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Hi! Happy weekend.
We have a new issue out on stands with a cover story about the new Locals Seafood market and processing center in East Raleigh. First off: the cover that INDY creative head Nicole Moore designed is beautiful (bewitching, even!); if you’re out and about and spot a newspaper rack, be sure to grab a copy.
Let’s start from the middle of writer Andrea Richard’s longform feature:
“For the uninitiated, prepare for a series of small shocks regarding the state of seafood: supply chain distribution is all over the map, quite literally. According to a recent New York Times article, 65 to 80 percent of seafood in the United States is imported, with exports netting around $5 billion a year.
The industry is likewise decentralized in North Carolina. Most of the seafood caught off the Tar Heel State’s coast is sent north, following already well-established distribution routes. That means the seafood you scarf down at the beach likely isn’t from there, and the best place to find North Carolina blue crab might be Maryland.”
A disquieting portrait of the seafood supply chain, to be sure, but Locals’ sprawling new center is good news for anyone who would prefer to eat blue crab from North Carolina’s coast, rather than from a coast 8,000 miles away. The new facility, as Richards writes, “triples Locals’ capacity to process North Carolina seafood and consolidates its operations close to I-40.”
Read on for chef Andrea Reusing and Ricky Moore’s reflections on the role of Locals Seafood, memories of chow-chow, and a comprehensive, lyrical look at the seafood industry in North Carolina.
Thanks for reading!
Michelene King pulls bonitos from the ice before processing them at the Locals Seafood market. Photo by Angelica Edwards.
elsewhere in the culture section
Happy Pride Month! On the first day of June, Duke Memorial United Methodist Church bell-ringer Katelyn MacDonald played Chappell Roan’s “HOT TO GO” on the bells. The sight (and sounds) of a pop song tolling through downtown from ancient bells, captured by a nearby apartment-dweller, racked up 7 million views on TikTok.
The story caught our interest (and many other media outlets); it also caught the attention of Chappell Roan, who is outspoken about her queer identity and LGBTQ rights, and who kindly responded to an INDY request for comment: “My jaw dropped,” she said in an audio recording, “I haven’t been that shocked in…probably ever. For the first time, it felt like my song was within the culture for the first time.”
It’s a fun story and given Durham’s reputation for being progressive, could easily be dismissed as just that. But LGBTQ rights are under increasing threat—consider this state-by-state index which ranks NC as a “notably high-risk” place for the LGBTQ community—and locally, church inclusivity of queer congregants has been hotly debated and Pride decorations have been trashed. The gesture matters; read more in the full story here.
Also: It’s a tough time for the arts, but several local artists and organizations are getting some much-needed funding: “We often talk anecdotally about the South being underfunded in so many critical areas like education and health care. The truth is that the arts are also incredibly underfunded,” Joy Young, vice president of programs at South Arts, told the INDY. “The arts are a conduit for learning and for understanding and for building bridges across communities. So funding the arts is funding an investment in people.”
And: What’s going on with the succession of recently shuttered Raleigh breweries? Juneteenth events around the Triangle. And more.
out and about in the triangle
Raleigh’s Longleaf Hotel got a Michelin nod. An ambitious Pinehurst podcast from our partners at the Assembly. 321 Coffee is opening in various Whole Foods across the Triangle. This is cool Ethnobotanist (and recent James Beard Award-winner) Danny Childs will be at Kingfisher on June 26 to talk about his book Slow Drinks and make cocktails featuring “North Carolina’s early summer bounty.” Beyu Caffe is closing (more on this soon). Hillsborough’s unique FlushFest runs next week. Durham’s Ella West Gallery has a new exhibition opening soon. The American Dance Festival is in full swing. An Axios interview with Raleigh interior designer Maggie Dillon.
out and about in the world
Public likes may have been disabled on Twitter but fear not, you can still see at least one person’s likes here! A few things I enjoyed from the Internet this week:
An interview with filmmaker Annie Baker. Beautiful portraits of Black Farmers in the Mississippi Delta. Radiolab on Aphantasia. The joy (?) of surfing on a mechanized wave at a giant New Jersey mall. People who fight at dinner parties.
— Sarah Edwards —
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