Memory Card Month - Day 23

Since I took you to Parker & Otis yesterday, I thought we'd stick around there for a little while.

I absolutely love this shop. It is deceptively large. From the street, you'd think it is a narrow little storefront. But it is DEEP. And it has great high ceiling with tons of light. For those of you in Tulsa, I'd say it's about 8 times the size of LaDonna's, but about 25% of that is seating.

In the back they have a bakery where they sell cupcakes amongst other things. I hear they serve some fabulous sandwiches for lunch, too. Maybe next time.

The front part of the store is the "pantry" section where you can buy fancy thing like truffle oil and swanky teas.

They also sell a lot of old fashioned candy like these Necco wafers. My mother LOVES these things for reasons that I don't think I shall ever understand.

I saw a number of things at Parker & Otis that made me think specifically of george. I'll post pics of them tomorrow.

Memory Card Month - Day 22

This is a zucchini cupcake with buttercream frosting from Parker & Otis, an adorable gourmet food store in downtown Durham. I wish I had one of these babies in my mits right now. That would be so choice.

Speaking of Scooby Doo, today is the birthday of my brother, Mike! Did I mention that one of his photos was featured in a 2 page spread in Spin Magazine? So cool! Go to the link on the left to see his portfolio ... and prepare to be amazed.

Durham Farmers' Market

Last night the Travel Channel aired an episode of "Man vs Food" that took place in Durham. It only mentioned a few restaurants - none of them particularly noteworthy in my opinion - but amongst the shots of the DoughMan competition, I believe I spotted some shots of the Durham Farmers' Market. Since the farmers' market is on the same block at the Scrap Exchange, it's only right that we wander on down there and take a peek!



My pics were taken on a Wednesday when the market is relatively quiet (probably 15 vendors). My friend John recently went on a Saturday when it was packed with at least twice as many booths.


What I love about the Durham market is that every single thing sold there is grown or raised within 70 miles of the market, so you know you're helping local farmers. Veggies, eggs, meat, etc., it's all local. There's even a booth where you can buy whole wheat flour ground from locally grown wheat. I should buy some of that next time.


Go here to see more of John's pics.

Next to the booth area is the Garden of Eatin'!

Get it? Eden? Eatin'? ANYway ... It's a permanent garden full of fruit trees and herbs and flowers and such. It's a great place to waste time while you're waiting for the booths to open.

Young blueberries still on the bush.


An honest to goodness paw paw tree! Makes me think of that song from "The Jungle Book"

The Scrap Exchange

Welcome to Day 2 of Clean-Out-the-Memory-Card Month! Hmm. That's not quite catchy enough. Perhaps just Memory Card Month? What do you think?

This morning I was looking through the pics on my newest memory card & I got nervous. I don't know if I can stretch this out for 30 days. It isn't that I don't have 30 pics to show you! I definitely have more than that. It's just that I hate breaking them up into just one or two images a day. Some days when I have the time I will definitely have to post more.

Today is one of those days.



All of today's pics come from The Scrap Exchange, a "non-profit creative re-use station" located in downtown Durham. This place is hard to describe. The basic idea is that they save stuff that would normally end up in landfills & encourage people to use it to make art! You can find all kinds of stuff there ... some of it more familiar than others.



There's even a lot of practical stuff like fabric, glass bottles, picture frames, and floor tiles. I was very tempted to snatch up some of these spools of serger thread.

Forgive the blurriness. Forgive, I say!

The warehouse is kinda dark and dusty (and REALLY difficult to photograph), but worth the effort. My favorite part? The little touches added by the staff.






I probably should have taken george here when she was visiting back in January, but for some reason it slipped my mind. Next time, g. Next time.

As I mentioned before, a bunch of movie stars have been in town over the last month to make an independent film. A local paper asked Colin Firth what he thought of the Bull City:

Firth, after looking up images of Durham on Google Maps, was not particularly excited about Durham as a destination but was happily surprised upon his arrival. "You go a mile in every direction and it's green paradise," he said. He's taken his family to the Nasher Museum, the Sarah P. Duke Gardens and Eno River State Park. "I feel strongly about how gorgeous it is here."

Isn't that nice? In my personal experience, it's very rare for an Englishman to say that he feels strongly about anything. They usually maintain an air of polite aloofness even when pleasantly surprised. If an Englishman tells you that something was "rather nice" that is HIGH praise, people. So thanks for the enthusiastic response, Mr. Firth!

What he says is true. It's been gorgeous here lately. Like Mr. Firth, I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather a few days back & head out to Duke Gardens. I didn't have a lot of time, but I just had to find a few minutes to snap some photos at the height of Spring.



The oddest thing happened as I left the parking lot, Walking ahead of me was a woman playing a flute - yes, playing the flute as she walked - followed by a couple ladies carrying what appeared to be a wedding dress and a lime green bridesmaid dress festooned with rainbow fairy wings.

It was as if the Pied Piper was leading us into the garden. What a shame the ladies weren't wearing those fairy wings at the time. It would have been deliciously surreal.











I love this little cottage. They serve drinks and ice cream there during the summer months - a necessity during that steamy time of year.


And here's the real show-stopper in April: the wisteria arbor.

American Tobacco and the new Durham PAC

One week ago - last Saturday afternoon - I went to see "Rent" with my friends Mariah & Rachel. I was really looking forward to this for a number of reasons.
1. Mariah & Rachel are cool & I like hanging out with them.
2. The actors who originated the roles of Mark & Roger in the original production of "Rent" were performing with this tour.
3. I finally got to check out Durham's new performing arts center - the largest PAC in the Carolinas! Wee!



The show was great. The performers totally blew us away and sounded even better in person than on the original cast recording. Very impressive. But the only thing that may have been even more impressive was the PAC. Mariah loved it & declared it her new favorite place to see shows. That's quite a compliment, considering she sees just about every touring production that rolls through Raleigh.



After the show, we walked over to the American Tobacco Historic District. It's basically some old, brick cigarette factories that have been converted into restaurants, office space, lofts, & even our local NPR studio. There's also a cool river-water feature-thingamy, some interesting sculptures, and a green lawn where concerts are performed in the summer.



I thought it was pretty cool, so when I found myself back in downtown Durham this week I decided to snap a few pics to share with you. Since it was the middle of the workday, there weren't as many people around, plus I intentionally avoided including people in these pics. Maybe I'm weird, but taking photos of people without their permission makes me uncomfortable. I almost overcame my nerves & took a photo of one of the police officers zooming around on a Segway, but I just couldn't do it.
Anyway!
Here's the old water tower & the lawn where people enjoy small concerts.


Here's part of the water feature.




The local campus of The Art Institute is located in this building.


Here's a reminder of the trolly system that used to bring workers to the tobacco warehouses.


I love this bike rack! Durham is the "Bull City", don't'cha know.


Right across the road from the American Tobacco Campus (and just south of the DPAC) is the new Durham Bulls ball park. It's not the same stadium featured in the movie "Bull Durham", but this new place has more seats & better bathrooms, so it's all good!


One thing has not changed: "Hit Bull, Win Steak".


Around about this time, my fingers were numb & my ears really hurt. As I walked the 2 blocks back to my car, I discovered that there's a bit of Civil War history in downtown Durham. I'll have to investigate this further for when my dad comes to town. He's a big Civil War buff.


So there ya go! Despite the freezing temps, this was kinda fun to do, so maybe I'll venture out & take more pics of local landmarks. And if you happen to have, say, a gnome sitting around the house that needs to see the world, just send it my way. I'll try to get it a good pic with some of the numerous bulls around town.