Indy Week

The Best of Summer

It's so hard finally deciding to call in that rototiller strike, like a drone attack, from the shed to clear the expanse. A generous, wormy, thriving raised bed, it's all still so green. But the spinach has bolted, and last year's parsley outlived this spring's wild potato plants, even though its alien tubers now spread, octopuslike, toward open space. Somewhere in California someone has figured out a new dish using all the parts of veggies and herbs well past their prime. That's the circle o...

Facebook and Amendment 1

Hunched over my computer, fingering a touchpad streaked with oily prints, I read about President Obama's support of gay marriage - Newsweek heralds him as "The First Gay President" on the May cover. The Newsweek cover troubles a Facebook friend; she reads it as conflating race and sexuality in order to mobilize racism and homophobia. Our first black president is also our first gay president: Race has always been sexualized, and African-American masculinity is often challenged I "like" her com...

Good Deal

No one needed an assist or introduction for the conversation's final player, [Doc Watson]. In fairness, at the age of 89, Watson had died six days before in Winston-Salem of surgical complications, a little less than a month before he was scheduled to play at the North Carolina Museum of Art, about a mile down the road from where we men sat My dad had read his obituary in the newspaper and gleaned that Watson's guitar style was a transformative marvel; my aunt's friend had worked at Wilkes Co...

A Long and Happy Life

[Reynolds Price] died on Jan 20, 201 1, leaving behind 38 books, a half-century of teaching at Duke and a wide circle of family and friends. He also left the partial manuscript of his fourth volume of memoir, which he titled Midstream and which Scribner, his longtime publisher, released last month. Though it's subtitled "An Unfinished Memoir," it feels whole, a fitting coda to a long and fruitful career. My father, William Price, is Reynolds' only brother (eight years his junior), and I worke...

Now Serving

"The chefs are told [the secret ingrethent] at high noon the day of the battle," says Susan Dosier, a media representative for the series. "Their cell phones are confiscated and they are given no lifelines, no outside contact Al 7 o'clock the food goes out One time the secret Ingrethent was N.C catfish, and they [made] cool Napoleons featuring catfish for dessert." "You think, if you've tried these restaurants, you'll know who made what" Dosier says. "But we have had [chefs'] husbands and wiv...

Operators Are Standing By

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but once the Perfect Meatloaf Pan or Professional Pineapple Slicer arrived, it didn't take long to tire of it You thought it would be larger. Or shinier. Or better made. It looked nicer on TV, under the bright lights and in the soft, deft hands of the host Then you discovered you didn't really like meatloaf. You didn't buy that many whole pineapples, preferring to get them cut and canned by a company named Dole. Before QVC and the Home Shopping Network,...

Champion Beers: Worth the Splurge

Honors for other styles from that part of the world, however, were taken by Maryland, Russia and Italy - Mein Gott! If you want to taste the malty, amber style known as Vienna, Clipper Gry brews a great example with Heavy Seas Märzen Vienna Lager. One of the top South German-style hefeweizens comes from St Petersburg: Baltika N°8 Wheat, from the Baltika Breweries. And the silver medal kellerbier (fresh, effervescent lager as it would taste straight from the cask) is VWEMILIA (Via Emilia), fro...