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

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 [...]

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 [...]

The latest SavorNC March/April issue is out on stands and, hopefully, in your mailbox. With 100 vineyards and counting, our state boasts a developing history of fine wine production. I had the opportunity to feature six North Carolina vineyards offering more than just a sweet-tempered glass of muscadine wine. We’ve got llamas, people! And even a [...]

This week’s Now Serving column details events and agricultural workshops that give you a chance to participate in (literal) ground breaking as our local food movement evolves. Ever wanted to learn how to start a community garden, keep bees and chickens, plant potatoes or picnic with a baby goat? Read the column and dig in.

My first piece for SavorNC Magazine is now in the January/February issue. Inspired by the upcoming National Truffle Festival in March, held every year in Asheville, NC, I delved into our state’s blooming truffle farming industry. What I found out didn’t necessarily surprise me: North Carolina is a pioneer in yet another culinary, agriculture movement. [...]

Taking part in a small society, which lives more or less self-sufficiently of sustainable agriculture, was my only alternative draft of a place where you can actually live a life at peace with you and the rest of the world. This isn`t always true, but to a great extent it worked

The composting toilet and I weren’t always on good terms. Indeed, we gave each other shit regularly. But at the end of the day, my time there was always well spent, and I always emerged a better man than when I had entered.

Chen also has a comfortable air about her that lets the world know she’s taking it all in.

” I ended up spending the most time with the goats, and I’ve enjoyed just about every minute of it. I took them day in, day out for a week and also got to milk them. Walking with the goats in the valley afforded me a little peace, or something. I thought the time with the goats was very peaceful.”

Constantly smiling with eyes wide open, Rosana has a keen understanding of her surroundings in a way that makes her seem completely at ease wherever her wanderlust takes her.

This is the first in a series I’ve dubbed “Why we WWOOF”, profiling volunteers I met while farming at Casa do Burro. WWOOFers can be a strange breed. I presume I only have a handful of close friends who would summon their inner Kerouac to skip town for a while; even less who would plunge head first into outdoor labor, working in exchange for a mostly vegetarian meal plan and stiff, rural, caravan accommodations. Personally, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

But I’m back in full swing. And so very excited to be back in full swing in North Carolina. I don’t take this place for granted. No ma’am.

…on my 28th birthday, surrounded by great food, laughter, goats and farmers, the Casa do Burro felt like home.

On a calculated whim this past summer, I set off for a three-month stint to volunteer on organic farms on Portugal’s Algarve coast. My wanderlust needed a fix and my mind needed a stimulant. In covering local NC sustainable agriculture for the past couple of years, I craved the first-hand knowledge to really understand the movement.

Like any wildly nostalgic Greek-American tourist, I sipped, slurped, nibbled and devoured everything I could in four weeks.