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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Food News Food news: March 17
Posted By Tricia Childress on Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 8:00 AM
Upstream, 6902 Phillips Place, is featuring an Oyster Extravaganza with half-price Gulf Oysters from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. in the bar and lounge. $10 for dozen or $5 for a half.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Food News Nonna's Kitchen loves teachers
Posted By Kimberly Lawson on Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 1:38 PM
This just in from Nonna's Kitchen (828 E. Morehead St.):
In order to show our support for our teachers, Nonna's Kitchen will offer 20% off all sandwiches, salads, and entrees from March 16-21 for Teacher Appreciation Week. We do not believe in job cuts in education and want you to know that we stand behind our teachers. If you have any questions, please feel free to call us at 704-333-4499
Three-Course Spiel Meet restaurant owners Sam and Maria Housiadas
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:26 AM
After 22 years at Athens Restaurant, the beloved Uptown diner that closed in 2006, former co-owner Serafim “Sam” Housiadas and his wife Maria found a new culinary home at the Shuffletown Drive-in near Mountain Island Lake in northwest Charlotte. Both Greek immigrants, they learned to love food by spending time with their family in the kitchen.
Creative Loafing: What do you like to eat?
Maria: We love to cook. Sam does the cooking here, but I cook at home. As much as we love the food here, I try to cook a little bit healthier at home: more vegetables, leaner meats. In the summer, we have a small garden.
What brought you to Charlotte?
Sam: I grew up in a small town exactly 292 km from Athens, Greece. The first time I came here was Nov. 2, 1975. I didn't speak English, but language was never a barrier; everyone was very kind. I moved to New York, met and married Maria and we returned with our daughter on March 27, 1982.
Maria: My family emigrated from Greece when I was about 6 years old. My father owned Hastings Center Restaurant in Hastings on Hudson, NY.
Do your children also work in the food industry?
Sam: They have all worked in the restaurants and our youngest, Kosta, 24, still does.
Maria: My father moved to this country with only a fifth-grade education. He was successful, but he worked really hard. It was his wish that all of his children be educated. Two of our children, Joanna, 27, and Athan, 25, are out of college and have their own jobs. Kosta graduates in the spring. Their plan is to stay in their own field, but they know this is always here if they need a fallback. We'd love to keep the restaurant in the family, but we'll see what happens.
Jaclyn Letizia
Posted By Web Editor on Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:20 AM
Jaclyn Letizia is a spring 2009 intern at Creative Loafing. She will be graduating in May from Queens University of Charlotte with a major in Journalism. She has a passion for reading and writing and tries to incorporate both into her life as much as possible. Jaclyn also loves to shop, which seems to benefit everything in her life except her bank account. She has truly enjoyed working at Creative Loafing and contributing to their blogs Eat My Charlotte and Klepto.
email: backtalk@creativeloafing.com
Ciara Lilly
Posted By Web Editor on Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:18 AM
It is an undeniable fact that writing is her gift, and this is one gift she intends on sharing with the world. Ciara Lilly is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina. She moved to Charlotte to pursue her B.A. in English, with a minor in Journalism, at UNC-Charlotte in August 2007. As her collegiate career soon concludes, she plans on continuing to knock down the doors of opportunity to ensure her success. In her case, the question isn’t if she is ready for the real world, but whether the real world is ready for her?
email: backtalk@creativeloafing.com
Liquid Diet Wine for pizza night: Melini 2006 Chianti Classico Isassi
Posted By Taylor Eason on Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 9:29 AM
A perfect wine for anything tomato-based since the acidity and fruit meld nicely together. Chianti is made predominantly from the sangiovese grape (at least 80 percent) and nowhere on earth does it produce better wines than in Italy’s Tuscany.
The Isassi moniker indicates the grapes originated from a single vineyard and the Classico part of this equation means the fruit comes from an area deemed “better” and must follow certain blending and aging rules. I’ve tasted plenty of basic Chiantis that kicked Classico’s ass, but this one, well … it’s pretty freakin’ good.
Tuscan producer Melini has had more than 300 years to get the basics of Chianti down. And thev’re succeeded. This wine is uber dry and medium-bodied with dusty cherry, strong brewed tea, ripe plum, earthy mushroomy-ness and plenty of food-friendly acidity.
Definitely old-world in style but tomato-based food brings out the fruitiness.
More on Italian wines:
Sicilian wines: There’s more to this island than the Godfather
Italian tall, dark and tannin wines
Italy: the land of wine and olives
— Taylor Eason
Food News Food news: March 16
Posted By Tricia Childress on Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 8:00 AM
New at Zink American Kitchen, 201 N. Tryon St., is a value priced wine list featuring domestic vineyards exclusively, including some boutique wineries. None of the bottles cost more than $99.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Food News Food news: March 13
Posted By Tricia Childress on Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 8:00 AM
Some of you may remember Chef Chris Zion, a graduate of the Cordon Bleu in Paris, who owned the Meeting House in Myers Park and Oneo Bistro in south Charlotte. For years he worked in a corporate dining room, but has re-emerged at The Wine Shop at Foxcroft, 7824 Fairview Road. He and owner Conrad Hunter have launched a series of wine dinners. The first is an Italian wine dinner on Tuesday, March 17 at 7 p.m. The menu includes a morel and asparagus salad with truffle vinaigrette with a 2007 Cantina di Taburno, Falanghina (Campania); pan-seared skate wing, spinach, and saffron sweet clam lemon sauce with 2006 Occhipinti, Siccagno, Nero d’Avola (Sicily); braised veal cheek with potato gnocchi and tomato ragout with 2004 Marina Cvetic, Montepulciano (Abruzzi); and a fig and goat tartlette with Campbello Vin Santo (Tuscany). The cost is $50, exclusive of tax and gratuity. 704-365-6550.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Tricia Childress
Posted By Web Editor on Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 2:38 PM
Tricia Childress has been the food writer for Creative Loafing since September 1995. Raised in Massachusetts’ Berkshire Mountains; Atlanta, Georgia; and the urban NYC metropolitan area, Childress also has lived in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Cairo, Egypt, traveling extensively both nationally and internationally, visiting grocery stores, markets, locally owned restaurants and wineries wherever she travels. She is admittedly addicted to cheese, whether goat cheese made by a former nun on a small farm in New Hampshire or the magnificent Epoisses de Bourgogne from Burgundy, France. Childress is also an Assistant Professor at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, where she teaches Food Writing, the only university-level food writing course taught in the Southeast. Her memorable cuisine events include a dinner produced by a young Wolfgang Puck in Hong Kong; a lobster roll at Red’s Eats in Maine; and a Barossa wine dinner in Adelaide, Australia. She began her love affair with wine after tasting an 1869 Madeira while a teenager and now has a weakness for Shiraz, New Zealand savvies, French burgundies, and California chardonnays. Childress recently graduated with distinction (the highest form) from the challenging intermediate level of the WSET (Wine and Spirit Educational Trust) – one (albeit small) step toward the coveted Master of Wine designation.
Priscilla Tsai
Posted By Web Editor on Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 2:20 PM
Priscilla grew up in Lexington, MA and migrated south to attend college. She graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2004 with a degree in Journalism - Visual Communication, and a concentration degree in Computer Science. After working four years as a news designer for the Charlotte Observer newspaper, she now works for Creative Loafing as an Online Producer. She works to support her addiction to food -- eating it and making it. She loves to travel internationally and aims to eat her way around the globe. Her vacation photos always include a multitude of food shots. Locally, she runs her own amateur baking company - Sweet Stuff Cookies.
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Restaurant owner Tela Loli talks business
She makes it her goal that everyone who enters Le Peep’s doors has a pleasing, and filling, food experience.
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Charlotte chefs hit the road to help flood victims
Piedmont Culinary Guild is on its way to South Carolina today.
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Priscilla Tsai
