A dainty eater

It's a wonderful thing about being alive that you never know when you are going to see something you've never seen before. Like today at lunch (at Penland) when I noticed the person across from me eating a donut with a knife and fork. She wasn't trying to get anyone's attention; that's just the way she eats donuts.

By a pig's whisker

This is Nate Allen making a few remarks just before it was revealed that he and the Knife and Fork crew (in the fork shirts and the far left) had won in the first round of the WNC Chefs Challenge--by a margin of .3 percent, a true photo finish.



Each team makes three dishes and every dish has to use the secret ingredient--it's secret in that the chefs don't know what it is until the day of the competition. In this case, the "ingredient" was a whole hog, of which every part was available to the teams. According to the vote, and the absolute consensus at the Celo table, this Nate plate was the killer dish of the evening: a savory waffle topped with pea shoots, crispy sunchoke slices, andouille sausage, and a tempura ramp. Yummy!

Knife and Fork competes in the quarter-finals on May 23. Tickets are available now.

Hail, yeah!

As everyone undoubtedly noticed, we had a little bit of hail on Saturday afternoon and evening. But in Burnsville, they had serious, crazy hail. This is Schell McCall at around noon on Sunday with a chunk of amalgamated hailstones that were still piled up next to her back porch.

Cartoon trees

I have a funny affection for the locally-beloved Bradford Pear tree. The remind me of cartoon trees, or maybe of every little kid's first drawing of a tree. This time of year, they keep me amused on my way to work.