Week of October 4th – North Carolina

From Idaho potatoes to sweet potatoes, sweeeeeeeeeeeet!

NC leads the nation in tobacco, furniture and textile production. Well, I quit smoking, I’m not in the market to redecorate and everyone is stocked up on their Gold Toes, Hanes and No Nonsense. So, march on, but don’t step in the tar. Of course we all know what happened near Kitty Hawk, NC in 1903, but no one has a flight to catch. NC is home to more than 80% of NASCAR teams and paraphernalia but none of us care for the sport so we didn’t rush out to the track. Krispy Kreme Doughnut was founded in Winston-Salem but we didn’t feel like going out of the way for doughnuts, no matter how good they are.

When you explore the regional cuisine of the Tar Heel state, pork barbecue keeps showing up, that with, of course, sweet potato in every form imaginable. So we started the NC celebration Friday night by enjoying pork barbecue and watching the “Andy Griffith Show”. In October of 1960 Mayberry, NC, invited America into their homes and hearts and started a 50 year love affair with Sheriff Andy, Barney Fife, Aunt Bee and Opie (so cute). What better way to honor NC!

Saturday’s activities including all day snacking on Archway Cookies, Lance Snacks and Mt. Olive Pickle Co. pickles. Dinner was highlighted with mashed sweet potatoes which, at least, some of us enjoyed and the snappy tunes of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, which everyone enjoyed.

To honor North Carolina, after football on Sunday, we put NASCAR – ESPN on but no one actually watched it.

NC seems to have more than its share of sappy movies set in the state. We have “Nights in Rodanthe” and “A Walk to Remember” to name a couple. “The Last Song” was set in NC in the book, but the movie was staged in Georgia. Since we hadn’t seen “The Last Song” we ruled that it still counted and ended NC week with its viewing. I’m not really going to elaborate but I do take exception to casting a raccoon as a villainous character in this movie.

The evening ended with the unofficial anthem of the Tar Heel state, James Taylor’s “Carolina in My Mind”.

Color in North Carolina with a salute to its official state sport and travel to the Caribbean and our 2nd Territory – U.S. Virgin Islands. 46 down – 6 to go.