The First Taste of Pizzeria Mercato

With brown craft paper still on some windows, Pizzeria Mercato made its long awaited debut on Friday. Located about as far from the Carrboro Farmers’ Market as one can roll a winter squash with gusto, the “soft opening” of the much anticipated eatery was an opportunity to test the menu before a friendly group of invited guests. Folks not only contentedly nibbled on free, exceptional pizza, seasonal appetizers and mind-blowing gelato but also put the young wait staff to the test. With the exception of a fourth pizza that arrived long after the first three, a miscommunication that inspired heartfelt apologies, the service was topped only by the pizza. And dessert. And the comfortably artsy decor.

But it’s the pizza that everyone is asking about, so here goes: With the foundation of a thin, chewy crust whose flavor suggests a long and slow fermentation, Pizzeria Mercato easily meets expectations of “artisan” quality. Small surprise from the folks that brought you Magnolia Grill, where Mercato Chef Gabe Barker used to take baby naps on the pastry bench.

Gabe’s confident manner in making pizza came not from the elder Barkers but rather from his stint at San Francisco’s renowned Pizzeria Delfino, where he worked before returning home last year to open his own shop. He adds a Delfino touch – a last-minute dressing of panna, a creamy, slightly sweet sauce – to several of the personal-sized pizzas on the menu.Gabe looks like a tall version of his mother, Karen Baker, and possesses dad Ben Barker‘s deft touch with spare, intensely flavored ingredients. This was immediately apparent from the warm, marinated and roasted olives ($6) and fritti ($8), tender and oozy pimento-cheese-stuffed rice balls that could have been a cliché in less able hands.

Listen to Gabe talk about his culinary venture in our latest podcast –> LISTEN HERE.

As its name suggests, Mercato’s menu will vary seasonally. On this night, options ranged in price from $13 for the Margherita to $17 for the Funghi, a mix of savory mushrooms. Each was carried fast enough from oven to table that the enticing aroma of char made burnt bubbles in the crust a particular delicacy.

In addition to the Margherita, our table enjoyed the Mustard Greens ($15), with fragrant fennel sausage; the Panna ($14.50), garnished with fresh, peppery arugula; and the Carbonara ($16.50), which featured a barely set farm egg atop guanciale, pecorino and a liberal grating of black pepper. If you don’t use some crust to scrape glistening yolk from the serving dish, shame on you.

Dessert options included a trio of ice cream flavors that suggested Karen’s creative signature. The creamy vanilla gelato was luscious, as was the espresso, which was loaded with crunchy chunks of chocolate. The showstopper, however, was a vegan lemon-coconut sorbetto. Everyone we observed who tried it wore the same stunned expression of delight.

Guests could not be blamed for being slightly distracted from the food by the setting, which features rustic chestnut tables and colorful bench seatbacks made from salvaged wood by Jeff Knight of Knight Woodworks and Seth Burch of Durham’s Hollow Rock Construction. Other craftsman finishes were produced by Brian Plaster Design of Carrboro, which created all the metalwork, from the pizza box holder to the bike rack.

This post first appeared in Chapel Hill Magazine.

F3: Fitness Fanatics

It's a cold, damp morning. There's little sign of life on Laurel Hill Drive, where homes are still dark and birds are just beginning to stir and sing with the rising sun.

As the sky brightens with vivid stripes of orange and gold, some 30 men round the corner from UNC's Outdoor Education Center. They are jogging briskly and calling out a military style drill, determined to start their day with muscle burning, mind clearing exercise.

 "It's important to me to be here with these guys," says Alex Miller, a founder of the Chapel Hill branch of the fast-growing, men-only Fitness, Fellowship and Faith organization, better known as F3. "Hot or cold, rain or snow, we're out here. The only reason we break from our routine is lightning."

Camaraderie and Accountability

Chapel Hill's F3 group was established in September 2013 based on the guidelines developed by the original Charlotte chapter, which launched in January 2011 as a registered nonprofit. Guys gather outdoors at dawn, allowing time to work out, clean up and get to their jobs. Programs at sites in Chapel Hill and elsewhere in the Triangle are available every day but Sunday.

The challenging sessions are free and led on a rotating basis by members, none of whom are fitness professionals. After running all the way down winding Laurel Hill, stopping frequently for vigorous calisthenics, they repeat the process on the way back. Several of the sweat-drenched members boyishly sprint the final yards uphill to see who can return to the parking lot first while others gratefully slow down.

No matter how they finish, the enthusiastic fellowship is infectious.

"For a lot of us, the community of male friendship goes away when we get busy with our careers and family," say Alex, a trim 39-year-old father of four who served as a mortar squad leader with the U.S. Army Infantry. "The camaraderie and accountability remind me of my time in the military. If I missed a few days at the gym, no one would care. If I miss a few days here, I get a calls from a bunch of guys wanting to know if I'm all right."

Alex appreciates that some men have misgivings about the group's unusual structure. "The biggest lie about F3 is that you have to be in shape to participate," he says. "The point of participating is to get in shape, and to build relationships with guys who also want to achieve the same goals of fitness and fellowship."

The other lie is that F3 is exclusively Christian, and that those who are not actively observant are not welcome.

"Involving friends and neighbors from all backgrounds is the one thing we're evangelical about," says Alex, who owns a government lobbying firm. "A lot of us work in very competitive fields where it's not OK to fail. But it is OK to fail here and to grow from the experience. It think that's a powerful thing for guys to know they won't be left in the dust."

An Initiation

This positive approach was a strong incentive for Keith Minton of Chapel Hill, who joined the group the week before Christmas 2014. "I wanted something more than another gym experience," says the 44-year-old financial advisor, who plans to flex his muscles helping fellow F3 members in home repair projects for neighbors in need. "I wanted something where I felt like it was important for me to show up and do my best."

When school is out, Keith sometimes brings his 9-year-old son, Colin, who grins as he's greeted with high-fives by his dad's peers. "It's fun," says the 3rd grader, whose passion for multiple sports earned him the F3 nickname Triple Threat. "They treat me like one of the guys."

Each of the guys earns a nickname, though Alex says not all of them like theirs as much as Colin likes his.

 "You're not supposed to like it, at first," he says, pointing to Keith's moniker as an example. He was dubbed "Soggy," a nod to the cold, rainy conditions on his first day.

Nicknames are doled out to new members at the end of each session, after everyone gathers in a Circle of Trust to introduce themselves and share news. Kris Ledford of Durham joined the group in September and was dubbed Elf after saying he works for Numotion, an Apex business that makes custom wheelchairs to improve mobility to persons with disabilities.

"I'm really glad I came today," Kris says, pausing to shake hands with members who encouraged him to return. "I'm one of those people who find it hard to get motivated about exercise, but I really feel great."

Walking the Walk

Chapel Hill F3 members consider community involvement as important as physical exercise. They've taken to wearing their collective big heart on their sleeves, literally, in  tribute to a founding member who is taking time off to deal with a serious medical issue. David Baddour's nickname of Lo Pair is referenced by the initials LP on the sleeve of the logo sportswear many members wear.

"For me, it started out 100 percent as a workout only, but I've learned that it's much more than that," says the grateful David, son of retired UNC Athletic Director Dick Baddour. "Knowing that you have a group of guys that have your back when things get a little rough, which happens to all of us, is a big deal. It has given me a tangible way to fight, and these guys are right there with me, shoulder to shoulder."

 This post first appeared in the January/February 2016 issue of Chapel Hill Magazine.

Town lore: Crook’s Corner’s honeysuckle sorbet

This blog was first published by Chapel Hill Magazine.

Most nights in May, right around 6 p.m., Bill Smith walks out the side door of Crook’s Corner with an iced pitcher concealing a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. He heads directly across the street then down a path leading to a tangle of plants and weeds that sprout from the broken asphalt of an abandoned parking lot.

As he approaches a lush thicket one warm Friday night, the humid air hangs like a curtain. Step through it and you’ll be enveloped in the rich perfume of honeysuckles – an aroma so transporting that it instantly beckons forth childhood memories of pulling out the delicate stamens to reveal tiny beads of nectar.

“Sometimes, when the pitcher gets full of blooms, I just like to close my eyes and breathe in the aroma,” Smith says, leaning in as if nosing a snifter of fine cognac. “I’m amazed every time how intense it is.”

It’s not usual for this ritual to attract a crowd. This sultry night draws a young man on a bicycle who rolls in to inspect the harvest. He pauses to pull back his dreadlocks to cool his neck and ask what happening. “We pick these to make sorbet,” Smith says, launching in a polite speech delivered a hundred times each spring.

“That’s really cool that you make something with these,” the fellow says, inhaling deeply as he surveys the seemingly endless supply of weedy blooms. “They smell so good. It must be wonderful.”

It is. Smith’s honeysuckle sorbet is a true rite of spring at Crook’s Corner, the Chapel Hill landmark where whispers and hopeful online postings routinely draw room-filling crowds. Even though the recipe is posted in Smith’s celebrated 2005 book, Seasoned in the South (Algonquin Books), and available from several online links, fans prefer to enjoy it made by the hand of the master.

“It’s part of town lore,” Smith says with an amused shrug and a swig of PBR. “Sometimes, when people hear it’s available, it’s like a riot in here. It’s the same with soft shell crabs. I’ve trained my staff to be clear: We will have it when we open at 5:30. No, we cannot save it for you.”

Despite this, some diners can’t help but make a fuss when the legendary stuff runs out. “I tell them, ‘It’s time to be an adult,’” Smith says, peering over his glasses in a humorous visage of mock scolding. “People do sometimes lose it, but seriously. I mean, we’ll have more.”

Until they don’t. Honeysuckle sorbet is available most nights in May, and sometimes well into June, so long as the bushes are productive. After that, fans must be patient until the following spring.

“We tried to save a batch once as a special treat for New Year’s, but it tasted like sugar and ice,” he recalls. “The flavor just disappeared.”

It took three years for Smith to perfect the recipe, which yields a snowy, fragrant sorbet that he swears is different with every batch. A sampling from different pickings both were exceptionally delicious and refreshing, but in fact, one was decidedly more floral and satisfyingly slushy.

Elizabeth Du Bosc of Chapel Hill has been addicted for years. She stops at Crook’s Corner at least two or three times a week when it’s available, including her May birthday, and gleefully brings friends and family to get them hooked as well.

“You are God’s gift to TASTEBUDS,” she declared recently on her Facebook page, where she also confessed to dabbing a bit behind her ears like perfume. She’s also slurped this season’s treasure wearing a tiara of woven honeysuckle blossoms.

Not everyone is so convinced. At least once a year, Smith says, “I get yelled at by angry botanists. They say things like, ‘Don’t you know that’s an invasive species?’ Good lord. I didn’t plant it, and at least I’m making use of it. It’s silly to castigate me.”

While angry botanists may disapprove, wild honeysuckle can be found on roadsides and along greenways throughout the Piedmont. A forager’s delight, it takes hardly any time to collect enough for a batch of sorbet, which requires little more effort than using an ice cream machine to turn into the stuff of mid-spring’s night’s dream. Smith favors an old-fashioned crank with rock salt, but whatever you’ve got should work.

Honeysuckle Sorbet
@2005 Bill Smith with permission of Algonquin Press.

4 cups (tightly packed buy not smashed) honeysuckle flowers, leaves and stems discarded
5 ½ cups cool water
1 1/3 cups water
2 cups sugar
Few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice
Speck of cinnamon

Place the flowers in a nonreactive container (glass or stainless steel) and cover with cool water. Weight down with a plate. Let them stand on the counter overnight.

In a small sauce pan make a syrup out of the sugar and water by boiling it until all sugar is dissolved and it begins to look lustrous and slightly thick, 3-5 minutes. Add a few drops of lemon juice to prevent the sugar from recrystalizing. Cool the syrup completely.  Strain the honeysuckle infusion, gently pressing the blossoms so as to not waste any of your previous efforts.  Combine the two liquids and add the merest dusting of cinnamon. You don’t want to taste it but you can tell if it’s not there. Churn in an ice-cream maker. This does not keep more than a week or two.

Crook’s-inspired Honeysuckle Jelly – two ways

This blog was first published by Chapel Hill Magazine.

Honeysuckle sorbet is one of the many signature dishes that makes Crook’s Corner a Chapel Hill landmark. Developed by Chef Bill Smith from a Renaissance-era recipe for jasmine ice, the delicate flavor of this decadent slush inspires near riots in the West Franklin Street eatery every spring.

Smith’s fuss-free recipe is easy to recreate at home, and it converts nicely into a simple but intoxicatingly fragrant jelly. Indeed, the ingredients are nearly identical, with the exception of added low-sugar pectin and canning jars instead of an ice-cream machine.

The Crook’s-inspired Honeysuckle Jelly below is easily tweaked to create a jewel-toned strawberry variation – which no doubt would be insanely good made instead with sun-warmed wild blackberries, which just happen to grow amid Smith’s preferred honeysuckle patch. Either way, the recipes are so simple and reliable that they were used to teach a first-time canner how to make jelly.  

Smith prefers to pick honeysuckles in the evening, when their perfume is heavy, but concedes he’s had delicious results with flowers plucked dewy-fresh is the morning, too. An ideal time is after a rain, when older blooms have shaken loose, leaving the best pickings behind.

The honeysuckles used to make these jellies were gathered along the greenway of our North Raleigh neighborhood, but they can be found in plentiful supply along roadsides and other places where weeds thrive. Be careful to choose bushes that have not been chemically treated, and ask permission as appropriate.

You’ll likely observe a lot of variation – some flowers are pure white to the stem while others reveal a tender blush of pink, and the petals will range from white to buttery yellow. Avoid ones that are dark yellow or shriveled as they may be bitter, and for goodness sake, don’t bother pinching off the tiny green bases.

“Some people think I actually do that at the restaurant, or use just the stamens because that’s their childhood experience with honeysuckles,” Smith says with a chuckle. “If I did that, I’d never get around to making anything.”

Honeysuckle Jelly

4 cups (tightly packed buy not smashed) honeysuckle flowers, leaves and stems discarded
5 cups cool water
1 package low-sugar pectin (such as Sure-Jell in the pink box)
3 cups sugar
½ tsp. unsalted butter
1 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
Speck of cinnamon

Prepare a dozen 4-ounce jelly jars (or comparable assortment) according to USDA guidelines.

Place the flowers in a nonreactive container (glass or stainless steel) and cover with cool water. Weight down with a plate. Sit on counter overnight or at least 8 hours. Drain mixture through a jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined colander. Measure 4½ cups honeysuckle stock; discard blooms.

In a deep, heavy-bottom pot – I use a pasta pot – pour in stock and add package of pectin and ¼ cup sugar. Over medium-high heat, stir until sugar and pectin are fully incorporated. Stirring often, add butter and bring mixture to a rolling boil that cannot be stirred down.

When at a full bubble, add the rest of the sugar all at once, plus the lemon juice and cinnamon. Stir frequently until mix returns to a rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Use a timer or count off 60 seconds. Transfer pot to heatproof surface.

If necessary, skim any foam with a tight mesh strainer. Carefully pour hot jelly into prepared jars, top with warmed lids and finger-tighten screw-on bands. Place jars in water bath and boil for about 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let the jars settle for about 5 minutes, then carefully remove and set on a heatproof surface where they can remain undisturbed until cooled and set.

Don’t worry if the jelly does not set quickly. It should firm up nicely by the next day, but if it doesn’t, fear not. You can now boast of having made amazing honeysuckle syrup, great in cocktails or drizzled on desserts. If you’re daring, you can even dab a drop behind your ears.

Strawberry-Honeysuckle Jelly

2 cups fresh strawberries, coarsely chopped

5 cups water

Add strawberries to water in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Drain through jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined colander and discard remaining strawberry mush.

From this point on, continue as described in the original Honeysuckle Jelly Recipe, substituting 5 cups of strawberry water for plain water.