A special congrats goes out to The Select Group who recruited me for my current job (which I am really enjoying). I can attest that they are working hard to achieve those growth numbers and it’s great to see them get some recognition for their efforts! Congrats, you guys and to all who made the list!

Here’s the first entry in what I hope becomes a regular feature here on raleighing.com, Raleighing Raves.  Occasionally, I’ll pick a topic and list my own personal favorites in the area.  First one up is the beloved yet oft undervalued sandwich.  There are a bunch of great sandwiches available here in Raleigh but I’ve narrowed my list down to 5.  I’m leaving out burgers as to me that’s a whole separate genre.  So, without further ado, here are my top 5 favorite sandwiches in order:

1. ABC – The Rockford
   The first time I saw this sandwich on The Rockford’s menu I was certainly intrigued, but not sure I even wanted to give it a try.  Apple, Bacon, and Cheddar?  Really?  With battered bread and powdered sugar?  Just sounded like a bit too much for me.  Well, luckily I did give it a try and many years and many visits later I have yet to eat another sandwich at The Rockford.  I’m getting hungry now just thinking about it.  Sure, it’s a heart-attack of a meal, but so worth it.
2. Chicken Salad (Clay’s Favorite) on Pita – Sunflowers
   I love chicken salad, both traditional and non-traditional.  While I love the basic chicken salad on wheat toast at Tookie’s, Sunflowers’ chicken salad with grapes and pecans is incredible, especially when paired with their pita.  The chicken is sliced into chunks which gives it a good consistency.  While not listed in the ingredients on the menu, I taste a hint of lemon in the mix which mixes well with the sweetness of the grapes and the savory of the pecans.  Unfortunately, you can’t get the pita bread at dinner (not sure why) so you’ll have to go with the sunflower bread as dictated on the menu which is still good.
3. Cuban – Raleigh Times
   Raleigh Times made some great changes to their menu in the past months.  The best addition, in my opinion, is their Cuban sandwich: roasted pork loin, Black Oak ham, pickles, tomatoes with garlic aioli & mustard on pressed Cuban bread.  Yes, it is as flavorful as it sounds.  The mustard and pickles tangy, the ham sweet, the pork loin aioli savory all adding up to one tasty sandwich.  I love many other items on the RT menu, like the burger or the Country French salad, but I think this one is my favorite.
4. Turkey Berry Panini – Cafe Carolina
   Ok, so I’m seeing a trend here.  I obviously like a little sweetness in my sandwiches.  This one from Cafe Carolina has cranberry chutney along with smoked turkey, swiss cheese, coleslaw, and grilled sourdough.  It, too, has a great balance of savory, sweet, and tangy.  I also love the light crunch of the toasted bread.
5. Smoked Turkey Breast on Wheat – Village Deli
   My wife and I used to live in Cameron Village Condominiums and loved being near the Village Deli.  We’d have lunch there all the time and this sandwich quickly became a favorite.  It is a simple turkey sandwich made spectacular by their homemade Vidalia Onion Dressing.  If you’re getting one to go, make sure they put the dressing on the side as the sandwich will get pretty soggy if you don’t.

Ok, there’s my five.  There are some others that I’ll give honorable mentions to:  Tookie’s Chicken Salad on Wheat Toast, Tropical Smoothie’s Turkey Bacon Ranch, and Morning Times’ Apple Brie toasted.  So what are your local favorites?  Use the comments to let me know.  I’m always looking for new favorites!

1. Strawberries!!! Local strawberries that taste like strawberries, not like cardboard. You’ll never eat strawberries from the grocery store again.
2. Support local farmers and get to know them. Walk up and down the aisle and at each stall they call out to you, holding out a strawberry for you to sample. You can sample strawberries until they all start to taste the same, then you decide which stall to buy from according to other factors like which one had the cutest farmer boy or girl, or the friendliest grandfather/granny or the best stories.
3. Get out of the rain and under the open shelter and just gaze around at bright red strawberries and tomatoes, red-skinned potatoes, green asparagus, peppers, beans, and loads of blooming flowers of all colors, heavenly smelling herbs, and tall plants/trees/shrubs that will make you feel like you are in someone’s garden. You can get close to nature without getting wet.
4. You know how you get a bag of spinach at the grocery vowing to eat better and be healthy, but of course you go right on eating unhealthy, quick and easy food on the run? And a week later that bag of spinach in the produce drawer of your refrigerator has turned to a dark green glob of seaweed smelling like dead fish? And you have to throw it out. Well, last weekend I bought a huge bag of spinach from a farmer at the market, and it is still very nearly in the same shape as when I bought it, an entire week later–not even limp or wilted, still tender-crisp. Yes, I should have eaten it sooner but I am about to cook it now.
5. How did it last so long? No, the farmers don’t add special preservatives–this is fresh non-processed food picked just this morning–it lasts longer because the produce you get at the grocery is already about a week old by the time you buy it.
6. Not only is this produce more patient than the grocery’s, waiting and holding off decay until you have time to cook it, it tastes better (especially if you eat it right away!)
7. Now, here are two special farmers that are only at the market on weekends and are worth the trip there alone!
• L F C Honey A family from Hillsborough that keeps bees without using chemicals, and sells the best tasting honey, royal jelly, beeswax candles, and skin care items they make themselves. Their two long-haired sons handle the sales at the market and will tell you all about their mom who makes the wonderful lavender scented hand cream and orange scented lip balm from beeswax, oils, and other natural ingredients. No petrol! And their dad who keeps the bees and makes the candles from beeswax. The LFC stand for Little Flying Cows! Get it? Bees are little flying cows that produce the great stuff this family farm makes for us.
• In the Red Farmstead Cheese You have to go into the long shed for this one. Another family farm from Chinquapin, raising goats and pigs organically, chemical-free, allowed to roam. Their stall has a table loaded with samples of the best goat cheese I’ve ever tasted, arranged from the mild-but-delicious flavored and/or herbed (try the blueberry!) to spiced so hot and fiery people bring their friends and challenge them to try the one at the far end. This is a happy tiny space; everyone nibbling samples and swooning and some screaming and laughing and sweating, begging for water. I took home the rosemary and garlic cheese. Now that did not stay in my refrigerator for a week like the poor spinach. That little gem disappeared quickly, gone in just two days. I’ll go back for more. They also sell bread, chemical free sausage, eggs, and other organic items they grow themselves.

Have fun!

Raleigh State Farmer’s Market
1201 Agriculture St.
Raleigh, NC  27603

For those with a weak stomach, I still recommend it.  I am not at all strong-stomached and I was worried I’d be too queasy to make it all the way through.  But that ended up not being the case whatsoever.  It is just so incredible to see all the inner workings of the human body and the amazing displays somehow take on a very sterile quality.

Also, we definitely recommend paying for the Audio Tour which basically gives you a phone-like device into which you type the numbers displayed on many exhibits.  You are then given an audio explanation of that exhibit, which is much more informative than just the placards. 

The event is open from 10AM – 9PM Mon-Thurs, 10AM-10PM Fri-Sat, and 11AM – 7PM on Sun.  Tickets can be purchased here.  Enjoy!

The cross-section drawing of the Main Street looks promising with wide sidewalks and landscaped promenades on either side.  The plan encourages multi-storied buildings with the south side of the street being used for high-density residential and the north side for commercial development.  The goal is “a high intensity urban development pattern.”

This is the kind of development that is needed if Brier Creek is to truly be one of three regional centers as city planners have designated it.  But, while Brier Creek has mastered big box retail and chain restaurants, will a manufactured urban design concept be successful there?

What is a 24 Hour Comics Day?

Well, thankfully, for those of us not in-the-know, Chapel Hill Comics has a great explanation on their site with links to the 24 Hour Comics Day Headquarters page (who knew?).  If there is one thing I have learned since starting with Lulu, it’s that there are a huge number of comic artists out there who produce some of the most interesting and gorgeous books I have ever seen.  Not that I am a worthy judge as the comic book thing completely passed me by when I was young, but the talent and passion is evident even to an untrained eye like mine.

So, truck on over to Chapel Hill and sit a while… watch the art in action.  See how things change as they reach the 24 hour mark.  I can’t draw at all anyway, but I can’t imagine just how horrible I’d be after 24 hours awake…  Oh, and if you’d like a 5 minute condensed version of one of my fellow Lulus drawing an episode of his comic, Feral Chicken, head on over to Lulu.tv (WARNING: audio) and watch the video!

The much-discussed Soleil Center at Crabtree is shooting high, very high. We hear that the developers are beating the doors down trying to get a celebrity chef restaurant. That’s right; if they had it their way, there will be a restaurant by Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay, or the like. Whether or not we rank up there with the cities that have celeb chef restaurants remains to be seen. We can’t fault the developers for trying, though.

Just up the beltline, North Hills sits as the nearly finished product of high aspirations. The original plans for the project included a 240-room Renaissance hotel (by Marriott). The hotel plans were later downsized to 229 rooms as the Gold’s Gym pool was upgraded to satisfy Renaissance’s demands. The 4-star hotel’s groundbreaking has been pushed back numerous times; June being the most recent. With the North Hills project approaching its second birthday, curious minds want to know why a gravel and weed garden sits in the middle of a burgeoning retail district.

One rumor we heard earlier this year was that Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse would be brought in as the hotel’s signature restaurant. Nothing solid has developed yet and Kane Realty will neither confirm nor deny this plan. However we are now hearing from a few sources that the Renaissance deal may not happen at all and that the hotel will have to be operated under another flagship chain name.

I don’t know if this is true or not, but I would hate to see an aspiring project like North Hills having to settle for something like a Hampton Inn, for instance. I distinctly recall my first impression with Charlotte’s Phillips Place,"You mean with all of this they could only reel in a Hampton Inn?"

Several things about be at work here. Perhaps slow rentals in the Alexan have complicated the financial picture for the Renaissance’s development. Perhaps Kane Realty is waiting for the City of Raleigh’s decision regarding Kane’s special funding request for the development of North Hills East. Perhaps Renaissance is waiting for one of the other luxury hotels planned in Raleigh to balk. So far only Cary’s 5-star Umstead is actually being built. Construction on the convention center Marriott has not actually begun. The planned 20 stories of Westin Hotel at the Soleil center remain to actually be built.

Whatever the matter is Kane Realty is being suspiciously mum, but it is our sincere desire to see North Hills completed with its planned Renaissance Hotel. Raleigh is embarrassingly short on quality hotel experiences. While the planned burst in supply might make developers nervous, the demand still exceeds their plans.

map it (I-40/I-140 Intersection)

There are some fantastic images of the project on the web (more photos here). It appears that the basic form is now in place, and the interior workup is about ready to begin. The project’s deadline is August 1, so the remaining construction crews have their work cut out for them this summer.

The locker rooms in the Red Zone complex will be a vast improvement, however they don’t fix a vexing problem with the stadium’s master plan. In 2002 NCSU completed the construction of the Murphy Center which houses the football program’s offices, training facilities, locker rooms, museum, and more. It’s fronted by an impressive fountain/sculpture of three wolves (photo), by the way. Unfortunately the Murphy Center’s locker rooms were not built at field level, so the football team has to go down stairs and elevators to get to the field level tunnel. Movement of the entire football team back up to the locker room takes too long at halftime, so the team must use a dedicated halftime dressing room in the new Red Zone. Does anyone else think that perhaps the Murphy Center would have been better located in the North end zone?

While we’ll all have to ponder the logic of building two dressing rooms for one team, we all can certainly appreciate the maturation of Carter-Finley stadium from a vee of concrete in a cow pasture to a true wolves den. Now to see if we can ever make this ACC football arms race create more national respect for the original ACC teams…