Clarion Content

The Durham Arts Council is holding benefit fundraising night in conjunction with the new Bonefish Grill that is opening out by the Southpoint Mall. The tickets are $35 and 100% of the proceeds benefit the Arts Council.



The Durham Arts Council supports a litany of programs and cultural makers and doers in Durham, from The Scrap Exchange to the Young People's Performing Company, as well as running festivals like Centerfest and the Edible Arts Festival, as well as, Durham's annual Art Walk.

Food and drink for a good cause!

Tickets can be purchased, here.

Labels: Art, Durham, food, Pop Culture

that The Refectory, famous on Duke's campus for incredibly delicious, locally sourced, healthy eats is opening a new location on the 15-501 business extension, just down the block from Foster's Market...




that Alivia's might be moving out of its signature location on the corner of Main Street and Gregson Street...




that the NC Cow Parade and Round up will hit Durham with 100 plus life sized cows on August 18th at Goldenbelt and the Cordoba Center for the Arts...




that in Durham today each space in a covered parking garage of three stories or more costs $10,000 in construction costs...




that Raleigh's famous BBQ joint, The Pit is opening in a new location across from MotorCo and in the same building as Fullsteam Brewery...




that there is Durham musician's beefcake calendar in the works, featuring some Durham's hottest (pun intended) local acts...




that a new farmer's market has opened in South Durham... in the Greenwood Commons Shopping Center, #5410 NC55, Durham, Saturdays year-round from 8AM---12PM




that in classic Durham style, "Give a hand up to neighbor, rather than the bird to your competitor," when the bathrooms malfunctioned at Mateo Tapas's soft opening in the old Book Exchange location, the owners of Toast, a couple doors down opened up their space and their bathroom to help avert a crisis...love Durham!

Labels: Art, Durham, food, heard

Your editor is a devout Ben & Jerry's consumer. It is Chocolate Fudge Brownie every single time without fail when the old ice cream bug strikes, which is mas o menos weekly.

Tonight for the first time in eons, they were out. Careful searching was performed, there were indeed multiple rows of Peanut Butter Cup, it was not that somebody had moved a container over and blocked the Chocolate Fudge Brownie row. Nor was it hidden behind the nearly frost covered Boston Cream Pie in the nether reaches of the top shelf.

Thus well and truly denied, your editor moved on to the rarely used, in fact not pulled out of the bag in as many as three years, back-up plan. (Note: Ben & Jerry's stocker inventory person must be pretty good, though one might safely wager Chocolate Fudge Brownie¹ is one of the topselling flavors.)

The back-up plan is Haagen-Dazs plain chocolate, a rich and creamy concoction in its own right.

Off to the self-check to ring out. Where, lo and behold, no sooner than the ice cream had been scanned and the VIC card had been run, a Haagen-Dazs $1.00 off coupon printed out. How very quick of those data storing, data mining, monkeys monitoring our purchases. After 120 consecutive pints of Ben & Jerry's, our fair customer tries Haagen-Dazs. Let us make sure we reward him and encourage him to come back with a $1.00 coupon good all the way though November. Smart. Shady, but smart.


Notes
¹Let the record show although this keeps coming up every time we google one of these Ben & Jerry's flavors, we really had no idea it was going down like that, no pun intended.

Labels: food, technology

that the NC Cow Parade and Round up will hit Durham with as many as 100 life sized cows on August 18th...




that all newer cellphone pictures have location embedded in the meta-data that accompanies the photo file, and that this information is what made Instagram so valuable to Facebook...




that Matt Kelly's new tapas place, Mateo's is getting ever closer to open in the old Book Exchange location...




that there is a new stop light going in at Hope Valley Road and Cornwallis Road, near Foster's Market and Guglhmpf...




that Outsiders Two is opening in August...




that Shalom Educating for Peace, a Durham connected Rwanda based NGO, was awarded a Global Peacemaking Award from the International Public Policy Institute...




that a new farmer's market has opened in South Durham... in the Greenwood Commons Shopping Center, #5410 NC55, Durham, Saturdays year-round from 8AM---12PM




Please email corrections, clarifications, rants and denials to clarioncontent at gmail dot com

We cannot guarantee everything we hear is true. But we promise you, if we write it, we heard it---and you didn't say, please don't print it.

Labels: Durham, food, heard, technology

Have you heard about the Sol Food Mobile Farm?

If not, you should.

It is one more fabulous, innovative, concerned group of Durham citizens. Four Durham School of the Arts graduates, Eliza Bordley, Reid Rosemond, Ellen Duda and Dylan Hammond are taking a biofuel¹ powered bus that they converted on a six month, 9,000 mile, nationwide tour. They are fiscally supported by Zomppa, a food education and advocacy non-profit(and your Kickstarter cash).


This is the roof of the bus...
It is planted as part of a scheme to regulate the temperature inside the vehicle.
Photo credit Scenes from my Lunch Hour


The Clarion Content sat down with this fascinating foursome for an interview yesterday, on the bus that will serve as their home and sleeping quarters, as they prepared to embark on their nationwide tour. They depart from their south central Durham farm base today, first stop Asheville.

Their journey will include ten workshops and as many fifty expos. It is a non-paying gig so the group will be working as many farm trades, farm stays, and farmer's markets as they can. They will also be growing herbs, vermacomposting and stocking up on staples like beans, corn meal and polenta as they hit the road.

During their workshops they will construct community gardens with local children and interested adults. The Sol Food Farm team already has experience in this arena. They partnered with several Durham school of the Arts teachers, including another DSA alum and high school pal, Victor Cadilla, now a DSA history teacher, to found the school's Urban Farm Club. Together with students they built eight raised beds and planted an herb and vegetable garden.

The Sol Food team has amazing plans. They are headed for some fantastic destinations and wonderful collaborations, including, in Maine with renown agricultural researcher and educator, Elliot Coleman, author of The Four Season Harvest.

One of their goals is to bring the message to adults and kids alike that local agriculture exists. Urban farming is possible. Food does not have to be massed produced and shipped across country. As Rosemond put it, "We are doing it out love, it is what we are into."

They are also partnering with an incredible Durham start-up called In R Food that analyzes, among many other things, the distance a product has traveled to market, what's in it and what are the locally produced alternatives.


Left to right Ellen Duda, Dylan Hammond, Eliza Bordley and Reid Rosemond.
Photo credit Scenes from my Lunch Hour

Durham, you never cease to amaze.

Sol Food Mobile Farm will be filing more dispatches from the road. We wish them well. The Clarion Content will keep you updated on their fabulous journey. We will be running a full length feature on the crew, their bus and the mission next week. Stay tuned.

For now, check out more pictures of the Sol Food Mobile Farm bus and crew at Scenes from my Lunch Hour.


Notes
¹ Technically waste vegetable oil, which is even better than a many a regular biofuel, because it never goes through processing, it just goes straight from the restaurant's fryer into the fuel tanks.

Labels: Durham, ecology, economics, energy policy, food, Living things, science

If your garden looks anything like this:



you may be interested a use for all that overflowing basil. Check out this guest post on a lightened up version of pesto, courtesy of Scenes from My Lunch Hour.

With all the rain we've had of late, my herb garden has exploded. Seeing all that basil of course created an instant pesto-craving. Since pesto is kind of a fattening recipe, as far as sauces go, I decided to try to lighten it up a bit.

First I gathered a bunch of basil and parsley from my garden. I figured having a bit of parsley in there mellowing the basil would help to counteract the fact that I was going to add some sharp tastes (garlic and lemon, among others). Into the food processor went basil, parsley, garlic cloves and walnuts (they are cheaper and healthier than pine nuts and work just as well!) In addition to zesting the lemon, I also squeezed a few tablespoons of lemon juice into the food processor to replace some of the oil. Then the ever-delicious parmigiano-reggiano cheese. Instead of using a cup of extra virgin olive oil (like these proportions would normally call for), I only used about 2/3 of a cup (maybe even a little less) because of the lemon juice. Rather than just dump this in, I poured it in slowly through the mouth of the food processor while the herbs, nuts and cheese were spinning. I think this helped me be more stingy because it made use of the liquid as needed. The finished pesto came out to the perfect consistency:



While I was assembling the pesto and boiling the pasta, I had decided I needed to add some veggies so it was not all carb, nut and cheese. I quick trimmed some green beans and halved some cherry tomatoes, tossed them with salt and pepper and a teensy bit of olive oil, and threw them in the oven for 13 minutes at 400 degrees. Here’s a before and after shot:



And here's how the whole dish looked when put together:



Here's the full recipe for the pesto:

Summer Pesto-lite

Ingredients (pesto): - 3 cups fresh basil - 1 cup fresh parsley - four garlic cloves, crushed, peeled and cut in half - zest from 1 medium lemon - 2 to 3 tbsps lemon juice - 3/4 cup shelled walnuts - 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated - 1/2 tsp salt - 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Directions: blend all ingredients in food processor until smooth. stop a few times and push the non-blended herbs down from the sides of the processor with a spatula. This will make 2x the sauce you need for the pasta & veggie portions below. My friend Jeff cleverly recommended using the extra on sandwiches, in dips, or (my personal fave) on a homemade pizza.

Check out Scenes from My Lunch Hour for more pics.

Labels: food, Guest columns, photos, Recipes

Now you know Durham has made it... Not only are our friends at the New York Times regularly writing about Durham and our great food, our fabulous artists and musicians, and generally hyping our cultural scene; but as of today, even the New York Post is getting in on the act. Rupert Murdoch's boys are talking up Durham's terrific food, too.

And for long time observers of the Triangle milieu, here is another signifier. The Post's article which ostensibly covers Raleigh and Chapel Hill as well, starts with Durham. Moreover, it does not even mention the other's cities culinary delights until you continue to page two of the story. It highlights Durham institutions and up-and-comers from Whiskey, to Parker and Otis, to Only Burger and Counter Culture Coffee.

Read the whole article here.

Labels: Durham, food, media, Pop Culture

SEEDS garden at #706 Gilbert Street

Friend of the Clarion Content and fellow blogger, Durham Profiles, is a great place to read stories about fellow Durhamanians. We loved their profile of Durham musician, Steven Coffman, a couple of months back.

Durham Profiles and founder Ruth Eckles most recent article follows the story of urban farming in Durham through Homegrown City Farms. Local food is a cause near and dear to the Clarion Content's heart.

A brief excerpt from the latest pearl on Durham Profiles...

"There’s so much wasted land in a lawn," laments Collier Reeves of Homegrown City Farms in a recent interview. Her words remain on my mind as I drive to work, passing the broad expanse of lawns that surround office buildings, pedestrian malls, hotels, grocery stores and highway medians.

"We live in an agriculturally rich area here in the Piedmont, but there is a lot of underused land, especially in urban areas," Maryah Smith-Overman, the other half of Homegrown City Farms, adds.

Since moving from Asheville to Durham last year to launch the project, the two have steadily transformed a borrowed quarter-acre plot in East Durham into a small farm overflowing with sugar snap peas, chard, beets, radishes, spinach, arugula, carrots, and broccoli raab. On June 1st, they will begin distributing the vegetables through CSA shares. Homegrown City Farms grew out of Reeves and Smith-Overmans’ mutual desire to promote community, food sovereignty, and sustainable land stewardship practices...Both artists and musicians, Reeves and Smith-Overman are attracted to Durham’s overlapping social justice, farm-to-fork, music and art scenes.

Ms. Eckles teases out that uniquely Durham story, that vibe that makes our town a place where people find a way to say "Yes", rather than "No." Homegrown City Farms is clearly built on and sustained by a cooperative community effort.

They employ a process called a "Crop Mob" when they need extra help. A spin-off of the meme of the flash mob, crop mobbing is a way to harness the collective effort of the community. It is a natural pairing with urban farming because in the past when activities like planting, harvesting, processing, and barnraising almost always required local collective effort, the rural community was there. In the modern parlance, crop mobbers work together, share a meal, play, talk, make music and revel in life. No money is exchanged.

The Clarion Content knows we are not alone in Durham in our support for urban gardens, local farms and locally grown food. Just yesterday, we heard bon vivants, Jennifer and Dain Phelan, proprietors of a favorite Clarion Content watering hole and eatery Dain's, held a fundraiser to support SEEDS. SEEDS, a long time Durham institution, is a non-profit educational community garden that uses gardening and growing food to teach respect for life, for the earth and for each other. SEEDS young urban gardeners sell their wares at their own Produce & Craft Market Wednesday's from 4pm to 6pm at #706 Gilbert Street, in Durham and also Saturdays at the Durham Farmer's Market.

Read Ruth Eckles and Durham Profiles whole article here. Read more about Crop Mobbing here.

Labels: Durham, ecology, Economy, food

April 2012


that there is Harris Teeter going to open on 9th Street!!!




that there is vegan bakery going to open in the new building going up on Broad Street...


that the same building going next to Nataraja Healing Arts will house dance studio space for the ADF...



that The Federal's Deep Fried Half Chicken is banging...



that The Surf Club and Bull McCabe's are both opening beer gardens this Summer...



that a community workspace called Mercury Studio is opening in downtown Durham this May.



that the legendary local act Sleepsound has recorded a hot cover of LiLa's "Misjudged You."



that the Bull City Soul Revival is coming to Durham, with a variety of great events, music and lectures through April 27th.



that there may be live music on the Bull City Connector buses during the Durham Art Walk.

Labels: Art, Durham, food, heard, music

The Clarion Content is delighted to welcome on board a new regular contributor, Ned Phillips. Ned is recently returned from Europe where among his many endeavours he made fabulous short films and wrote well received travel articles. He is a veteran of the Durham scene, with a returning expatriate's take on our dear city.

Check out his first dispatch below.

photo credit: Ned Phillips............Bahn's, #750 Ninth Street, Durham.

Wok n’ Roll
by Ned Phillips

In Banh’s Cuisine on a warm Saturday afternoon chef/owner Chan Banh sits across from me, talking about the glory days of Ninth Street. These were the early to mid 90’s, right around the time Nirvana was peaking and Snoop Dogg was just starting to matter.

Wellspring Grocery was thriving across the street, the Ninth Street Bakery delivered quality breads while the Ninth Street Bar and Grill was the only place you could get a beer. McDonald’s Drugstore churned out fresh, handcrafted milkshakes and Dogstar Tattoo was the preferred hangout for musicians, skater kids and underage cigarette smokers. Poindexter Records was one of my favorites, carrying an obscure selection of tapes and CD for any taste. Being ten years old, North American Video was THE most exciting place to me, where on Friday nights I’d browse the aisles of videocassettes admiring at the titles and box covers, deciding which world to enter, Mother permitting.

Aside from the ability to still attract fringe characters, Ninth Street has undergone tremendous transformation in the past two decades. Bars run rampant, the Wellspring complex is all but abandoned and even soul sucking, indie-crushing Subway has moved into the old Ninth Street Active Feet. Home cinema has gone from VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray and online databases.

Through the years, Chan has seen people and businesses come and go. Banh’s Cuisine has been on Ninth Street since the late ‘80s and he tells me of a time when Grant Hill would sit in my very seat, everyday at 3pm, eating spicy chicken wings. That is until his routine was discovered and he could no longer dine in peace. Mentioning the great #33 stirs my inner Dukie and an elevated conversation about the current state of ACC hoops ensues. During the autumn and winter months, NFL football is the topic of discussion.

In my early Banh’s days I was in a loving, committed relationship with Kung Pao chicken---diced chicken, watercress and green peppers, with just enough kick to keep you from shoveling it down too fast, was all I ever wanted. After a few years I strayed, moving in with General Tso---his spicy sweet, brown sauce with a hint of ginger gave unprecedented life to sautéed broccoli and carrots. The zing of ginger planted a seed I could not ignore, and now, when no one is looking, I flirt with ginger chicken and vegetables.

Unless it is Saturday. Saturdays and Wednesdays are typically the busiest days at Banh’s, when in addition to his usual cuisine Chan dishes up more typically Vietnamese fare. Pho soups and traditional vegetarian subs served on French baguettes are among the delicacies. During these specialty days the dining room is a bustling, jovial place and the take-out traffic is fast and furious.

In addition to his wok mastery, Chan serves as a fundamental cog in the Durham music scene. He’s made beats for local hip-hop acts and maintains a Godfather like status among the areas best musicians and producers. I’ve heard him, in the dining area, laptop in hand still wearing his chef apron talking with customers about Abelton audio engineering and the effect of renaissance equalizers. In his pockets are memory sticks filled with the latest Pro Tools plug-ins for those he’s mentoring. His passion and knowledge for music and production has rendered him a go-to guy for much of the area’s top talent.

Upon first acquaintance, Chan’s a seemingly shy guy. Yet time reveals him to be an incredibly warm and fascinating jack-of-all-trades. During a visit, you’re more likely to encounter one of his sisters, who double as cashiers and servers in the dining area. Like the great Grant Hill, Chan enjoys a certain anonymity, preferring the back of the kitchen to the front of the house.

Chan Banh’s eatery on Ninth Street is a veritable link to the past and bygone times when food and service were personal. Tradition and simplicity, in the best of ways, meant something. No frills, bells or whistles. No fancy tableware, just great food cooked fresh by wonderful people. I recently overheard an exchange between Chan and a customer regarding a new piece of recording software that had just been released- when asked if it was hard to learn, Chan Banh smiled, shook his head and said “Nah man, I’ll show you.”

Banh’s is a solid rock in Durham's gastronomic geology, and Chan truly one most fascinating quilt squares in the fabric of the Bull City, a community I am proud to be a part of again.

Labels: Durham, food, Guest columns, music, Ned Phillips

Launched a little over six months ago Farmigo is a sign-up platform for farmers to find local consumers, consumers to find local farmers and consumers to find each other. Like so many recent internet innovations, layers of middleman are removed in one feel swoop. It is peer-to-peer produce, if you will.

The idea for Farmigo is a social media platform for discovering, signing up for, and sharing Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) programs. CSAs are groups where enrolled members of the community agree with farmers to purchase a certain amount of produce, and then pick that food up at local dropoff points at regular intervals. For example, some CSA's in the Durham area deliver food to be picked up at the Farmer's Market. CSAs have been around for ages and the Clarion Content knows more than one person enrolled in such a program.

But as we understand it, the difficulty for both farmers and foodies has been the information bottleneck, finding each other. A little Google searching revealed a site where one can find North Carolina CSAs locally, see here. Farmigo plans to aggregate this information.

Who needs or wants more intermediaries between you and your food. Less middlemen, means less time on a truck, mean less gas used, means less pricey, and closer means fresher, too, all while supporting the local economy.

An interesting idea to be sure!

Farmigo operates with a similar methodology to Google search, information of available is increasing powerful and relevant as more people use the site.

Read more about it here.

Labels: Durham, food, technology

At the Clarion Content, we have always wondered whether Valentine's Day was situated where it is on the calendar, because on February 14th, Spring, the season of love and fertility, is still six long weeks away (less obviously so in the temperatures of the post-global warming era).

Men pine for ladies all year long. No seasonal excuses needed.

This Valentine's Day, we shot our Fashion Drive-by #3 in two of Durham's finer establishments for meeting and greeting, wining and dining. If you already have a date, you could hardly do better than to bring her to one of these swank lounges. If not, well, we can't promise you that you will meet somebody this beautiful, but, we will give you gentlemen a few wishes to build a dream on.

Our fashion partner for these gorgeous photos was Fifi's of Durham located at #1000 West Main Street. Their super selection of resale designer and name brand apparel for women combined with eyes and sensibilities of the Clarion Content team to make magic. Right down to the shoes!

The Clarion Content's phenomenal fashion and pop culture guru, Cady Childs, styled and made-up the models, as well as, hand-selected their outfits. Necklaces were provided by Tammi Floccare. All of the photos were shot by Jessi Blakely.

And, of course, we thank our models: Catherine Howard, Sara Stevens, Tracy Gill and Cady Childs. Ladies, your beauty makes us look good.


First at: Six Plates Wine Bar



Tracy


Cady


Six Plates Wine Bar, located at 2812 Erwin Road, is tucked nonchalantly into one of the anonymous modern buildings that line the west side of the street as it winds south away from the main Duke Hospital complex. If you didn't know, you would never know what lies behind the glamorous red curtain shielding the door. Plush seats, sumptuous spots and mirrors abound. The concept: six tapas-sized portions, perfectly paired with six glasses a wine, custom selected for your dining pleasure.

And what a pleasure it is...










Then at: The Whiskey Bar




Sara


The Whiskey Bar is located prominently inside the downtown loop at Durham's Five Points intersection. Its classic neon sign and big windows, foreshadow the elegant film noir stylings found inside. Nary a detail is missed, from luxurious couches and chairs, to the bartenders garb, and the view through the huge windows out towards the Durham Arts Council and beyond, it is first class all the way.





Catherine


So we wish you a Happy Valentines Day. We hope the season finds you warm and well.


We leave you with two final images. And couple of links below to take you to even more, as Winter disappears in the rearview mirror...




Keep an eye out for our next Fashion Drive-by, Spring, shot in Durham's Secret Gardens.





See accessories close-ups here.

See even more photos here.

Labels: Durham, Fashion, Fashion Drive-bys, food, photos, Pop Culture

A long time Clarion Content feature, "Interesting Links and Links of Interest," returns. Check out old posts below. Click here and scroll down.

The purpose of our Interesting Links pieces is to steer you to the entertaining, if off-beat, the fascinating, if less than earth-shattering, memes that populate the interwebs. Surely there are interesting links and fun stuff happening everywhere. If you see an interesting link you would like share, email it our way ClarionContent at Gmail dot com. (Type @ for at and . for dot. We are hoping to avoid additional junk in our in-box by switching up the nomenclature.)



Our first interesting link is to a piece by one of our favorite rock and roll interviewers, Chuck Klosterman. Klosterman has interviewed everyone from Bono to Noel Gallagher.¹ He is also a sports fan. He has an acerbic, intellectual take that is frequently absent from the monosyllabic and cravenly devotional work characteristic of much sports writing.²

Here Klosterman takes a look at the Tim Tebow phenomenon and what it says about the fissures and bigger debates American culture. Tebow is polarizing. Why? It is a fascinating read, as interesting a cut on Tebow-mania as we have seen anywhere. If sports is a microcosm of society... then Tebow and the media's coverage of him hold an important mirror up to our collective selves. It asks questions about our cultural position on faith that are very relevant, especially on the precipice of a presidential election. Read the whole article here.

Our next interesting link is for those of you looking for something to do on the day after Christmas. Don't let the Monday blues get you down. December 26th is a day to get up and get down. Get out and dance around... LiLa will be hosting a CD release party at the Casbah on Main Street in downtown Durham. Check out this hilarious promo video. Hear music from the new album, "III" here.

Next up, more cool stuff to know about... The Nation's Restaurant News selected the winners of its 2011 Hot New Concepts award. Crave, FöD (Food on Demand), Mixt Greens, True Food Kitchen and Twisted Root Burger Company. These restaurants span the gamut from an American take on sushi to a concept from Sodexo, wherein guests place their orders on touch-screen kiosks, watch their food being made-to-order, and are alerted via their smart phones when their food is ready.


Our final interesting link is cat science related. The Clarion Content has long supported the widely held notion that cats are more elegant than dogs, now comes evidence from the New York Times Science section to prove it. Did you know cats lap their water faster than the human eye can see?³ Maybe not, but you surely knew that cats don't make those unseemly slurping and slobbering sounds that dogs do when drinking water.

The NY Times reports... "the cat’s lapping method depends on its instinctive ability to calculate the point at which gravitational force would overcome inertia and cause the water to fall." The study's author Dr. Roman Stocker said, "Three and a half years ago, I was watching Cutta Cutta [his cat] lap over breakfast." According to the Times, "he wondered what hydrodynamic problems the cat might be solving. He consulted Dr. Reis, an expert in fluid mechanics, and the study was under way." Rest assured, cats' inherent grace was verified. Read the whole article here.

Share your interesting links with us and read about them in our next edition.

¹Don't worry, in searching for an appropriate name to pair with Bono, we had to look up who the heck Gallagher was too...the lead singer of Oasis.

²Bill Simmons, Nate Silver and Charles Pierce excepted.

³Four times per second.

Labels: Durham, food, interesting links, music, NFL, Politics, Pop Culture, sports

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus has been providing a mobile feast on a train since 1872, when the P.T. Barnum first put his circus entertainment on the rails. According to the Nation's Restaurant News, Ringling Brothers has two railroad routed shows, each running a mile-long train with about forty passenger cars and twenty freight cars. The train's mobile food car is responsible for feeding at any given time between 270 and 350 performers, from areas as far-flung and disparate as Morocco and China.

Michael Vaughn, the head chef, has to feed them 24/7 when the show is on the road. His train based operation has recently split-off its own food truck, Pie Car Jr., that moves to the tent for staff food service before, during and after circuses. They serve in excess of 2,500 meals a week.

He has some advice from his years of mobile operations experience for food truck operators, check it out here at the Nation's Restaurant News.

Labels: food

We saw this one on the Bill Simmons vehicle, Grantland, and had to repost it here on the Clarion Content. As Grantland contributor Katie Baker put it, "When life gives you lemons, feed them to an unsuspecting baby.

Adults will do that, and proceed to laugh about it.

Labels: food, humor

but somebody has got to do it.





First of all, you have to spend all day around Hooters girls...



Terrance Marks was named the CEO of Hooters last week. Mr. Marks had previously served as the chief executive of The Pantry Inc., a convenience store chain which has more than 1,650 units in thirteen states. Before The Pantry, he had done twenty-one years at Coca-Cola.



Marks was quoted in the Nation's Restaurant News, "I am thrilled to be returning to Atlanta and am very excited to be joining the Hooters team. The opportunity to contribute to the growth of a great brand like Hooters is extremely energizing to me. In just a little over two decades Hooters has become known around the world for great American food, a fun environment, and, of course, the iconic Hooters Girls."



Yeah, it is a tough job...



Read more here.

Labels: food, humor, Pop Culture

photo courtesy of Durham Tweet-up

The recent Durham Food Truck Rodeo at the Farmer's Market was a rousing success. In fact, it was almost too much of a success. The trucks were mobbed.

Lines, in many cases, were thirty minutes or more for food. The trucks were not well spread out, so it was difficult to discern which line was for what truck. Also, some of the trucks were not prepared for such crowds and quickly ran out of their stock, though that was not so for Clarion Content faves, the Pie Pushers and Only Burger.

The food was fantastically diverse and delicious. The variety of offerings at a food truck rodeo is all but untoppable. The Durhamanians we spoke with were, by-in-large, pleased with the event, despite the crowds, a good time was had and the vibrant, happy, communitarian mood reflected it. And our sources say, that some of the truck owner-operators are meeting with Durham officials to discuss the issues that this rodeo faced organizationally and logistically due to the crowds.

There are more Durham food truck rodeos to come...and they will be even better.

Labels: Durham, food

Doesn't it feel like something new and potentially cool is opening in Durham every day? Now! In the middle of the Great Recession! Durham is vibrantly alive, bursting with energy and creative enthusiasm.

Three new(-ish) things opening in Durham that we heard about today.

First: Runaway Clothing, their website says they are a Southern lifestyle brand, created to answer the call for Southern style with urban appeal. They literally recommend that you run from convention and confinement. It is thus a little ironic that their shirts are available at the tony Morgan Imports on Gregson Street. But hey, the shirts are tight. Check them out here.

Second: The Bar, at #711 Rigsbee Street, whose soft opening is already underway. The grand opening is this Saturday, August 6th. Part of a Durham Central Park neighborhood renaissance that is already well underway, the bar is advertising weekly dance parties on its site and billing itself as the Triangle's neighborhood LGBTQ bar. Their self-declared goal, a place that melds a "corner bar" feel during the week, with a popular club attitude on Friday and Saturday nights. We say: Rock on! Check them out here.


Third: The Chirba Chirba Dumpling truck, apparently a canary yellow color and hitting the road next month according to the Durham-Herald Sun. The truck is a co-venture between four UNC-Chapel Hill alumni, note they are coming to Durham to make it happen. DHS says that chirba chirba" means "eat eat" in Mandarin, and is a common phrase that a host might say to a guest before a meal. Read the whole story here.

Durhamania!

Labels: Durham, food, Pop Culture

The Clarion Content has been most excited to read about the opening of the Geer Street Beer Garden in Durham's Central Park District. Andy Magowan has been doing good things on the Durham restaurant scene for a long time. He cut his teeth at a Durham institution, Foster's Market. He was also the first chef, and allegedly the guy who wrote the menu, at the place with the most consistently high quality bar food in Durham, The Federal.

One of our correspondents attended the Future Kings of Nowhere and Hammer No More the Fingers double billing at MotorCo the other night. The Geer Street Garden was hopping when he arrived and still going long and strong into the late evening.

By the by, Durham's Hammer No More the Fingers was tremendous. The polished wall of sound they produced damn near blew the doors off of the MotorCo. It was clear evidence of the band's prowess on the heels of a recent extended tour, first of the northeastern United States and then jolly old England. These guys stepped their game up to even another level!

Check out a couple of pics of the Geer Street Garden on the last days before opening. Read about what the situation was for this old gas station property as little as two years ago here.

Go, Durham!









On the corner of Foster and Geer Streets catty-corner from the also wonderfully resurrected King's Sandwich shop.

Labels: Durham, food, music, Pop Culture

While staring, befuddled at the new ribbed shape of the Mountain Dew 20 oz. plastic soda bottle today, it occurred to the Clarion Content that some things should not be changed. This is especially true if they worked wonderfully in their status quo format.

The goofy Mountain Dew bottle reminded us of this axiom. But the case in point also comes from the convenience store, it is the king size Snickers bar. Now in two pieces?

What???

Some company executive decided that you should pre-break our candy bars in two for us? Hey genius, people return broken candy bars as defective. What are you doing trying to preempt Super Size Me style class action lawsuits? "Oh no, your honor, our candy bar isn't designed to be eaten all in one session. It is two pieces."

Keep it real. First of all, it is designed to be eaten in one sitting whether you break it in half our not. You just make your loyal clientele feel worse about it by breaking it into two pieces. Plus, it creates an underlying sense of being defrauded. Is that two piece candy bar really the same size as the old king size Snickers? You can tell us it is all day, but it sure does not look or feel like it.

Mr.Mars Executive, quit trying to sell us broken candy bars! Fix the Snickers king size. Things which work really well, should not be changed.

Labels: food, Pop Culture, Practical Advice