restaurants – Bill Gibson, II

I’ve written about Sticks and Stones Pizza in Greensboro, North Carolina in several locations, but I wanted to add a set of images of one of the pizzas that might have been the best I ever had. I now consider my time passed, for having an excellent pizza at this restaurant/bar. I think the people that knew how to fix a really good wood fired pizza have left and the skill hasn’t been passed on. My last two visits have produced a poorly flavored pizza, but I have had quite a few really good pizzas since my first visit. Hopefully I’ve written elsewhere, where I first heard about this restaurant, on some morning news program that said something to the effect that this was one of three pizza joints in the whole United States that produced a really good wood fired pizza. When I heard that I made up my mind that I was going to visit this restaurant and see if their pizza was really that good… and it was!

The above pizza was called “To Be the One” which was a margherita style pizza and featured a bubbly crust, crushed San Marzano tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil, a drizzle of olive oil, and a sprinkle of salt. The one extra ingredient I ordered was Jalapeno peppers. Done well, the end result of a really good pizza should be the empty pie tin, as shown above.

For quite a few years, we (Fayetteville State University) outsourced our instance of Blackboard (our Online Learning System for about 16 years) through the UNC-Greensboro IT department. During my last six years at FSU, before my retirement, we switched our OLS to Canvas, and were pleased with that. Blackboard was a more powerful system, but Canvas provided almost all the necessary functionality and was easier to learn (a lower learning curve). *All this to say that when we switched from Blackboard to Canvas, I went up to Greensboro and “treated” those involved at UNC-G to pizza at Sticks -n- Stones. It was a good send off.

I don’t have the year, but I met Mary Ann down in Charleston, SC where she was attending an education conference and then we drove down to visit Yvonne at St. Simons Island, Georgia. Spivey was still alive.

It was extremely hot weather, both in Charleston and on St. Simons Island. The above photo was taken from the porch dining area of the Waterside Restaurant on Shem Creek, which is across the river from Charleston. I think I had a very good “Wilted Spinach Salad” this visit and came home and repeated the salad successfully. I think a little hot oil over the baby spinach leaves does the trick, and it also has a boiled egg chopped up in it.

It may have been my first visit to the Waterside that I had a “Shrimp Po’Boy” sandwich with fries. There were good fried shrimp and slaw on the sandwich, but the addition was a “curry remoulade” sauce. The word “sauce” may be redundant depending upon what “remoulade” actually means. As I recall, at the time, I couldn’t find a good definition of “remoulade” online. Definitions have gotten better since. The curry remoulade made this sandwich and I came home to try and make this curry remoulade. I came to the conclusion that all the ingredients I needed were: curry paste (Pataks), small capers, and mix those up in Duke’s Mayo. The flavor was close enough and I made a small jar and kept it in my fridge for various sandwiches. It was good on ham and chicken sandwiches also.

Mary Ann and Yvonne in Yvonne’s kitchen on St. Simons Island.

On another visit to Georgia, I travelled to Thomasville which is near the Florida (Panhandle) border to visit Sweet Grass Dairy. At that time they had both goats and cows and made various types of cheeses from both animals. You could also actually visit the dairy where the goats were located and milked.

I don’t recall the dog’s name but I think the cool concrete walkway felt good to his belly.

Jessica’s parents owned the dairy at that time. This is Jeremy & Jessica. Jeremy is married to Jessica. They would take over the cheesemaking and open a restaurant that was located in Thomasville. They later got rid of the goats, and stopped the public visits to the dairy. But for a while they had a store located near the dairy where the public could buy their cheeses and other products. The dairy was several miles outside of town.

I bought a bunch of cheese my first visit, and packed it all up in some coolers I had brought along for the long trip back to North Carolina. On my second visit, I think I bought some Pecan Oil at their newly built store, and gave some away as gifts.

During my first visit to Thomasville, I ate at Liam’s Restaurant, but on another visit Liam’s was closed and I ate lunch next door at Jonah’s Fish & Grits Restaurant. The restaurant was crowded that afternoon. I enjoyed my meal at Jonah’s and I think I had a Lobster Bisque soup.

The food was good, but the special item for me that day was the size of the cutlery. The dinner knife, spoon and fork were all very large, and I liked the feel of these in my hand as I ate. I enjoyed them so much that when I came back home, some weeks later, I drove up to Smithfield, North Carolina to the Lenox Outlet and found an Oneida cutlery set that reminded me of Jonah’s cutlery. I bought them and they have been my main cutlery every day since.

The only negative about this Oneida cutlery is the dinner fork and the salad fork are so close in length that when I put it away from the dishwasher, I have to compare the sizes to figure out which is which.

The Lenox Outlet closed many years ago and there have been few other stores in the outlet that I want to visit. I may visit Carolina Pottery once a year, just to connect with the current holiday. It’s been a while but I also enjoyed shopping at the Pepper Palace.