Author: bgibson135

I am a retired Web Developer, Blackboard & Canvas Administrator at Fayetteville State University, which is a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina.

Marrakesh Mediterranean Cuisine

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This is the second Mediterranean/Middle Eastern/Turkish, etc. restaurant that Suzanne has mentioned to me.  The first, Urban Turban, was great and I have visited several times and the food is consistently good.

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My first visit was for lunch on Saturday.  I had the Kefta Kabob (beef & lamb), rice, tabbouleh salad, bread and iced mint tea. (Menu)  The older gentleman, I guess the owner, came out to my table to explain what was on the menu.

I loved the “shtick” and wished that the Turkish Grille in Fayetteville would mimmick the Desert Chic (Sheik).  The atmosphere was everything that pleased.  And now my review goes south.  I just didn’t like the flavor of the kefta kabob, nor the tabbouleh, and the rice (supposed to be a neutral flavor), added to the disappointment.  The iced mint tea was delicious and refreshing.  The bread, fresh out of the oven, warm and soft was good also.

Now, I don’t have broad experience in this type of food, but having tried several items at the Sherefe Mediterranean Grill, over several years, in Fayetteville, and the Urban Turban in Cary, and lunch at the Turkish Grille, I have come to think of myself as “liking” this type of food.  *I really, really like the tabbouleh salad at the Urban Turban.  I like the rice at the Turkish Grille, and they make a good Greek salad.  And, I like the Doner Kabob and salad at Sherefe.

Perhaps it was not having condiments or sauces to add to the flavor.  A squeeze of lemon for the tabbouleh salad “just didn’t make it.”  *The analogy would be the difference between a good, home-made spaghetti sauce and what you get out of a Chef Boyardee can.  The flavor just wasn’t there for me.

NOTE [03/20/23]: Apparently, I did not mention anywhere above that Marrakesh (Facebook, Wixsite, Menu)is located in Jacksonville, NC. The Urban Turban has been closed for several years now.

A few weeks ago, on Sunday, the day after we celebrated the life of James Frederick Sharpe, Jr. “Jim” a group of us, including Mary Ann, Jamie, Danny, Si, Si’s girlfriend, Ray and Jacquelyn (who was celebrating her 50 birthday) went to Marrakesh for lunch. Mary Ann had kept the location a secret, and I didn’t realize they were going to be celebrating Jacquelyn’s birthday also. I wasn’t looking forward to going to Marrakesh again because, as I had said above the food was bland.

But, to my surprise, what I had for my entrée turned out to be very flavorful. I did not enjoy the appetizer, spinach in a philo dough pastry, which was pretty flavorless… but I had ordered the Gyro Platter, with rice and a Greek Salad. The shaved lamb was delicious. The rice had good flavor and the salad was also good.

Motivated by a Fraction.

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I read the following article, Final Lesson: You Don’t Get an A for Just Showing Up from the Faculty Focus web site, and it reminded me of something in my college past.

Many years ago, I took a class in which there were only 13 students. I don’t recall, but it might have been a Real Estate course. The instructor was Col. Joseph Dunn. My heart wasn’t in the course, and when the first test was handed back, that was revealed to me. Col. Dunn gave three grades for each test: a number grade .e.g. 83, 78, 92, etc.; a matching letter grade e.g. A+, B-, etc., and he also gave a fractional grade e.g. 2/13, 5/13, etc. I had never seen a fractional grade before, but this is what it represented. At first there were 13 students in the course, and that became the denominator. The numerator was how you ranked in taking that particular test, with number 1 being the best.

So, on the first test I received two grades that didn’t actually matter much. A letter grade and it’s matching number grade. But, the fractional grade I received was 12/13. Talk about having to deal with self-image, how cruel to actually know where you stood in relation to the rest of the class. But, this wonderful means of grading was just what I needed.

The student that received the 13/13ths fractional grade, on the first test, dropped the course shortly thereafter. But, when the second test came around I received a 2/12ths, and surprisingly the same grade on my final exam. I needed that motivator, and am thankful for it.

—

I came to UNC-W in the summer of 1975, took four courses and my grades were then good enough to attend there.  I had Col. Dunn for several classes, and then I graduated in the summer of 1976 after taking several courses.

Col. Dunn had white hair, not silver-gray, and it was cut in a way that reminded me of the Roman statues (just the head and bust).  I think most of us feared taking his classes because he would “bull-dog” you for answers, and might not even stop his questions when you said in exasperation, “I just don’t know.”  Does that sound like personal experience?-)  But, I recall that when he talked about how the moon looked over Three Rivers Stadium, he would say, “It was bootiful, simply bootiful.”

—

The following has nothing to do with Col. Dunn and the class, except that one time there were four of us (students) sitting in the back of the classroom talking.  It must have been before class started, and we had turned our desks so that we were all facing each other (as if we could have played cards).  Well, one of the other guys told a joke.  I actually think the guy was the one that received the 13/13 grade on the first test.  For most of my life, I was quick to get a quip or a joke.  Literally, if it took more than a fraction of a second, then something was wrong.  So when the joke was told, I didn’t “get it,” but I laughed anyway.  A girl said, “You didn’t get that did you,” to which I finally agreed, “no, I didn’t”.   The others just repeated the joke, with no other explanation, and no matter how many times they told it, I still didn’t get the joke.  Class started, and we all moved to our seats nearer the front of the room.

A week later, I was sitting in the back of the class, by myself as Col. Dunn was teaching, and all of a sudden I had a flash of insight.  I got the joke, that had been told a week before, and I laughed out loud.  The class turned around and looked at me quizzically, to which I just waved them off with my hands and mumbled something about getting the joke.

The joke?  Well, that’s difficult to write, because it was a play on the way the words sound, but here goes.  It came in the form of a question.  “Did you hear about the queer bear that laid his paw on the table?”  That’s it.  That is all there was to it, and yet it was so funny to think that my mind had to process it for a whole week before I understood it.

About the old home place…

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Here is the old two story, white house that I grew up in until about the 7th or 8th Grade.  Shown here, it is located on Queens Creek Road, directly across the street from the current Swansboro High School.  Until about the 1970s, the house was located at the corner of Queens Creek Road and Hwy. 24.  Shown below is the Swansboro Burger King.  The old white house was located about where the children’s play area is located, and facing Hwy. 24.  Sitting in the Swansboro Burger KingThe kitchen would have been about where the drive thru is located.

There were several tall old oak trees in theSwansboro Burger King at the corner of Hwy. 24 and Queens Creek Road front yard, which either by rot or other damage were eventually cut down.  There was a Gardenia bush that grew by the front steps.

There was a ditch that ran along the back of the house, just off from the kitchen.  It ran under Queens Creek Road in one direction and angled back to Hwy. 24 in the other.  There was a large vegetable garden about where GoGas is currently located.

NOTE [ 11/20/23 ]:  I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, but along the ditch that ran behind the house, off from the kitchen, there were several items planted.  There was a rose colored, flowering Crepe Myrtle tree.  The bark is soft and peels from the tree.  Next to it was what we called a “Mock Orange” plant, but many years later I found that wasn’t what it was actually called (a Trifoliate Orange) which had many long intertwined thorns and little, hard fruit about the size of a golf ball.  Then there was some space and there was a tall narrow Pomegranate bush/tree and beside this tree was a wooden plank which crossed the ditch in order to walk over to the pasture area and on to the “pack” house.  The ditch was deep and I dreaded crossing this narrow, bowed plank bridge, but I don’t think I ever fell into the ditch.  The ditch could be almost dry at times, and at other times, after a good, few days rain, it could be filled almost to the brim with clay colored rushing water.  At times, in the warm summer, the water would be low, but clear and trickling and many water plants growing just beneath the surface.  And when the water was just low enough, and when it was a warm summer day, I might get down in the ditch to bother one of the local crayfish, a freshwater crustacean.  The entrance to their lair would be a clay pillar along the side of the ditch bank.   And some of the clay, would be a beautiful smooth light gray color, which I would form into a small cannon ball.  Set on a shelf somewhere, the clay would eventually harden and become almost rock like.

There is a picture of me, taken by Mary Ann a week or so after my birthday, listed as “February 1960.”  I’m standing on the back porch, by the kitchen, on my bicycle with the limp bicycle chain, the mule across the ditch, behind my head, Lyde’s little “lumber jack” house, the old car and the Wisteria bush vines.

Lyde was one of several in the family that had Tuberculosis and needed to “live apart.”  There is another photo of Sis, smiling, sitting on the front steps of the McCain Sanitarium near Aberdeen, NC when she was recovering from TB.  I think the story is that Buddy (mom’s brother, a Merchant Marine) died grotesquely on the back porch, spitting up loads of lung and blood.  Mom having to get towels to soak up the mess.  I think the story goes that someone drove the dead brother up to the hospital in Jacksonville, maybe stopping by Sis’s house in Hubert along the way.  *I may have confused Buddy’s death with someone else’s, but in the story the dead man’s feet are sticking out the back of the station wagon he is being transported in.

Lyde’s little house was off the end of our kitchen.  It was small and a small, single bed ran from front to back.  I think there may have been a “hot plate” for heating coffee or simple cooking.  After Lyde died, the little house was sold, and went away.

And, because I grew up around people who had Tuberculosis, I test positive for TB each time I’m tested.  Apparently the area they prick you with, gets a little more red and “about the size of a quarter” if you are infected.  **I’m not pursuing the possibility, but I think at some point in my later adult life, I realized that if my health became poor, there was a possibility that the TB might try to take over.  Like something bad that, can be kept in check, but never really goes away.   ***Maybe like the way I feel about my pacemaker.  Yes, it was major surgery.  Well, any time someone operates on my heart, that’s major to me.  But after I healed, I have had no problems with the pacemaker.  It has done it’s job, keeping my heart rate from going too low (and me passing out)… and the drugs keeping my heart from beating too fast.

Sweet Tomatoes – Cary, NC

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I’m going eMobile from my EVO.

A little over a month later, I ate at Sweet Tomatoes again, choosing to sit at the same seat, next to the entrance to the bathrooms and kitchen.  There were two families sitting at the opposite end of the isle, that were sitting in the same booths during my previous visit.

A Salad from Sweet Tomatoes

I also tried this lentils, basmanti rice, onion, parsley & curry soup.  It was good.

A Soup from Sweet Tomatoes

An Enjoyable Saturday Travelling…

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I woke up, and after a shower, dressed. I walked outside and walked down the hill a short distance to a Cracker Barrell Restaurant. I had my usual, an Uncle Hershel’s, with country ham, two eggs over medium, potato casserole, biscuits and hot tea. My usual, but just never at this restaurant.

I had the good fortune to have a young waitress, “with a playful mind”. Her name, from the receipt, was Rachel L. She and I were both talkative. She was from Tennessee, and was taking drafting classes, wanting to become an architect eventually. Because I ordered hot tea, she mentioned that there was a tea shop in downtown Asheville called “Dobra”. I thought she said dobro, which I equate to a type of steel guitar, or maybe how to play one with one of those steel rods that you run up and down the strings.

Dobra Teas, as you will see below was a very enjoyable experience!

After I finished breakfast, I walked back up to my room at the Red Roof Inn, packed up everything and left.

I drove over to the WNC Farmer’s Market in Asheville. I bought these yellow cherry tomatoes. They had a good tomato flavor and an almost florescent green flesh.

I also bought a wedge of onion & chives cheese and some fresh cherries.

After I left the Farmers’ Market, I turned and went up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, travelling a short distance and then turning around. It was a foggy morning in the mountains.

I tried to time my drive into town so that the shop would be open  when I got there.  It was still about 10 minutes before it opened when I parked my car and walked across the street.  Dobra Tea Shop is on N. Lexington Street in downtown Asheville. They open at 10 am on Saturdays.

The shop was closed, so I stood on the sidewalk, first reading some info on the door, then peering into the closed shop through a large pane window, and then checking my phone.  A few people walked by, and two were standing a short distance up the sidewalk, talking, in front of what I surmised was a coffee shop.

I then heard a rustle from within the tea shop and turned to see a clerk who apparently went through the morning routine of unlocking the large paned, hinged window along the sidewalk, folding it up to open the tea room to the outside air, placing several potted plants at each end of the open window, and then unlocking the front door to welcome me in.

He suggested that I could sit anywhere.  I chose the back corner of the front room.  The shop has three themed tea areas.  I told him, “I know nothing,” to which reply he became most helpful.  He handed me a tea book, through which I could look and determine which tea I might want to try.

He returned a short time later, and I asked for a pot of hot Assam Brahmaputra tea.  Assam is a black tea (I know now.), and the River or Region is Brahmaputra.  The summer morning was still cool, about 65 degrees F, so the hot tea was very enjoyable.  Surprisingly, I drank the whole pot without asking or adding sugar or cream, and it was very good.

Before leaving I bought a few teas to take back home. One tea was a PU EHR. It was formed into a heavy compressed tea leaf brick. The brewed tea has an earthy aroma, and just a small portion expands greatly as water seeps into it.

On the way back to Fayetteville, I stopped for lunch at Tumeric Indian Restaurant & Bar in Winston-Salem. They have a nice buffet.  Pictured here was some good chicken curry, goat curry, rice, hummus and cabbage with naan.

As I neared Greensboro on I40, I stopped at the Piedmont Triad Farmers’ Market. My first visit. I bought a couple German Johnson and Cherokee heirloom tomatoes from this stand. A walk down the other end and I bought a bunch of aromatic basil.

I do not recall ever having a Cherokee tomato. It has a deep red thick flesh, a red bottom and an almost purple top near where the vine attaches.

ADDENDUM [05/28/21]: Several years ago, the Tumeric Indian Restaurant & Bar in Winston-Salem went out of business. I had eaten at this restaurant several times as I passed through Winston-Salem. I just looked at the Dobra Teas site, and several of the images are as I remembered it… because I see that they were last updated in 2012 (a year after my first visit).