November 5, 2010 · 5:58 am

Fall Craft Fair Returns to Western Wake Farmers’ Market – Saturday Nov. 6th!

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Saturday brings the annual Fall Craft Fair to the Western Wake Farmers’ Market (WWFM), along with Herons Chef Scott Crawford and friends from the NC 10% Campaign. In addition to great shopping in support of 52 local artists, this weekend’s market is a great chance to taste free samples of  Herons Chef Scott Crawford’s delicious soup featuring autumn flavors: Parsnip, Chestnut & Apple Soup, Pumpkin Seed-Sage Pesto and Maple Brown Butter.

 The NC 10% Campaign joins Chef Crawford at the market to educate folks about building North Carolina’s local food economy, one shopper at a time.  The 10% Campaign will raffle off t-shirts and gift certificates to Herons and other partner restaurants to those who sign up for the campaign on Saturday.

WWFM, located at Carpenter Village Marketplace in Cary, is now open year-round to offer access to local foods to the community all year.  Through Nov. 20, the market will be open from 8 am-12 pm; starting Dec. 4, the market will be open from 9 am-12 pm.

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November 2, 2010 · 8:13 am

Picture of The Week – Strange Catch at Falls Lake!

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Photo Courtesy of Les B. from City-Data.com

This week’s picture was submitted by city-data forum friend Les B.  He took this fascinating picture while fishing at Falls Lake in Raleigh.  The full story behind the photo was posted on the city-data relocation forum, which I have quoted below with his permission.  I’m glad Les and his friend were out on the lake that day to lend a hand to our furry friend!

“Buddy and I were fishing Falls Lake the other day and he spotted a squirrel swimming in the middle of Falls Lake.  I personally don’t have a love for them (they destroy my bird feeders) so I continued on fishing.  After a period of time my buddy said “I don’t think he’s going to make it” …. he must have been keeping an eye on the little critter.  I pulled along side and we netted him. Poor guy was totally exhausted.  Motored him to shore and released him. Took a minute or two for him to get his legs back but he eventually staggered off to the woods.  I found myself glad my buddy had kept an eye on him.  Unfortunately that ended up being the biggest thing we netted all day. How that squirrel ended up out there is a mystery but I suspect a bird of prey grabbed him and flew off only to drop him in the lake.”

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October 27, 2010 · 3:25 pm

The Handmade Parade – Giant Puppets Take Over Hillsborough!

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Photo Courtesy of Don Moffitt

Two weeks ago I was thumbing through the Independent Weekly and came across an ad for an event that caught my eye.  It was for the 3rd annual Handmade Parade in Hillsborough.   I pulled up the event website and knew this was something I needed to be a part of.  The parade is organized by the Hillsborough Arts Council and fills the streets of downtown Hillsborough with gaint puppets and costumed creatures marching along to festive music. 

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Photo Courtesy of Don Moffitt

The parade is a described as a “walking theatrical performance.  A spectacle of art, creativity, and public theatre”.  The themes of this year’s parade was “Eno River Rythms” and the parade was full costumes of snakes, frogs, and other wildlife creatures.  Other creations were  larger than life large puppets of animals and butterflies supported by four to six people marching them along the parade route.

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Photo Courtesy of City-Data

I joined in on the fun by playing my trombone with a cool muscial group out of Durham called The Bulltown Strutters.  This was the group’s first offcial public performance.  This rag tag group of musicians and strutters have all the makings of a New Orleans style “Second Line” parade band and entertained the crowds with renditions of songs like “Lil’ Liza Jane”, “Iko Iko”. and “When the Saints Go Marching In”.  Keep an eye out for the strutter’s next performance in the Durham Holiday Parade on December 4th.

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Photo courtesy of Don Moffitt

The parade concluded on a grassy hill in front of the Historic Burwell School where participants jammed to the rythm of African drum music for a final celebration dance.  This was truly a great community event and I look forward to participating again next year. Since I was in the parade I couldn’t snap any pictures so to check out some more great photograpsh from the parade check out the rest of Don Moffitt’s photos in his flickr album

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October 24, 2010 · 9:36 pm

Picture of the Week – Busy Bee Cafe’

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This week’s picture was taken from my table during a visit to the Busy Bee Cafe’ in downtown Raleigh on a recent Friday evening.  They have an interesting menu ranging from burgers and fish tacos to organic chicken and swordfish plates.  They also serve up some nice sides like creamy mac and cheese and southern classics like fried green tomatoes.  The beer list is fairly extensive and they even have a couple local brews on tap.  I really like the overall ambiance of the place and enjoy the look of the exposed brick walls.  A second bar located upstairs along with a small stage that’s used for various music acts and they even offer outdoor rooftop seating in the warmer months.  Worth checking out the next time you are downtown along Wimington Street.

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October 20, 2010 · 8:17 pm

Food Truck Harvest at Big Boss – Awesome Food, Bands, & Brews

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The first annual Food Truck Harvest at Big Boss Brewery in Raleigh was a tremendous success last week.  The event featured the most popular vendors in the Triangle food truck scene, with the all set up in the parking lot of the brewery.  The lineup included Only Burger, Klausie’s Pizza, Mom’s Delicious Dishes, Bulkogi Korean BBQ, Valentino’s, and India on Wheels.  All of them had crowds of eager customers lined up to try their food.  I heard that the crowd grew so large that several eventually sold out due to the high demand by the end of the night!

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Here is a shot of hungry fans eagerly waiting in line for a burger from the guys at Only Burger out of Durham.  They are always a crowd favorite, but the lines at the other food trucks were equally impressive.  I grabbed some pizza from Klausie’s and it really hit the spot.  The serve up a nice deep dish square pizza slice with thick cheese and lots of sauce that goes perfectly with a cold beer from Big Boss.

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Inside the brewery the beer taps were flowing nonstop, but the bartenders did an excellent job keeping the lines moving along.  I had a pint of my favorite Big Boss Brew, the Belgian style Helle’s Belle and a pint of the seasonal Harvest Time spiced pumpkin beer.  A stage was set-up inside the brewery next to the bar and several different local rock bands took to the stage throughout the evening. 

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The Food Truck Harvest at Big Boss was a great way to ring in the Fall season.  I’m looking forward to more events like this and hope to catch the food trucks around Raleigh more in the future.  For more pics from the fest check out my flickr photo album.

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