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 [...]

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

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 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 [...]

“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 [...]

“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.

This week’s INDY is a DISH special issue. The theme: ice cream. I wrote about Raspados Elenita, a cool little truck serving Latin-American ices in North Durham.  Read the full story, and check out the slideshow by photographer Sam Trull. With a flimsy plastic drinking straw pinched between his thumb and index finger, Luis Rodriguez [...]

It was, of course, a delight to interview Mr. Edge. But I was equally thrilled for the excuse to dig up one of my favorite food stories of 2011, Rapping About Tamales and Deportation, written by Edge for the New York Times.

“We’re creating the future of Raleigh, and I kind of love that it’s being done over a Woking Machine—a fucking washing machine with a turkey fryer in it—and good drinks and good food.” – Laura White, bartender at Foundation In an electric downtown food scene, an adrenalin-charged undercurrent — made up of line cooks, baristas, [...]

“In Burma, I lived in a village. Life is so risky inside a Burmese village,” Pa says. “Here, we can go to any area. We are free.” All ethnic Karen refugees at Transplanting Traditions Community Farm were farmers in their native Burma, but there they grew food primarily for their families. Here, they’re selling the [...]

(FOODIE screens tonight at Motorco, 7 p.m.) Let’s be real. Many of us have thought about that hypothetical moment of tragedy where, one day, after a freak accident—being caught in an avalanche or getting lost at sea—we find ourselves in a disgusting predicament: Do I eat the dead guy next to me to survive? Foodie, [...]

Sometimes I’ll get a strange tip, like the one about a Durham man who has created a nutmeg shrine in his home. Read all about it!

Goats and I share a complex history. I wrote about it for Indy’s Front Porch last week. Every Greek Easter, I’ve relished in the crispy skin peeled straight from a roasted goat’s flesh. Until, that is, I witnessed the birth of a baby goat on a farming stint in Portugal. My indulgent, borderline barbaric behavior [...]

A year after a tornado rattled Raleigh, Earp’s Seafood Market reopened on South Saunders Street. Herbert Earp opened the market in 1968 with just $50 in his pocket, providing a family business and community legacy. Read the story in this week’s Independent.