Night of the Living Candy Freak

I thought today would be the most appropriate time to discuss perhaps my favorite food topic: candy. According to quintessientially Gen-X writer Steve Almond, author of Candy Freak, I am a member of this illustrious group. Call me what you will: Sugarmonger, Chocophile, Dentist’s Best Friend, Nougatwhore (where did that come from?), that’s me. Like with most foods, however, I have a particular bend towards one type of sweet. I don’t prefer cookies, or cakes, I think at this point we all know how I feel about cupcakes. Pastries don’t do it for me, ice cream is good, but never quite hits the spot, no, when it comes down to the deepest, darkest of sugar cravings (this happens twice a day), I prefer candy.

I grew up a few miles from the Ferrara Pan Candy Company in Chicago. You know, the maker of such wonders as Lemonheads, Jawbreakers, Red Hots, Atomic Fireballs, and my personal idea of tragedy, Boston Baked Beans. In those days, we walked the seven flat blocks to school, and the way home was paved with candy cigarettes, wax bottles full of corn syrup, Now and Laters, Root Beer Barrels, Jawbreakers, Bubble Yum, and endless other 20-50 cent options. I include sugar cereal in the candy category. Never allowed Trix for breakfast, I had to spend the night at friends’ houses to get my sugar cereal fix. I preferred Katie’s house of Lucky Charms over Stacey’s Cocoa Pebbled kitchen. For Christmas I often received a box of Froot Loops, which I also had mailed to me as contraband from distant pen pals. I had to keep it under my bed, you see, and my pitiful allowance covered only the requisite after-school dimestore candy rather than a full box of Cocoa Puffs.

Halloween was HUGE in Oak Park, Illinois. The one day where all the freaks, candy and otherwise, would come out to Take Candy From Strangers!! What other holiday gets you out of the house and interacting with your community in this way? What other holiday allows you to break every parental rule in the book, to turn the other cheek of good sense, to revel in sheer vice? Every year, every single house in the entire town was open for business. Sure, there were a few raisin and pencil houses we did our best to avoid, but for the most part, Oak Park offered us a smorgasbord of sugary wealth, enough to develop a formidible cache to store in a dark, forbidden place and last at least until Christmas. Almost better than trick-or-treating was after we came home, sweaty and disheveled from candysweeping the streets, we opened the Great Sibling Trade Center.

First, we were forced to stand at attention, tears forming on our lids as Dad picked through to find his favorites from our stash- A parental tax imposed by a staunch Democrat who believed one should pay dearly for high quality services. But then, it was a race to the bedroom where we dumped our bags and the bidding began. With the speed of an auctioneer, we would barter, shout, stomp and sometimes cry. We could be heard all down the street: “Can I get one butterfinger for two cowtails, one for two, one for two, who’s got a butterfinger. . .” late into the evening.

Steve Almond writes, “If I had been the kind of kid who kept a diary, the entries from the years twelve to say, sixteen, would have read: Got high, ate candy.”

I don’t feel I am close to matching to his mania, his obsession with hording, categorizing, and generally playing with candy. I do, however, relate to the presence of candy in his daily life. Also, I agree that the best candy has come and gone, and I am constantly in the search for new creations. The Caravelle, for example, is a thing of the past. Chapter two in his book is nothing more than an elegy for this sweet wonder. The Caravelle: A strip of caramel covered in a thick shell of milk chocolate, which was embedded with crisped rice. I know, I know, the 100 Grand, right? No, the Caravelle was in a whole different hemisphere than the 100 Grand. According to Almond, “The Caravelle tasted more like a pastry: the chocolate was thicker, darker, full-bodied, and the crisped rice had a malty flavor and what I want to call structural integrity; the caramel was that rarest variety, dark and lustrous and supple, with hints of fudge.”

Had enough? The Caravelle was discontinued when Cadbury acquired Peter Paul, and so many others were banished in the name of buyouts and the end of the smaller candy makers who maybe made one or two bars, but made them with equal parts precision and love. In the spirit of sugar-coated nostalgia, indulge me and share with us your favorite candy, living or dead.

Halloween at Petulant Rumblings

It will likely get nasty, so keep the kids away. But you should at least go over to see the cool banner he's created for the occasion.

The Feral Chihuahuas

George "the" Bastard invited you all to The Feral Chihuahuas big show this weekend. Click here for a larger version of the poster and to learn more.

Get out and vote

Below, you'll find a series of six video clips of the candidates for Asheville City Council talking about the first time they voted. The videos were shot about a week ago at the Asheville Citizen-Times and edited by multimedia guy Doug Mayer. There are six clips in production, with the candidates telling us why they think it's important to vote.

The newspaper produced these clips as a public service to help encourage people to get out and vote. As you know, we had a horribly low turnout of 13 percent in the election primary.

Some stats from the primary:
- Only 577 voters were African-American, a number representing 7.5 percent of the vote. African-Americans make up about 18 percent of the city’s population. There are 6,773 African-Americans registered to vote in Asheville.
- Only 23 people reporting themselves as Hispanic voted.
- Only 203 people ages 18-25 showed up to vote. In that age range, 6,386 people are registered, according to state data.
- No polling site reflected both race and age diversity.
- The 376 voters at Roberson High were among the least diverse. Ninety-eight percent were white. Ninety-three percent were 41 or older.
-A comparable primary election in 2003 brought 16 percent of registered voters to the polls, said Board of Elections director Trena Parker.

The bottom line - we want you to vote. You can vote now, at the board of elections office in Asheville downtown. You can vote on Nov. 6. You can vote for up to three council candidates, and you can vote on the question of whether or not you want council elections to be partisan or non-partisan. If you don't live in Asheville, check with your local elections board office to find out who is on the ballot, and what referendums might be up for a decision.

Vote.

Asheville City Council candidate Dwight Butner, on the first time he voted

Find more videos like this on AshVid.Net

Asheville City Council candidate Bryan Freeborn, on the first time he voted

Find more videos like this on AshVid.Net

Asheville City Council candidate Elaine Lite, on the first time she voted

Find more videos like this on AshVid.Net

Asheville City Council candidate Jan Davis, on the first time he voted

Find more videos like this on AshVid.Net

Asheville City Council candidate Brownie Newman, on the first time he voted

Find more videos like this on AshVid.Net

Asheville City Council candidate Bill Russell, on the first time he voted

Find more videos like this on AshVid.Net

Cecil Bothwell Fired

UPDATE: Almost a week since the firing, and there's still no word from Mountain Xpress regarding the reasons. I left a message yesterday with Jon Elliston. He called back, leaving a message with me saying that something would come out today. I just called him again and left another message.

So this is a lame update because there's no new information. Anyone think the Xpress just plans on waiting for folks to stop caring?

You can call them if you're curious - 251-1333
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From a press release sent by Cecil:

"Best” on Wednesday, fired on Friday - Asheville’s most popular journalist sacked"

On Wednesday, Oct. 17, Mountain Xpress reporter Cecil Bothwell was tapped for the second time as Asheville’s best local print reporter in the paper’s 2007 annual reader poll. Two days later, the journalist was called to the publisher Jeff Fobe’s office and fired.

“It was almost funny,” Bothwell reported. “After winning the vote, I half-way imagined that a summons to Fobes’ office might involve a raise; instead Fobes and Managing Editor Jon Elliston told me they had decided to terminate my employment.”

Bothwell wrote the first cover story for the Mountain Xpress in 1994, an investigation into the widespread failure of the DARE drug education program. In the years since, he uncovered corruption in the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department, exposed back-room dealings in local government, delved into environmental hazards and became something of an expert on Asheville’s development rules. “I only know about three other people who have read the Unified Development Ordinance cover-to-cover,” he said. “It’s a little dry.”

In addition to features stories on subjects ranging from UFO “experts” to nuclear fuel transport to the fellow who scrubs Asheville’s monuments, his writing included book, music and theater reviews. He also served as gardening editor and columnist for the paper. Along the way, he won national awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting, criticism and humorous commentary. As representative of the paper, he served on the national editorial board of the AAN from 2002 to 2007. His opinion column, Duck Soup: Essays on
the Submerging Culture, was syndicated nationally for 10 years and aired on WNCW 88.7FM. He was founding editor of the Warren Wilson College environmental journal, Heartstone, and served as managing editor of Mountain Xpress from 2002 to 2004. Bothwell’s books include

Gorillas in the Myth, The Icarus Glitch and co-authorship (with Betsy Ball) of the local best-selling guidebook, Finding Your Way in Asheville. For three years before the Xpress began publishing, Bothwell wrote news stories and the monthly humor column for Fobes’ Green Line.

Bothwell’s latest book, The Prince of War: Billy Graham’s Crusade for a Wholly Christian Empire, will be released in November.

http://theprinceofwar.com
http://bothwellsblog.wordpress.com"

Bothwell's campaign contribution to City Council candidate Elaine Lite has been cited as a reason for Bothwell's dismissal. I this the only reason? Bothwell is an icon in Asheville, and I'm hoping that the Xpress editors will take the time to explain their decision. What gives?

Ephemera Goes To Malaprops

From the very cool Asheville bloggie, Ephemera, some thoughts after going to a reading for Asheville: A History at Malaprops:

"I'm fascinated by the local history of my adopted hometown, and the local lore lives up to the majesty of the Asheville's breathtaking setting. I was especially riveted by the story of Asheville's deep economic slide--triggered by a local bank failure at the height of the Great Depression--which lasted more than 40 years. Ironically, this epic downturn is what saved the town's Art Deco architecture from destruction during the Urban Renewal frenzy of the 1960s. Asheville's downtown was preserved like a time capsule, and today contains the best examples of Art Deco architecture found anywhere outside of Miami Beach."

Read the rest

Help needed!

Hi all, I need some design/code help with my bloggie. Like asap! I need someone who can recreate my logo in high-res for print publication in Mountain Xpress and for T-shirts. I also need some redesign and major code clean-up (at the moment, my blog shows up differently from browser to browser). I'm willing to pay (although not extravagantly). I'll also pimp the heck out of my helper, provided he/she does a good job! I've had a couple people fall through already, so I'm looking for someone who is efficient, creative, really knows code, and is ready to rock! E-mail me at afjonesatbellsouthdotcom. Thanks!

The Model City

I went on a WNC Pilot's Association "Leaf Flight" today... while it's not *the* peak weekend, the visibility was great. It also afforded me, obviously, the opportunity to play with tilt-shift photography. It was so awesome to see our fair city from the air. Cheers!

The Rebelles Farewell Show

Trick or Treat? The Rebelles Burlesque invite you to their farewell performance

That's right, The Rebelles are performing their final show at the Grey Eagle on October 26th and 27th. Please join us for a HAUNTED MURDER MYSTERY alongside the Feral Chihuahuas, Asheville's premier sketch comedy troupe.

TICKET INFORMATION
CONTACT THE GREY EAGLE
http://www.thegreyeagle.com
828.232.5800
185 Clingman Avenue, Asheville, NC 28801
info@thegreyeagle.com



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Who are The Rebelles?

Guerilla theatre, a women’s collective, burlesque performance art, a cabaret comedy extravaganza.

The Rebelles tap into all of the above in their all-original, multi-media, live-music performances. Taking the traditional conception of burlesque as social commentary with a comedic twist and using it to tease-and-free the audience, the Rebelles aim to lift spirits and lower inhibitions.

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You gals will certainly be missed! Thanks for all the laughs!

The other morning

Pimporama

Gordon tells me I need to pimp myself more, because, well, he thinks you all should be reading my column at Mountain Xpress, if you aren't already, so here is this week's, where I explain how much I learned about raising kids from going to puppy obedience school. It's pretty funny, I think.

Anyway, I love writing these "parenting" columns, although I will tell you, and you only, that's it's some of the most difficult writing I've ever done.

I spend all week thinking about what I'm going to write, then all day Thursday writing it, rewriting it, and throwing most of it away, then all day Friday editing, revising, making my friends and family proofread it, then I file it so I can spend the weekend trying not to worry about what I'm going to write about the next week.

Anyway, I'm not asking for pity here. I am asking you to read. Please. Give me feedback. If you hate it, that's okay, though I prefer the good doggies. I'm learning here.

Thanks and happy weekend!

Earth Science Week

Hey everyone! It's Earth Science Week! Whooo hooo! Big Fun! What does that mean for us in Asheville? It means that the Colburn Earth Science Museum is open FREE every afternoon from 3 - 5 and while you are here, you can get a free guided tour, participate in the totally fun H2Olympics (okay, they're designed for kids, but have you ever, like, really examined the surface tension of water with a magnifying glass? Because it is awesome.) and get a free piece of calcite. Yes. A free mineral, just for you. So come down here and bring your kids. On Saturday, too, there will be a Geology Walk of downtown at 10:30 am, which will offer you a fascinating new way to look at downtown wherein you do not see the tourists, you see only the ancient stones. Cool, huh? See you here!

Candidates for Asheville City Council, live blogged today

The Asheville Citizen-Times will live blog yet another forum for candidates seeking three seats up for grabs on Asheville City Council.

Today's noon forum at the Asheville Country Club is hosted by the Council of Independent Business Owners. Here's the link to the live blog event.

If that's not enough for you, there's a 7 p.m. forum tonight at UNC Asheville's Reuter Center. That forum is sponsored by the local League of Women Voters chapter.

Welcome New Asheville Artists!

Chad Ekre was introduced to me by an old friend; recently, relocating from Charleston, South Carolina. Welcome to Asheville, mate!



You can see more of his fine woodwork at Chad Ekre Furniture; he has a great slide show of this work there!


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Peter Parpan and his family just moved to town recently from Brooklyn, NY. You can see a great deal of this artists work at his website: Peter Parpan



Peter also does really fascinating illustration work, click here to see more examples!





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BlogAsheville would like to welcome these two new artists to town!

Support Living Artists!

Tune in tonight for Candidate Forum live blogging event

The Asheville Citizen-Times plans to live blog the Evergreen Community Charter School candidate's forum. The six candidates running for Asheville City Council have been invited to come and answer questions from the community. School students will be asking the questions.

The forum starts at 7 p.m. The live blogging will start about 6:45 p.m., barring any unforeseen technical difficulties.

Here's the link: http://blogs.citizen-times.com/blogs/index.php?blog=19

Check it out!

Billy Graham: The Prince of War

The Prince of War: Billy Graham’s Crusade for a Wholly Christian Empire by Cecil Bothwell is coming out in November. The Buzz about this new book is great, and we at BlogAsheville are excited to get our hands on it.

From the introduction:

“Graham’s enthusiastic supporters in big media have consistently portrayed him as apolitical. As recently as February 2005, Time magazine reported, “He has had the ear of Presidents for five decades, but except for his public disavowal of racial segregation, Billy Graham, 86, has stuck to soul saving and left the political proselytizing to others. He explained his self-imposed separation of church and state in the language of a Gospel preacher: ‘It’s not what I was called to do.’”

However, as I continued my study, I saw that , notwithstanding his professed calling, Graham worked the corridors of Congress as well as the private rooms of the White House, sometimes overtly, sometimes quietly, in secret letters and private phone calls. And, quite contrary to Time’s assertion, I soon saw that Graham arguably did more to abet segregation than to end it, actively opposing Martin Luther King’s use of civil disobedience while endorsing aggressive police tactics and punitive laws.

... The picture that emerged is decidedly not that of a disinterested man of the cloth. Rather, Graham came off as a well connected covert political operative. To the extent that this seems surprising, it stems from the public’s willful naiveté concerning a self-professed holy man coupled with intentionally biased reporting from the major media at the behest of ideologues including, most prominently, William Randolph Hearst and Henry Luce.

Perhaps, instead, we should pay heed to what Graham has actually said instead of accepting his own and others’ later versions of the facts. This tale is told in Graham’s words and those of the biographers, historians, public figures and Presidents who knew him well.

You may be as surprised as I was at the picture that emerges in these pages. It is not the story of a man of peace.”

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Available Nov. 15 at independent bookstores and online.

Release event at Malaprop’s Bookstore and Cafe, Nov. 17, 7 p.m.

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Rumor is you can pick up an advance copy at Malaprop's today!

Bloggers, a call to action: Open your eyes and ride along

Ashvegas has a proposal for you, fellow bloggers - with crime a constant concern and the emergence of gangs a hot issue right now, we want bloggers to take the Asheville Police Department up on its "open car door" policy and go on a ride-along with police. We want you, bloggers/residents/the community, to open your eyes to what's happening right here, right now, then tell everybody what you saw.

We're not asking for you to be a mouthpiece for APD. We're asking you to see what cops on the street deal with day in and day out, then share the experience from your unique point of view. It's amazing to us how local bloggers have been so quiet on the gang issue.

We think it's because it may not have hit you where you live. But just a couple of weeks ago, the issue hit the Montford Community. It struck home with a 12-year-old shot in the back of the head, and with the 14-year-old arrested and charged with the shooting.

This is our town. These are our kids. So we're asking you to get off your couch, go out into your community, and see what's going on.

Here's what you do:

1. E-mail Sheila Warren at swarren@ashevillenc.gov and tell her you want a ride-along. Tell her if your interested in day or night, and what part of town you'd like to see.

2. Warren will send you a form to fill out. It requires you to provide your driver's license number so police can do a background check. E-mail it back with your signature, or fax to 251-4003.

3. Go on your ride-along, then write about your experience on your blog and cross-post it here. Tell us all about it.

How 'bout it, bloggers. Here's the ride-along form:

Welcome New Bloggers

Photography from A Year in Asheville blog


Just getting around to putting this post together, welcoming the newest additions to the Asheville blogging community.

Witness the self discovery at Bipolar Blast

Explore Asheville at the Color Hunter Blog

Blue Ridge Blue Collar Girl "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul" -John Muir

Check out our fine town at the new photoblog A Year In Asheville

"It's a blog about my experiences with GIS and in general.
Each handwritten post will have memories, and many will have content related to Geographic information Systems" Visit GISMemories

Chris Bond of Sirius B, the band, has a blog called Pancho's Via "Witness the nomadic, and sometimes not, ways of Christopher Pancho Romero Bond

Check out "Images of the Asheville Music Scene" at The Asheville Music Gallery

Ya'll stop by and say hey to these new folks!

Asheville Link Smorgasbord

I've come across some really cool Asheville links lately & wanted to share them:

Pack Library Annual Book Sale

Saturday, Oct. 13, 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 14, 2 - 5 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 19, 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 20, 9:30 am - 4:30 p.m. (half-price sale)
Sunday, Oct. 21, 2 - 5 p.m. (all titles 10 cents)

Expect heaps of fiction and nonfiction for both adults and children, as well as a large selection of videos and DVDs. Proceeds from the sale will benefit Buncombe County Libraries.

Via Mountain Xpress, is the Asheville area ready for another flood like we had in 2004?

"Here in Black Mountain, we were worried about the Black Mountain [Correctional] Center and whether they had electricity and water. And we were getting calls like, ‘The road’s washed out, and my grandmother needs her insulin or she’ll die.’”

Via the Asheville Disclaimer, a recipe for "Falafel Wheat-Germ Soyffalo Wings with Malted Barley Grit Fries"

First take some delicious sticks, preferably oak (cedar works as well), and slather them with a mix of soybean paste, falafel and wheat germ. Leave them in the sun for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, boil down a cup of pine bark and add just a hint of rhubarb.

Via Around Asheville, Eaties has a cool calendar.

Comedy at the Wortham This Friday

From the press release:

The team behind this summer's "Laugh Your Asheville Off" comedy festival is back with a new show at the Wortham on Friday, October 12 at 7PM and 9PM.

Laugh Your Asheville Off debuted this summer and -- as far producer Greg Brown knows -- became Asheville's very first successful comedy festival. This fall Brown brings the funny back with headliner Dave Landau of Second City Comedy Theatre and NBC's Last Comic Standing.



Landau has opened for Dennis Miller, Steven Wright and Dave Chappelle. Other comedy credits include HBO's Las Vegas Comedy Festival and Comedy Central's Live at Gotham. He's also a trained improvisational comedian with the Second City Comedy Theatre, the Chicago troupe whose alumni include John Belushi, Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Chris Farley, Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert.

According to his MySpace profile, Landau is 25 years old, built like a bodybuilder, makes over $250,000 a year and has friends named Klaw and Captain EgoPants.

Comedy at the Wortham
Diana Wortham Theatre at Pack Place
Asheville, NC
Oct. 12: 7PM and 9PM
Tickets: $15 - $18
Recommended for mature audiences 18+

Official website

Buy tickets here

Comedy at the Wortham MySpace page

FULL DISCLOSURE: The producer of this show is my friend. He is not a bigshot rich guy; he's a waiter. An ordinary guy with a dream.

Vote! Vote! Vote!

Over a hundred of you voted in BlogAsheville Awards. Here's hoping as many show up to the polls to vote in the City Council Primary.

No excuses.

Have You Seen This Bike?

This bike was stolen from the home of one of our fellow bloggers. If you see it, please email us at blogasheville@hotmail.com, and we'll pass the information along to Spicy Elf.

Smashmouth

Two new tools from Ashvegas City Hall

Cross-posted from Ashvegas:

The IT people over at Asheville City Hall have been busy lately. They've been working on beefing up the offerings at mapasheville, a cool city site that puts killer map info into a format that you can use. You can see a bird's eye view of your back yard. You can measure distances if you're a runner or a biker. You can check zoning designations and property tax information.

Now, there's more.

First, with developmentmapper, you can keep up with key construction projects as they make their way through the city bureaucracy.

Want to keep an eye on that Meadow Road rezoning for the new animal shelter? It's there. Want to know more about *Asheville Mini Storage's plans* to add 35,000 square feet of storage space? It's there. How about Plasticard Locktech's nearly 10,000-square-foot expansion plans, or the latest on the Bohemian Hotel or Hotel Indigo.

It's all there, just a click away.

Coming next is crimemapper, an online tool that will combine crime statistics with the city's mapping information to allow users to map and track all sorts of crime trends in our community. The city will be looking for some beta testers in the near future. We'll keep you up to date when it launches.

Happy surfing.

Study in orange

Chinmney Swift Watch This Weekend

UPDATE: The word from the swift watchers is that the birds have either moved on or moved to other chimneys, and there's not much to see. Here's hoping for a better watch next year.



As you're out snapping shots for DILOA this weekend, don't forget to check out the chimney swifts of the annual Asheville Chimney Swift Watch, this Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Word is the swifts have moved from their spot at the Grove Arcade, so this year's swift watch(es) are on the 5th floor of the Civic Center parking deck.

Park there and look towards City Hall, where the swifts are circling a chimney in the Tyler Building on Walnut St.

Swift Watch volunteers will be there with Swift Watch t-shirts and DVDs of the swifts, 5,000 strong, flying into the Grove Arcade.

Asheville Swift Watch 2007
7 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Oct. 5, 6, and 7 (Fri, Sat and Sun)
Civic Center parking lot, 5th floor
free t-shirts and swift DVDs
info: swiftwatch (at) skyrunner.net

Get your photos on now!

Photo by AFG from April 14 DILOA

This week is our second Day in the Life of Asheville photo project!

For more information, here's what I wrote for Mountain Xpress' bloggie. Here's a direct link to the DILOA Flickr site.

Time to shoot our city!

Why We Are Here

Photograph by Tom Williams of Asheville, NC

George "The" Bastard's Belated Acceptance Speech

George, winner of the 2007 Blogger Least Likely To Make Money Blogging award, has posted the speech he would have given at the Extrava if only we'd given him the chance.

Snip:

"So Much For Tact almost gave me a run for the money in this category, however made the vital mistake of being funny and readable."

If You %$&* With Me I'm Gonna Dash My Curry

The title of this post is taken from a rap by M.I.A., my favorite artist right now.

I’ve ridden the kiddie roller coaster that is Asheville Indian restaurants. I once wrote a Dear John letter to Mother India, previously located in a grimy building way down Hendersonville Road. The letter was the back page of a zine I co-authored five years ago. I’ll try to dig it up for you. I cruelly dumped Mother India after I was courted hard by the bright new shiny India Garden on Tunnel Road. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one, because Mother India closed within the year. So there I was, happily discovering vegetable korma and the Garden plate for two at India Garden, staring at garish, gold-framed paintings of what can only be described as someone’s anime nightmare set in India, when along came Mela.

Let the record show: I will never ever be pro-Mela on principle. I loved Vicent’s Ear. I mean, I didn’t patronize Vicent’s Ear unless a friend’s band was playing, but let’s just say I appreciated it from afar. How could you not fall for the romantic combination of a nasty bartender, $2 PBR tallboys, and dirty courtyard crammed with surly, tattooed, disaffected youth? Not to mention the most excellent espresso in town. Alas, the tourism beast must be fed and therefore, we now have Mela. Mela is beautiful. Upon heaving open the ancient, gargantuan vintage Indian wooden door, you immediately realize no one actually eats at Mela. They nosh.

On what do they nosh? I think the vegetable korma here is terrific. The lamb dishes are formidable. They offer a wide array of naan options including an inventive goat cheese and spinach stuffed version. The pakoras are delightfully crisp. The drink options beckon to this wayward diner like a bangled dancer throwing veils and she shimmies down the tiled floor. Spiked mango lassi, oh my! The service: more focused on appearances than quality. Often, I come here for the lunch buffett. Truly, the options are hit or miss. On a good day: saag paneer, curried lentils and beans, vegetable korma, veggie pakoras, and tamarind rice. On a bad day: soupy flourescent yellow stuff, two potato options, fried broccoli, and any other flavored rice option besides tamarind. I know they have a lemon rice and a couple of others I disapprove of on the basis of the rice flavor outshining the sauces dolloped on top. The curry chicken is always pretty good, but at this point I’m bored to tears of this being their only meat option for lunch.

So mostly you will still find me at India Garden. The snazzily dressed (and mostly very attractive) male waitstaff greet me like an old friend, and maintain complete efficiency throughout the meal. I think their sauces are more complex and more authentic, at least according to me and my friend who lived in India for a year. I also love to order the Garden Special. They let you order it for one and split it between two people. I’m a total sucker for anything like a tasting menu, and India Garden offers three of them. I have excellent luck with their Lamb Roghan Josh, a savory/sweetish/velvety close second to my obvious favorite at any Indian eatery, the vegetable korma.

Where can one find Southern Indian cuisine, you ask? I’m afraid you won’t like the answer. There is a restaurant in Winston-Salem I have never tried, but I have heard marvelous things about it for years. I don’t know if Nawab specializes in Southern Indian, but I’ve heard they offer some options, so I suggest you begin there.

Don't Bite the Blog that Beers You

I'd like to extend an apology to the good folks at Bruisin' Ales Beer Blog who took a bruising after donating a keg of beer to the BlogAsheville party. Apparently, the flavored beer was not appreciated by the beer drinkin' blogger denizens who partook of the $100.00 DFH Festina Peche keg

Y'all were delivered a special and limited release by Dogfish Head. It was quite popular in the store. It was last minute, it was not cheap, and it cost us money. So there it is. Surely we intended to offend the whole blog community, begging for the negative publicity for our store. We feel so welcomed and humbled. Cheers!

Regardless, the donation was an appreciated addition to the festivities, and it did not warrant an ugly response, no matter how large the hangovers.

The reality is Bruisin' Ales does a wonderful job bringing the foamy goodness to Asheville, deserves our appreciation, attention, and business.

My apologies...



Bruisin' Ales
66 Broadway Street
Asheville, NC 28801
252-8999
beer (at) bruisin-ales.com
Closed Monday
Tuesday-Thursday 12-8pm
Friday-Saturday 12-9pm
Sunday 12-4pm

I Love You Sweatheart: Overpass Love Poetry

If you've lived in the area long enough you might have seen it. A piece of graffiti that said this:

I LOVE YOU SWEATHEART

Sometime in the early 90s or thereabouts, this phrase was famously spray-painted "SURRENDER DOROTHY"-style on an overpass on the way from Black Mountain to Asheville.

And if you remember it, did you know about this poem? I heard Garrison Keillor read it on the Writer's Almanac one morning a few years ago.

"I Love You Sweatheart" by Thomas Lux

A man risked his life to write the words.
A man hung upside down (an idiot friend
holding his legs?) with spray paint
to write the words on a girder fifty feet above
a highway. And his beloved,
the next morning driving to work...?
His words are not (meant to be) so unique.
Does she recognize his handwriting?
Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before
of "something special, darling, tomorrow"?
And did he call her at work
expecting her to faint with delight
at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?
She will know I love her now,
the world will know my love for her!
A man risked his life to write the world.
Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love
is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb
and dangerous, ignited, blessed--always,
regardless, no exceptions,
always in blazing matters like these: blessed.

"I Love You Sweatheart" appears in Lux's "New and Selected Poems: 1975-1995" (Houghton Mifflin Co).

According to Wikipedia, Lux is a "core faculty member" at the Warren Wilson M.F.A. program for writers, which explains how he encountered this lost piece of overpass poetry.