Pigs do fly in Charlotte

Last summer, food writer John T Edge came through working on a story about Charlotte for Garden & Gun magazine. I took him around several places to get a taste of what's happening around here these days.

We started his trip with a quick lunch meetup at the Diamond, where I remember tucking into the hot pimento cheese dip. And a plate of . . . "hey, John T -- does that menu really say 'pig wings?'"

Indeed it did. They turned out to be little bones with a nub of tender white meat on one end. And we enjoyed them very much. Later in his trip, he alerted me to another pig wing sighting at Mac Speedshop.

Edge does get around. And apparently, he has since found pig wings in a lot of other places around the country. He also found a story in this week's New York Times food section, about the pig wing phenomenon (remember the Times only gives you limited downloads for free). It includes Mac's, although not the Diamond.

I'd love to play with cooking pig's wings, but I haven't seen them for sale in supermarkets. If you have a source for them, let me know.

Photo: Culinate.com

Garden & Gun gets taste of Charlotte

If you haven't encountered the excellent Charleston-based magazine Garden & Gun (yes, Trad, that's the name), you might want to make a point of tracking down the October/November issue:

Not only does it focus on great food finds all over the South, but Southern food expert John T Edge took a close look at food here in the Queen City. Edge came through for several days earlier in the summer and I was one of his guides for a couple of mealtimes. The boy moves fast. It took several of us, including Tom Hanchett, to keep up with his dining schedule. The article includes King's Kitchen, Brook's Sandwich House, Halcyon, Reids, Harvest Moon and a bunch of other places.

The final article is a thoughtful picture of cuisine as it exists right here, right now. And speaking of pictures, yes, that's me, in my kitchen with the red cabinets. Photographer Squire Fox (yes, Trad, that's his real name) was very kind and only used the flattering lens, as promised.

They keep most of the current issue off the web site until the print issue has been out for a while, so you'll need to look for it on news stands for the time being. Otherwise, the web site is www.gardenandgun.com.

Tom Hanchett is a smart fellow in The Times

In this morning's New York Times, John T. Edge explores the ethnic food diversity of the suburbs of Indianapolis with the help of Dr. Tom Hanchett of Charlotte's Levine Museum of the New South.

Hanchett rode along with Edge during the reporting and supplied insight on why suburbs can be just as exciting and diverse as urban areas:

Hanchett, writes Edge, "coined the useful term 'salad bar suburbs' in 2008 to describe post-World War II suburbs, where 'newcomer and native-born intermingle without ethnic boundaries.'"

There's a lot more, but the gist is that what is really interesting in cities isn't what's going on in the downtowns, it's what's going on in the outer rings, where empty malls and abandoned big-box sites become mixtures of new populations and entrepreneurs.

It's smart reading to start your Thursday morning. As Hanchett says in the story, "The grownups don't usually know this is going on. . .. When they don't see a Chinatown, they see nothing."