Bill Smith
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2006 Season

Bill Smith first trained as a chef at Chapel Hill's La Residence before moving to Crook's Corner. A writer as well as an intuitive chef, his essays are featured in newspapers, radio, and television.

Bibliography

Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook's Corner and from Home (2005)

Excerpt

I t's about ten blocks to work and I always ride my bike. As I round the corner at Pritchard and Rosemary, I catch the first aroma. Brown sauce at La Residence where I once worked. A block further along the bistro is caramelizing onions. At Mediterranean Deli they are making mujaderra. Then a cluster of Asian places with the smells of sesame oil and curry. If the breeze is right, there will be the fragrance of one of those wonderful stews from the Ethiopian restaurant. Recently, the aroma of pho has arrived at the corner of Church and Franklin streets. As you might guess, there is a sort of restaurant district on the west side of Chapel Hill. In the fall there is something about cool, damp weather that causes smells to linger in the air. I first noticed this years ago when I lived in New York and would walk by the chestnut and hot dog carts.

Chapel Hill is a university town, and our year really begins in the fall. North Carolina is often still mild at this time of year, so there is more likely to be a slow decline in local produce rather than an abrupt ending caused by a sudden freeze. In mid-October I get my last bag of salad herbs from Cathy Jones. It changes as the summer progresses; the final batch is usually heavy on kales and arugula with a sprinkling of marigold petals and basil tips. The cheese makers keep going until Christmas week. Mrs. Andrews brings me her last persimmons. Between the rain and the deer she says there aren't many left. Her sister Blanche Norwood should have plenty of pecans, though. Bill Dow will soon have fennel again, one of our best cool weather crops, which ten years ago had to be special-ordered from California. We find ourselves entering the season of bulbs, roots, and stews, much of which will call for good stocks.

Continued...