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

In this week’s INDY, I write about Kipos Greek Taverna: I had the pleasure of knowing both of my grandmothers, who hailed from different regions of Greece. Yiayia Koula lived her entire life in a tiny, land-locked village high in the central mountains, while Yiayia Eleni grew up on a windy, arid island in the [...]

Yamazushi exists as an unparalleled dining experience in the Triangle, serving a traditional, high-end Japanese kaiseki menu in a decades-old strip mall. The story behind the place is a very personal one. It is one of sustenance, survival and the will to keep on. Many are comparing Chef George Yamazawa to the famed Chef Jiro [...]

Brains, kidneys, intestines: They’re all on the table.

“We have a long history of running around the world and chasing cheap labor. We’ve got to take the blinders off.” – Eric Henry, CEO of TS Designs

An occasional bird darts through the gray, late winter sky. Sparse branches offer nothing to nibble on, so the birds move on. But it is a group of human foragers that hovers over a Durham backyard this afternoon, minding their steps, bending at the knees and leaning their noses toward the ground. Lindsay Perry runs [...]

I wrote about a fun Pop-up Ramen Shop hosted by Chef Matt Props and baker Ari Berenbaum at Ninth Street Bakery in February. “Bowls came out of the kitchen quickly, like ramen should. Props and Berenbaum confessed earlier in the week to bonding over ’90s hip-hop; the evening soundtrack swung from that era to early [...]

Local Spanish newspaper La Conexión published a photo I took on the front page of their Feb. 27 issue. The accompanying article discusses the attack on DACA-approved youth who, at the time, were being denied their drivers licenses. I took the photo at a rally outside of the NCDOT in January organized by Mayra Torres [...]

Below is a personal essay I wrote for the Indy Week, on stands now. Most of us have a soundtrack to our lives, a mental playlist we retrieve at the moments we find most celebratory or unbearable or just right. For much of my early childhood, mine came from a 1950s tabletop diner jukebox. From [...]

In December, I wrote about Joe Kwon’s friendly supper club for Slow Food USA’s Stories of a Slow Food Nation project. A night of amazing food, hilarious conversation and unexpected twists. Trampled by labradoodle. It’s what I imagined my death notice would say. For a fleeting moment, I pictured my poor mother spending years agonizing [...]

In researching this story, I found the following surprise fact: In 1907, a Chicago man was arrested for shooting his wife in the head. A pie, he said, made him do it. Mincemeat pie. Locally, the nightmarish pie resonated with folks that came from British stock and left the tradition behind, and older adults of [...]

As incongruous as it seems, white navy beans create an impressive dessert when whipped into custard. Many attribute the original recipe to Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, who wrote the cookbook How to Eat to Live, which prescribed a clean diet for African-American Muslims in the 1960s. But in the online documentary, Bean Pie, [...]

“It’s just a bit weepy,” says Brooke Erceg as she coos over a lemon meringue. Tiny brown pearls of liquid sugar slide down the peaks of snow-white meringue as it wiggles, elevated at least 4 inches from the lemon custard pooled into the crust. Erceg settles her pie onto a table at Cup A Joe [...]

I met Pavlos Georgiadis, Georgia Arvanitidou, and other Greek youth at Terra Madre. They are working toward providing a viable solution to Greece’s economic crisis through agriculture and healthy food systems. Part of their work includes a documentary series, found at vimeo.com/foodpolitics.  As a Greek-American observing the crisis from afar, a crisis affecting my family [...]

“That came straight from the coast,” owner Ricky Moore shouts, one hand knuckle-deep in flour while the other reaches for the deep fryer. “I got it this morning.” Read the full review of Saltbox Seafood Joint, a tiny takeout restaurant owned by former Iron Chef contestant Ricky Moore.

This dairy-sensitive kid can enjoy pizza again. My contribution for the DISH pizza issue: a review of three Triangle vegan pies.