Raleigh is a great place for drivers, but for pedestrians? Not so much.
Recently, the personal finance website WalletHub analyzed the hundred largest cities in the U.S. using 30 indicators of driver-friendliness. Factors included accident likelihood, traffic and infrastructure, gas prices, annual hours in traffic congestion and car theft rate, among others. Raleigh ranked No. 1 overall as the nation’s best city to drive in, beating out Orlando, Tampa and Lincoln, Nebraska. Four North Carolina cities appeared in the list’s top 10.
On the other hand, a recent study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration listed Wake County as having the second highest frequency of pedestrian collisions in North Carolina. Wake was second only to Mecklenburg County, the home of the state’s most populous city, Charlotte. Overall, North Carolina ranked 16th for pedestrian collisions. And nationally, pedestrian collision numbers are only rising.
“A lot of drivers in this area are unaccustomed to looking for people,” says Ashton Mae Smith, a Raleigh resident and former candidate for the Raleigh City Council, who was struck by a vehicle on Hillsborough Street four years ago. “Culturally, we put a lot of burden to be noticed on pedestrians and cyclists instead of on drivers. That’s a bit of a challenge.”
Raleigh, for its part, has some infrastructure for pedestrian safety, but there are definitely areas in need of improvement.
“Lower speed limits in urban areas, traffic diets, leading pedestrian intervals at signals are all ways we can help,” Smith says. Traffic diets (or road diets)—a term generally used to describe removing travel lanes from a roadway to use the space for bike lanes, pedestrian refuge islands, transit and parking—can be particularly helpful, leading to a crash reduction rate of around 19 to 47 percent according to the Federal Highway Administration.
“But some of it is as simple as the City installing sidewalks and more frequent crosswalks,” Smith continues. “A lot of the incidents we see are people at mid-block crossings or in an area of town where crosswalks are quite a distance apart.”
Capital Boulevard is particularly problematic, along with New Bern and Glenwood avenues, all long, busy roads with businesses located on either side. Pedestrians tend to cross where it’s convenient and, to save time, don’t necessarily want to walk down to broadly spaced crosswalks—especially to get to or from a bus stop.
Streets and intersections closer to the urban core have different issues.
“At Dawson and McDowell at South Street, the crosswalk signal is, like, 12 seconds long,” says Smith. “At Hillsborough Street and Glenwood, the signal light has been covered for a year and a half or two years now. And if you get off the bus right at Washington Street but want to get to Fletcher Park, good luck! Or, you can walk all the way back down to Peace Street.”
Smith says she wasn’t tempting fate by jumping into busy traffic when her accident happened. Instead, she was halfway across Hillsborough Street with a walk signal when a Kia Soul turned left from S. Harrington Street and hit her. After a little time in the hospital, some surgery and a lot of physical therapy, Smith says she’s still feeling both the physical and emotional effects of the crash.
“You should see me walk downtown,” she says. “I’m pretty much on high alert all of the time. There are more drivers and fewer people paying attention.”
The City is Taking Action
While there are ongoing issues, the City of Raleigh isn’t sitting idly by.
“We have focused on pedestrian safety for a long time,” says Eric Lamb, the transportation planning manager for the City’s transportation department. Lamb points to a 2009 rating from the nonprofit Smart Growth America that put Raleigh at No. 6 for worst pedestrian safety in the country.
“The system was based on our metro area, but Raleigh made up a significant portion of the crashes being recorded,” Lamb continues. “Since that time, we have taken steps to improve pedestrian infrastructure and pedestrian crossings and, as such, our ranking has improved consistently in the last 10 years in that evaluation.”
One of the steps the City took in response was to create the Raleigh Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, an all-volunteer body appointed by members of the Raleigh City Council. It also installed leading pedestrian indicators, such as those on Fayetteville Street, that light up the “go” signals for pedestrians before those for cars, so drivers can see pedestrians in the crosswalks before they start moving. Once-dangerous Hillsborough Street has undergone a facelift, making it safer and more attractive for bicyclists and pedestrians. And the city is installing more crosswalks with pedestrian refuges on Wake Forest Road so pedestrians only have to cross one lane of traffic at a time.
“Each street is different,” says Lamb. “One of the problems with parts of New Bern is not having any sidewalks, period. We have projects going on right now to improve that. With Capital, what’s interesting is that we have some limitations on how frequently we can create crossings.”
To these ends, the city has retrofitted more sidewalks in town and has upgraded intersections. It also installed road diets along Peace Street between Glenwood Avenue and Cameron Village that, though they increase traffic congestion slightly at certain times of the day, have seen crash rates drop dramatically for pedestrians and vehicles.
Currently, the City has allocated more than $20 million solely for sidewalk improvements, which is more money allocated for pedestrian safety than in the last 20 years combined.
“One of our challenges has been us playing catch up to our growth and urbanizing streets where growth has already taken place,” says Lamb. “For a city our size, that is a pretty substantial challenge. We take pedestrian safety very seriously and we’ve taken a lot of steps to improve our environment.”
Think of the view of downtown from the Boylan Street bridge, then go seven stories up: You can’t help but be awed.
Walking in to unit No. 706 at 710 Independence Place—the sprawling penthouse atop the Bloomsbury Estates—you see the towering windows in the giant cupola let in light from the east, illuminating downtown Raleigh’s skyline. Venturing up the spiral staircase behind the windows, you’re graced with a view of Dorothea Dix Park—at sunset, the most breathtaking time of day, the sky turns a hazy orange over the acres of grass. And during the holidays, you can see the twinkling lights of the condo’s Christmas tree all the way from Fayetteville Street.
When Brett and Ally Wells sell their beautiful condo, it will be bittersweet.
The couple purchased the unit in foreclosure in 2014, before the local and national housing markets rebounded, and the condo was a big blank space with, basically, a bunch of stuff ripped out (including the oven and a stereo system) that the previous owner had sold. Since then, the Wells family has built the home into exactly what they wanted, from the custom designed fireplace to the converted sunroom that’s now a nursery for their 8-month-old.
“One day, I had this vision of opening up the fireplace with columns and art over it,” says Brett Wells, who created a design on graph paper and handed it to his interior designer. “I literally drew it from scratch.”
The redone fireplace features glass on either side, lending a through-and-through effect, with a hand-blown glass sculpture created by Los Angeles artist Seth Parks in shades of blue hanging above it. The custom-made piece is inspired by Dale Chihuly, the visionary glass sculptor whose work was recently exhibited at the Biltmore Estate.
The sculpture will stay behind with the condo, partly because the couple feels it belongs with the fireplace and partly because it arrived from Los Angeles in eight boxes and, according to Wells, “about a million pieces” he had to assemble himself.
While the bar near the kitchen—also a Brett Wells design—was the couple’s first renovation project in the condo, most of the work wasn’t done until last January, when the pair moved out and rented an apartment downstairs for four months during the renovations.
“The guy who lived here before us threw all of these elaborate parties,” Wells says. “You almost feel like a steward of this condo. I felt like it was my job to return it to its full potential. It started with the mezzanine and snowballed from there.”
The mezzanine, located at the top of the spiral stairs, offers a 360-degree view of the city, an incredibly rare feature in a downtown condo. Other improvements include a large chandelier in the cupola, new floors, new paint, electric blinds, full surround sound speakers and a glass wine cellar that can store up to 168 bottles of wine.
“Living here is the embodiment of live, work, play downtown,” Wells says. “We like getting ready, having a glass of wine, walking to Poole’s or Barcelona and coming back to our space. It’s so nice to be in the middle of it all.”
Although they’ve finally transformed the condo into their ideal living space, the arrival of the couple’s baby—and a desire for a house on three-quarters of an acre—changed their priorities a bit.
“We’ve gone as far as we could have with the space,” Wells says. “Our time here is coming to an end so someone else is going to have to continue the journey.”
Boozy popsicles are back in Raleigh bars…or in your own kitchen.
At 10th and Terrace at the top of downtown’s Residence Inn, they are made of puréed fruit, simple syrup and Kölsch beer from White Street Brewing Co. in Wake Forest; what better way to beat the heat while soaking in the best of summer than enjoying one of these beer-infused treats? To make the experience even better, they come served in a glass of Anna de Codorniu Cava, or more White Street Kölsch.
Here’s a visual.
Imagine a traditionally shaped peach popsicle with the slight pear and melon taste of a crisp, German-style beer, slowly melting into a stemless glass of chilled Cava, like a Bellini. Or place a pop in your Kölsch straight from the tap, foam flowing like a fruity root beer float. You can dip the popsicle like an Oreo in a cold glass of milk, or you can let it seep into your drink, slowly transforming the flavor of what you’re sipping on until all you’re left with is an empty glass and a wooden stick. Yes, please!
For a change of pace this summer, 10th and Terrace is also offering a (non-alcoholic) lemon-lime popsicle—there’s actual lime zest in the pop—placed in a mixed drink of vodka, hard lime seltzer, green tea simple syrup, lime juice and fresh mint. Rachael Pair, the director of operations at downtown’s Residence Inn, calls it the hotel bar’s “zen poptail” for those who want a treat that’s light and refreshing.
“We were looking for something out of the box to set us apart,” says Pair, who introduced the restaurant’s boozy popsicles last summer with Chandler Pearce, formerly a business development representative at Lonerider Brewing Company. “The popsicles let us get creative and let your taste buds soar. The motivation for creating the popsicles is like being a kid in a candy store.”
Currently, 10th and Terrace has four popsicle flavor options, with peach and lemon-lime as this summer’s new additions. Last year’s favorites, strawberry and Piña Colada, are back and all four will be available until the weather cools down, likely after the Hopscotch festival in the fall.
While 10th and Terrace was an early player in Raleigh’s boozy popsicle scene, it’s not the only place offering these spiked delights. North Hills’ 41 Hundred Lounge also offers boozy popsicles with ever-changing flavors, so it’s worth checking them out, too. Last summer, 41 Hundred Lounge sold frosty Margarita and frozen Old Fashioned popsicles filled with boozy gummy bears.
Whether you find them at a Raleigh bar, order a box online or spend hours on Pinterest looking up “poptails,” there’s no shortage of ways to find this frozen treat. We tried our hands at making easy, flavorful popsicles we thought would be accessible to boozy pop novices. We think, with enough trial and error, you can make any cocktail into a “poptail.”
After experimenting with six recipes, we landed on three we think are straightforward and delicious:
Coconut Key Lime Pie:
1 part Key Lime Pie Cream Liqueur
1 part coconut rum
4 parts limeade
Spiked Arnold Palmer:
1 part Firefly Sweat Tea Vodka
3 parts lemonade
Splash of unsweet tea
Cucumber and Elderflower:
1 part Cucumber and Mint Kettle One Vodka
1 part Elderflower liqueur
4 parts lemonade
Of course, you can get as fancy as you like with the ingredients, but we recommend starting simple. Liquor doesn’t freeze easily, which is common knowledge, so the trick is to include a flavored spirit with enough juice to freeze the alcohol. Also, choose your mold carefully. A popsicle mold with a plastic pull top can be tricky when you’re trying to pull the popsicle out of the mold—while still frozen and formed, popsicles with alcohol don’t hold up to the yanking that a popsicle full of only juice likely would. If you want to try your own recipe, use an ice cube tray with a silicon bottom to pop out the ice cubes. If they’re fully frozen, you should be able to try something bigger. Stay away from bitter or overly sweet flavors. If you’re doing something fruity, try adding real pieces of fruit to the mix. Happy popping.
Researchers at NC State’s vet school are advancing medicine across the species.
Ed and Ingrid Carney’s rescued German shepherd, Liesel, loves Jeep rides. During one of those rides to the beach, 5-year-old Liesel jumped out of the Jeep and into the sand. She winced and the Carneys noticed her favoring one leg as she walked. Knowing something was wrong, the couple took her to Dr. Warren Gintis, their veterinarian at Swift Creek Animal Hospital in Raleigh.
After a few X-rays, Gintis broke the news that Liesel’s hip was beginning to go bad.
“Given that she was young and reasonably fit, he suggested now would be a good time for a hip replacement,” says Ed Carney, who was referred to Dr. Simon Roe at North Carolina State Veterinary Hospital. “Dr. Roe and the entire staff bent over backwards to make sure that we felt comfortable that we’d get the best care on the planet.”
Roe and his team performed a total replacement of Liesel’s left hip, eliminating her joint pain.
“She had surgery late December and we’re already out doing five mile walks,” says Ed Carney. “She’s the reason I lost 33 pounds! Instead of having a hobbled German shepherd, we’re going to have a dog that’s happy and healthy and is able to have a productive and pain-free life.”
Liesel is just one of more than 182,000 animals that have been helped at North Carolina State Veterinary Hospital since its inception in 1983. One of the highest rated regional academic veterinary medical complexes in the country, the hospital has three medical centers, plus satellite and field operations, with more than 34,000 cases examined, diagnosed, and treated each year.
The Hospital
Photo by John Joyner/NC State Veterinary Medicine
“The best way to describe our hospital is that it’s like the Mayo Clinic of veterinary medicine,” says Dr. Steve Marks, clinical professor of internal and emergency medicine and the associate dean and director of medical services. “We have a specialty hospital that sees about 35,000 patients a year and it’s a teaching hospital.”
The hospital partners with veterinarians in the community for animal referrals, just like it did with Swift Creek Animal Hospital and Liesel. The process is similar to the human one. If you went to your general practitioner and they thought you were ill, they would send you to a specialist for further examination.
“If they find a lump and they think it’s cancer, they send you to us,” says Marks. “We can do almost any diagnostic and therapeutic procedure you can find in human medicine. We have all the bells and whistles. We can offer what a local vet might not be able to offer.”
The hospital has an ER for emergencies and off-hours, just like a human hospital. If your dog was hit by a car, for example, you could come straight there. Otherwise you would need a referral from your personal veterinarian to be seen. While no one hopes for an illness in their animal, it is nice to know that you and your pet have the resources if needed.
“We’re a state-of-the-art hospital,” says Marks. “We have more specialists in our hospital than any hospital in the country. There are other specialty hospitals in the area, but they aren’t attached to a university.”
The College
College of Veterinary Medicine at NC State
The NC State College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) was the state’s first and only place to study veterinary medicine when it was established in 1978. Now, it boasts 585 faculty and staff members, three departments—Clinical Sciences, Molecular Biomedical, and Population Health and Pathobiology—and an 80-acre farm that serves as the Teaching Animal Unit (TAU). The TAU helps students practice animal husbandry, production management and routine procedures used in livestock production.
Students come into the school with an undergraduate degree in a basic science discipline. Since the school only accepts a class size of 100 each year, with 80 accepted in-state and 20 from outside of North Carolina, competition for admission is tough.
The first three years are primarily pre-clinical years in class and lab training. In the fourth year, students can work in the hospital, which is a mix of teaching and using the hospital as a teaching center. They interact with patients under the supervision of a specialist.
Through interaction, students bridge compassion and science and learn how to provide owners with compassionate medical care while also pushing forward medical innovation.
“We are training veterinarians and veterinary scientists,” says Marks. “It allows us to push the science forward.”
The Research
The university is what makes this hospital unique. At CVM, it’s not only the animals that are being helped. Through education and research, students and staff work to improve the state of medicine for animals as well as humans.
“We’re doing medicine better tomorrow than we’re doing today,” says Dr. Kathryn Meurs, associate dean for research and graduate studies. “We do everything from cancer research to eye research to swine virus research to cell division research and more.”
Ranked the No. 4 College of Veterinary Medicine in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, the CVM houses one of two national centers for the Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank, which keeps drug residues out of public food supplies.
“I think that what makes the College of Veterinary Medicine unique is this concept that everybody is involved in research,” says Meurs. “Everything we do can provide information that can advance the way we do things.”
The research is broad. Some of it is lab, some is clinical, some benefits animal disease study and some will go on to benefit human disease. Almost all of it is translational research—if you’re doing it in a lab, you want to apply it to a patient somewhere.
“The other aspect where we stand out is this very strong link to biomedical or medical care,” says Meurs. “Some of that really is at the bench. It might be years before it’s going to move to the clinic, but the goal is that these are the things that change healthcare.”
Research is funded through government programs, industry partners, nonprofits or through foundations like the American Heart Association. An experiment that makes discoveries at the cellular level might be funded by the National Science Foundation, while something that’s production animal focused, like how to better vaccinate, might be funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Current research runs the gamut from eye lesions in sea turtles to treatment approaches for canine vertebral osteosarcoma, the most common bone tumor in dogs.
A Clinical Trial
Photo by Nathan Latil/NC State Veterinary Medicine
Ruth Baker’s 10-year-old Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Alex, is nothing short of a champion. In fact, he’s won a grand championship, a masters in agility, and even a Utility Dog Excellent UDX in obedience, a difficult feat, all with his owner by his side.
With such an active dog, Baker was heartbroken when Alex was diagnosed with canine degenerative myelopathy (DM), a neurodegenerative disease parallel to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, in humans.
“I’m an old person, almost 80,” says Baker. “It’s amazing that I can get out there and run and do agility with my dog. Now I see my best friend have this problem of no longer being able to walk. He hasn’t walked for months.”
Baker and Alex recently entered a clinical trial at NC State that is working to slow down the progression of DM in dogs through a steady dose of a gene-silencer. Since DM is a progressive and fatal disease that affects older dogs, there is no current treatment or cure, just like ALS. By slowing down the disease’s progression, researchers could provide more time.
For Alex, who is also a licensed therapy dog who would visit hospitals, Alzheimer’s patients, and schools, Baker sees this trial as his final way to give back.
“We felt like this was his last contribution to the human world,” Baker says. “And we’re hoping to help human ALS victims as well.”
Photo by John Joyner/NC State Veterinary Medicine
It Affects Humans Too
Doberman pinschers unfortunately are susceptible to a fatal genetic heart disorder common in their breed, called dilated cardiomyopathy. Basically, the heart muscle’s ability to contract is affected, leading to heart failure or sudden death. Humans who suffer from the same disease also have a grim outcome, with the only current treatment being a total heart transplant. After discovering that human and Doberman cases are caused by the same gene, researchers can test therapies on the dogs on shorter timescales, possibly leading to new and effective human treatment.
Global Health
By merging existing education with global health research, CVM’s new Global Health program has created a multinational effort to combat global health problems. The recipients of the 2019 travel awards are research projects in South Africa, the Galápagos and Senegal.
Pretoria, South Africa— Anthony Blikslager, professor of equine surgery, and Mathew Gerard, professor of anatomy, are working to increase survival rates of injured southern white rhinoceros poached for their horns.
Genovesa Island in the Galápagos— Greg Lewbart, professor of aquatic animal medicine, is studying tourist-induced stress in seabirds, comparing stress hormones in red-footed boobies nestling close to popular tourist areas with those living in quieter parts of the island.
Dakar, Senegal— Research assistant professor Shivaramu Keelara Veerappa aims to stem the tide of infectious diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, including malaria, Zika and yellow fever.
*Information provided by NC State University’s Veterinary Medicine News
Photo by John Joyner/NC State Veterinary Medicine
fyi. . .
Alex’s trial is not the only clinical trial at NC State. Here are some other projects in the works shaping the future of medicine:
Treatment of Large Skin Tumors in Horses Using High Frequency Irreversible Electroporation
What that means: Through a clinical trial, researchers will use electrical pulses to destroy tumor cells and help chemotherapy penetrate surviving cells. By using high frequency irreversible electroporation, researchers hope to eliminate muscle contractions that are associated with traditional electroporation.
Treating Hypoxia via Tumorally Directed Oxygen for Improving Radiation Therapy
What that means: Dogs diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma will get oxygen delivered to their tumor tissue during radiation treatment, hopefully increasing tumor response.
*Information provided by NC State Veterinary Medicine
When I go out for date night with my husband, we always agree on one thing: forget the dessert and bring us a cheese plate. That’s not to say that I don’t eat chocolate on a daily basis—I definitely do—but there’s just something so delicious about a glass of wine, a sample of unique cheeses and a relaxing atmosphere.
But, let’s face it, we don’t live in France, or even Wisconsin for that matter. Our choices are somewhat limited but they have been expanding to include more than just pimento cheese and cheddar. From food trucks to grocery stores to restaurants, Raleigh’s cheese scene is changing.
Take Wegmans, for instance. Opening in Midtown East in September, the New York-based grocery chain comes complete with a cheese shop featuring offerings from a cheese cave.
That’s right, I said cheese cave.
In a 12,000 square-foot building in New York, there’s a brie room and caves for ripening soft and wash-rind premium cheeses, including the 1916 Aged Goat Cheese that tastes mildly tangy, with a hint of bright acidity and a light dusting of ash.
By ripening its own cheeses, Wegmans’ products approach perfection.
“The cheese caves were a concept we talked about in 2008, but didn’t open until 2014,” says Cathy Gaffney, Wegmans’ vice president of cheese, delie and cheese caves. “The goal was to take soft-ripened cheeses and see how we could bring them in and make them absolutely perfect. We also wanted a central location to do a quality check on our special cheeses. In doing all of that, we discovered we had an opportunity to create new cheeses.”
Those creations, such as the Professor’s Brie and Full Ver-Monty—a new, smooth, Alpine-style cheese—have gone on to please customers and even win awards at the 2018 American Cheese Society Conference and 2019 United States Championship Cheese Contest.
But it’s not all about the product. Gaffney says customer demand has to exist to make the caves worthwhile. And exist it does, to the extent that Wegmans even started a “cheese university” within the company to teach its employees the ins and outs of Gouda, Fontina and Stilton. Workers learn how cheese is made and how to tell when a cheese is perfectly ripe. Then, they can talk knowledgeably with customers.
“One of our goals is to always make people feel comfortable in the cheese department,” Gaffney says. “We want to focus on welcoming our guests and make sure they feel comfortable asking questions. Every question is a viable question. We also want to give everyone a taste. Our folks are always excited to tell the story and share the products.”
Wegman’s Cheese Cave in New York
The cheeses aren’t something you talk about today and in a month or two they’re ready to go, Gaffney says. Instead, it’s a labor of love and a deep partnership with suppliers. The result is beautiful cheese.
“Cheese has been around for thousands of years,” says Gaffney. “It’s nature’s most nearly perfect food. It’s milk and a couple of ingredients. Sometimes people feel intimidated but they shouldn’t.”
Decidedly less intimidating, but no less delicious, are cheese curds, a snack that enjoys some popularity in the Midwest. Wisconsinite Lisa Germain started the Cheese Curd Shack, a deep-fried cheese curds food truck, to fill a void Germain noticed in the market.
“Fried cheese curds were nowhere to be found [in Raleigh],” Germain says. “We were shocked! In Wisconsin you cannot go to an establishment and not order deep-fried cheese curds to go with your beer.”
The Cheese Curd Shack serves white cheddar cheese curds directly imported from Wisconsin, lightly breaded with fresh ingredients and fried. It offers the regular flavor, plus jalapeño, and garlic, the newest addition. If you like garlic cheese bread, you’ll love the garlic cheese curds. While it’s not needed, marinara and ranch for dipping are also made available.
“It’s been a difficult but fun journey for us,” says Germain. She left her corporate job in Wisconsin, packed up, and debuted her food truck at Brewgaloo in 2017. “We were accepted into the NC State Fair, a huge accomplishment. We’re now in our third year and we finally have the word out on the street—questions about what a cheese curd is have significantly diminished.”
Wegman’s Brie Room
At Barcelona Wine Bar, a nationally-acclaimed restaurant with a new location on Martin Street, questions are encouraged and cheese is as an important part of the menu as the wine.
“We have an executive chef in each restaurant who has a lot of freedom with a large part of the menu,” says Ennio Di Nino, the general manager for the Raleigh location. “We like to have a mix of cow, sheep, and goat’s milk cheese in our options from Spain. There will sometimes be a local cheese mixed in here and there, depending on its availability. A mix of textures is also important, so having soft, semi-soft and hard cheeses is part of the criteria. We’re working to source some local cheeses right now and are looking forward to being able to showcase some of North Carolina’s own.”
Like Wegmans’ Gaffney, Di Nino realizes that educating the staff also educates the customer, that everyone’s palate is different and that everyone has their likes and dislikes. Barcelona staffers are so knowledgeable about cheeses that they can make recommendations by comparison, to make lesser-known cheeses more relatable.
“We love to let guests try things,” Di Nino says. “If they don’t like it, no big deal. We’re happy they tried it and if they do enjoy it, that’s great, and it’s something else for them to enjoy the next time they visit.”
Highlights on the Barcelona cheese menu include a mild and buttery Tetilla, a Manchego aged for six months, a “drunken” goat cheese and an Alisios, a cow and goat’s milk cheese rubbed with pimentón, or smoked paprika, from the Canary Islands. Pair those with dry-cured Spanish ham or cured Hungarian pig and you can’t go wrong.
“We’re thrilled to be in Raleigh,” Di Nino says. “We’ve made so many new friends who have become regulars over the weeks and we look forward to making many more. Raleigh’s food scene is evolving and it’s fantastic to be a part of it.
The Scoop on Cheese Curds
Cheese Curds
Cheese curds are moist pieces of curdled milk that are popular in Canada and the northeastern and mid-western parts of the United States. Basically, they’re bite-size chunks of soured milk.
