Fervent Foodie

Charlotte Rock & Read 5K {giveaway}

October 15, 2012 6 Comments

As a kid I LOVED to read. My ideal Saturday was spent curled up in bed with a good Goosebumps book, followed a couple years later by marathon Fear Street sessions. Then I went to college, and my love of reading was overshadowed by the ominous presence of textbooks in my life. I managed to squeeze in the Harry Potter series toward the end of college, just before the CPA exam invaded my life, leaving in its wake an intense repulsion for books. I guess you could say I broke up with books for a few years. I didn’t really feel like I was missing out on anything until someone introduced me to the Twilight saga… and that old love came fluttering back ripping me away from that desolate bookless place. I never looked back. Next to work and home, the library is the place I visit most each week. Memoirs, books on cd, cookbooks, books about chefs, books about learning to cook, books about anything involving food whatsoever—all of them have a daily presence in my life now, and I can’t imagine how I survived without them.

Since moving to Charlotte, my love of the library has exploded. This could be due to their awesome iPhone app, or that I can walk there on my lunch break, or that when I tweet the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, they tweet back. (yes!)

Given this obsession, I’m very excited to participate in the 3rd annual Charlotte Rock & Read 5K on Saturday November 3rd. All proceeds for the race benefit the books and materials budget of Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. Besides the great cause, the Charlotte Rock & Read is an awesome race to run because there will be music at every mile and a festival at the finish line including FOOD and MIMOSAS!

Restaurants

Restaurant Review Roundup: Pure Pizza, Jackalope Jacks, Maria Bonita, & Mortimers — Charlotte, NC {restaurant review}

October 12, 2012 1 Comment

There’s no sense in beating around the biscuit–let’s get down to the nitty gritty on four Charlotte restaurants I’ve eaten at recently:

PURE PIZZA: Located uptown in the 7th St Public Market, Pure Pizza is quickly becoming one of my favorite spots for lunch. They specialize in farm to fork pizza, and their toppings are seasonal and sourced straight from the market. You have your choice of dough: sprouted ancient grain (which includes quinoa), classic Neapolitan or gluten-free. My favorite pie is the chorizo, which comes with organic radishes, onions, cilantro, and lime. Each pizza is served with a small container of honey for dipping the crust, which I found surprisingly tasty. Recently, PP expanded their menu to include several sandwiches. For lunch last week, I tried the caprese sandwich, which comes panini style, pressed and oozing with fresh mozzarella cheese. I am in love with their balsamic dressing—it’s tangy, sweet, and super thick, almost spreadable. Pure Pizza also sells adorable half bottles of wine and beer, there is plenty of seating available, AND the market validates parking.

JACKALOPE JACKS: by appearances alone, this place is incredibly deceiving. From the outside, it looks like someone scrapped an arcade and a miniature golf course and repurposed the parts into a restaurant. If you can look past the fake grass, you’ll find several holes-in-one on the menu (the golf analogy ends here, I promise). Their house chili is one of my favorites in town and their salads are surprisingly large and fresh. My top picks on the menu include the southwestern wrap with corn and black bean salad, teriyaki chicken skewers, and the jalapeno mac and cheese (if you like things extra spicy, that is). Jackalopes offers more than just standard bar food, though they do have awesome tater tots. They also serve brunch on Saturday and Sunday, with everything from “garbage plates” to crepes.

Food Talk

How to make leftover pizza taste like it was just delivered.

October 8, 2012 28 Comments

Pizza is one of few foods for which I will risk third degree burns of both the mouth and esophagus. As soon as I open the box and locate the slice with the most ample crust, I’ve got it dangling above my mouth, scalding cheese be damned. The crust is by far my favorite part, and it alone can make or break a pizza. I cannot fathom why some people think of the crust as merely a handle used to transport the pizza to their mouths, ceasing to eat once they reach that sweet spot where sauce and cheese meets bready bliss.

Pizza delivered to your door is one of life’s simplest pleasures, but leftover pizza can leave a lot to be desired. There’s always the option of eating the leftovers for breakfast, cold and straight from the box, but I crave the smells and textures of a freshly delivered pie. When years of college dorm living taught me that microwaves turn pizza crusts to rubber, I found my solution in the oven.

Food Talk

There’s more than one way to slice a banana.

October 5, 2012 4 Comments

I haven’t cooked a thing in the last six months. That’s not true. I have cooked my weekly batch of oatmeal and my one-whole-egg-plus-three-egg-whites scramble every morning. I’ve also cooked at least fifty English muffins slathered in peanut butter and sliced bananas, and cooked a bazillion or so no-cook salads for lunch. But, I haven’t done any REAL cooking lately simply because I’ve been swamped with work (and life) and because it was just way too friggin hot this summer to bother with anything involving the oven. As I sit here eating my late night peanut butter toast that I slaved over a hot toaster for, it dawned on me that just because I’m not cooking doesn’t mean we can’t talk food!

A month or so ago, my mom came to visit, and since I was under the weather she cooked me one of those peanut butter and banana English muffins I mentioned earlier. My whole life, I’ve been making this little snack with strategically placed slices of banana perched atop the muffin halves, so you can imagine how baffled I was when my mom appeared with this:

Features, Food Articles, Urbanspoon

How to order wine like a boss.

September 28, 2012 No Comments

Fervent Foodie is a contributing writer for the official Urbanspoon blog.

Whether on a hot first date or trying to impress the bigwigs at a business meeting, ordering a bottle of wine at a restaurant can be quite intimidating for a wine neophyte. A successful attempt requires balance: ordering with confidence, not looking like a cheapskate, and above all else selecting a wine that actually tastes good. With all the stuffy jargon and wine lists that include dozens, if not hundreds, of varieties, wine is often seen as a complex beverage only enjoyed by snooty oenophiles. If you don’t even know what an oenophile is, this article is for you, my friend.

(continue reading about how to order wine on the Urbanspoon blog)

« Previous 1 … 28 29 30 31 32 … 115 Next »