We headed back to the land of deer stands and sweet potatoes over the weekend to look for something a little more "refined", "luxurious", "cosmopolitan" in the western sc neck of the woods. well, we didn't really find that - but we did meet some more extraordinarily nice people and stumbled onto a pharmacy -- where adjoining the druggists counter was a gun cabinet. Yep, you can purchase an analgesic and a pistol or rifle in the same shop, but you might have to move the stuffed bobcat to see everything available....
We just got back from part 1 of a road trip piece about southwest SC. It's starkly beautiful there this time of year and you almost feel like you'll fade to the same tone as the leaves and the grass at times. My grandfather was from somewhere near here. They say that when I-95 opened it sucked the life right out of the area.... All that seems to be left is hunting, some farming, and sweet sweet people.
A hog as big as a Fiat rubbed his snout and about 1,000 pounds of shoulder on my leg. Later, I couldn't get enough of Chef Andrea Reusing's sweet pork belly at her Lantern restaurant in Chapel Hill. We were in middle North Carolina for a few days documenting a "farm to table" story for Garden & Gun magazine, this one about organic growing and the Slow Food movement. We saw a goat being born and fed calves with a huge baby bottle. Very cool.
