real_food

edibleCharlotteFall 2012 Our Food, Our Farms, Our Stories, Season by Season Number 2
Member of Edible Communities
MAKING THE SWITCH: LISA LEAKE ON REAL FOOD

Fall 2012 1ediblecharlotte.com
CONTENTS
FALL 2012
2 GRIST FOR THE MILL
4 CONTRIBUTORS
6 IN SEASON
By Catherine Harris
8 NOTABLE EDIBLES
Fall Festivals and Events
12 IN THE KITCHEN
Flavors of Fall
By Jennifer Brulé
16 TRADITIONS
Trending: The Ancient Art of Pickling
By Thom Duncan
Pickling Korean-Style: Baechu Kimchi
by Catherine Harris
24 REAL EDIBLES
Could You Cut Out All Processed Foods For 100 Days?
By Dartinia Hull
30 KNOW YOUR EDIBLES
Fine Print: the Real Meaning Behind How Your Food Is Labeled
34 HAPPY HOUR
Garden of Earthly Delights: Happy Hour Goes Herbal
By Mark Dunn
38 BACK OF THE HOUSE
Trés Important: The Sous-Chef Holds the Keys to the Kitchen
By Carol Adams
42 EDIBLE U.
Beyond Organic: Davidson College Makes the Ultimate
Commitment to Local, Sustainable Food
By Melissa Bashor, with Jennifer Burns
46 LAST BITE
Home Grown: Helping Families Feed Themselves
By Henry Owen
48 FARMERS MARKET DIRECTORY
RECIPES
13 Celeriac and Tart Apple Salad
14 Spicy Escarole and Chickpea Stew
15 Citron Pumpkin Bruschetta
17 Refrigerator Pickled Peppers
19 Easy Pickled Red Onions
19 Chinese Fermented Daikon
20 Squash Relish
23 Baechu Kimchi
36 Tequila Lemon Basil Cocktail
37 Fall’s Fault cocktail
37 Sage Advice cocktail
39 David’s Yankee Fried Chicken
41 Vegan Ramen
Photograph on cover by Taylor Mathis, this page by Piper Warlick

2 Fall 2012 edible charlotte
GRIST FOR THE MILL edible
charlotte
publisher
Catherine Harris
editor
Melissa W. Bashor
designer
Cheryl Angelina Koehler
photographers
Becca Bond
Thom Duncan
Taylor Mathis
Piper Warlick
advertising
Contact
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Charlotte NC 28226
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of the publisher. ©2012. All Rights
Reserved.
I
love summer, because I really hate to be cold. But I anticipate fall every year,
almost with the belief that something magical will happen when the calendar
page turns and faithfully reveals the month of September. Fall will always be
my favorite.
That excitement came faster than usual these last few weeks, which found us
staring at taunting photographs of all things autumnal. Hearty soups resting in cop-
per pots and deep-bellied bowls. Kimchi and pickled radishes packed in jars. Ginger
whipped into foam. Apples, pears, pumpkins. I am more than ready for the wind to blow cool and the leaves
to burn crimson.
The day after Labor Day is like a reset button—the real new years day. Everyone gets back to business
after a season of beach trips, backyard picnics, and lazy weekends by the pool. Our children may be the
ones going back to school, but it seems that a switch flips in our adult minds as well. Still, the daylight
extends just long enough and the weather is just warm enough to allow a little more time for play before
the first frost.
In this issue, we play off that balance. We get a little scholastic about our food. Our primer on food label-
ing, adapted from Animal Welfare Approved’s Food Labeling for Dummies, came as a result of hearing that
readers need help navigating the complex world of packaging and marketing jargon. We give a first-hand
account of Lisa Leake’s experience—the good and the bad—as she cut out processed foods from her fam-
ily’s diet for 100 days. We visit Davidson University and learn that it is in fact possible to go local on a large
scale. I am deeply passionate about these stories, because they demonstrate that choices can be made at all
levels—an individual, a family, a community—to drive change.
On the lighter side, we explore how fall flavors in the hands of a skilled mixologist can make a happy
hour even happier. We present to you a tongue-in-cheek account of the history of pickles. We load you up
with ideas on how a foodie can spend his or her
weekend getting to know our state a little bet-
ter, with a list of events that celebrate everything
from collard greens to hot sauce. This issue is
also packed with recipes to try at home if you
decide to hit the kitchen instead of the road.
I’d like to thank everyone for the overwhelm-
ing response to our inaugural issue. I am hum-
bled and grateful to hear people say that they
enjoyed reading it cover to cover—a rarity for
any publication. We hope you find our second
issue as satisfying, informative and entertaining
as the first.
To time well spent around the table.
Catherine Harris,
Publisher
CORRECTION: In our last issue, we incor-
rectly spelled the name of Kate Brun, owner of
Lucky Leaf Gardens in our article, Metrolina,
Meet the Microgreen.
PhotobyCaroleTopalian

CONTRIBUTORS
Carol Adams is a chef, sailor, video producer
and writer. In other words, she bores easily.
When she’s not sailing, she resides in South
End. A graduate of Queens University of Char-
lotte and Johnson & Wales, Carol believes that
good food and witty words can conquer a host
of sins.
Melissa W. Bashor enjoys a good story well-told,
and real food well prepared. Nothing makes her
happier than having them both at once.
Becca Bond is a Charlotte based portrait
photographer with a heart deeply rooted in
sustainable farming. She specializes in life-
style photos of kids, families and babies.
beccabondphotography.com
Jennifer Brulé is a trained chef who has been
developingrecipesandwritingaboutfoodsince
realizing that it is the best way to avoid having
a real job. From 2003 to 2010, Jennifer and her
family nomadically ate their way through Eu-
rope, discovering more about people by what
they ate than what they said. Jennifer, her hus-
band and four children are now happily settled
in the Charlotte area where they frequent farm-
ers markets and have developed an affinity for
country ham. Jennifer is a regular contributor
to WCNC’s Charlotte Today as well as a free-
lancer for regional and national magazines and
FoodNetwork.com. She also writes the food
blog findingtasty.com.
Jennifer Burns is a native of Indianapolis, and
a recent graduate of Davidson College where
she was part of the Terry Leadership Program,
a Martin Van-Every Scholar, and founder and
leader of Food Club. She graduated Phi Beta
Kappa, Phi Beta Delta, and Omicron Delta
Kappa. Additionally, she was honored with
Davidson’s highest award, the Algernon Syd-
ney Sullivan award, recognizing the highest
moral character exemplified through selfless
service to the school. Now back home in India-
napolis she consults for a range of companies
including a creamery, an aquaponics company,
and an investment firm, but mostly she is work-
ing on her golf game and preparing for her Mas-
ter’s program at the University of Gastronomic
Sciences in northern Italy, which will begin
in March. Please contact her with any of your
food-related needs. jenncburns@gmail.com.
Thom Duncan was raised in a better-living-
through-chemicals household. He discovered
upon leaving for college that garlic was, in fact,
not a type of salt but the bulbous relative of the
onion, which, it turned out, was not a salt. In
2004, Thom founded Slow Food Charlotte and
in 2009 co-founded Friendship Gardens. He is
currently the regional governor of NC, SC and
VA for Slow Food USA. Thom supports good,
cleanandfairfoodandisidealisticenoughtobe-
lievethathisquietdesperationcanbeovercome,
though he admits it will most likely leave a scar.
Mark Dunn teaches English, gardens, cooks,
writes and runs—rarely all at once. Though
his background is in horror and suspense fic-
tion, he loves the Charlotte food scene and is
overjoyed to have this chance to write about
it. Mark lives in Merry Oaks with his wife, the
photographer Piper Warlick, and their growing
menagerie of somewhat-domesticated animals.
Dartinia Hull has little success growing her
own veggies. She lives in Derita, beside a neigh-
bor with an organic garden and an open gate,
and she occasionally mooches organic home-
grown foods from the farmer down the road,
which embarrasses her husband and daughters.
Taylor Mathis is a food and lifestyle
photographer in Charlotte. Find him at
taylormathisphotography.com
Piper Warlick is a portrait, wedding and
event photographer living in Charlotte, NC.
When she isn’t shooting, she enjoys tackling
a seemingly endless list of home renovation
projects and working in her backyard or-
ganic garden with her husband, Mark. Piper
is also a contributor to edible Upcountry.
piperwarlickphotography.com
Charlotte’s Premier
Kombucha Brewery!
DiscoverLennyBoy.com
Certiﬁed Organic Herbs * Raw * Vegan * Alkaline Water
Lenny Boy is a
fermented tea full of
probiotics that work
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system, stimulate
your metabolism, and
rejuvenate your mind!
Healthy Home Market | The Common Market
BerryBrook Farms | Harvest Moon Grille
Duckworth’s | Brawley’s | Twenty-Two Gallery
See our website for a full list of distributors.
At Atherton Mill
Helping You
Find
Your Flavor
Wine Bar &
Urban Loft
Retail Store
Wine
Tastings
& Events2000 South Blvd
Ste 610
704.996.7471
TheVinMaster.com

www nourishcharlotte com
704 448 food
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Happy Birthday to
Friendship Gardens!
The Fourth Annual
ow Food CharlotteFriendship Trays & Slo
Autumn
Garden
Party
Join us in the garden as we
celebrate the harvest with delicious
food, music, dancing, and a healthy
dose of mischief.
Saturday,
October 13, 2012
7-10pm
$50 per person
Friendship Trays
Demo Garden
2401-A Distribution St.
Charlotte, NC 28203
BUY TICKETS AT: friendship-gardens.org/gardenparty
Photos by Deborah Triplett Photography | DeborahTriplett.com
friendship-gardens.org
JUICE
& FOOD
980.275.3834
Find us at viva-raw.com and facebook.com/vivaraw
cold
pressed
& raw

APPLES
In Mulligatawny soup. Sauté onion, celery,
carrot, grated ginger and butter in a dutch
oven (do not brown). Add a little flour, plus
cumin and curry powder to create a paste.
Add chicken stock; bring to a boil. Simmer
for 20 minutes, then add diced apple, rice,
chopped chicken (cooked), and salt and
pepper. Simmer until rice is done.
BEETS
Roasted. Slice beets ¼ inch thick, lightly toss
in olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Roast
in a hot oven just until the edges crisp. Allow
to cool, then top with your favorite goat
cheese like you would a cracker.
BOK CHOY
Stir-fried. Slice diagonally. Add vegetable oil
to a cold wok. Add minced garlic and grated
fresh ginger; cook over medium heat until
just soft. Add bok choy, sea salt, and a little
water. Cover and simmer for a few minutes.
Remove, then drizzle with hot pepper oil.
BROCCOLI
In a soup. Sweat white and light green parts
of a leek in butter. Make a roux by adding
flour; slowly add milk and a dash of heavy
cream. Add chopped fresh broccoli, grated
Asiago cheese and salt and pepper.
BUTTERNUT SQUASH
Roasted. Cut to medium dice, toss in olive
oil and bake for 25-30 minutes. Add to
risotto along with dried sage and a little
grated parmesan.
CARROTS
Slawed. Mix shredded green cabbage,
julienned red pepper, grated carrots and
chopped red onion in a large bowl with
a little salt. Make a dressing of oil, lemon
juice, rice vinegar, a little sugar, and a finely-
chopped serrano pepper. Toss the slaw with
the dressing.
COLLARDS
Braised. Add 1 chopped onion to olive oil
in a large pot; cook until soft. Add 2 pounds
chopped collards (stems removed), one can
diced tomatoes, a splash of cider vinegar, and
salt and pepper; cover and simmer about
10–15 minutes. This girl adds a pinch of
sugar and a dash of hot sauce. Sorry, purists.
GINGER
As a dressing. Blend 1 large carrot, 1
tablespoon fresh ginger, 1 garlic clove and 2
tablespoons mirin or rice wine. Slowly add ¼
cup vegetable oil and 1–2 teaspoons sesame
oil on medium speed until smooth.
KALE
Sautéed. Sauté blue or red kale in some
sesame oil over medium heat for 1 minute.
Add a splash of liquid amino or soy sauce
and sesame seeds; toss for another minute
and serve immediately. Also good cold.
KOHLRABI
Puréed. That weird thing in your CSA
bag: it’s probably kohlrabi. Peel and dice,
then boil in salted water until soft. Sweat
shallots and minced garlic in a pan with olive
oil. Purée all ingredients with chicken or
vegetable stock—and a dash of cream—until
smooth. Season with salt and pepper.
MUSHROOMS
Roasted. Toss slices of your favorite wild
mushrooms in a mixture of olive oil and
lemon juice. Sprinkle with salt and pepper;
spread evenly across a pan. Roast at 375° for
15 minutes. Use in a salad or with a hearty
grain, like spelt or wheat berries.
PEARS
Crisped. Core and slice ripe pears. Toss with
lemon juice and melted butter. Coat with
a little flour, cinnamon and ground ginger.
Pour into baking dish. Cut chilled butter
IN SEASON
BY CAT HARRIS
PhotosbyCaroleTopalian

into a mixture of oats, brown sugar, flour and
salt. Spread across pears. Bake at 350° for 30
minutes; serve with caramel ice cream.
PECANS
Sweet and spicy. Mix salt, cinnamon, ground
ginger, and a dash of cayenne pepper in a
small bowl. Toast pecan halves in a skillet,
about 5 minutes. Add a few pats of butter
and stir until melted. Add the spices; stir
to coat. Add brown sugar and a little water
and stir until mixture thickens. Cool on
parchment paper.
RED CABBAGE
Braised. Quarter cabbage and slice into ¼
inch strips. Sauté chopped onion in olive oil
until soft. Add 1 apple, peeled and diced, and
the cabbage to the pot. Cook a few minutes,
then add stock, a splash of cider vinegar,
caraway seeds, and salt and pepper. Simmer,
covered, until cabbage is tender. Optional:
chopped bacon.
ROMAINE LETTUCE
Grilled. Lightly brush whole romaine hearts
with olive oil. Grill for 2–3 minutes on
each side. Top with Caesar dressing, shaved
Parmesan and plenty of cracked pepper.
ROSEMARY
As a rub. Crush rosemary with garlic,
lavender, thyme, and salt and pepper for an
easy herb crust for a lamb or beef roast.
RUTABAGA
Mashed. Carefully peel rutabagas (not
your arm) and cut into large chunks.
(Consider using a hatchet or chainsaw.
Also recommended: leather gloves and eye
protection. Safety first!) Add to a pot of cold
water; bring to a boil. Simmer until soft, then
drain. Mash with butter, a splash of milk, a
pinch of nutmeg, and salt and pepper.
SAGE
In saltimbocca. Salt and pepper pounded
chicken breasts. Dredge in flour. Top with
fresh sage, a thin slice of lemon, and a slice
of prosciutto. Cook in olive oil and butter,
prosciutto side first, until golden brown;
remove. Deglaze the pan with white wine,
add a squeeze of lemon and chicken stock
for sauce.
SAVOY CABBAGE
Poplin Farms-style. Cut cabbage into 8
wedges. Brush with olive oil on all sides, then
sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Roast at
450° for 25 minutes; squeeze lemon juice
over wedges before serving.
SPINACH
Korean-style. Steam or blanch just until
wilted; drain and allow to cool. Toss with
minced garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, toasted
sesame seeds, a pinch of sugar and sea salt.
SUGAR PUMPKIN
Frozen. Purée cooked and seeded pumpkin.
Strain to remove excess liquid. Combine
purée with plain yogurt (about a 1:2
ratio), brown sugar, vanilla extract, and
pumpkin pie spice. Chill, then freeze in ice
cream maker according to manufacturer’s
directions.
SWEET POTATO
Baked. Pierce with a fork several times then
brush the outside with olive oil. Sprinkle
with sea salt. Bake in a 400° oven until
soft, 40 minutes. Cut a slit and add a pat
of butter; sprinkle with cumin and black
pepper.
TURNIPS
Hashed. Peel, dice and parboil turnips,
carrots and potatoes; drain. Sauté chopped
onion until translucent in a large skillet.
Add minced garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Add root vegetables, ground thyme, and
salt and pepper. Cook over medium-high
heat, stirring frequently, until vegetables are
slightly browned.

NOTABLE EDIBLES
Fall is loaded with festivals and special events,
many of which celebrate our local harvest and
food traditions. North Carolina’s many festivi-
ties pay homage to everything from yams and
collards to barbecue and beer. Here’s a list of
happenings in Charlotte and beyond to sink
your teeth into.
SEPTEMBER
Ayden Collard Festival. September 6–9.
This annual festival held in Ayden, NC,
near Greenville, features collard contests of
both the cooking and eating variety. It came
about in the mid-70s when residents sought
a reason to celebrate their town. Other
attractions include music, a parade, a golf
tournament, a 5k road race and fun walk,
and an art show. aydencollardfestival.com
North Carolina Hot Sauce Contest.
September 8. Visit historic Oxford to sample
hot sauces and barbecue sauces as they
compete for the right to be called NC’s best.
Adventurous types can enter the NC Pepper
Eating Contest. The event hosts a barbecue
chicken cook-off, and NC beers and wines
are available for sampling. There’s plenty
of activities for the kids, too. oxfordnc.org/
nchotsaucecontest
Know Your Farms Tour. September
15 and 16. This self-directed tour gives
visitors a first-hand experience of farms and
interaction with the farmers who grow our
food. Over 40 farms in the Charlotte area
are participating this year. Purchase a ticket
online, plot your course, and remember to
pack a cooler for take-home goodies. Snacks
and meals will be available at a number of the
farms. knowyourfarmstour.com
Charlotte Oktoberfest. September 29. This
event, hosted by Carolina BrewMasters,
offers beer tastings from all over world,
including dozens of regional craft beers
and even home brews. Get your tickets
early—this event tends to sell out. For
tickets and volunteer opportunities, visit
charlotteoktoberfest.com
North Carolina Muscadine Festival.
September 29. Celebrate the heritage of the
nation’s first cultivated grape and our state
fruit: the muscadine. Now experiencing a
resurgence in popularity, mention of this
grape was recorded as early as 1524. Over
30 regional wineries are participating in
this year’s event, which includes live music,
wine-tasting, local fare, and three contests:
winemaking, cooking, and shagging.
muscadineharvestfestival.com
OCTOBER
Hodges Farm and Pumpkin Patch.
October 1–31. Pick your own pumpkin
every day in October from 9 am until dark
at Hodges Farm on Rocky River Road. You
can also take a hay ride, visit with the farm
animals, picnic, and explore the corn maze.
Pony rides are available on weekends. Call
ahead to make a reservation: 704.494.0107
Brushy Mountain Apple Jam & Festival.
October 5 and 6. Local apples, dried apples,
candied apples, apple cider, apple jam.
Celebrating Carolina mountain heritage, this
is one of the largest one-day arts and crafts
festivals in the Southeast. Downtown North
Wilkesboro plays host to over 425 arts and
crafts exhibits, 100 food stands, and four
music stages. applefestival.net
The beer on
everyone’s lips.
704.451.1394 | 2229 N. Davidson St., Charlotte NC
www.NoDaBrewing.com Stay in touch:
Eat local. Drink local.
Shop local.
Support local!

Elliott Family Farms Heritage Days.
October 5–7. This fourth-generation farm,
set against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge
mountains, focuses on preserving the
traditions of farm life for future generations.
Visitors can learn how molasses is made from
start to finish, sample homemade apple butter
and slow-cooked BBQ, and tour the Turn of
the Century farm site. Activities for the kids
include face-painting, a hay maze and petting
zoo. elliottfarmevents@gmail.com
North Carolina Seafood Festival. October
5–7. Fling a flounder in celebration of
Carolina’s seafood bounty. Join 150,000 of
your closest friends in Morehead City, NC,
for food and wine, live music, chef demos,
and rides. Events include a road race, fishing
tournament, sailing regatta, and, no kidding,
a flounder fling. ncseafoodfestival.org
Charlotte Great Grapes Wine and Food
Festival. October 6. The tenth annual wine
festival held in Symphony Park will feature
over 200 wines from 20 Carolina wineries,
live music, and crafts. To purchase tickets and
learn more, visit uncorkthefun.com
North Carolina State Fair. October
11–21. North Carolina’s state fair in Raleigh
welcomed 4,000 when it first opened in
1853. It now draws over a million visitors
each year and is host to the Got to Be
NC Agriculture exhibit, which proudly
features locally-grown and locally-produced
food products for sampling and for sale.
ncstatefair.org
Blues, Brews, and BBQ. October 12
and 13. This Uptown Charlotte festival
attracts thousands who come to eat, drink,
take in the music and maybe even learn
some barbecue skills. Over 100 teams are
expected to travel to Charlotte to participate
in the Memphis Barbecue Network
competition, and there is also a local
challenge for backyard grilling enthusiasts.
charlottebbqandblues.com
Harvest Festival at Shelton Vineyards.
October 13. Admission is free to the seventh
annual festival held in North Carolina’s
largest family-owned winery. Activities
include grape-stomping, wine tours, hay
rides, and face-painting for the kids. Food
and wine will be available for purchase to
enjoy on the grounds while listening to
live bluegrass. Call to make a reservation:
336.366.3590
Charlotte Festival Latino Americano.
October 14. Now in its 22nd
year, this festival
celebrates Latin American traditions in
food, music, dance, and art. The event is
held at Symphony Park at South Park mall
and features authentic Latin American and
Caribbean cuisine. latinamericancoalition.
org/festivallatinoamericano
Yadkin Valley Wine Festival. October 20.
Celebrate the wines of the Yadkin Valley
appellation in downtown Yadkinville. Last
year over 25 area wineries participated.
Advance wine-tasting tickets can be
purchased for $15. yvgf.com
Subscribing to
Edible Charlotte
is as easy as pie.
Just go online to
EdibleCharlotte.com
and click on SUBSCRIBE.
PhotoscourtesyoftheNorthCarolinaStateFair

North Carolina Oyster Festival. October
20. Now in its 32nd year, this festival
celebrates Brunswick County’s cherished
mollusk. Events include the NC Oyster
Shucking Championships, an Oyster
Stew Cook-off, a road race and surfing
competition. Enjoy local fare, arts and crafts,
and live music along with 50,000 other
visitors and locals who come to enjoy this
seafood treasure. ncoysterfestival.com
Harvest Brewed. October 26. Daniel Stowe
Botanical Garden in Belmont hosts an
evening featuring craft beers, microbrews and
home brews from NC and beyond, plus food
and live music. The Garden plans to build
upon the success of last year’s event, which
sold out. Reservations are required. dsbg.org
North Carolina Yam Festival. October 27.
This festival is one of NC’s oldest and largest.
Held in Tabor City, it is all about celebrating
one of Carolina’s agricultural stalwarts: the
sweet potato. Festivities include a Sweet
Potato Cook-Off, a Sweet Potato Auction,
and a parade. ncyamfestival.com
Lexington BBQ Festival. October 27. The
best of Lexington’s barbecue masters get
together to celebrate this Carolina classic each
fall. In addition to the food, there are over
400 exhibitors, live music, rides, games and a
number of events in the week running up to
the festival itself. barbecuefestival.com
NOVEMBER
Highlands Culinary Weekend. November
11–14. A four-day foodie event deep in
the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The weekend kicks off with the Opening
Night Celebration on Thursday. On Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday, enjoy tastings and
special dinners and participate in a number
of activities, including the Sip and Stroll.
highlandsculinaryweekend.com
Le Beaujolais Nouveau Wine Tasting
Festival. November 16. Charlotte is one of
just 13 U.S. cities given the honor of hosting
an official uncorking of the not-so-local
Beaujolais Nouveau. According to French law,
this young wine is only available starting at
midnight on the third Thursday of November.
Area stores and restaurants will prominently
display its arrival so that you know where to
sample these first grapes of the year.
National Gingerbread House Competition
and Display. Competition, November 17;
display runs from November 20–January 2.
Now in its 20th
year, this competition is held
at the Grove Park Inn of Asheville and has
been featured on Food Network. Participants
come from all over the country to enter their
dazzling gingerbread creations. groveparkinn.
com/events
Edible Charlotte provides this list as a service
to our readers. Hungry for more? Visit
ediblecharlotte.com and click on Events under
the Resources menu to view upcoming events
related to food and drink in our area, from
cooking classes to demos to dinners and more.
NOTABLE EDIBLES

Local Foods. Local Farms. Local Artisans.
Market Offerings:
•Fruit
•Vegetables
•Flowers
•Plants
•Honey
•Pasta
•Dairy
Products
•Pickles
•Poultry
•Pork
•Beef
•Seafood
•Baked
Goods
•Breads
•Prepared
Foods
•Olive Oils &
Vinegar
•Artisanal
Chocolates
•Sauces
•Herbs
•Art
•Jewelry
•Bath
Products
•Seasonal
Items
Check in on Foursquare
athertonmillandmarket
@AthertonMillMkt
TUES: 9am–7pm, WED–SAT: 9am–2pmNEW HOURS!
Located in the South End at:
2104 South Boulevard
Buy tickets for these tours and more online
•Charlotte Brew & Chew
•Local Flavors of NoDa
•Soul of the South Uptown
FeastFoodTours.com
Explore Charlotte through its culinary artisans

A
utumn is a glorious time to live in Charlotte. The scorching summer sun
has faded, taking with it long sunlit days and lazy, late dinners. Summer
cooking is primal—outdoors, flames and meat, colorful, raw vegetables.
With autumn’s more civilized temperatures, we get a sense of culinary freedom
that brings us back inside to heat up the kitchen once again.
Our climate allows for tomatoes and summer squash to proliferate our
gardens and farmers markets well into fall, but we will soon find cold-
weather produce as well, yielding ingredients that straddle the
seasons. In October, pumpkins will adorn pies and front
porches, but this cold-weather squash is also perfectly suited
for pastas, risottos, even paired with lemon zest for a savory
bruschetta spread.
Although celeriac (also known as celery root) can be found
in supermarkets year round, it is in these autumnal months that
they are in season. Curious to look at, the celeriac’s craggy ex-
terior yields a lovely white interior that, when simmered and
mashed with potatoes gives depth to spuds; shredded raw
into salads adds a subtle crunch and savory flare.
Lying resplendent alongside celeriac and pumpkins on
the fall harvest table is escarole, endive’s mild-mannered
cousin. Though it is considered a green similar to kale
or chard, escarole’s leaves are more delicate and paler
in color. Mixed into a salad, escarole adds a pleas-
antly bitter bite, similar to radicchio. Chopped and
gently cooked, escarole wilts, becoming meltingly
velvety.
Autumn challenges us to up our game and
be more mindful with what we cook: a pars-
nip is not as easily consumed as a summer
tomato. Winter will be upon us soon, nar-
rowing the selection of local produce
from which we can choose. Then it’s
time to really get resourceful and cre-
ative. But for this moment, enjoy
the abundance of this final grow-
ing season.
IN THE KITCHEN
FLAVORS
OF FALL
TEXT AND RECIPES BY JENNIFER BRULÉ
PHOTOGRAPHS BY TAYLOR MATHIS

CELERIAC & TART APPLE SALAD
WITH CLEMSONBUTTERMILK CREAM
This vegetable is delicious after trimming away its tough exterior. Finishing this salad
with toasted walnuts makes a huge impact on this delicious dish. The Granny Smith ap-
ples bring a slight tart flavor that plays nicely off the creamy, salty Clemson bBue Cheese.
If you can’t find Clemson (or are a USC fan), any blue cheese will work.
Makes 6–8 side salads
Dressing
¼ cup light sour cream or plain yogurt
¼ cup mayonnaise
½ cup low fat buttermilk
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 ounces Clemson (or other) Blue
Cheese, crumbled
Salt and freshly ground black or white
pepper, to taste
Whisk the first 4 ingredients together
then scatter in the cheese and mash with
a fork to incorporate until smooth. Taste
and season with salt and pepper and re-
frigerate until ready to use (can be made
up to 1 day in advance).
Salad
¾ cup walnut pieces
1 large celeriac (find one that is heavy for
its size)
½ large Granny Smith apple, grated or
sliced
½ small sweet onion, finely minced
Toast the walnut pieces by placing them
into a dry sauté pan set over medium
heat. Keep the walnuts moving (they will
begin to toast from the outside of the pan
towards the middle). When they become
fragrant and some of the pieces turn gold-
en, remove the pan from the heat and al-
low them to cook from the residual heat
of the pan until completely cool.
Trim the celery root: using a large knife,
cut off both ends of the root so that it sits
flat, then slice the tough, brown exterior
off. Trim all brown spots out. Cut in half
and slice into ribbons on a mandolin, or
use a box grater to shred the root.
Remove the core from the apple (keep the
peel intact for color) and slice on a man-
dolin or box grater.
Toss the celeriac, apple and minced onion
together, pour the dressing over and toss
well. Just before serving, scatter toasted
walnut pieces over top.
The story of Clemson Blue Cheese begins in the 1850s, when an en-
terprising railroad company sought to connect the growing fields of
the Midwest to the busy port of Charleston. As part of this herculean
effort, three tunnels were to be carved from the Blue Ridge Moun-
tains, including the Stumphouse Tunnel. The Civil War and a lack of
funds interrupted the project, and later efforts to finish the railroad
failed. The incomplete Stumphouse Tunnel lay abandoned.
Despite its lack of commercial use, the tunnel still held some
interest for the locals. A 60-foot air shaft that reached to the sur-
face pushed a steady, cool breeze into the tunnel, making the south
entrance a popular resort on a hot summer day. It also kept the
tunnel damp.
Years later, in 1941, an astute Clemson A&M College professor
realized that the tunnel’s cool, humid environment was favorable for
ripening blue cheese, and the Dairy Department began experiment-
ing. But another war—this time World War II–again halted activity
in the tunnel. The school’s dairy resurrected Operation Blue Cheese
in the 1950s and introduced Clemson Blue Cheese to the market
in 1954.
These days, the tangy, creamy cheese is made in Clemson’s New-
man Hall, where carefully air-conditioned rooms mimic the condi-
tions of the tunnel.
—Catherine Harris
THE SOUTH’S FIRST BLUE CHEESE

Reminiscent of Leblebi, a Tunisian breakfast soup,
this recipe strays from its North African inspira-
tion by way of lemon juice and the timesaving use
of canned, rather than dried, chickpeas. With the
addition of toasted bread and a farm fresh egg, this
soup makes a hearty meal. Make it vegetarian by us-
ing vegetable stock and vegan by eliminating the egg.
Serves 8
8 thick baguette slices, toasted
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small red onion, diced
3 fat garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 teaspoons ground cumin
5 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 14-ounce cans chickpeas, drained
1 head escarole, washed and chopped into bite-
size pieces
1 tablespoon Harissa or Sriracha, or more to taste
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons white vinegar
4 large eggs
½ cup minced, fresh cilantro
Pour the olive oil into a large soup pot and set over
medium heat. Add red onion and garlic and sauté
for 2 minutes, then add cumin powder and con-
tinue to sauté for 3 minutes longer.
Pour the stock into the soup pot and bring to a
simmer, then add the chickpeas. Bring back to a
simmer and add the escarole; stir until the greens
begin to wilt, about 2 minutes, then shut the heat
off. Add the Harissa or Sriracha and lemon juice.
Taste and adjust seasoning.
Poach the eggs. Fill a medium saucepan halfway
up with hot water and bring almost to a simmer.
Add the vinegar. One at a time, crack an egg into
a small cup. Using a spatula or spoon, stir the sim-
mering water until it creates a vortex, then quickly
and carefully pour the egg into the middle. Stir
in circles for a minute then allow to cook for 3–4 minutes longer.
Remove with a slotted spoon and keep warm while you poach the
other eggs.
Place a piece of toasted bread into each soup bowl, ladle soup on top
and position a poached egg on top. Sprinkle with cilantro and finish
with a squirt or more of hot sauce, if you wish.
SPICY ESCAROLE AND CHICKPEA STEW

CITRON PUMPKIN
BRUSCHETTA
The country ham gives this appetizer a salty, umami boost, but the
rounds are equally delicious (and vegetarian) when the ham is omitted.
Makes 36 rounds
Citron Pumpkin
Spread
1 small pumpkin
(sugar pumpkins are
best for cooking)
3 sprigs fresh thyme,
leaves ripped from
twigs
Zest from ½ lemon,
roughly chopped
1 small garlic clove,
roughly chopped
2 tablespoons extra
virgin olive oil
Sea salt to taste
Bruschetta
1 slice country ham
3 dozen store-bought toasted baguette rounds
Small package chevre (goat cheese), crumbled
Fresh thyme for garnish
To cook the pumpkin: pre-heat the oven to 350°. Slice in half and
scoop out the seeds. Place cut side down in a baking dish that’s
been sprayed with non-stick spray or rubbed with oil and cover
with foil. Bake for about 45 minutes, until tender. Allow to cool
completely, then scoop the flesh out and discard the skin.
While the pumpkin is baking, sauté the country ham until just
cooked through, then allow to cool.
Roughly chop the cooled country ham and place in a food pro-
cessor. Pulse until minced fine. Remove and set aside. Rinse out
and dry work bowl then pile in all ingredients (except salt) for the
citron pumpkin spread; pulse until smooth, season with salt.
When ready to serve: spread toasted baguette rounds with citron
pumpkin spread, scatter chevre pieces, sprinkle ham mince and
finish with thyme leaves. Serve at once.
To make ahead, complete through step three, and store the pump-
kin spread in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
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TRADITIONS
TRENDING
The Ancient Art of Pickling
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
BY THOM DUNCAN

Y
ou’ll find them on the covers of trendy kitchen catalogs, on
the Food Network, on the menus of rock star chefs. They are
hip. They are now. Pickles are the new black. Or they would be
if they didn’t predate fashion and the fashion metaphor. It turns out
there was a pantry in the cradle of civilization, and it was stocked full
of pickles.
The first known pickles date back to the Mesopotamians and the
Tigris valley around 3000 B.C. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that
pickling was a key technological advance, right along with fire and the
wheel, that gave humans dominion over the earth.
So what exactly is a pickle? It’s
any food preserved by acidity. There
are historically two ways to get that
done: salt or vinegar (sometimes
both). For thousands of years food
was pickled by fermentation. Linda
Ziedrich explains in her wonderful
book The Joy of Pickling: “Fermenta-
REFRIGERATOR PICKLED PEPPERS
Flavored with fennel, celery and bay leaf, this is a delightfully unusual pepper pickle.
(Reprinted from The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich.)
Makes 2 quarts.
2 pounds bell or pimiento peppers,
preferably mixed colors, cut into strips or
1 to 1½ inch squares
1 large celery stalk with leaves, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon whole fennel seeds
1 Mediterranean bay leaf
3 cups of water
1½ cups of white wine vinegar
2½ tablespoons pickling salt
In a large bowl, toss the peppers with celery,
garlic and fennel. Pack the vegetables and
seeds with the bay leaf into a 2–quart jar.
Combine the water and vinegar and dissolve
the salt in the liquid. Pour the brine over the
vegetables and refrigerate.
The peppers will be ready in about 8 days.
Refrigerated, they will keep well for 6 to 8
weeks.

tion is a controlled decomposition of food. Brine pickling involves fer-
mentation by bacteria which breaks apart sugars to create acid, mainly
lactic acid, which for some weeks or months preserves the food.” The
great thing about fermentation is that it’s easy and it’s safe. Add salt
to vegetables and submerge them in water. That’s it. The speed of the
fermentation varies by salt content and temperature. The lower the salt
content and/or the temperature, the slower the ferment. Managing it,
or not, is the art.
A funny thing happens on the way to fermentation. The pickler cre-
ates a selective environment where oxygen-dependent organisms—like
bad bacteria—can’t live. The bacteria that can live there initiate fermen-
tation. These beneficial bacteria not only enhance the flavor of the food
being pickled, they in many cases increase the food’s nutritional value,
since bacteria produce vitamins as they digest vegetable matter. Fer-
mentation preserves the presence of vitamin C in all vegetables. In the
pickling of the Korean staple kimchi, traditionally made with cabbage,
vegetables contain double the level of vitamins B1, B2, B12 and niacin
as unfermented cabbage. It’s no secret among food historians that the
nutrition provided by fermentation allowed civilizations to not only
survive, but to flourish.
But there’s more than one way to skin a pickle. “Fresh” pickles are
non-fermented pickles preserved in vinegar, or occasionally citrus.
While salt is not needed for fresh pickles, it would be rare to find them
without it; salt makes a pickle firm and concentrates its flavor. Fresh
picklestendtofallintothreecategories.Themostfamiliararecannedin
a diluted vinegar concoction for longer-term storage and often sweeter
flavors. During the canning process, they are heated for sterilization
which destroys all micro-organisms, both the good and the bad. Then
there are truly fresh pickles that are not cooked at all and stored in
pure vinegar, yielding a strong sour flavor. And last, the most accessible
fresh pickle is bathed in a diluted vinegar solution and stored in your
refrigerator to be enjoyed sooner rather than later. Refrigerator pickles
are a great place to start because they’re simple to prepare, ready in days
and keep for weeks in the ice box.
With thanks to Art Duckworth
& Apple Orchard Farm, Sue Fer-
guson, Kris Reid, The Bradford
Store and Westside Meats.

PICKLED LORE
Imagine Hammurabi twirling a
just gherkin while penning the
code.
Cleopatra attributed her beauty to
pickles.
Aristotle claimed their healing
powers, and Julius Caesar believed
they enhanced his spiritual and
physical well-being.
America was named after Amerigo
Vespucci, pickle merchant
turned navigator who sailed with
Columbus and stocked the holds
of the Niña, Pinta, and Santa
Maria with pickles to prevent
scurvy among the crew.
Napoleon, wanting to provide
pickles for his troops, offered a
cash prize equivalent to $250,000
in today’s dollars to anyone
discovering a method for long-
term preservation of pickles.
(Nicholas Appert answered
the call by introducing a water
bath technique, which killed
harmful bacteria and became the
foundation of modern canning.)
Less famous, but every bit as
practical, are the fermentation
pits that natives in the Pacific dug
and lined with banana leaves to
create containers to pickle fruit. So
important were a man’s pickle pits
that should he want to propose to
a would-be bride, her family would
first need to inspect the quality
of his pits to determine if he be
worthy of her hand.
Historically the cucumber is by
far the most popular vegetable for
pickling. It is argued that their
popularity is based primarily on
the fact that they’re easy to hold.
(The opposable thumb argument
wins again.)
Before modern canning
techniques, pickle jars or crocks
were topped with oil, forming a
liquid barrier between the outside
air and pickles inside. For longer
storage, fermented pickles were
brined in an intense solution,
yielding pickles that needed to be
stored in fresh water for days to
dilute their salt content enough to
make them edible.
Makes 1 quart
1 pound daikon, peeled
4 thin slices of fresh ginger
2 small dried hot peppers—such as japones
or de arbol—slit lengthwise
1½ tablespoons pickling salt
2 cups of water
Cut the daikon into
quarters or eighths
lengthwise. The strips
should be about
½-inch thick. Then cut
crosswise into 1½-inch
lengths. Layer the
daikon, ginger, and the
hot peppers in a quart
jar.
CHINESE FERMENTED DAIKON
This Chinese cousin of gakdooki uses whole rather than
ground peppers. (Reprinted from The Joy of Pickling
by Linda Ziedrich.
EASY PICKLED RED ONIONS
By Cat Harris
¾ cup white vinegar
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon mustard
seed
1 bay leaf
3 whole allspice
berries
3 whole cloves
3 whole black
peppercorns
Pinch of sea salt
1 small, dried
cayenne pepper
1 large red onion,
halved, then thinly sliced
Heat all of the ingredients except for the onion in a small saucepan until boiling. Add the
sliced onion and lower the heat, simmering gently for one minute. Remove saucepan from
heat and allow to cool. Transfer the onions and the pickling liquid to a large jar. Refrigerate
until use.
Dissolve the salt in the
water and pour enough
brine over the vegetables
to cover them. Push a pint-
size freezer bag into the
mouth of the jar and pour
the remainder of the brine
into the bag. Seal the bag.
Let the jar stand at room
temperature.
After 2–3 days, when the daikon
is as sour as you like, remove the
brine bag and cap the jar. Store the
pickle in the refrigerator, where it
should keep for several weeks.
PhotosbyCatHarris

Pickling techniques are quite easy to learn and once you’ve
mastered the basics it’s really easy to get creative with your
recipes. And while cucumbers have always been the heavies in
Pickleland, they are by no means the only show in town. It’s
common to pickle just about any fruit, vegetable and an as-
sortment of meats. Think beets, pigs’ feet, eggs, okra, squash,
peaches, figs, peppers, onions, cabbage, herring, Jerusalem
artichokes, lemons, tongue, tomatoes, green beans. Com-
bine several and you’ll be making relishes, chowchows, and
chutneys before you know it. (I always assumed chowchows,
relishes made with hot and sweet peppers, were primarily a
Southern creation. It turns out they, like chutneys and ketch-
ups, are original to Asian cultures. But we Southerners were
the first to fry pickles, by golly.)
Remember: taste-wise, there are no rules; The New York
Times reported a popular pickle recipe in Mississippi using
dill pickles in an intense Kool-Aid solution which yielded
a State Fair-winning culinary cuke with a cult-like follow-
ing. Pickles don’t have to be complicated. With very little
effort you’ll be serving your own pickles and producing the
oldest new hip food around.
If you’re interested in knowing more, Sandor Ellix Katz’s book
The Art of Fermentation will open a whole new world for you.
SQUASH RELISH
Sadly, the original source of this recipe is unknown. I sampled it while at a
friend’s dinner party and had to have the recipe. This relish makes great use of
the summer squash we’ll still have in the early fall and goes great on everything
from beans to grilled sausage. Consider adding a dried chile to kick it up a notch.
—Catherine Harris
6 large summer squash
4 large onions
2 sweet red peppers
¼ cup kosher or pickling salt
3 cups sugar
2 cups white vinegar
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons celery seed
Grate together squash, onions, and pepper and cover with water. Add salt
and let stand 1 hour (can stand longer). Boil together the sugar, vinegar,
turmeric, and celery seeds for 3 minutes. Drain squash mixture and add to
vinegar mixture. Simmer 3 minutes. Put in hot jars to seal. Refrigerate until
use; may be stored in refrigerator for a couple of months, but likely will not
last that long.
PhotobyCatherineHarris

TRADITIONS
PICKLING KOREAN-STYLE
Baechu Kimchi
TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPH BY CATHERINE HARRIS
RECIPE BY HYANG SOON CARTER

HYANG SOON’S
BAECHU KIMCHI
1 large napa cabbage
½ to 1 cup of sea salt
2–3 tablespoons fish sauce
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3 green onions, sliced diagonally every 3 inches
Pinch of sugar (optional)
¼ cup of gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes)
Cut the cabbage into two-inch pieces and rinse in
cold water twice to remove debris. In a large mixing
bowl, begin to layer the cabbage pieces, sprinkling
sea salt lightly over each layer as you go. You may not
use all the salt. Allow the cabbage to rest at room
temperature about four hours, then rinse well in cool
water. Place in a large colander to drain.
Put the drained cabbage in a large mixing bowl. Add
the fish sauce, garlic, green onions, sugar, and red
pepper. (If you are uncertain how spicy you want the
kimchi to be, add the red pepper in increments until
the mixture has the desired amount of heat.) Using a
pair of clean kitchen gloves, mix the ingredients with
your hands until the pepper is evenly distributed and
there are no clumps. Avoid pressing too hard as this
will bruise the vegetables. Sample the kimchi, adding
more salt or red pepper, if desired.
Pack the kimchi in a large glass container and seal
with a lid. In cooler temperatures, you can leave
the kimchi out for half a day before refrigerating to
heighten the sour. Otherwise, you can refrigerate
right away. The kimchi can be enjoyed immediately,
but waiting a day before eating it is best.
U
biquitous to every Korean
table, baechu kimchi is the
kimchi of fall. The term kim-
jang refers to the time in late autumn
when people would make and store large
quantities of kimchi for the harsh winter
months ahead. Kimjang was an event:
family and friends gathered together for
several days to share this labor-intensive
task and enjoy each other’s company
around the table. Almost always, the
process included baechu kimchi, which
is made from napa cabbage. (Inciden-
tally, in researching this piece I learned
that “napa” has zero relation to the city
in California and is actually a Japanese
term for leaf vegetables. Properly spelled,
it would read “nappa,” but we left it
alone knowing someone would think we
didn’t know what we were doing.)
Koreans have relied upon this side
dish for hundreds of years and often
credit it with good health. Kimchi is in fact packed with good stuff,
including fiber, probiotics, and B vitamins. The amount of B vitamins
actually increases with the length of the fermentation period.
My mom tells the story of her own community in Osan pausing for
two days every year to preserve two whole truckloads of cabbage.
On day one, the women halved the cabbages, methodically pressing
salt between the leaves then dropping them into large drums filled with
salt water. On day two, the men got involved. Everyone helped to rinse
and drain the cabbage.
Then there was the task of preparing
the spice mixture: scrubbing and shred-
ding daikon radishes, slicing green on-
ions, pounding garlic, mincing ginger. Ev-
erything was done by hand. They tossed
these prepared ingredients with sugar and
fish oil, then rubbed each cabbage inside
and out with the spicy paste. The men
moved the finished kimchi to large clay
pots, sealed them, and, following a cen-
turies-old pickling method, buried them
in the ground. These days, many Korean
homes are outfitted with special refrigera-
tors that keep the kimchi at the most ideal
temperatures for long storage.
For those who decide to tackle this
dish, I highly recommend seeking out
the gochugaru. You can find it Asian gro-
cery stores or online. When people ask
me why their kimchi is not turning out
quite right, the pepper is almost always
the source of the disappointment. (And if
not that, it is the cabbage used.) Ground red peppers more common to
American kitchens, like cayenne, just do not yield the same result.
This recipe is a small-batch version of a standard recipe, which is
typically made in large quantities with the cabbage left mostly intact.
The kimchi is then cut when served. Here, we slice the kimchi ahead of
time. Measurements for the pepper, garlic and fish sauce can be modi-
fied to suit your own taste.

REAL EDIBLES
COULD YOU CUT OUT ALL
PROCESSED FOOD FOR 100 DAYS?
Lisa Leake Took the Challenge and Turned It into a Career
BY DARTINIA HULL PHOTOGRAPHS BY PIPER WARLICK

L
isa Leake doesn’t recommend doing
what she did.
About 18 months ago, while she was
happily serving prepackaged lunches and cheese
puffs to her family, she happened to glimpse
Michael Pollan on television. Famous for In De-
fense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, Pollan was
passionate and intense, speaking about knowing
where our food comes from and urging viewers
to understand food in its natural state. At almost
the same time, she heard Dr. Mehmet Oz utter
similar words, with eerie warnings about health
and the effects processed, boxed, preserved foods
have on our bodies.
Lisa looked into the pantry.
“I freaked,” she says. She shrugs. “We thought we were doing the right things.
I had never bought organic, never read labels. It hadn’t occurred to me to do
anything else.” Everything, almost, was packaged, processed, preserved with ar-
tificial additives and chemicals she couldn’t pronounce and as far away from
being real as the Tin Man is to being in Kansas.
It was a huge wake-up call. I’m feeding my family junk.
She felt the food industry had duped her, and she felt she had let her family down. Her pantry wasn’t full
of good, wholesome foods, the fridge held meats from goodness knew where and, all of a sudden, nothing felt
right about what she was putting on the family table.
Not a person to do anything halfway, she swept her pantry shelves of packages, bags and boxes, bagged
them up and prepared to haul them away, an idea that made her feel liberated because she was taking steps to-
ward good health and guilty because she’d spent money—this felt like a waste. She was, however, determined.
Her husband, Jason, stopped her. A son of West-coast hippies, he knew the world Lisa sought, and he felt
she wasn’t aware of the commitment, the costs and the effort.
Jason suggested they get a good, solid plan.
They talked it over. They developed a method. They took a deep breath. That was the start of 100 Days of
Real Food.
On a blistering hot summer Saturday, Lisa, her husband, Jason, and their daughters Sienna and Sydney
have hit Charlotte’s Atherton Mill Farmer’s Market so early that the newspaper has not yet been delivered.
Lisa wants peaches now and plans to preserve some of the famous Carolina fruit for the winter, so the
trip to Atherton is necessary because of its reputation for having the freshest locally-grown organic peaches
All of a sudden,
nothing felt
right about
what she was
putting on the
family table.

in the area. The family also wants fish for dinner and organic blueberries to freeze
for later in the year (oatmeal topping) and Atherton is the specific market they
trust for fish.
The Atherton Market isn’t a “hop in the car, head ‘round the corner” jaunt for
them. It is at least 30 minutes, not counting traffic time, from their home in Mat-
thews, but they have learned that keeping things real—organic, non-processed,
local and fresh and interacting with vendors who gladly account for the veracity
of the goods in their kitchen—means changing their habits. Lisa now does the
majority of the family shopping at the Matthews Farmers’ Market and Earth Fare,
visiting both every week. She occasionally visits Harris-Teeter, which is her go-to
spot if she’s forgotten something elsewhere, because of that store’s nod to organic
and local foods. She checks out Atherton once every couple of months.
It’s a new way of life, Lisa says as the family prepares a snack: she and Jason slice
organic, whole-wheat Trader Joe’s pitas into triangles, toast them quickly, and
serve them with fresh hummus and local cantaloupe slices. Sydney and Sienna,
seven and five and very polite and helpful, each take a slice of cantaloupe, then
a few pita chips, then more cantaloupe. The girls eat as eagerly as other children
devour McDonald’s.
“You get tricked by the food industries,” Lisa says as she hands Sienna yet an-
other pita chip. “We had low-fat items. Fat-free foods. Boxed mac and cheese.”
She stops working at the counter, rolls her eyes and sighs. “And I kept a stash
of Skittles. We baked cookies all the time. It’s not special if you’re eating it all the
time.”
Not a person to do anything
halfway, [Lisa] swept her
pantry shelves of packages,
bags and boxes, bagged them
up and prepared to haul them
away, an idea that made her
feel liberated because she was
taking steps toward good
health and guilty because she’d
spent money—this felt like
a waste. She was, however,
determined.

Lisa still wouldn’t recommend doing things the way she did.
The first 100 Days were difficult, she said, because it was untested
ground for her. “We had to be hard-nosed” about the new territory, she
says. They went cold turkey, and they had to be their own food police.
Adding to the difficulty: the budget. Before, food purchase and
planning weren’t quite haphazard, but they weren’t specific, either. “I
spent so much money, and it was mostly on junk”—but when they
started 100 Days, they had to stick to a menu. She has had 18 months
to rethink the plan and now has other “step-downs” posted on the blog,
www.100daysofrealfood.com. One, the 10-day method, helps you get
ready and in a routine in a week and a half. The other, the 14-week plan,
allows for a more gradual slide into a different world of food.
But aren’t organics really expensive? She blogs about staying within
a $125 budget, which is the amount a family on full government food-
stamp benefits would receive. She insists on having a list and a plan for
shopping, which keeps focus on the budget. If they buy seasonal foods
and freeze them, that goes toward the current budget but saves
money down the road.
She knows the money is still an issue for families, so she
suggests on her blog and Facebook other ways to change, such
as replacing one snack per day with an organic, local option,
and then building up weekly over weeks or months. Her other
plan is to gradually replace your foods; rather than tossing ev-
erything out, replace it as you go. When you polish off the
white angel-hair pasta, replace it with organic whole-wheat
pasta. As you eat through your meat storage, either buy organ-
ic meats from a local vendor or buy vegetable-based proteins,
like beans.
She takes her message everywhere, but despite becoming a
force in a growing arena, she’s not as interested in food policy
as she is in being a gentle inspiration in her sphere of influence,
especially in her daughters’ worlds. Rather than tackle, say, dis-
trict-wide lunchroom menus, she is working with a committee
at her daughters’ school and with individual teachers to urge
healthier snacks and attitudes toward food and what Ameri-
can society considers a “treat.”
She has noticed schools reward children’s good behavior
and grades with candy and processed, chemical-heavy foods,
a system she believes that is misleading for a few reasons: one
shouldn’t expect a reward for doing what’s right, and reward-
ing children with unhealthy snacks such as chips, artificially-flavored
and -colored snacks and candy presents a warped view of food and
treats.
Her ideas of better rewards? Erasers. Books. Oatmeal. Yes, you read
that correctly. Why not oatmeal? Lisa asks. Or why not something that
has nothing at all to do with eating?
“Sydney was just as excited about a pajama party at school as she
was about candy,” she says with some wonder. But Lisa and Jason are
realistic and accepting of the (current) inevitable truth about food, so
they give their daughters a pass to eat what is offered to them at par-
ties. They don’t want the children to be ostracized for being healthy
eaters, so when parties and events come up, Sienna and Sydney are free
to have blue popsicles and store-bought cake and ice cream along with
everybody else. Lisa still cringes when her daughters return home with
goody bags of sweets, but she knows they will happily hand over the
Sydney and Sienna, seven and five
and very polite and helpful, each take
a slice of cantaloupe, then a few pita
chips, then more cantaloupe. The girls
eat as eagerly as other children devour
McDonald’s.

bags in exchange for quarters and then ask for a snack of homemade,
organic toaster pastries or brownies.
Lisa and Jason try to set the example when they are out.
“To be polite, I fill my plate with salad and take a small amount of
other foods,” Lisa says. “I don’t want to be rude and say ‘I don’t want to
eat your food.’ ”
And funny things happen, Lisa says. More and more often, party
hosts or potluck guests will pull them aside and whisper things such as
“this dish is all organic,” or “that recipe was from your blog.”
It is nice, Lisa says, to be a positive influence, even though she is
very careful not to judge anybody. You have to do what works for your
family.
They’re still learning. They scour recipe books. They test products.
The Facebook page has
exploded; more than 133,000
fans follow 100 Days of Real
Food, ask advice, share tips.
Leake passes along anything
she has learned, and she
regularly posts questions to
the fans about making the
most of seasonal fruits and
veggies, how to preserve them
(naturally) so they will retain
their peak flavor and texture
months later and asking
about ways other families get
their children involved in
household chores.
They read and research and question.
They had a smallish garden before their lifestyle
change, but now, the backyard play set shares space with
raised beds of tomatoes, squash, zucchini and water-
melons. The beds, a mix of organic soil, get a dose every
three to four weeks of Plant-tone®
fertilizer.
This year has been a dance with trial and error. Lisa
didn’t plant her blueberry bushes in pairs, so the plants
didn’t cross-pollinate (hence the need for Atherton
blueberries). Their landscaping trees grew more than they expected,
shading parts of the garden that don’t need shade. The zucchini, which
went crazy growing last year, is so-so this summer. The beds of tomatoes
produce fruit with vigor. One watermelon vine languishes.
Husband Jason’s engineering, however, has gotten the beds on an
automatic, timed watering schedule that sends water through a system
of seeping hoses.
They could easily find summer produce alongside most roads this
time of year, but Lisa is wary. As much as the family wants to patronize
local growers, Lisa remains hard-core about her organics and chemical-
free foods and questions everybody with a stand and a sign before she
puts down money.
“If I ask them about being certified organic, and they don’t know

what I’m talking about, I don’t buy from them. It’s hard getting certifi-
cation, and when you have it, you want your customers to know.”
Along the way, the Leakes have had surprises.
Lisa has more energy. That afternoon energy slump? Gone, 95%
of the time. She’s sleeping better, “especially if I don’t have some crazy
thing going on.”
Sienna, who had dealt with digestive woes from birth, suffers no
more, and her asthma (which Jason says wasn’t a huge issue but was still
annoying) has dramatically improved. Jason’s HDL (the good choles-
terol) went up, and he lost weight—he feels because, along with adding
organic foods, the family cut back on meat consumption. His palette
changed too, as he began to appreciate anew the quality of fresh ingre-
dients.
Extra bonus: “You’re helping the local economy,” he
says.
TheFacebookpagehasexploded;morethan133,000
fans follow 100 Days of Real Food, ask advice, share
tips. Leake passes along anything she has learned, and
she regularly posts questions to the fans about making
the most of seasonal fruits and veggies, how to preserve
them (naturally) so they will retain their peak flavor and
texture months later and asking about ways other fami-
lies get their children involved in household chores.
If she mentions a product, businesses notice. Take
milk from Homestead Creamery, for instance.
“Have you heard of this?” Lisa asks. She pulls a glass
bottle (yes, a real glass bottle) from her fridge and pres-
ents it, The-Price-is-Right style, to visitors. “This is The
Best Milk ever. Before I started 100 Days, I had never
heard of raw milk, organic milk, none of that.” But the
day she discovered Homestead Creamery milk, she
mentioned it on her Facebook page and on her blog.
And stores had a run on it.
Her friends at the Harris-Teeter tell her they know
when she has mentioned something on either her blog
or her Facebook page.
Jason thinks about families in France, who willingly
give up time in other areas of their lives in order to
prepare fresh, flavorful meals—and then willingly give
up more time to sit down together and enjoy their meals.
The Leakes—children included—dream of vacationing
in France, where they could explore the culture of dining
as an event and not a chore.
And Lisa has found her voice. When she first
began the blog and her Facebook page, she was at once
surprised when she received questions and responses
and nervous about replying.
“I’m a perfectionist,” she said. She now actively chats
with fans and readers and takes the time to answer private emails. She
has an assistant, as well. Jason recently resigned his job at Siemens in
order to manage the business side of the blog while Lisa writes and re-
searches products and recipes.
All said, she’s thrilled that her leap into a world of real foods has had
such a profound effect on so many, but she remains modest in her suc-
cess, wondering aloud what to do with the lovely but hard peaches that
she so longs to preserve (her visitors told her to wrap them in brown
paper bags for about two days).
But she still wouldn’t suggest doing what she did. She’d start with ei-
ther the 10-day method or the more gradual 14-week slide into change.
She thinks you’ll be pleased.

Cage-free
Vine-ripened
Grassfed
All natural
A fat hen is by her chicks scratching the dirt near a quaint chicken coop,
while a brightly-colored rooster struts nearby; in the green middle dis-
tance, grazing cows dot a grassy hillside. This is what you picture as you
stand in the wide, fluorescent-lit aisle of your local supermarket, sur-
veying neatly arranged, perfectly-portioned packages of meat and eggs.
But what do these terms really mean? “Cage-free,” a term not de-
fined or monitored by any governing body, likely does mean chickens
are not kept in cages, but that doesn’t mean they are outside; often they
are crowded into warehouses. Truth in advertising, perhaps, but not
the whole truth.
As consumers show an ever-increasing appetite for organics and
scrutiny intensifies on the practices of industrial agriculture, compa-
nies are making more and more claims on their packaging about the
“natural-ness” of their products. Words like those above have become
marketing tools as companies jockey for attention from the supermar-
ket shelves. Unfortunately for consumers, that means that shoppers can
no longer take for granted that “fresh” foods are “all-natural,” despite
what the packaging says.
To use an old farming metaphor, we’re publishing this primer to
help you separate the wheat from the chaff, so you can tell the differ-
ence between a meaningful label and a specious marketing claim.
This guide is adapted from Food Labeling for Dummies, published
by Animal Welfare Approved, a certifying organization with the high-
est standards for animal welfare on farms. Whatever your feelings and
beliefs about animal welfare, we hope that this guide helps you to find
food that is produced in a way that is consistent with your expectations.
This is a complex and sometimes controversial subject; however, if you
are new to the subject, this guide should help you get started. Visit our
website for a list of additional resources.
—Melissa Bashor
KNOW YOUR EDIBLES
FINE PRINT
The Real Meaning Behind How Your Food is Labeled

ANGUS/CERTIFIED
ANGUS BEEF
The American Angus Association has regis-
tered a definition of “Angus” beef with the
USDA that requires the animal to have 50%
Angus genetics or a predominantly (51%)
black coat or hide. The animal must be under
30 months at slaughter and meet some addi-
tional meat quality requirements. There are
no requirements relating to how the animal
is raised. The terms “Angus Beef ” and “Black
Angus Beef ” are also commonly used but
are even less regulated than Certified Angus
Beef.
CAGE-FREE
This term is most often applied to egg-lay-
ing hens, not to poultry raised for meat. As
the term implies, hens laying eggs labeled as
“cage-free” are raised without using cages, but
almost always live inside barns or warehouses.
This term does not explain if the birds had
any access to the outside, whether any out-
side area was pasture or a bare lot, or if they
were raised entirely indoors in over-crowded
conditions. Animal-control measures like
beak cutting may be present. No independent
third-party verification.
FAIRTRADE
Fairtrade is about better prices, decent work-
ing conditions, local sustainability, and fair
terms of trade for farmers and workers in the
developing world. By requiring companies to
pay sustainable prices (which must never fall
lower than the market price), Fairtrade ad-
dresses the injustices of conventional trade—
which traditionally discriminates against the
poorest, weakest producers—and enables
workers to improve their position and have
more control over their lives.
FREE RANGE/FREE
ROAMING
Defined by the USDA for poultry meat only.
Producers must demonstrate to the Agency
that the poultry has been allowed access to
the outside. Buyers should be aware that the
type of outdoor access provided (such as pas-
ture or dirt lot), the length of time the birds
are required to have outdoor access, and how
this must be verified is not legally defined and
therefore varies greatly from facility to facil-
ity. Crowding is not uncommon. No inde-
pendent third-party verification.
GRASSFED
As defined by the USDA: 100% of the diet
of grass-fed animals consists of freshly grazed
pasture during the growing season and stored
grasses (hay or grass silage) during the winter
months or drought conditions. The USDA
definition refers only to the diet of cattle,
sheep, goats, and bison. It does not indicate if
an animal has been given access to pasture, or
if it has been raised in a feedlot and/or given
antibiotics or hormones. The USDA defini-
tion goes on to state that “if for environmental
or health-of-the-animal reasons supplementa-
tion can be used if the producer logs the type
and amount.” Hence, feedlot cattle could be
fed harvested forage and supplements, anti-
biotics and synthetic hormones and still bear
the USDA grassfed label.
GRASSFED AS DEFINED
BY THE AMERICAN
GRASSFED ASSOCIATION
(AGA)
100% forage diet, raised on pasture that has
a minimum of 75% cover, no confinement,
no antibiotics and no added hormones. The
AGA certified program is recognized by the
USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.
Meat purchasers seeking truly grassfed meat
should source AGA-certified products. Un-
less the claim is verified by audit, there is
no way to ensure its accuracy. Some farmers
raising grass-fed animals may still finish with
grainforavarietyofreasons.Askingquestions
before you make a purchase will also help you
understand how the animal was raised.
HEIRLOOM
Heirloom crop varieties, also called farmers’
varieties or traditional varieties, is a term used
for unique plant varieties which are geneti-
cally distinct from the commercial varieties
popularized by industrial agriculture. This
term does not refer to any specific farming
practices, such as pesticide or fertilizer use.
LEGEND
Audited/Third-Party Certified
Unaudited/No Third-Party
Certification
IMPORTANT NOTE: There are
many reputable farms and food com-
panies using organic and sustainable
practices who, for various reasons, do
not pursue certification. Though cer-
tification makes for easy identification,
there is no substitute for doing a little
homework. And if you’re shopping at
the farmer’s market, just ask.

HUMANE
Definitions vary widely depending on the
certifying organization.
AMERICAN HUMANE
CERTIFIED
Supports caged production for chickens as
humane. No requirement for pasture access
for any species.
ANIMAL WELFARE
APPROVED (AWA)
The “most stringent” animal welfare stan-
dards, according to the World Society for the
Protection of Animals, and the only welfare
certification that guarantees animals were
raised outdoors on pasture and are from fam-
ily farmers.
CERTIFIED HUMANE
Certified Humane is a third-party accredita-
tion that has defined space requirements for
the animals and rigorous auditing to its pub-
lished standards.
NATURAL
Defined by the USDA. No third-party
verification.
A product containing no artificial ingredient
or added color and is only minimally pro-
cessed (a process which does not fundamen-
tally alter the raw product) may be labeled
“natural.” The label must explain the use of
the term natural (for example, no added col-
orings or artificial ingredients or minimally
processed). As defined by the USDA in re-
lation to meat, the term applies only to how
meat from the animal is processed after it
has been slaughtered. It is important to note
that this commonly-used term does not refer
in any way to how an animal was raised; the
farming system may have involved feedlot
and confinement systems or the routine use
of antibiotic growth promoters, for example.
NATURALLY RAISED
Defined by the USDA.
The naturally-raised marketing claim stan-
dard states that livestock used for the produc-
tion of meat and meat products have been
raised entirely without growth promotants,
antibiotics (except for ionophores used as
coccidiostats for parasite control), and have
never been fed animal by-products. Producers
who make a naturally raised claim must docu-
ment and submit their protocols for how the
animals are raised to the USDA for approval.
However, the USDA does not verify that
these procedures are in fact being used. Buy-
ers of products bearing this label should also
be aware that this definition does not explain
if the animals were raised outdoors or con-
fined in feedlots or cages.
NO ADDITIVES
“No additives” is a general claim that a prod-
uct has not been enhanced with the addition
of natural or artificial additives. The USDA
and FDA define and regulate additives; how-
ever, as there is no USDA definition of the
term “no additives,” anyone using the term
may or may not be referring to this legal regu-
lation. No third-party verification.
NO ANTIBIOTICS
Antibiotics are often given to animals, such as
cattle, hogs, sheep, and chickens, to prevent
or manage diseases. The terms “no antibiot-
ics added” may be used on labels for meat or
poultry products if sufficient documentation
is provided by the producer to the Agency
demonstrating that the animals were raised
without antibiotics. Although the USDA is
accountable for proper use of these claims,
there is no verification system in place.
NO HORMONES
ADDED/ADMINISTERED
Hogs and poultry: hormones are not allowed
inraisinghogsorpoultry.Therefore,theclaim
“no hormones added” cannot be used on the
labels of pork or poultry unless it is followed
by a statement that says “Federal regulations
prohibit the use of hormones.”
Beef: The term “no hormones adminis-
tered” may be approved for use on the label
of beef products if sufficient documentation
is provided to the Agency by the producer
showing no hormones have been used in rais-
ing the animals. Hormones are commonly
used in the commercial farming of animals
such as cattle to speed the growth rate or to
increase milk production.
OMEGA-3 ENRICHED
Enriched eggs come from hens fed a special
diet of flaxseed, which is high in omega-3.
Truly grassfed meat animals and pastured
hens will naturally have higher levels of ome-
ga-3 without dietary additions.

ORGANIC/
CERTIFIED ORGANIC
Defined and regulated by the USDA.
All products sold as “organic” must meet the
USDA National Organic Program produc-
tion and handling standards. Certification
is mandatory for farmers selling more than
$5,000 of organic products per year and is
verified by an accredited certifying agency. In
general, organic production limits the use of
chemicals, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics
and other inputs. However, it does not strict-
ly define production practices related to space
per animal or outdoor access requirements;
for example, confinement areas are permitted
to fatten organic beef cattle.
PESTICIDE FREE/
NO SPRAY
Implies that no pesticide residue can be found
on the crop. It does not address if pesticides,
herbicides or fungicides were applied at other
points in production. No independent third-
party verification. “No spray” implies that no
pesticides, herbicides or fungicides have been
applied at any point. However, unlike the
term organic, this claim is not verified by a
third party.
VINE-RIPENED/
TREE-RIPENED
Fruit that has been allowed to ripen on the
vine or tree. Many fruits that are shipped long
distances are picked while still unripe and
firm and later treated with ethylene gas at the
point of distribution to ripen and soften
them. This term does not mean the fruit is
pesticide-free, organic, non-GMO, sustain-
able or family-farmed. No independent third-
party verification.
For more labels and further information,
visit www.animalwelfareapproved.org

HAPPY HOUR
GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS
Happy Hour Goes Herbal
BY MARK DUNN PHOTOGRAGHS BY PIPER WARLICK
B
ob Peters, bartender at Pisces
Sushi Bar and Lounge, slides a
weird-looking leaf toward me on
a cocktail napkin. He’ll be sliding strange-
looking things toward me on napkins
for the better part of two hours, but we
start with this leaf. I’ve come to him for
an initiation into the world of herbal and
garden-based cocktails, and he’s more than
game.
“Try that,” he says, and I do—I’m a get-
along kind of guy after all, and I don’t want
to look unappreciative. As I chew, he sees
the confused look on my face. “It’s shiso, a
Japanese herb. Tastes like a cross between
basil and cilantro and mint, doesn’t it?” It
does, and with a hint of lemon to boot.
I’ve never had shiso before, and if you’re
American, chances are that you haven’t,
either. “Remember that,” Bob says. “It’ll
be back.”
Facing page: Bob Peters at work. Above: Shiso Martini. Below (left to right): avocado martini with
elderflower foam, rosemary green tea martini, soju sake martini with ginger-lemongrass foam

Bob next presents to
me a freshly muddled
blueberry soju sake mar-
tini with a ginger-lem-
ongrass foam. Try saying
that ten times fast. Tiny
bits of the muddled berry
drift lazily in the drink
and the foam, pale white
to the drink’s deep purple,
sits atop like a crown. All
of these ingredients—the
berries, the lemongrass,
the shiso—are fresh and
Above: Bob Peters pours
another delicious cocktail.
Left: the Pocket Fours
cocktail.
TEQUILA LEMON BASIL
COCKTAIL
5 Thai basil leaves
3 lemon wedges
1.5 ounces of good silver tequila
1 ounce of Triple Sec
.75 ounces of simple syrup
Ice
Place basil leaves in a shaker and bruise them with a muddler or
spoon to release their oils. Add the lemon wedges and muddle
them thoroughly. Add the liquor, then the ice to the shaker. Shake
vigorously, and strain into a fresh glass of ice.
Advertise in edible
Charlotte
and watch your
business grow!
sales@ediblecharlotte.com
704.553.8077

SAGE ADVICE
For good measure, here’s one more recipe, compliments of Edible
Charlotte Publisher Cat Harris. She says that bourbon lovers might
want to swap the vodka in this recipe for their favorite bourbon, which
will cause the earthy notes of the sage to become more pronounced.
FALL’S FAULT
1 ripe pear, sliced
1.5 ounces of your favorite bourbon
.75 ounces of Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
.5 ounce simple syrup
Chilled soda water
Candied ginger (optional)
Muddle one large, fresh pear slice in a large glass. Add the bourbon,
ginger liqueur, and simple syrup. Fill the rest of the glass with soda wa-
ter and gently stir. Garnish with candied ginger or a pear wedge.
local, mostly from farmer’s markets and non-chain grocers.
“The idea here,” Bob says, “is to have a cocktail on top of a
cocktail. Make sure you get a little of both when you take a sip.” I
do, and I’m smitten. It’s like a finely modulated dessert dish, the
sweet berries working in counterpoint to the benignly tart foam.
You can actually taste the garden in this drink. There’s plenty of
alcohol, but it’s the last thing you’re thinking about. Part of the
herbal cocktail’s attraction is that it can play with the same flavor
profiles as cooking.
Bob makes one more foam-topped drink and it’s a shocker—a
vanilla avocado martini topped with elderflower foam. You read
that correctly. Avocado. Elderflower. The drink itself is a light,
creamy green. I taste it a little trepidatiously then grin, murmur-
ing an expletive to myself. It’s like drinking a milkshake crossed
with a martini, with a hint of avocado and a lemony finish. I’m
confused and delighted.
Bob finishes me off with three more of his original cocktails:
a rosemary and green tea martini—delicious; the Pocket Fours
cocktail, made with whole grapes, Thai basil and ginger liqueur—
even better; and last, the Shiso Martini. The Shiso Martini is Bob’s
current favorite, and the one I’ve been looking forward to most.
Compared to the relative complexity of the other cocktails,
this one is simplicity itself: vodka, soju, ginger liqueur and a
single, perfect shiso leaf floating in the middle. The flavors blend
together so perfectly it’s impossible to detect a single one in isola-
tion.
I leave Pisces understanding that herbal cocktails extend far
beyond the mojitos my wife and I occasionally make with the
mint that grows like crazy in our garden. To help me on my fledg-
ling way, Bob leaves me with two recipes to try out.
*For more ideas and information about herbal and garden-based
cocktails, follow Bob on Twitter at @Bobthebartender.
For Sage Simple Syrup
½ cup raw sugar
½ cup water
½ cup coarsely chopped sage
leaves, loosely packed
For Cocktail
4 ounces local apple cider
2 ounces high-quality vodka
1 tablespoon of sage simple
syrup
Sage leaves for garnish
Cinnamon sugar (optional)
Tomakethesimplesyrup,bring
sugar, water, and sage leaves to a
boil. Reduce heat and allow to
simmer for a few minutes. Re-
move from heat and allow to
steep for 20–25 minutes. Strain
into a container and store until
use.
If desired, rim a martini glass
with cinnamon sugar. To make
the drink, pour cider, vodka,
simple syrup and lemon juice
in a shaker over ice. Shake until
chilled then pour in the martini
glass. Garnish with a sage leaf.
PhotobyCatherineHarris

BACK OF THE HOUSE
TRÈS IMPORTANT
Why the Sous Chef Holds the Keys to the Kitchen
BY CAROL ADAMS PHOTOGRAPHS BY PIPER WARLICK
D
rew Trepanier lies awake at night thinking
about his art. Would a traditional dashi
soup still be good if you replaced the ramen
with zucchini cut like noodles? What if you marinated
the tofu in a curry sauce?
Drew is the 27 year-old sous chef at Fern: Flavors
from the Garden, a recent addition to the Central Av-
enue restaurant scene. The literal French definition of
sous chef is “the under chef ” in a working kitchen,
the second in command. The relationship between a
head chef and his or her sous chef can make or break
a restaurant.
Trepanier works hand-in-glove with Fern’s Execu-
tive Chef and Charlotte native Alyssa Gorelick, also
27. Gorelick says her kitchen benefits greatly from hav-
ing him at her side. “He was such a natural fit,” she says
with a wide smile. “He likes to play with food in a dif-
ferent way than I do. It’s such a pleasure to collaborate
with him and bounce ideas back and forth. Plus, he’s
such a good teacher. The crew really looks up to him.”
The two have developed a health-conscious menu
that even your carnivore friends should consider.
Though roughly 75 percent of the restaurant’s food is
locally sourced, the style is decidedly global.
“Besides working with Alyssa, who I worked with
at (the now defunct) M5, that’s what really drew me
to Fern,” says Trepanier. “I love the flavors of the Medi-
terranean and of India and lean toward Asian cuisine,
which lends itself so naturally to vegetarian and veg-
an—especially with more local farmers growing things
like bok choy and exotic mushrooms now.”
While Fern is turning out menu items like cara-
melized onion tatin and carob faro “risotto,” there’s a
whole other operation in a sister kitchen on site that
feeds roughly 500-1000 people a week. And yes, there’s
an amazing sous chef behind the scenes there as well.
Chef David Clarke, 42, well-known in Charlotte culi-
nary circles, joined Executive Chef Blake Hartwick at
Something Classic Catering last year.
Something Classic is the mother ship behind both

Fern and uptown’s Halcyon: Flavors from the Earth, among other ven-
tures. This Charlotte institution, which opened in 1989, was once pri-
marily known for traditional and upscale southern food. Think shrimp
and grits, which is still a bestseller. With Hartwick and Clarke now tak-
ing the reins, it’s safe to say they have two of the most talented chefs in
the area cooking everything from simple but delicious meals for corpo-
rate lunches to sophisticated delicacies for lavish black tie events. And
while the operation’s roots are still firmly planted in the Southland,
expect to find a host of interesting additions to the menu.
“The reason I love it here is the variety and creativity we are al-
lowed,” says Clarke. “Recently, we catered a Haitian wedding and I
really enjoyed the opportunity to learn the flavor profiles. That’s the
beauty of this job. Well, that and the hours!”
Clarke and Hartwick are self-proclaimed working-class guys. For
the record, Clarke is an Irish-Italian native of upstate New York, but
you wouldn’t know it when you taste his fried chicken. He also delved
into his Italian roots to reinvent Something Classic’s marinara sauce,
something in which he takes much pride.
DAVID’S YANKEE FRIED
CHICKEN
By David Clarke, Sous Chef, Something Classic
One 3–4-pound fryer chicken, cut into piece
1 pint buttermilk
2 tablespoons Frank’s Red Hot sauce
1 pinch each of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
In a large mixing bowl combine buttermilk, hot sauce, and salt
and pepper. Place chicken pieces in bowl and mix to coat chicken.
Wrap with plastic wrap and soak for at least four hours, or over-
night for best result and flavor.
Seasoned Flour for Breading
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
Put the flour in a sided baking dish. Remove the chicken from the
liquid and shake off the excess. Dip each piece of chicken in flour
and coat evenly, shaking off excess. Place chicken in 275° frying
oil, starting with the breasts first and fry for 20–25 minutes or un-
til internal temperature reaches 160°. Do the same for legs, thighs
and wings. These smaller pieces should only take 15–20 minutes.
Left: Drew Trepanier making zucchini noodles. Above: David Clarke
with his Yankee Fried Chicken

“Besides being a talented cook, what Dave really brings is that peo-
ple can come to him with absolute trust,” says Hartwick. “If I’m busy
or out of the building, I know he can pick up that leadership role. We
don’t even have to discuss who is doing what. It just clicks. I couldn’t
ask for anything more.”
Clarke is quick to credit Hartwick as the driving force in the kitch-
en. “Basically, I’m his right-hand man,” he says. “My ultimate job is to
back him up, as a cook, a friend, and sometimes an enforcer!”
Right hand. Left hand. It’s really all about teamwork. So the next
time you have a beautiful meal and want to thank the chef, remember
this: it takes many hands to perfect a menu or a plate and the sous chef
has both hands fully in the mix.
Fern, Flavors from the Garden
1323 Central Ave., Charlotte
Something Classic Catering
704-337-4202.
Something Classic Café
1419 East Blvd and Uptown at 220 N. Tryon St.
David Clarke and Executive Chef Blake Hartwick
of Something Classic Catering
Drew Trepanier and Executive Chef Alyssa Gorelick of Fern

VEGAN RAMEN
ZUCCHINI NOODLES AND CURRY SPICED TOFU IN RED PEPPER DASHI
By Drew Trepanier, Sous Chef, Fern
Zucchini Noodles
3 zucchini, julienned
1 cup sesame oil
⅓ cup rice wine vinegar
⅓ cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame seeds,
toasted
Curry Marinated Tofu
1 pound extra-firm tofu,
pressed to remove all liquid
1 tablespoon green chili paste
1 tablespoon curry powder
½ cup blended oil
Coconut Cream
1 cup coconut milk
¼ teaspoon xantham gum
Red Pepper Dashi
Can be made ahead and
chilled until ready for use
1 tablespoon ginger, rough chopped
1 yellow onion, medium diced
2 garlic cloves, lightly crushed
2 red bell peppers, large diced
3 scallions, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
¾ cup rice wine vinegar
¾ cup soy sauce
⅓ cup sesame oil
1 tablespoon vegan Worcestershire sauce
3 quarts vegetable stock
1 cup Hon Shemeji mushrooms. Beech,
shiitake or button mushrooms also work.
1 bunch fresh cilantro
To prepare the noodles
Using a mandolin set to julienne, cut the zuc-
chini, rotating to cut all four sides without
cutting into the seeds. Combine the vinegar,
soy sauce, and sesame seeds in a bowl. Once
combined, slowly whisk in the sesame oil to
emulsify and create a vinaigrette. Set aside.
To prepare the tofu
Cut tofu into ¼ inch-thick triangles. Mix all
other ingredients in a bowl. Toss tofu in mar-
inade and allow to marinate for 20 minutes,
but not more than 1 hour.
To prepare the coconut cream
Place coconut milk in a blender on medium
speed until a vortex forms in the center. Add
in xantham gum slowly and allow to hydrate
and combine, about 1 minute. Set aside.
To prepare the dashi
Sweat all the vegetables until soft. Add red
pepper flakes and deglaze with the vinegar.
Simmer to reduce by half. Add all the other
liquids, bring to a boil and reduce to a sim-
mer. Cook for 30 minutes, then strain. This
can be made ahead and chiled.
To assemble
Bring the red pepper dashi to a low simmer.
Meanwhile, sear the curry-marinated tofu
with oil in a hot pan until crispy on both
sides. Toss the zucchini noodles in the ses-
ame dressing, and distribute evenly among
four large bowls. Pour hot dashi into each
bowl to fill half way. Top each bowl with tofu
and Hon Shemeji mushrooms. Spoon coco-
nut cream over top of each bowl. Garnish
with cilantro leaves and serve.

Y
ou can smell the basil before you see it. Walk up to the low-
slung dining hall on the campus of Davidson College and the
first thing that hits you is the green scent of—not cut grass—
but herbs. Two former flower beds flank the entrance and they are full of
basil, lemon-thyme, oregano, rosemary and peppers. So many peppers.
“Is that what I think it is?” I say, pointing to some familiar but short
plants at the back of the bed. Theresa Allen, dining hall staffer and resi-
dent gardener, beams: “Yes. That’s corn. It’s blue! A dwarf variety.” Her
excitement is contagious.
It doesn’t stop there. Inside, on a large, window-lined, semi-circular
landing they call the “Bubble,” are four planters. They used to hold
flowers and ornamentals; the college paid someone to maintain them.
One day, Theresa mentioned to her boss, Dee Philips, Director of Din-
ing Services, that she wanted to plant edibles there. Dee told her, “We
have to have this tomorrow!” Dee immediately canceled the contract
with the flower lady and pulled up the plants. Theresa gave the chef
a seed catalog and he returned it the next day full of sticky notes that
said “YES!” next to all sorts of exotic ingredients. In a couple of weeks
they had four planters filled with the chefs’ special requests: kaffir lime,
Cuban oregano, pineapple sage, bay laurel.
EDIBLE U.
BEYOND ORGANIC
Davidson College Makes the Ultimate Commitment to
Local, Sustainable Food
BY MELISSA BASHOR, WITH JENNIFER BURNS PHOTOGRAPHY BY BECCA BOND

That basil doesn’t just smell good. Dee says the college saved over
$1,000 this year by making pesto in-house, which they use on pizza and
pasta. They have a dehydrator that allows them to quick-dry peppers
and herbs so they can make their own spice and herb blends.
According to Dee, the college now sources around a third of its in-
gredients from local vendors within 100 miles of campus. She’s hired
an additional staffer to manage sourcing from various local farmers. In
addition to sourcing directly from farmers, she worked with their food
distributor to identify as many local sources as possible.
Meanwhile, they are constantly looking for ways to run a sustain-
able kitchen. They use vegetable and meat trimmings to make all their
own stocks. Their chef even figured out how to use beet peels: he dries
them, grinds them to a powder, and uses them as a garnish. They send
everything compostable to a facility on-site; the resulting fertilizer gets
used on the grounds all over campus.
And in July, Davidson College made the ultimate commitment to
local, sustainable, organic sourcing: they started their very own work-
ing farm to supply the dining hall and catering services.
None of this—the local sourcing, the herb gardens, and certainly
not the farm—existed two years ago. What does it take to make that
kind of change, that fast? How do you cultivate a movement? Just like
growing a community garden, it takes a lot of hard work, a lot of coop-
eration, and a dose of good timing.
At Davidson, it all came together with students, and one student in
particular. Meet Jennifer Burns, who just graduated with honors. As
founder of the Food Club, she was instrumental in bringing much of
this change to her campus. We asked her to tell us her story. This is what
she wrote.
I participated in an independent study called A Tutorial: Environ-
mental Leadership. My partner Kristina Johnson ’10 and I dedicated
every moment we could to researching and talking with people on cam-
pus. We knew a lot about local and sustainable food, but we were cer-
tainly not the authorities on how dining services worked. So, we went
to the expert. We pitched our ideas to Dee Phillips, who has worked in
the industry for over 30 years. She and her staff educated us on the hur-
dles to sourcing local, sustainable ingredients. Unlike ordering from a
large national distributor, sourcing from
multiple local vendors requires addi-
tional labor and lead-time, and it takes
extra labor to receive the additional de-
liveries. Dee and her staff had concerns
about the quality of local products,
and it was unknown whether sufficient
quantity was even available. But the
single, loudest argument against local
and sustainable food was that it would
potentially be more expensive.
The administration believed that
students wanted local and sustainable
food, but not that students would pay
for it. So, I organized an experiment in
Jenn Burns (photo by S.B.
Atkins Photography )
Dee Philips, Director of Catering, talks to resident gardener and staffer Theresa Allen

Theresa Allen with her partner Jim
King, Director of Grounds, on site at
Davidson College’s new working farm.

our made-to-order café. One day the café offered burgers from Big Oak,
a local, grass-fed farm. Despite these burgers costing 32% more than a
regular burger, they were extremely popular. On that first day, the café
sold more local, grass-fed burgers in two hours than it normally sells in
two days. Once it was clear that students wanted local and sustainable
food, the college took food on as its own goal.
Small changes began to happen on campus. Dee had an epiphany
one day when she realized, “you just have to start somewhere.” So, she
switched to cage-free eggs.
The next year the Environmental Studies Major became official, re-
sulting in the creation of an Environmental Studies Department and
new faculty members. Likewise, the food movement across the South-
east was gaining strength. The time was ripe for change. Ed Kania, the
Vice President of Finance and Administration, realized this synergy.
He said, “We teach ethics through the Vann Center for Ethics, we live
by the Honor Code. It is time we start practicing these values in all re-
spects of Davidson’s operations.” He felt that making responsible food
choices was simply the right thing to do.
I dedicated my senior thesis to analyzing the costs and benefits of
a local, sustainable food system. Great things began happening, in
large part thanks to Jim King, the Director of Grounds and a farmer
by training and passion, and his partner Theresa Allen, another David-
son staff member and farmer by training. They selflessly volunteered
their time to making the Davidson Farm a reality. The college decided
to convert a tract of recently purchased farm land into the Davidson
Farm. Thus, Davidson could have local and sustainable food without
increasing prices. The college is in a unique position because Dining
Services, Grounds, and the Sustainability office all operate out of the
same budget and with the same goals. Dining services continues to pay
the same price for its produce, but it pays Grounds, which in turn uses
this money to pay for labor to grow the food.
Talking to the folks at Davidson College, I’m struck by how well
they all seem to work together towards a common goal: students, fac-
ulty, support staff, administration. I keep coming back to the idea of
an ecosystem, the way each part of the system supports and feeds the
other parts.
Dee points to a row of bushes flanking a sidewalk near the dining
hall. Blueberries. When asked if they got much harvest from them, she
shakes her head. “We think the students pick them for themselves.” It’s
hard to get more local than that.

A
couple months after moving to Charlotte, I attended an ex-
ploratory garden planning meeting at Friendship Trays, our
local meals on wheels program. The facilitator asked, “Who is
willing to help us get started?” I raised my hand. Since that day, I simply
haven’t left the Friendship Trays garden and with the help of many have
turned that first garden into a network of 32 gardens across Charlotte.
All of them are teaching gardening and growing food for Friendship
Trays. I am motivated by the impact that a simple garden can have on
a family.
At Friendship Gardens we believe everyone should have access to
fresh, healthy food and the knowledge to grow it themselves. Through
HomeGrown, we partner with Habitat for Humanity Charlotte home-
owners, come out to their back yards, and dig in a garden with them so
they can grow food for their families.
We support HomeGrown gardeners with a gardening manual, ac-
cess to our workshops, and pair them with a gardening mentor who
can answer questions as they learn. Homegrown gardeners “pass on the
gift” by joining a dig-in team for another new HomeGrown gardener.
We ask aspiring gardeners why they want a backyard garden. Some
of their responses include:
“We would like to eat more healthy vegetables without pesticides.”
“I grew up working a garden with my grandfather, but I haven’t done
it since. I need help getting started again.”
“My daughter has medical issues and we need to eat more healthy
food like organic vegetables.”
“For the fresh vegetables because sometimes I would do without
vegetables because I could not afford them.”
“I want to teach my kids how to garden.”
We can all relate to at least one of these motivations.
The idea is to help HomeGrown gardeners have early gardening
success to give them motivation and encouragement to continue. The
HomeGrown gardens will produce real food for real families, but they
will also be seeds that we hope will blossom into more gardening, com-
posting, maybe a trip to the local farmers’ market, and generally more
awareness around where food comes from and how we choose to feed
ourselves and our families.
Friendship Gardens started this project small on purpose.
Starting small is good for our gardeners and good for the Home-
Grown program. If you start too big, you will be frustrated by too
much space and give up, never to garden again. If you start with a
small garden, you may be frustrated by lack of space and expand
your garden the following year. Similarly, we started HomeGrown
by installing only one garden our first season and six this sea-
son. We have 14 Habitat homeowner applications waiting to get
started next season. We hope to eventually give a garden to every Habi-
tat homeowner who wants one. At that point, we would love to expand
the HomeGrown program to support other families through addition-
al partner organizations.
You can help. Visit our website www.friendship-gardens.org to sign
up to volunteer or make a donation to sponsor a HomeGrown Garden.
LAST BITE
HOMEGROWN
Helping Families Feed Themselves
BY HENRY OWEN

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