Relay Foods

As evidenced from an earlier post: I love farmer's markets.

There's a palpable energy there, from the convergence of shoppers and vendors. Regional farmers and artisan food-makers. Crafters and musicians. Dogs and baby strollers.

Sometimes dogs IN baby strollers.

But most of all, I love the treasure trove of edible goods that can be discovered all in one location on a weekend morning. I live for the joy of filling my grocery bag with locally grown vegetables, small-batch peanut butter and hand bottled pasta sauce. 

Local goat cheese sample? Pass the crackers. Hot pepper jelly? I'll take a small jar. Vegan cheese spread? Sounds oxymoronic, but what they hey!

Unfortunately, here's the all too common problem I run into with my farmer's market patronage: actually getting myself to market to buy these great things. 

Most markets in the area are only open for a few hours on Saturday mornings. So if I'm not in town or can't carve out time in my Saturday morning schedule (may or may not correlate to Friday evening activities...) I miss out on a weeks worth of local food enjoyment. 

Sad face.

BUT, a fortunate encounter at Raleigh HQ on First Friday revealed a brilliant solution to this problem: Relay Foods.

Imagine with me for a second: an online marketplace where you can browse food by category (fruit, vegetable, bakery, dessert, meat, etc.) add and remove items from your virtual cart, select your pick up day, time and location and pay for your order. All from the living room couch (potentially in your fuzzy bunny pajamas).

Well that's exactly the service that Relay Foods is looking to provide, but with a deliberate focus on supporting a local food community by connecting shoppers with quality, healthy and sustainable foods.

They offer locally farmed produce, milk, cheese and meats, as well as other Triangle area food items including: Cackalacky Spice Sauce, Big Spoon Roasters nut butter, and Nello's Pasta sauce. 

This means my farmer's market bounty can be assembled, bagged and waiting for pickup after work on a Tuesday evening.

With a huge smile on my face.

Relay is new to the Triangle (since the end of June 2014) but traces its history as a startup back to 2010 in Charlottesville, VA. As of now, there are 24 different North Carolina producers selling their products on Relay Foods, with that number to grow as business does in the area. Pickup locations (14 in all) are spread throughout Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, with home delivery also available for a higher fee.

After learning about them, naturally I had to give Relay the ol' college try. I browsed the website for some enticing NC products (Nello's Hot Pepper Pasta Sauce and Chapel Hill Creamery's Calavander aged cheese are a match made in heaven) along with regional flair from north of the state line (Bombolini spinach fettuccine out of Richmond, VA: you look great sitting in my cart). Add in some organic broccoli for a dose of greenery, choose my pickup location and payment method, and just like that my order was ready. 

That Tuesday, on my way home from work, I stopped by Sam's Bottle Shop in Durham to collect my edible bounty. I gave my name to the friendly Relay employee manning the delivery truck, she gathered all my items, paper bagged them and I was on my way.

Farmers Market: if you're reading this, don't be jealous. Nobody's taking me away from your Saturday morning goodness.

But there's no question Relay Foods will expand my appreciation and ability for local food buying and eating.

What's not to love about that?

Interested in giving Relay a try for yourself? Use the link below to get $30 off your first order of $50 or more:

https://www.relayfoods.com/friend/K3L9QP

Monuts Reopens in Durham

I would say like most breakfast-loving Durhamites, I had a love/hate reaction to the announcement that Monuts was temporarily closing while they moved from their original Parrish Street location to a new spot down on Ninth street.

I loved that the former doughnut cart had done so well in its first brick and mortar, it was able to spread its glazed, sesame sprinkled wings into a bigger space.

I hated that I'd be without their donuts for several weeks.

I loved that the new digs were breathing life into the former Magnolia Grill building, conjuring up delicious memories of a trendsetter in the now vibrant fine-dining scene in Durham.

I hated that I'd be without their donuts.

I loved the teasers they were dropping on social media of an expanded menu, with new offerings for breakfast, lunch, dinner and cocktail hour.

I hated... OK this is making me sound a bit doughnut obsessive.

But no sooner than I began to wallow in my own doughnut-less self pity, Monuts opened their newly polished doors for business: bigger and better than ever.

The difference in size between old and new is immediately evident. But while the Parrish Street storefront was short on standing space and seating capacity, the exposed brick walls and massive street-front window gave the spot a charmingly cozy feel that I feared would be lost in a square footage upgrade. 

My stop in for breakfast on opening week proved this worry to be misguided. Monuts has taken full advantage of the added space, while keeping alive the intimate community feel from their first storefront. 

String lights line the walls and ceiling. Large wooden booths, communal table and expansive bar invite hungry patrons to grab a seat and stay awhile. Donut-themed art and Children's book prints adorn the walls, while tiny plants and funky-fine china line the window sills. 

But what had me giddier than a 5 year old hopped up on an extra large chocolate glazed with sprinkles? The new Monuts menu. 

Now, in addition to the ever-changing donut selection and create-your-own bagel sandwich options, there's biscuits, there's salads, there's full plate entrees, there's daily soups, there's cocktails, there's draft beer. Doors are open 7 AM - 9 PM, and the first few weekends have even featured some awesome looking brunch specials. 

The expanded staff have had their hands full with the restaurant's early popularity (there's been a steady line stretched by the bar every time I've been in), but it moves quickly and all employees are just as friendly and welcoming as they were back on Parrish street (pro tip: if the line up front is too daunting, you can order food at the bar too. Go ahead and get a beer while you're at it...)

Welcome to my new obsession.

Running Durham: Al Buehler Trail

Buehler...? Buehler...?

I don't think there's any relation to Ferris, but that doesn't mean the Al Buehler Cross Country trail in Durham isn't a great way to spend a day off.

Probably my favorite place for cardio (of all kinds!) in the Bull City, this gravel route has it going on.

The three mile loop around the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Course features: scenic views of golf holes and pond, excellent forested tree cover (for shade in the summer, rain canopy in the spring), and plenty of friendly folks to encounter along the way (dog walkers, stroller walkers, bikers, joggers, Duke Divinity students pondering the inner workings of modern religion...)

The course is moderately hilly (including one MASSIVE hill about halfway through. Just remember: hills build character), and the total distance is great for 5K training or just getting out in nature for a bit.

If you're looking to take this trail for a spin, there's parking off Cameron Blvd.

Playing hooky is optional.

First Friday in Raleigh

Oh beautiful Friday.

The most anticipated day of the work week gets even better the first week of every month. That's because downtown Raleigh's cultural and artistic hot-spots are teeming with free food samples, local craft vendors, wine, beer and live music.



Organized by the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, First Friday is a fantastic opportunity for Triangle citizens and visitors to enjoy a self-guided tour of local art galleries, studios, museums and other alternative venues.

A walk around December's iteration of First Friday included: Crank Arm brew and local vendors inside HQ Raleigh (including great talks and pumpkin bread samples from Relay Foods), wine and beer while admiring new exhibits at CAM,  hot cocoa and local fashion at Raleigh Denim Curatory and great music with no cover (and $4 Foothills beer special) at The Pour House.

Keep up with featured events for the next First Friday, on January 2nd, and start the New Year celebrating all varieties of Raleigh art and culture!

Local One-Stop Holiday Shopping

With the gift-giving season heavily upon us, I've been brainstorming about the perfect somethings for each person on my holiday list. To me, nothing says "You're worth more than a gift card from the check-out line at Wal-Mart" better than merch from a local business.

Luckily for Triangle residents, there are PLENTY of fine independent establishments at which to do your holiday shopping. And three of those great places are located side by side by side on East Franklin Street in Raleigh.

Fabulous trifecta of local shops in Raleigh:
Wine Authorities, Edge of Urge and Lumina Clothing Co

Sampling pours at
Wine Authorities

Cheers to self-service

For the Foodie:

Shopping for the tastebuds of that special someone? Wine Authorities has you covered. They focus on stocking estate grown wines from different regions around the world (estate: meaning a family-owned winery that grows all the grapes that go into the final product).

Inspiration from the Capital City

The more time I spend in Raleigh, the more I'm inspired by the stuff going on in the Capital city.

The recent influx of young entrepreneurs, artistic expression, and community-focused development in the past few years is sprouting a seemingly endless supply of Raleigh spots worth exploring.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to take an entire day perusing the city (accompanied by an extremely patient girlfriend), and got to check off a few things that had been on my Raleigh to-do list for quite a while.

Here's how the day unfolded:

Tom Shields's Forest of Chairs brings

wooden furniture back to their natural habitat

First stop was the North Carolina Art Museum's sprawling outdoor art walk: Art in the Park. 

NCMA commissions artists to create pieces that are interlaced with the natural surroundings, stretching across 30 acres of land between Blue Ridge Road, Wade Ave and 440. 

Varying in size, scale and subject matter, the Art Park exhibits sparked some great ideas and conversation, while we tried to decipher the artist's message about society and our current role interacting with nature. There were also some cool old chairs hanging out in trees.

We wandered through the Art Park trails, back up towards the NCMA main buildings, and came across the Rodin Sculpture Garden. 

Triangle Food Trucks: Pie Pushers

"How do you guys add a local egg to pizza?" a customer in front of me asked at the Pie Pushers trailer window. "Basically we fry an egg and stick it right on top of the slice, it's pretty great."

I would wholeheartedly agree.

Whether it's the enjoying the Breakfast Slice with a local egg perched on top at the Durham Farmers market, or chowing down on the State of Nirvana post Fullsteam Run club, Pie Pushers serves up slices that are far from the ordinary cheese and pepperoni

(purists fear not! they have those classics too).

Breakfast in Raleigh: Boulted Bread

While Durham could be considered the bakery capital of the Triangle, Raleigh has a very promising newcomer that's risen onto the local bread landscape: Boulted Bread.

Originally only available for pick-up orders or at farmers markets, Boulted Bread now has a storefront location serving up coffee, fresh pastries, and of course, bread.

After reading this great Indy article about the trio who started the shop, I had to stop in and check out Boulted for myself. And what better time to visit a bakery than at breakfast?

Sunflowers and Dell Curry

Walking into Boulted, your eye is immediately grabbed by the front display case, which is overflowing with croissants (plain, savory and sweet) breakfast breads and all manner of delicious looking baked goods.

Monday Boozin' on the Cheap: Lilly's Pizza in Raleigh

It was a happy accident that I found myself at Lilly's last Monday night (after checking out a new brewery in Five Points), but it lead to an amazing discovery:

Lilly's has $2 drafts on Monday's. 

Their pizza alone is good enough to cure even the worst case of the Monday's, but pair that with $2 beer and you might just forget how far away the weekend is.

Take note of the sensual pizza kiss

Big Star: Pesto, mozzarella, Parmesan, Gorgonzola,
fontina, roasted red peppers and pistachios 

"And it rules us all..."

Being a Durham resident, I'm veryyy familiar with the Lilly's Pizza in Brightleaf Square, but had never been to the Raleigh iteration before this visit. While the Glenwood Lilly's is significantly smaller than it's sister restaurant in the Bull City, it makes up for its lack of size in edgy character.

Drinking Raleigh Beer: Nickelpoint Brewing Co.

Big shout out to raleigh what's up? on her great post about new things to check out in Raleigh this month, which inspired me to pay a visit to the new kid on the Raleigh-beer-block: Nickelpoint Brewing Co.

English IPA

Beer Happy

Meeting of the Minds

Although their taproom just opened in the Five Points neighborhood, according to their website the brewery was founded in 2013.

Nickelpoint focuses on traditional English Style beers, which was evident when I visited, as they had a Blonde Ale, English IPA and Porter on tap. There was also a higher ABV Double Barley Steak Cake Stout, which I almost had to order just on principal of the name being boss.

Free Sunday Yoga in Durham

Leave it to Fullsteam, Durham's all purpose space for food truck gatherings, run club meet-ups, cheesy movie screenings and various local shenanigans, to casually morph a brewery into a Sunday morning yoga studio.

Breath deep the aroma of hops
and malted barley

I've been on a bit of a yoga kick recently, especially free sessions, and decided to check out Flow Yoga at the Brewery. The class meets Sundays at 10 45 AM and is open to all experience levels (just be sure to bring your own mat).

Wednesday Boozin' on the Cheap

Sometimes you need a little liquid encouragement to push you over the Hump(day). Two places in Durham to enjoy great beer on the cheap and celebrate the end of mid-week: Motorco and Surf Club.

Both are located on Rigsbee Avenue (aka the Fullsteam neighborhood).

Motorco features Pint Night on Wednesdays, with select discounted brews on draft, displayed below in chalk.

Pair a cheap beer with a Free Hug

Free Yoga and (not free, but Tasty) Hot Dogs

Starting last night (08/27/14) and every Wednesday through September 24th, City Plaza in Raleigh is host to free Yoga held on the turf adjacent to Happy and Hale. 

It will feature instructors from different Yoga studios around the Triangle, and if the inaugural session is any indicator, is a great way to relax your body and mind while being outside to bask in the late summer/early fall evening weather. 

Free Yoga in the open air

Friday Beer?

It's Friday afternoon. The clock is inching further away from noon, and ever closer to 5. I find myself expectantly glancing at the screen of my iPhone, waiting for the text message to brighten the display.

"Friday beer?"

Dale's Pale Ale at Sam's Quik Shop

Big Boss Run Club

Running and Beer. At one time in my life I considered these to be two vastly different entities.

Running is a form of exercise, improves heart and cardiovascular health, strengthens leg muscles, burns calories and can aide in weight loss.

Beer is a tasty beverage created via brewing and fermentation, is alcoholic, consuming it does the opposite of burn calories and can aide in the emergence of the 'beer belly'.

But as I've grown to enjoy both beer and running separately, I see how they are actually pretty similar in a lot of ways. Both are used to de-stress and clear the mind, both are pretty healthy activities in moderation, both promote social interaction and spawn mini communities that come together specifically to enjoy their chosen interest as a group.

I wrote an earlier post about experiencing the running and beer loving communities overlap at Durham's Fullsteam Run Club. Recently I decided to check out another brewery-based running meetup, Raleigh's Big Boss Run Club.

Raleigh State Farmers Market

Full Disclosure: I already have a pretty major obsession with farmers markets.

The co-mingling of people, produce, baked goods, homemade jellies/jams/pickles, dogs and babies on a sunny Saturday morning never fails to put me in a great mood that can last an entire weekend. But while I've made many trips to the Carborro and Durham markets, I had yet to experience what NC's capital city market had to offer.

I'm happy to say I was not disappointed by my first visit there.

Shoppers peruse the array of fresh
fruits and vegetables

El Cuscatleco

Never judge a book by its cover...

But with certain restaurants, you can tell something special waits inside. Local spots that may not be much to look at, but the parking lot is always full and the crowds are overflowing. 

Hidden gems, hole-in-the-wall, Dives. Call them whatever you like, just be sure to check prejudgments at the door and channel an adventurous spirit.

El Cuscatleco in Durham is one of those places, and should not to be missed out on.

Cinco De Mayo Margarita

Toast

What's in a name? Toast Durham lets the writing on the wall set the stage for hungry patrons waiting in line.

Toast: to make bread crisp and brown by heat.

What a great verb. After enjoying a meal here, it's easy to understand why this term was chosen to be the namesake and wall decoration for this truly authentic Italian sandwich shop. Toast takes the action of crisping and browning to another level, elevating it into an art form.

Downtown Raleigh Food Truck Rodeo - May 4th

The first installment of the Raleigh Food Truck Rodeo series kicked off this past Sunday afternoon, and was the culmination of everything there is to love about the food truck scene in the Triangle.

Fayetteville Street was brimming with men, women, dogs, babies, strollers, a guy kicking fresh poetry freestyles in an all-white suit (food trucks are a powerful muse), all gathered together in order to bathe in the vast sea of food truck deliciousness.

FRESH. Ice Cream

I have a deep rooted attachment to ice cream.

According to family legend, a few days before I was born my mom polished off an entire pint of Rocky Road without batting an eye. I like to think that thanks to this ravenous pregnant appetite, my infant body developed an undeniable physiological need for ice cream, as if chocolate covered peanuts and marshmallow swirl now course through my veins alongside plasma and white blood cells.

I say all this to properly explain how excited I get at the prospect of eating ice cream, and how much MORE excited I get when I find a Triangle ice cream spot serving a quality product that's not only naturally made, but also locally sourced.

FRESH in Raleigh has me practically giddy.

Peanut. Butter. Cup.

Cafe Meridian

If having a lot of choices at lunchtime is something that overwhelms you, you may want to consider bringing a brown paper bag to Cafe Meridian. Deep breaths. You really can't make a bad decision. It'll be okay.

With a massive list of hot sandwiches, daily/rotating specials and more homemade sides than you will know that to do with, Cafe Meridian is certainly not lacking in menu variety.

BLT+ with Pesto Bowtie

Deli-icious Truck

Crab Quesadilla with Black Beans

@DeliiciousTruck

Putting the Deli in delicious (or is it the icious?), Deli-icious has more going for it than just cleverly hyphenated word play. 

This truck puts out a solid lunch spread that goes beyond standard deli style sandwiches.

Monuts Donuts

Carrot Cake Donut.
Up close and personal

Where: 110 East Parrish Street, Durham
Hours: Monday through Thursday 7 AM - 3 PM
Friday and Saturday 7 AM - 5 PM
Sunday: 8 AM - 3 PM
http://monutsdonuts.com/
@MonutsDonuts


A morning that starts at Monuts usually has a way of turning into a particularly awesome morning. Walking down Parrish street, anticipating the deliciousness that's just on the horizon, my mood is magically lifted by the prospect of expertly crafted sweet circles of fried dough.

Pizza Nite at Scratch

When: Wednesday nights, 5 - 8 PM
Where: Scratch Baking, 111 W Orange St, Durham, NC 27701
http://www.piefantasy.com/
@scratchbake

If you're familiar with Scratch Baking in Durham, it's probably because of their awesome pies. Sweet pies. The kind of pies that reward you for finishing all of your vegetables at the dinner table.

But recently I discovered that Scratch is expanding their pie repertoire into the savory realm. Pies topped with delicious sauce, melty cheese and an assortment of meats and veggies. 

I'm talking, of course, about the pizza pie.

Sam's Bottle Shop

Where: 1112 W. HWY 54, Durham, North Carolina 27705

Hours: Mon - Wed: 9:00 am - 9:00 pm

Thu - Sat: 9:00 am - 10:00 pm

Sun: 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm

@SamsBottleShop
https://www.facebook.com/samsbottleshop1

This past weekend I got to stop by Sam's new bottle shop, which recently had its grand opening April 10th. And let me say: I. Am. PUMPED for this new location.

Raleigh World Beer Festival

Triangle Beer lovers
enjoying the Lonerider Tent

Like a kid in a candy store.

An often overused phrase to describe a moment of extreme joy and excitement, but a phrase that immediately comes to mind when I think back to my emotions while attending The World Beer festival in Raleigh last year.

Booth upon booth of craft breweries as far as the eye can see. A bounty of kegs and bottles of delicious beer. A four hour window in which to sip, savor and sample to your hearts content.


The World Beer festival is an over 21 candy store.

Fullsteam Ahead!

Runners mingling in front of Fullsteam

One of the many things that I love about the Triangle is the extensive running community that thrives across the three cities. The area is a genuine treasure trove of outdoor trails, weekend races and running meet-ups. In Durham, my favorite running discovery over the past year is the Fullsteam Ahead! Run Club.

Organized and sponsored by Bull City Running Company (an excellent locally owned running supply store in South Durham), the club brings together runners of all shapes, sizes and skill levels.