Fish camp...what's that? Gaston County folks know.
Ask folks along the Catawba River in Gaston County how to spend an old-time weekend, and pretty quickly the talk will turn to fish camps.
Hash & Rice, a South Carolina BBQ Tradition
You know you're in South Carolina when the barbecue restaurants serve hash.
What's hash? Well, about the closest place to Charlotte to find out is Burk's BBQ in Rock Hill.
Jamaican Black Cake -- Christmas all year round
I'd passed the little strip shopping center where Central Avenue meets Albemarle Road hundreds of times before I noticed the small sign "Island Grocery." Walking in, I immediately felt transported to Jamaica.
Close-packed shelves overflow with Caribbean delicacies - ginger beer and other soft drinks, canned vegetables, coconut milk, hot sauces including the delightfully named Pickapeppa. Freezers hold ox tail, plantain snacks, guava jelly and dozens of ingredients for Caribbean cooking. I'm not much of a cook myself, but the possibilities sent me home to look up Caribbean recipes on the internet.
The hillbilly is back!
Yesterday at Reid's Grocery next to Levine Museum, I saw an old feller I hadn't seen since I was a kid. The Mountain Dew hillbilly is back in the soft drink case.
Video Talkback Booth Update
The Changing Places video talkback booth has generated a great amount of visitor reaction since the exhibit opened last February. As with every project, we've learned what works and what doesn't throughout the course of 2009.
Cuba in the Queen City
When my friend Sammy Gatewood at Sharon Towers asked recently where to get a Cuban sandwich in Charlotte, it sparked the realization that we are suddenly rich in Cuban eateries.
Cuban immigrants have been a presence in the Queen City since the 1960s when families fleeing Castro became Charlotte's first small Latino community. But it's been hard to find a Cuban sandwich here, or much other Cuban food for that matter.
Back to BBQ Beginnings?
Our New South BBQ bus tour this weekend features not one but two restaurants that give a taste of BBQ's beginnings.
Day of the Dead
On November 1st, Levine Museum will host our 4th annual Day of the Dead Festival, one of our signature free community days. A traditional holiday celebrated in Mexico, the Day of the Dead (El Día de los Muertos) focuses on remembering and honoring friends and family members who have died. While death is a topic associated with sadness and often avoided in the United States, celebrating the remembrance of deceased ancestors and loved ones is traditional among diverse cultures around the globe
Curator's Pick: Gastonia Cotton Ginning Days
This weekend October 9 - 11 it's time for the annual Gastonia Cotton Ginning Days Festival (featured in the Changing Places exhibit).
"Salad-bowl suburbs" -- in Charlotte and Greensboro
As we researched Changing Places, we began to realize that immigrant areas in Charlotte look much different than the type of "Little Italy" or "Chinatown" seen in older cities. For one thing, Charlotte's immigrant shops and restaurants are in suburbia, not in the inner city. And second, everything is intermingled -- Vietnamese sandwich shops next to Latino taquerias next to Bosnian groceries.
