American culture, even at the table.

On my first visit to the Khalaf family home in Durham, Donia opens the door and apologizes. “The smell is so strong,” she says.

A stovetop gurgle emanates from the kitchen, the sound effect to the scent of garlic and tomato trailing toward the front door. Donia looks at me with a concerned smile, her kind, espresso-brown eyes seeming to ask for forgiveness. I tell her that it actually smells delicious in here, like a real home. Her smile broadens into a shy, pleased grin, swooping into two deep-set dimples, framed by freckles.

The same timid smile surfaced in July, when Donia taught an Iraqi cooking class at Durham Spirits Co. to more than 20 novice home cooks and expert chefs. All Americans, they were thirsty for a culinary trip into the exotic, and were equally intrigued by Donia’s story as an Iraqi refugee.

Read the story to find out more about Donia’s aromatic cuisine, her rebellious streak as a teen and which Food Network star she admires. To learn why “the dolma likes many, many people,” check out the next Recipes With Refugees class in Durham on Oct. 25.

The glory shot. Photo by D. L. Anderson.

A pile of puffballs. Photo by Victoria Bouloubasis.

(Please note the update at the end of this post.)

Last night, a smidgen of my dinner included something I stumbled upon in a parking lot–a mushroom rivaling my face in size, growing wild in a small patch of grass near Franklin St.

It sat there alone, with no other fungi friends hanging out nearby. I, however, was in good company. New friend and seasoned chef Damon Lapas pointed out the edible treasure. He’s been cooking up these giant shrooms, called puffballs, for a few years at home and now in local restaurant kitchens. Funny thing is, we were on our way to forage for a whole bunch of them and this parking lot variety ended up being my very first find.

Photo by Victoria Bouloubasis.

Many people, including my mushroom-phobic father, would find the thought of eating a wild fungus growing near a dumpster absolutely terrifying. Luckily, I roll in fearless circles. I took the puffball to a dinner potluck with colleagues and sauteed it with some garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. All eight of us got a nice sample of it atop our host’s homemade carrot ginger cashew soup.

The puffball varies in patterns and sizes. But our foraging in an undisclosed location (Sorry; sworn to secrecy. Forager scout’s honor.) led us to beautiful round mushrooms in a myriad of patterns. Some resembled a woodsy view into a kaleidoscope. Others, to my delight, looked like giraffe spots. (I love those guys.) They don’t have gills like most mushrooms and are really fun to toss around. (Food fight, anyone?)

Puffball pakoras at Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe. Photo by Damon Lapas.

Damon says he learned of them from a French culinary teacher ages ago. He finally “worked up the nerve to try them” about three years ago. He’s alive to tell the tale. Some light internet research taught me the following:

• These things grow rampant starting in August (Damon says September is when he begins to see them in North Carolina).
• According to this very helpful, albeit hysterical site, they are not poisonous. But there are look-alike mushrooms that are toxic and can be deadly. Please be careful. The linked site has more information, with photos, to help you watch out.
• Puffballs flourish in heavily manured pastures or littered areas.

The puffballs we found were firm on the outside and a spongy marshmellow texture in the inside, though not sticky–almost like wet cotton. If you press your finger into it, you’ll leave an indentation and can feel all the moisture harbored inside.

When I sauteed puffball slices, rather than secrete a slimy, delicious sauce like other mushrooms, they actually absorbed all the oil. Their flavor profile is mild and can be treated like tofu in cooking–sauces and such add to the taste. I first tried them when Damon doused roasted pieces with vindaloo sauce, bathed them in coconut flakes and a mystery batter, then fried them up to puffball perfection.

Yesterday we picked for both Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe in Chapel Hill and The Eddy Pub in Saxapahaw. Damon, the intriguing culinary personality that he is, cooks at both of those places. You can find them served as fried puffball pakoras at Vimala’s or featured in The Eddy’s dinner specials. (Sidenote: Damon ran the kitchen in the now defunct Barbecue Joint in Chapel Hill for eight years. He makes a mean, mean, pork ‘cue at Vimala’s.)

And then once you try them, go on your own scavenger hunt! Just watch out for the posers.

Puffball punching gloves? Photo by Victoria Bouloubasis

(*UPDATE* I mistakenly wrote that Damon makes the barbecue at Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe. The recipe is, in fact, that of executive chef and owner Vimala Rajendran. Damon does help with the prep, but the Southern-inspired ‘cue is a product of Vimala’s culinary talent and imagination. “I bloomed where I was planted,” she says.  The slow-roasted pork is a highlight of the dinner menu, served with a twist: fried plantains. On another note, I do work part-time at the Cafe. Though I’ll never write about it as a journalist, this mention is part of my personal vignette and first-hand experience with food as it relates to my everyday life.)

Popsicles with sass at La Monarcha Michoacana in Durham. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange.

Artisan ice cream in the Triangle wears many hats, and none are the pointy parlor caps you’re used to. A tattooed couple drives through town on a school bus with fresh ice cream in inventive flavors. A Mexican family brings the exotic tastes of Michoacan to Durham with fresh fruit popsicles and curdled milk ice cream. A Grammy-winning musician graces the gourmet stage with homemade frozen custard. A Kenyan immigrant scoops fresh sorbets at a Cuban sandwich shop and young farmers in Carrboro pedal through town on a bicycle with fresh ice cream sandwiches in tow. Read all about it here.