Vansana and Vanvisa Nolintha do not have long work commutes. The brother and sister rent two of three clustered apartments above a boutique in downtown Raleigh, less than a hundred yards from the front door of Bida Manda, the Laotian restaurant they opened on the edge of Moore Square in September 2012. In fact, if […]
Grayson Haver Currin
Bio: Grayson Haver Currin was the music editor of INDY Week and the co-director of Hopscotch Music Festival.Twitter: http://twitter.com/currincy
Posted inGuides
The Local Food System is Thriving, and its Aspirations Are Only Growing
Teddy Klopf just wants to cook a French fry. Sitting in an upstairs nook of his elegant new downtown Raleigh restaurant Provenance during a lull between lunch and dinner services, the thirty-two-year-old chef is visibly agitated by his lack of access to potatoes. A veteran of high-caliber kitchens stretching from New Mexico and New York […]
Posted inMusic
Instead of Canceling His Shakori Hills Performance Because of HB 2, Brett Dennen Asked How He Could Help
Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival 1439 Henderson Tanyard Road, Pittsboro Thursday, May 5–Sunday, May 8 In early April, the organizers of the Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival ended a short section of an email with an electronic wink. “We can’t wait to see you here!” wrote co-coordinator Sara Waters in a message to the five-dozen acts scheduled […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Mystery Brewing Company’s First Four-Pack Takes a Tour of Belgium
Mystery Brewing Company Erik Myers had a storytelling problem. Since 2012, his Hillsborough brewery, the preternaturally idiosyncratic Mystery, had struggled to put a variety pack into retail outlets. Each season, Mystery rotates its beers, offering a fleet of four new flagships every three months. Though that philosophy has quickly made Mystery one of the state’s […]
Posted inGuides
The Local Food Question: How Did We Get Here, and Where Is It Going?
When I was an elementary-school kid, I never questioned the origins of the food on the family table. Looking back, I had the good fortune to grow up across a rural stretch of blacktop from my family’s farm, on a sprawl of fertile Piedmont soil that my great-grandfather had purchased and passed on to his […]
Posted inNews
Race Home
I was a block away from the final turn toward the finish line when, at last, I veered off course. “Sprint until the end,” I told my older brother, Senter, just two feet toward my left. “And I’ll meet you at the line.” I stuttered my step and dipped hard toward his right, disappearing down […]
Posted inMusic
Moogfest and The Art of Cool Both Asked Durham for Cash. How the City Responded Says a Lot About its Future.
Three years in, Art of Cool Festival cofounder and director Cicely Mitchell admits this is something of a make-or-break year. As with many such upstarts, the multiday, multivenue jazz-and-soul eventwhich filled the festival void for Durham after it went a half-decade without onehas never broken even, in spite of steadily increasing revenues. A biostatistician by […]
Posted inMusic
Absu, Having Fun with Serious Metal
ABSU SATURDAY, APRIL 30 THE POUR HOUSE, RALEIGH 9 p.m., $10–$12 In heavy metal, the battle between seriousness and silliness can often seem like a binary. Either an act just wants to play real hard and real fast while singing about drinking, hanging with wizards, or grooving with Satan, or it wants to document the […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Don’t Tell Ashley Christensen What to Do with Her Bathrooms
Yesterday, a customer at Chuck’s—the cheeseburger portion of Ashley Christensen’s three-eatery empire at the corner of Wilmington and Martin streets—decided she did not like the restaurant’s new bathroom signs. After House Bill 2 passed, Christensen’s team added “People Room” signs in all of its spots, from the coffee shop Joule to the flagship Poole’s. Perhaps […]
Posted inMusic
The Art of Cool Festival Will Receive $20,000 in Additional City Funding
During the last several weeks, the topic of funding equity for Durham’s two May music festivals has been a very active one—and for good reason. In early April, the City of of Durham approved $62,500 for community activities at Moogfest, which happens for the first time in Durham next month. The county subsequently matched those […]