by Anna Beth Adcock | Aug 30, 2022 | Do, September 2022
An NC State grad won a renowned cheese-rolling race in England, and now she’s coming back to the Carolinas as an international celebrity.
This summer, recent NC State grad Abby Lampe rolled into 15 minutes (or more?!) of fame after taking the W in the annual Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling race across the pond in Gloucestershire, England—for which she had to literally roll (read: Rough and tumble) down a hill chasing a 7-pound round of cheese that whoever gets first wins! And now, as the first American woman to claim the crown, this cheese queen is rolling back to the U.S. to howling applause.
With a mantra to “be the cheese,” Lampe strategized and trained at Dorothea Dix Park before leaving the country. While she determined pre-race that it was best to go headfirst, she failed to factor in the steepness of Cooper’s Hill and the lack of control she’d have as she plummeted down the hill.
Since her cheesy triumph, Lampe has traveled to six countries around Europe, experiencing new cultures and eating lots of food, especially dishes featuring cheese (natch). Here at home, Lampe’s fame has spread—from recognition from her alma mater (Go Pack!) to a nod from Gov. Roy Cooper to spotlights in various prominent publications like Southern Living and Sports Illustrated.
Beyond being all over the news, Lampe has been working with Wolfpack Outfitters, among other apparel outlets, to drop specialty merch with her face emblazoned on the front. The clothing is fun and whimsical with clever captions like “Cheese Queen” and “This is how the Wolfpack rolls.”
But it gets cheddar. Lampe will be donating 100% of the proceeds she receives from her T-shirt sales through IconicHeroes and 75% of the sales through Wolfpack Outfitters to the V Foundation for Cancer Research founded by Jimmy Valvano “in support of the head coach who led us to a natty championship,” she says. As of publication, donations are estimated to be at a little over $500. … Talk about a grate cause!
So, where is Lampe’s famous cheese trophy now? In her parents’ upstairs fridge, of course. “My dad goes to look at it every day,” laughs Lampe. “And when I get home, I want to look at my cheese and give it a big hug.”
Once she returns to North Carolina, Lampe’s first order of business is to go to the dentist for her chipped tooth (a small price to pay for her victory), and then she plans to host a charcuterie board night with her friends and family featuring her cheese as the main dish (!).
“This has been so surreal—the amount of support I’ve been given is insane,” says the cheese queen. “I am so grateful for the experience, and I just feel really blessed to represent NC State—and that this can bring the community together.”
Make sure to snag some of Lampe’s merch, and catch her as the guest of honor at Packapalooza and at NC State’s first home football game against Charleston Southern on Sept. 10. No doubt, heads will roll… shop.ncsu.edu/cheese-rolling-champion
by Anna Beth Adcock | Aug 3, 2022 | Eat, July 2022/August 2022
Cheers to National IPA Day with a brew (or two!) from one of these Raleigh breweries.
Raise your glass this Aug. 4 for National IPA Day and hop on over to one of these local spots. Can we get an ale yeah?!
Mosey into Lonerider for $2 IPAs all day long. We rec the brawny IPA for Outlaws flavored with simcoe and citra hops, or the oh-so-citrusy Pastel IPA. If skipping out on work to have a beer is wrong, we don’t wanna be right… (Just don’t tell your boss we influenced you!)
Channel your inner trophy wife energy with this hip brewery’s OG Trophy Wife IPA, or crack open a can of the Juneberry, a double IPA made with locally grown fruit and named for the rare month that all the best berries are in season. Bottoms up!
Hot off the presses is Crank Arm’s hazy IPA Mechanical Mystic, released Aug. 1. Be one of the first to try either on-site or on your couch at home—and prepare to be mystified…
Let Big Boss Brewing’s Trail Guide guide you through a delish concoction of Pacific Northwest hop varietals Cascade and Chinook (it’s giving major PNW vibes with citrus and pine notes) and El Dorado hops that provide a subtle tropical fruit backing. Tree-mendous!
With Belgian IPAs as its specialty, Neuse River’s Saturday Morning hazy IPA or Wide River IPA are must-sips—best accompanied with European bistro-inspired fare like duck poutine, fish and chips, or croque-monsieur.
by Anna Beth Adcock | Jun 30, 2022 | July 2022/August 2022, Stuff
Girl talk gets a whole new meaning with this creative agency’s newly launched talk show, Hey Awesome Girl With Tivi Jones.
Who run the world? Girls. And local Tivi Jones—founder and CEO of premier creativity agency Hey Awesome Girl and newly launched talk show Hey Awesome Girl With Tivi Jones—is on a mission to empower and lift up every female, especially women of color, in digital entrepreneurship, while also bridging the gap in racial and gender wealth disparity.
On her show, she chats “amazing boss babes in tech, medicine, law, entrepreneurship, parenting and more about their lives, goals and their ‘why,’” says Jones. It’s part business advice, part life coaching and part real talk with your girlfriends. Here, we reverse the roles and query Jones about femmepreneurs, the upcoming season and more.
Give us a little backstory? I want people to know I didn’t come to this path easily or lightly. I began consulting professionally in 2004, and I officially launched my own consulting company in 2010. I’ve also always been a person intrigued by personal development and life optimization. After battling depression for decades, healing from divorce, being unappreciated at work and with clients, and managing my grief after the death of my 30-year-old brother, I realized that there was power and healing in conversations and sharing.
How do you hope your agency inspires and empowers women? I’ve seen personally how building and growing my consulting business has helped me overcome many challenges. My hope is our agency will give women the resources they need to build a career that helps them feel confident in how inherently valuable they are to this world, build wealth for themselves and their communities, and free themselves from any exploitation and expectation based on toxic patriarchal norms.
How does digital entrepreneurship impact women? It’s a tool for freedom because it can look so many different ways and can be perfectly customized to whatever you need it to be—and an amplifier because it gives you a means to directly reach people who need what you have to offer and support your personal mission.
Your team is a powerful example of what digital entrepreneurship could look like… As a 37-year-old queer Black woman from Eastern North Carolina who was laughed at when I left my job to start a company called Hey Awesome Girl, I’m an example of what could be. Our team is 90% female-identifying and 75% people of color.
Your ultimate goal? To help more women come alive—in all the positive, authentic and life-affirming ways. I see digital entrepreneurship and my company as a tool for that transformation. And our mission with this show is to empower, inspire and connect awesome people to other awesome people.
Season two of your show kicks off in July. What’s the MO? To create something for all the girls, to really lean into creating an inclusive space where no matter what type of ‘girl’ you are, our show provides you with business advice and life coaching while having a real talk with girlfriends. It’s real; it’s relatable; and it’s inspiring.
On her show, Jones has covered everything from the Hey Awesome Girl framework of “pleasure, ease and abundance” to misconceptions about grief to inclusion in schools, how to deal with “mind trash,” and so much more. “I’m thrilled that our conversations get so deep,” says Jones, “and I know those deep (and real) conversations are a reflection of the fact that I’m genuinely interested in, curious about and inspired by each of the guests.” Here, her fave nuggets of wisdom garnered by the awesome gals in season one.
• There’s power in connecting your mastery to your legacy when it comes to your career.
• It’s OK if your dreams change!
• Grief is change-management… which means it’s not always connected to death. Sometimes you grieve when things change in your life.
• Freedom doesn’t look one way—sometimes freedom can be loud and sometimes it can be quiet.
• Leaning into discomfort is how you grow and make changes in your life.
• Pain isn’t comparable. You can’t compare your pain to someone else’s in order to weigh whether your feelings are valid or not.
by Anna Beth Adcock | Jun 30, 2022 | Eat, July 2022/August 2022
Recent college grad’s love of local sweets and eats is going viral on TikTok.
Is your TikTok “For You” page in need of some sugar? From working part-time for Postmates to make ends meet to catapulting in popularity on TikTok, UCLA graduate Elena Brown has amassed a huge following for her viral videos highlighting her fave treats and eats during the pandemic—and now she’s bringing her tasty TikTok adventures to the City of Oaks.
With her spunky brand, offbeat humor and a bio that reads, “I eat food weirdly” (more on that later…), Brown’s audience currently clocks in at over 217K+ followers—and counting!—plus tens of millions of views to boot.
Before we bite into it (Brown’s signature tagline), a little background on how this TikTok tastemaker got her big break…
“My friends are amused (if not appalled!) by how I eat food, so I decided it would be funny to post a video of me eating a KitKat bar,” says Brown. “That video received the most views of any other video to date. I knew I was onto something.”
Candy, cookies or cotton candy, you name it—if sugar is an ingredient, Brown is tasting it—and teaching audiences “how to eat” popular snacks and exotic candies. Her schtick? “If you’re eating, eat creatively.” Case in point: Brown has bitten popsicles from the middle, licked sugar off of a rotating Lazy Susan and consumed cosmic brownies layer by layer (sprinkles first, obviously). Weird, maybe—but also
highly entertaining.
Even sweeter still? Brown uses her platform to place local restaurants and small businesses in the limelight. She’s spotlighted such local sweets as dipped ice cream at Durham’s Simon Says Dip This and Winston-Salem’s The Humble Bee Shopee’s cosmic brownie.
And Brown’s foray into the world of foodie fame has only just begun as she continues her search for all things sweet and Southern in the Triangle. “My hope for my TikTok is to continue to explore fun foodie spots and to film authentic content,” says Brown. “I love candy and sweets!” Pardon us while we follow, tap… and wait anxiously to see which local sweet spot she scoops next. @elena_brown08
by Anna Beth Adcock | May 25, 2022 | June 2022, Stuff
Two brothers and their best friend seas the day with radically unique free-flowing beach shade design.
Say breeze. We’re sure you’ve seen Shibumi Shade’s signature blue and teal arch shape billowing on NC’s beaches—and beyond our own coast—but did you know that this innovative invention began in the spare bedroom of three beach-loving buds with a sewing machine and some PVC pipe? Shore enough.
Brothers Scott and Dane Barnes, along with their best friend Alex Slater, grew up setting up less-than-ideal beach umbrellas on their respective annual family vacations in Emerald Isle, so they put their brains together back in 2016 to build an oh-so shady solution to this beach-day bind. Enter, Shibumi Shade.
Named for the design concept “shibumi,” which is defined by effortless perfection, these distinctive shades—with their arch shape and free-flowing design—can now be spotted on shores countrywide (and six continents!), from Emerald Isle to Santa Monica to the isle of Oahu.
“The way that Shibumi Shade gained popularity, almost entirely by word of mouth, I think is a testament to the thoughtfulness we put into the product and the business,” says Slater. And even though Shibumi Shade has blown away (had to) beachgoers all around the world, each shade is still cut and sewn close to home in North Carolina and Virginia.
Spacious enough to fit a group of six (plus beach gear!), these instantly recognizable beach fixtures are both lightweight and easy to assemble, weighing in at less than 4 pounds—and patented as the first-ever wind-powered beach shade, uniquely designed to work with the wind, rather than against it.
It’s all part of the crafty trio’s value of creating an excellent product they’re proud to stand behind. “We want to continue to make excellent products, and to make sure that the Shibumi brand is synonymous with quality and innovation,” says Slater.
“Making connections with customers and beachgoers has always been the best part about starting the business,” he adds, “so we always want to honor those relationships and our commitment to customer service. Along the way, if we can make going to the beach a more enjoyable experience for more people, that’s all we can ask for.” Stay shady! shibumishade.com
