You can smell the vinegar & red pepper before you enter
the door of the Skylight Inn in Ayden, North Carolina

Photo by Chloe Tuttle*

Since 1947, Pete Jones and family have been serving this tasty eastern North Carolina style barbecue (always pork) to locals and folks who are willing to travel long distances. They cook whole hogs, over oak. To BBQ enthusiasts, this is essential.

Photo by Chloe Tuttle*

Tap, tap, tap . . . that is the sound of the Skylight Inn. You can see the meat as it is being chopped, right there in front of you . . . tap, tap, tap.

As I stood there trying to see what was on the menu, a local fellow leaned in and said to me, “If you want something other than Barbecue, you have to come on Thursdays . . . they have chicken on Thursday.”

Photo by Chloe Tuttle*

The menu let me know that today I could get a small barbecue or a large barbecue. That was fine with me. I had driven to Ayden to eat barbecue. Lots of folks come to Ayden for the barbecue – George W. Bush, Daisy Duke, Ronald Reagan. According to the N.C Barbecue Society, the North Carolina Barbecue Trail starts in Ayden at the Skylight Inn.

In 2003, they received the James Beard award, have had stories written about them in the NY Times and the Roadfood series by Jan & Michael Stern.

Saveur Magazine calls it “North Carolina’s finest pulled pork.” And Southern Living lists the Skylight Inn as one of the “South’s 20 Best BBQ Joints.”

Yum, that is the taste of the Skylight Inn Barbecue – ’tis great roadfood. And, that same cute fellow who leaned in to tell me the menu, bought me lunch.

P.S. We don’t care if Rick Perry doesn’t like eastern North Carolina barbecue. Bet he is sorry he made that barbecue remark!

*You are welcome to use these Skylight Inn photos, just let me know and give me, Chloe’s Blog and Big Mill Bed & Breakfast credit. Thanks!

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In summer, folks flock to farmer’s markets to get all those fresh fruits and vegetables. In small towns we grow our own and go to roadside stands.

And in very small towns, we count on the farmer who sits by the road in the back of his pickup truck loaded with things from his large garden – and if we are very lucky, there are watermelons from Rocky Hock.

Folks around here want watermelons from Rocky Hock, NC, an area near the Albemarle Sound, where we say the watermelons and cantaloupes just taste better. By the way, the Albemarle Sound area also produced author Inglis Fletcher.

So — if you see a man sitting in the parking lot of the ABC store or even the Piggly Wiggly parking lot – stop and buy something from him. They move around, and I have to go from parking lot to parking lot to find them. But it is worth it !

For Big Mill B&B, I buy three watermelons every time I see a watermelon truck. We serve our guests watermelon, we eat watermelon and we make watermelon punch. What are some of your favorite things to do with watermelon?

Bon appetite!

 

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For great pork barbecue in eastern North Carolina,
Bunn's Barbecue in Windsor has to be on your short list.

Driving up, you might wonder if this really is a restaurant.  There's a Texaco pump out front – that's because before 1938, Bunn's was a service station. Inside, old signs hang on the walls, but the minute you enter, that wonderful aroma of vinegar, pork and red pepper greets you. You are in the right place.

A few years back, several of my friends sashayed up to the food bar and asked for a menu; they were told, "Don't have one."  When asked what they served the waitress — very matter-of-fact – responded, "Barbecue on a bun, barbecue on a plate."

A menu is on the wall and they certainly have added some good eastern North Carolina  foods. You can get hot dogs, Brunswick stew and barbecue any day, and sweet tea, of course.  On Tuesdays, they serve barbecue chicken; on Thursday, the house special is chicken and pastry.

My favorite food at Bunn's – the Cornbread Sandwich. That's a barbecue and slaw sandwich served between two pieces of corn bread.

Open since 1938, this Windsor, North Carolina landmark is a place you just don't want to miss. The Russell family has owned Bunn's since 1969. High water has flooded Bunn's seven times since 1999, twice with six feet of water.

Jan and Michael Stern, who wrote Road Food for Gourmet magazine and are now on NPR's Splendid Table, with a Road Food column added it to their list of great Mom and Pop restaurants in the USA. I agree.

I am on a mission to photograph every Mom and Pop "Road Food" restaurant in eastern North Carolina. Do you have any suggestions?

(all photos by Chloe Tuttle of Big Mill Bed & Breakfast)

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Martin Supply in eastern North Carolina is just as it has always been. And they buy and sell pecans. Farmsteads throughout the south have pecan groves. And all the southern cooks like Paula Deen have great pecan recipes, and Pecan Pie is on everyone's list. 

Every year a company from Georgia comes to Martin Supply in Williamston to buy pecans. Folks from all over the neighboring counties motor over to sell their pecans. The small pecans called "seedlings" are from a tree that grew from a seed and not from a graft. Stewarts are the large, prized pecans, like we have on the farm here at Big Mill B&B.

My B&B guests love Martin Supply and mingling with the farmers who hang out at the store. You can buy a flannel shirt, seeds, hoop cheese, a Radio Flyer wagon, a squirrel trap, honey, shot gun shells, fertilizer and all that farm stuff and pecans, of course.  They sell the gadget to pick up the pecans. It is a nostalgic old store just like small town stores used to be.

I remember many types of gadgets my folks used to crack our pecans. D.J. made me an electric cracking machine that walloped one pecan at a time. It was very interesting but loud and rather messy. Then we had one machine that used a giant rubber band. These ingenious pecan cracking machines are fascinating.  One even is called a Kinetic Kracker.

Pecan Cracking machine at Martin Supply Farm Store

But in the past few years I have gone to Martin Supply uptown in Williamston and let them crack all the pecans with their ingenious pecan cracker. I even sent guests to watch this marvel.

The pecans are poured into the top of the machine and they slowly move through it, sending the cracked nuts out the hopper and some of the shells fall out the bottom. When you get the cracked nuts you have to scratch around, separating the broken shells from the pecans. There is an art to all of this, mind you. It can't be rushed.

And after you gather up your pecans and shells, one needs to lay out the pecans on newspaper to dry a bit. Then you pick through them, removing all the shells. We recycle these shells by spreading them in the yard; the birds love it. Big Mill is eco-friendly – we just won the "Most Green Conscious" award on Lanier Bed & Breakfast Travel Guide.

Tom Skinner choosing garden seeds-you can buy just a few seeds.

I too will buy some seeds in spring so that I can fill my pantry with canned goods, just like my folks did. I am well supplied with organic pecans for the breads we make here at the Bed & Breakfast.  Moses usually likes to help with picking up the pecans; this year it was cold so she wasn't much help.

The grand old trees on the right (above) are the pecan trees that shade Big Mill B&B

I don't know who planted all these wonderful trees in eastern North Carolina, but I thank them. I am saddened when I see these grand old groves cut down. My folks planted at least seven pecan trees in our yard in 1922 here at Big Mill. Three were cut down years ago, but four spreading pecan trees remain, with wonderful shade in summer and sweet, paper-shell pecans in the fall.

I would love it if you would share your pecan recipes with me.

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Cracklins:  Pork fat and skins that are deep fried
in rendered lard until they are crunchy.
(From the Eastern North Carolina lingo dictionary)

Cooking Up Cracklins

Cracklins used to be common fare on southern tables. Sometimes you have to go back to your roots and eat the food of your heritage. My folks and the neighboring farm families had hog killings in the winter and they made cracklins/cracklings. So in cold weather we ate cracklin bread. Rest assured we don't eat like this all the time.

Cracklin Corn Pone Bread Recipe (eggless corn bread popular in the South)

• 1 cup pork cracklins
• 2 cups fine ground corn meal (I use House-Autry)
• 2 Tablespoons self rising flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• pinch of sugar (optional)
• 1 cups warm water (add more if needed)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease the pone pan with some really sturdy grease like Crisco or lard.

Chop cracklins. If you don't like brown flecks in the bread, then grind the cracklins.

In a large mixing bowl stir together the cracklins, corn meal, flour, salt and sugar. Add the water slowly, stirring until the mixture is the consistency of pancake batter.

Pour into pone pan, filling to the top. Bake until edges are brown and bread is crusty, 35-45 minutes. As soon as the bread is cool enough to handle, pop the pones out of the pan. Serve immediately while bread is hot.

Yield: 16 pones.

This bread is made in a cast iron corn pone pan

The corn meal is also important. When I was growing up I rode my bicycle down our dirt road to the Big Mill to get a paper bag full of fresh ground corn meal; usually from our own corn. Miss Sadie James made the best meal; I can't find any meal of that quality now. My dad Ops taught me how to take the raw meal in your hand, squeeze it and it should clump together like clay. If not, then it was ground too fast and the stone heated the meal too much.

Cracklin bread ready to eat

If you really want to try eating cracklins and you aren't planning to attend any hog killings, you can buy them in some grocery stores like Piggly Wiggly. Buy the cracklins without skins, your teeth will thank you.

I did find a Cracklin' Bread Recipe in the White Trash Cookbook, but don't think cracklins are just for us down home folks anymore. Emeril Lagasse has a recipe on how to make Cracklins and a Cracklin Bread recipe!

To see Cracklins being made, join us at the Martin County Farm Heritage Fair in Williamston, N.C. at the Senator Bob Martin Agriculture Center on December 5th, 2009, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you attend, look for me – I will be spinning wool, taking photos and eating cracklins. And I will be hoping my jams win another first prize!

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It’s berry picking time in Eastern North Carolina

…and all the Big Mill Bed & Breakfast guests can be certain they will feast on "just picked" strawberries in the months of April, May and June. We have two U-Pick Strawberry fields here in Martin County and our local produce is the best. Folks say berries from different fields have different flavors, and I believe them.

At the Berry Patch in Robersonville you can buy local grown cabbages, onions, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, peas, potatoes and corn.  And you can get just-made strawberry jam.

Shirley is going on her eleventh year at the Berry Patch…I only see her in the strawberry season, but that can be at least several times a week. The berries are so luscious, I can’t resist picking more than I need. Vivian, Shirley and Carleen are also familiar faces at the Berry Patch.

At the fields you pick (and eat) berries, weigh them and off you go with quarts of ripe red fruit. Then you must decide what to do with all these pounds of berries that you picked. 

I make strawberry jam for our Big Mill B&B guests. Don’t think I’m bragging (much!), but this is an award-winning strawberry jam recipe!  It won best-of-show at our Farm Heritage Fair.  It is wonderful.

When I was growing up, we would pick the berries, make jam and – on the very same night — we ate homemade biscuits with jam and homemade butter.

Growing your own and buying local is a growing trend — and a good one. All around us there are many farmer’s markets, vegetable stands and local folks selling their produce. We even have vendors who sell collards out of a pick up truck. We need to support them all. You can find a list of farmers in your area at Local Harvest and at North Carolina Farm Fresh. 

I will be posting some guest articles on The Bountiful Kitchen – Inn Cuisine.  The article with my recipe for Chloe’s Strawberry Jam is just the first in a series of eating local, sustainable foods.  

Plan to Visit: The Berry Patch in Robersonville, NC 252-795-4903 and Berry Tyme Farm in Jamesville, NC 252-792-6916. This year, there is a new J & J Farm Produce in Martin County near Jamesville 252-799-8110. They are not a You-Pick farm, but they do sell strawberries, cabbage, potatoes, May peas, corn and asparagus.              

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Every year for over thirty years in the small Eastern North Carolina community of Farm Life, not very far from Big Mill Bed and Breakfast, the folks of Piney Grove Baptist Church present an outdoor drama of the final days of the life of Jesus Christ.

The Message of Easter began as a vision of E.T. Taylor, a childhood friend of mine. It has grown and some nights thousands of folks attend, coming from all over.  

E.T. was no novice to outdoor drama, having played Governor Eden in Blackbeard, Knight of the Black Flag, in historic Bath, N.C, a few moons ago in the seventies.

E.T. Taylor and Chloe

We sailed 10 miles on the Pamlico River to see E.T. in this performance; the return sail was under a gorgeous full moon.

In its first few years The Message of Easter was performed on the lawn. Now visitors enjoy the performances in a large outdoor theater that seats 3,000 folks with special lighting, surround sound and ample parking. And all this is offered at no charge.

Church members do it all: acting, set design, lighting, costumes, parking and everything in between. Some folks have never missed a performance.

Thirty years ago E.T. chose Jimmy Griffin to play Jesus, and Jimmy is still fulfilling that promise. Leslie Hardison is the only man to ever play Peter. 

Billy Peel is a barber by trade; but every year for thirty years in the weeks before Easter he is Pontius Pilot. Billy was my first boyfriend: I was two, he was three. His wife Betty Jo is tired of hearing us talk about it; I don’t blame her. And for thirty years she has been Pilot’s wife.

Williamston is a small town, not unlike Mayberry, and I call many of the folks at Piney Grove, “Cousin.”  Imagine for a moment that the good folks of Mayberry presented an outdoor drama. You can be sure they would be sincere, the drama would be first class and the community would be involved. That’s what happens in Farm Life in the weeks leading up to Easter. Everyone works together and works hard and everyone is welcome.

This year’s 2012 drama is the 33nd season for the Message of Easter. Performances will in Spanish on March 30. Performances in English are on March 31, and April 4-8, at 8 p.m. For information about the Message of Easter call 252-792-1342. Remember early spring can be chilly. If our Big Mill B&B guests attend the Easter drama, we send them off with cushions and blankets.

If you’ve ever attended an Easter season outdoor drama, do leave a comment below.  I’d love to hear your stories.

Dedicated to the memory of E.T. Taylor, a friend to many.

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Lake Mattamuskeet and the Pocosin Lakes of eastern North Carolina come alive every winter as thousands of tundra swans and snow geese make the journey from the Alaska tundra to our Inner Banks. Both refuges are an easy day trip from Big Mill Bed and Breakfast.

(Photo of Tundra Swans by Guy Livesay of Livesay Photography)

As many as 20,000 Tundra swans and 80,000 snow geese overwinter in these refuges. These magnificent swans and gregarious snow geese feed in the fields during the day and return to the lakes, rivers and sounds for the evening.

(Photo of tundra swan by Guy Livesay of Livesay Photography)

There are over 50,000 acres in the Lake Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Preserve in Hyde County and over 110,000 acres in the Pocosin Lakes Wildlife Preserve in Hyde, Tyrell and Washington counties.

Pocosin is an Algonquin word meaning swamp on a hill. A type of shrub bog, the Pocosin habitat is unique to the southeastern US from Virginia to Florida, but most common in eastern North Carolina. I can still remember my mother talking about some wild-haired person as "looking like a Pocosin bull," usually in reference to an unkempt relative.  

(Wilson snipe photo taken by Big Mill guests Jane and Craig)

Pocosin Lakes is also home to raptors, black bears and the endangered red wolves and the Red-cockaded woodpecker; and neo-tropical songbirds can be seen here in summer and on their spring and fall migrations.

Fires burn often in these peat bogs and in June, 2008, lightening started a wildfire that burned 40,000 acres in ten days; smoke drifted as far west as Raleigh. This fire continued to burn for most of the summer of 2008, burning thousands more acres of peat bog. Birds and wildlife were displaced but they are very adaptable. Scientists think that the fire may actually be a benefit to the preserve habitat.

(Lake Mattamuskeet at sunset by Guy Livesay of Guy Livesay Photography)

Fires are not the only threat to these fragile lands. The Federal Government planned to acquire 30,000 acres for military purposes to build an Outlying Landing Field near the Pocosin Lakes Refuge where jets would battle the swans. A hue and a cry went up from residents of these small family farms, who were joined by other folks who cared. Nearly every yard in these inland coastal counties had its NO OLF sign.

After a long, tedious and bitter battle the Navy announced on January, 2008, that it was abandoning the project. I could hardly believe it, that residents, man and beast, reptile and fowl of the Pocossin won. Still to this day I cry every time I think about this victory. You can still see NO OLF signs in yards-some folks don’t want us to forget this hard-won fight. 

Thanks to my birding friends I have met here at Big Mill B&B for all the birding tips and the great photos. Some of these folks belong to the Carolina Bird Club and their January, 2009, meeting was held in Williamston. Club members made numerous field trips and recorded 126 species of birds.

Big Mill Bed & Breakfast has recently been designated a Birder Friendly Business by the North Carolina Birding Trail. 

Bird watchers are a great bunch of folks and they are trying so very hard to teach me to recognize all the birds that come to Big Mill for Bird and Breakfast. And if I name a bird incorrectly I expect my birding friends to let me know.                                                     

While you are in eastern North Carolina be sure to check out Sylvan Heights Waterfowl Park in Scotland Neck.

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