Chris Coleman of the Market Kitchen cooked a chicken and sweet potato hash during the Davidson Farmer’s Market Winter Chef Challenge last November. He’s back Saturday for the Breakfast of Champions. (David Boraks photo)

Local chefs will be preparing local food at Davidson Farmer’s Market this Saturday morning for another in the market’s popular Breakfast of Champions series. This “Taste-Nic,” as organizers are calling it, will be a fundraiser for both the market and the Davidson-Cornelius Child Development Center, the area’s only sliding-scale child care center.  The event is  this Saturday, June 8, from 9-11 a.m., at the market grounds off Main Street, next town Town Hall.

Chefs and their menus will be:

• Joe Kindred, Roosters Kitchen, who will be making sweet potato hash with onions, sausage, eggs.
• Chris Coleman, The McNinch House, Breakfast salad over grits with steak, roasted beets, greens, pickled peaches.
• Jenny Brule, who writes the Finding Tasty blog, breakfast bruschetta on baguette, various cheeses, eggs, basil and garlic.
• Betsy Verhey, Meals Ministry and chef at the Davidson-Cornelius Child Development Center, French toast with creamy ricotta, peaches, mint.
• Andres Arboleda, Boutique Chef Services, Belgian waffles with granola.

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Mixed green salad with strawberries, toasted almonds and goat cheese (Nikki Sawyer Moore photo)

I drove to Florida for Memorial Day and made a pit stop at Striplings General Store in Cordele, GA.  Just off I-75 on the Florida-Georgia Parkway, road trips have included a stop here for as long as I can remember.  If headed north, essential purchases include a Slurpie and a bag of their homemade beef jerky.  If headed south, where refrigeration is just hours away, needed provisions include a couple of pounds of smoked sausage and a hot/cold bag for the remaining trip.

Every time I stop at Striplings I have meat on the mind.   Imagine my surprise then when I stepped out on the hot pavement, shimmering with newly arrived summer heat, and thought of strawberries.   Read the full story

Food Truck Wednesday is back again this week at the Oak Street Mill in Cornelius, organized by the merchants and other folks in in the Cornelius Cultural Arts Group.  Look for Smoke ‘N Go with barbecue from 11am to 2pm in the parking lot at 19725 Oak St., behind the police station in downtown Cornelius. Read the full story

The former Meatballs on Main on North Main Street Cornelius will become Fork in June, opened by local food fan and chef Tim Groody. He and his partners were painting chairs and cleaning up the place this week. (David Boraks photo)

Tim Groody, who co-founded Davidson’s Flatiron Kitchen and has worked at a variety of Charlotte-area eateries, is getting ready to open Fork on North Main Street in Cornelius. Read the full story

A new Indian restaurant called Curry N Kabab House has opened on West Catawba Avenue in Cornelius, where Santorini Grill closed recently. Meanwhile, Hot Stone Grill in Kenton Place has switched back to dinner-only hours, and Kabuto Lake Norman Japanese steakhouse and sushi bar is donating a portion of the sales of its two-person special to Ada Jenkins Center. Also, a preview of Breakfast of Champions day at Davidson Farmers Market June 8. Read on for those items and other dining news. Read the full story

Chipotle maple barbecued chicken

I adore a good barbecue sauce. One that sticks to your fingers and cheeks while balancing sweet, spicy, smoky, and tangy flavors. When I stumbled across a 7-minute recipe for Chipotle-Maple Barbecue sauce in the June 2013 issue of Food and Wine magazine, I thought it had potential. And with chipotles in adobo and maple syrup in the cabinet (two ingredients that I always keep on hand), it didn’t take much convincing for me to whip up a batch for grilled chicken.

A couple of years ago, my grilling underwent a giant shift. I learned about brining and gone were the days of dried out chicken breasts and cardboard-like pork tenderloins. Soaking the meat in a liquid with salt and, often some sugar, for just a few minutes before cooking transforms the end product keeping it juicy and succulent despite the dry and scorching heat of the grill. The discovery of brining was a game-changer for me and since learning about it, I have always gone to the trouble of this extra step.

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