Tortas at Chubby Taco

One of my favorite places to eat these days is Chubby Taco. I go to the one off Lake Boone Trail, near the intersection with 440.

The food is delicious and inexpensive. My favorite is the El Mexicano Torta. Its a grilled style sandwich with beans, mayonnaise, tomato, lettuce and meat. I get their tinga, shredded chicken with BBQ flavor. It can be a little difficult to handle, so have a few napkins handy. It’s $6.

There are other meat combinations: shredded beef, carnitas, al pastor, carne asada and chili colorado. They offer other tortas: the Cubano and the Especial. The last is filled with the works. I have a friend who has ordered it several times. The Especial includes marinated pork, ham, chorizo sausage and sliced hot dogs, as well as the beans, lettuce and tomato.

They offer bags of chips for 50 cents and a variety of sauces. I would skip the beans and rice here.

The tacos are good. I usually add cheese, lettuce and tomato. The Chubbychangas are great, too.

Grabbing a seat at the Pit

Ed Mitchell‘s network television time has translated into a busy restaurant in downtown Raleigh.

I visited on a Saturday night with my wife and our friends Julia and Barry. For months, I had been trying to talk my wife into visiting the Pit and different things got in the way. My wife went in for a business meal and really enjoyed the ribs. That paved the way for our visit.

We hadn’t made reservations and when I checked Open Tables that morning, they were booked out. I called and they suggested that walks in are fit in as space becomes available.

We arrived around 5:30 and walked in to find a line. They offered a table in the bar, or a 30 minute wait. Our group opted for the bar.

Our server provided us a beer menu. Each of us picked something different. I had the Mother Earth IPA from Kinston; my wife tried the Shotgun Betty from Raleigh; Julia tried the French Broad from Asheville; Barry had the He’brew Messiah from San Francisco. Barry knew a little more about microbrews and described some differences as we each sampled the beers.

For the meal, I ordered the pulled pork and everyone else ordered the ribs.

The pulled pork plate is smoked and pulled form the bone, lightly seasoned with pepper vinegar. I had black eyed peas and cole slaw as sides. It was a large serving of BBQ. The meat had that good wood-smoked taste. There was little flavor from sauce, which you could add. They offered a pepper-vinegar sauce and sweet-tomato sauce. I sampled both and mainly used the pepper vinegar. It was delicious with the big chunks of well cooked tender BBQ. The pulled pork plate was $11.99.

Everyone else ordered the half rack of Baby Back Ribs. My wife had the sweet potato fries and seasoned vegetables. She loved it, but the portion was so large that she only ate about half. The half rack of Baby Back Ribs was $13.99.

To celebrate our first visit, the four of us split a serving of banana pudding. There was a large bowl with the usual pudding, bananas and wafers topped with an inch thick of marshmallow fluff and whipped cream sprinkled with sugar. Overly sweet, but quickly eaten.

We had a great meal. Valerie was our server and was very attentive.

I extracted a promise from my wife that we would be able to visit the Pit again and maybe sit in the dining room the next time.

The restaurant is located not far from the train station and just down from the new Raleigh Convention Center. The restaurant is at 328 W. Davie Street. The phone number is 919-890-4500.

Analyzing what we eat by what we click

New York Times reporter Kim Severson in the article “Butterballs or cheeseballs” writes that with millions of cooks seeking out recipes online, the culinary habits of a nation on its greatest food holiday can now be codified and analyzed.

Be sure to check the map to see how the top 50 recipe search terms plot out across the US.

Community rebuilds Soul Food Farm

New York Times reporter Christine Muhlke in the article “Barn Raising” writes that when a brush fire destroyed two chicken houses at Soul Food Farm in Vacaville, Calif., in September, killing 1,200 chicks that would have been cooked rather differently at Chez Panisse, Alexis Koefoed was sure her business wouldn’t survive.

Maira Kalman examines what we eat in the pursuit of happiness

On the New York Times opinion page, Maira Kalman in the article “And the pursuit of happiness” notes that since the beginning, Americans have connected the bounty of the land and goodness of lfie to democracy. She describes in words and pictures her visit to California to consider what we eat.

New Chicken Breed Survey

Mother Earth News writer Troy Griepentrog in the article “New chicken breeds and hybrid survey” notes that there are significant variations within breeds of chickens, each breed has a few characteristics that are common to almost all birds of that breed and they work to update information on birds with a survey.

NC Farmers on shaky ground

WRAL reporter Mike Charbonneau in the story “NC farmers remain on shaky financial ground” writes that a combination of oversupply of product, the down economy and feed prices driven up by ethanol production have many farmers on shaky ground.

Star Food Products to relocate, expand

An Alamance County food manufacturer is relocating its distribution operations from Kernersville to Burlington, a $2.2 million investment that will double its space and relocate about 20 jobs.

Burlington-based Star Food Products recently purchased about 75,000 square feet in the former Konica Minolta Manufacturing building off of Interstate 40/85, near Burlington-Alamance Regional Airport, for about $1.7 million from Biggerstaff and Crawley LLC, according to county real estate records.

Norman Mabry, Star’s president, said the Burlington space will become the new distribution center for the company, which manufactures and distributes food products such as chili, chicken salad and pimento cheese to grocers such as Family Dollar and Food Lion in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Mabry said Star will move out of a 35,000-square-foot distribution space it is leasing on Graves Street in Kernersville at the end of December.

Earth Fare offers pantry makeover

I heard from Maria DiLalla, the Raleigh Community Relations Coordinator
for the Earth Fare supermarket at Brierdale Shopping Center.

My daughter is home from Appalachian State University and she seems to have taken up residence at the Earth Fare in Boone. They’ve had a big influence on what she’s been eating of late. Home for break, she took us by there tonight.

Back to Maria DiLalla and her message:

I just wanted to let you know that Earth Fare is currently offering a Pantry Makeover, and I wanted to make sure you and your readers knew about it.

If you sign-up for the Healthy Journey at www.earthfare.com you will receive a coupon for a FREE Pantry Makeover.

Bring in peanut butter, jelly, soda, cereal or salad dressing that do not follow the Earth Fare food philosophy (earthfare.com/FoodPhilosophy.aspx), and exchange them for Earth Fare products that do!

Items can be open or unopened. The coupon is required to receive the offer.
It’s a wonderful deal, and a great way to get rid of commonly used products with trans-fats & high fructose corn syrup.

I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks Maria. You can reach her at 919-433-1390.

Difficult times for former ConAgra workers in Garner

News and Observer reporter Mandi Locke in the article “Holiday dismal for ConAgra suvivors” writes that five months after an explosion rocked ConAgra Foods’ Slim Jim plant, the blast still reverberates in the lives of those who depended on the plant.