Don’t Throw Away Those Pumpkin Seeds!

Are you preparing a Pumpkin Pie for the Holidays, or just carving a few Jack-o-Lanterns for Halloween? If so, save the Pumpkin seeds.

Pumpkin seeds are highly nutritious and delicious & easy to prepare.

Follow these instructions for an easy snack your Family will surely love.

After cleaning out the meat from the Pumpkin, separate seeds from the left over stringy flesh, wash and clean thoroughly, set aside on a paper towel and let completely dry, this may take at least a full day.

Spread seeds in a single layer on a lightly greased cookie sheet and roast on bottom oven rack @ 400 for about 25 minutes or so, until seeds start to crack and turn a golden brown.

Lightly salt and let cool.

Seeds will open easily and they have that great taste everyone will enjoy.

Be creative and add other spices such as Cinnamon, Apple Pie spice, Neo Masala or Curry, or create your own combination. Seeds will stay fresh for up to one month.

Store in a closed container in a dark place.

Enjoy!

Asheville, NC is full of great festivals throughout the spring, summer, and fall. I have been looking forward to attending LEAF festival for the past few years but haven’t been able to make it yet. This artsy festival usually happens twice a year, in May and October. This fall it is scheduled for October 19-21. This festival is full of arts, crafts, performance, community outreach, camping etc. etc.

Be sure to check it out this October 19-21, 2007 in Black Mountain, NC. I will report back to let you know about my finding!

My friends and I recently came up the with idea to try all of the Pizzerias in WNC. We were listening to the Ween album Shinola Vol. 1. The song Someday played and the lyrics “Tuesday is Pizza Day” caught our attention. From that point on, our little adventured unraveled. We created a map on Google Maps of all of the pizza locations we plan to try and we update it each week. Last night was pizza at Blue Mountain Pizza in Weaverville, NC. The boys ordered a Parrot Head pizza. This consisted of bacon, pineapple, and ham. The crust at Blue Mountain is crispy and the sauce is mildly sweet. We find that the difference in sauce varies so much from one pizzeria to the next. This time I stuck with something simple, baked spaghetti. It was really yummy and baked to perfection with extra cheese. Their salads are really tasty with mixed greens, broccoli, cucumbers, and carrots. I am not a big fan of iceberg lettuce, so I really enjoyed the salad. Out of all of the joints, I enjoyed the atmosphere here. Buddy, Carol, and Jamie, a nice sounding folk band, played and entertained during dinner. So overall, I give Blue Mountain Pizza two thumbs up.  It is a home-town experience.

Some other great places to try are Asheville Pizza and Brewery Co., Barley’s Taproom, Mellow Mushroom, Frank’s Roman Pizza, and Marco’s Pizza. Another great thing about the pizzerias is the selection of locally brewed beer. The others mentioned above are all great each featuring their own unique sauce. Asheville Pizza and Brewery Co is one that is unique to itself. They are a brew pub and a movie theater.  Movie tickets are a cheap $2. The 7pm show ALWAYS sells out, so I suggest picking up tickets ahead of time and getting to the show early to find good seats.  Click here for current movie listings and show times.  The decor is also very unique with murals, television remotes, movie tiles, and much more. To see what I am talking about, you will have to go and see for yourself! They also have a wonderful lunch buffet Monday-Friday from 11 am until 3 pm.

Next week we are heading out to Black Mountain to experience My Father’s Pizza.

Venture out and enjoy a great slice of pizza!    

Asheville has recently enjoyed a renaissance of sorts—motivated in equal parts by its upscale shopping, unbeatable mountain panoramas, art-deco architecture, and red-green political slant. However the unspoken ingredient in this Appalachian success story is something called local color.

Local color is that ramshackle barn decorated with hubcaps and rusty mid-century farm equipment… on the property beside your million-dollar-luxury-ritz-palace. Local color are Hare Krishna devotees chanting and banging tambourines outside your French bistro. Or heavily accented, flannel-clad working-class farmers selling organic tomatoes to yuppie tourists. Or the Picnics Chicken Man.

Picnics Restaurant and Bake Shop is the embodiment of local color. Established on Merrimon Avenue in 1995 by mother-and-son collaborators Minnie and Ron Smith, this local eatery is a favorite for famished UNCA students seeking a hot, off-campus (i.e. tasty) meal. Aside from chicken and barbeque plates, I think the Roast Duck with Ratatouille Provencale sounds delicious. The Great Dame informs me that Picnics also bakes incomparable peach pies. But the star attraction here is the Picnics Chicken Man—a sports-style mascot who wanders the parking lot to greet visitors and waves to passing motorists.

Last October, Grade-A Bureaucrats informed Picnics that the Chicken Man would need to cease and desist. According to city functionary Christine Logan, the Chicken Man operates in contravention of the city sign ordinance. Logan claims that the Chicken Man constitutes a dangerous distraction to motorists passing the restaurant, despite remaining strictly within the Picnics parking area. Apparently similar laws regarding mobile phone use were overlooked. The revelation shocked longtime residents of Asheville, liberal-leaning students, and loyal restaurant patrons—especially considering the innocuous nature of the Chicken Man, whose benevolent mission hardly seems a threat to anyone or anything. Picnics Attorney Wilder Wadford expressed surprise that the city would bring a legal challenge to the mascot, commenting that the Chicken Man “fits no definition (of a sign) that’s set out in the ordinance.”

Why target the Picnics Chicken Man? I would personally propose cultural imperialism on the part of recent transplants from elsewhere—people for whom the mascot is either too provincial, uncouth, or (most likely) unbearably Southern. Strange that other instances have slipped through the crack, such as the obnoxious mascots dressed as mattresses who advertise along Swannanoa River Road, or the ever-present sign-urchins who appear whenever a TJ Maxx outlet closes down. Need we remind our seasonal Floridian residents that their state extols the virtue of an equally ridiculous mascot named Mickey?

Fortunately for everyone involved, the Asheville City Counsel will soon consider an amendment to the sign ordinance which could relieve the pressure on Picnics to stop having fun… a relief for everyone who feared Asheville was about to become a suburb of New Jersey. Chalk up another victory for local color!

Catalonia, the Great Dame, and I completed a day of mountain galavanting in great spirits. We had been lightly snacking on chips and tea the whole day in expectation of our promised reward—dinner at Asheville’s finest Indian restaurant with Elizabeth Ann. The group invited to the feast expanded by fits and starts throughout the day. First, we heard that Elizabeth Ann would be bringing an old friend currently staying at A Bird’s Nest. During our lunch break Catalonia called her friend Samantha from California, who now lives near Asheville. Before dinner, we dropped the Great Dame with the Dame Mother in Weaverville, and they agreed to rendezvous again at the restaurant.

Half an hour passed. Catalonia and I and huddled our way along the street through the wintery cold. We easily found the place and discovered we were the first to arrive.

Mela Indian Restaurant is situated within an old downtown building within minutes walk of the Civic Center, Grove Arcade, Pack Square, and other Asheville landmarks (70 North Lexington Avenue : 828.225.8880). This typical Carolina brick and hardwood-floor structure has nevertheless been integrated seamlessly with markers of traditional Indian culture. Paintings of kings and philosophers adorn the walls, and perhaps even a representation of the blue-skinned Krishna, all sparkling with bright colors and lavish details. The dining area is spacious, beginning with tall windows beside the street and moving far backward into the warm heart of the building. High ceilings emphasize these dimensions, producing an effect of voluminous invitation.

The Dame and the Dame Mother arrived while I was busy absorbing the setting. Moments later, Elizabeth Ann entered with her friend Suzanne, a professional singer-songwriter from Nashville. Catalonia wondered where her Californian friend could be. Now I had become (by no fault of my own) the only person who would not have a “date” for the evening. While I might normally have scrambled to find one, in this case I followed my father’s advice and decided to “mingle”. We were soon seated, and I received the place of honor beside our host Elizabeth Ann. We had an unusually interesting conversation, but that’s another story.

Mela was voted the Best New Restaurant of Western North Carolina in 2006. The reasons why were immediately obvious. Aside from the great atmosphere, service was superior, and the dishes reward the imagination. Mela’s menu contains a selection of delicious appetizers, soups, breads, and entrees for both meat lovers and vegetarians. Elizabeth Ann ordered the Vegetable Samosa, which are triangles of baked pastry stuffed thick with savory spiced potatoes and peas. The tamarind-mint chutney that accompanies these morsels offers a bright, tangy splash of intense flavor. We shared these and discussed geology (which is a favorite topic of mine), water rights, and the politics of downtown real estate. Catalonia’s friend arrived just prior to the main course.

Our entrees were equally impressive. I ordered a dinner special called Mughlai Salmon. The menu identified this as a royal dish from the court of Shah Jahan (1592-1666), who captained the Mughal Empire to a golden age. The salmon was prepared with a marinate of ground almonds, pistachios, raisins, sour cream and herbs. Having developed a mature flavor in this rich bath, the Salmon was broiled in the tandoor oven—a central feature of every Indian kitchen. These ovens date from prehistoric times and have been discovered among the ruins of the ancient Indus river civilization. The often reach almost 900 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to cauterize meats, thus trapping the flavorful juices inside. Mughlai Salmon did not disappoint. Steaming fresh from the over, the tender and aromatic fish flaked gently away from the delicately spiced and crunchy skin. Both elements were perfectly complemented by the inclusion of yoghurt sauce and tamarind chutney.

Elizabeth Ann ordered another special, the Lamb Pistachio Korma. Some say the greatest Indian restaurants can be identified by the quality of lamb and curry sauce employed in house dishes. This mild dish incorporates both, offering a virtual culinary tour of the subcontinent in every bite—coriander, cumin, cardamom, cloves, ginger, and coconut are painstakingly blended with curry to produce a multifaceted, smooth texture. Korma also benefits by stewing meats within the evolving sauce, and this effect is best achieved through dicing or pulling meat into small pieces which increase the surface contact between solid and liquid components. Elizabeth Ann commented that the result was scrumptious. Having traded a few bites of our respective dishes, I was almost inclined to order a second dinner.

Indian sauces also double as excellent flavoring for the exquisite traditional breads present with almost every meal. On this occasion, ElizabethAnn and I shared Spinach and Goat Cheese Naan. Naan is a traditional wheat flatbread somewhat softer in texture than pita. Famous as a vessel for delivering warm, buttery satisfaction, Naan is also a prime vessel for various vegetable and meat stuffings. Inspired, it would seem, by the vegetarian staple dish Saag Paneer, Mela stuffed this evening’s Naan with spinach and goat cheese. The menu identified this as a tradition farmer’s meal from fertile agricultural regions straddling the modern states of India and Pakistan. The ancient Persians named this land Punjab, meaning “The Land of Five Rivers”. Repeatedly conquered and wrecked by dualing empires across the millennia, Punjab is a cultural crossroads embodied by its proud cuisine. The last empire to leave, Great Britain, departed in 1947, but the farmers and bread remains.

We retired from Mela warm with pleasant satisfaction. I cannot recommend Mela highly enough. The food was remarkable both for its excellent preparation and reasonable price—but also by positive comparison against the mediocre and pricey dishes delivered by most Indian restaurants in the southern United States. Those who enjoy exotic flavors and carefully prepared traditional dinners should plan to visit the incomparable Mela.