"NorthCarolina" news and stories

The recent beer renaissance in Asheville, N.C. has spawned a new vegetable.

Jacob Sessoms of Table, who earlier this year was shortlisted for a James Beard nomination, believes he's the only chef in the U.S. serving hop shoots, nicknamed "hops asparagus." Sessoms and co-chef Matt Dawes recently started sautéing the springtime delicacy with mushrooms, spritzing it with lemon and serving it over a johnny cake. "It's absolutely amazing," Sessoms says.

Hops asparagus occasionally shows up on menus in Europe, where Sessoms says gourmands pay $150 a pound for the feathery sprigs. But Sessoms and Dawes had never heard of it when a local farmer experimenting with hops production – a popular pastime in a region that's still hunting for a cash crop to replace tobacco -- offered to bring them a sample.

The Mt. Olive Pickle Company this year is slowing down its annual New Year's Eve pickle drop, milking a few more seconds of celebration from a year that's been very kind to pickle makers.

"We've seen good growth," confirms spokeswoman Lynn Williams.

Fittingly for a firm that flourished in the depths of the Great Depression, having been launched a Lebanese immigrant in 1926, the current recession has barely dented Mt. Olive's sales figures. While home pickling has caught on with the latest crop of penny-pinching backyard gardeners, Williams says store-bought pickles are equally popular with brown baggers.

"Our sense is more people are taking their lunch to work with them," Williams says.

Six people were hospitalized and 31 others injured Sunday after a hazardous chemical incident at a McDonald's in North Carolina.

The customers and employees were injured Sunday morning at an eatery in Knightdale, N.C. Fire Marshal Rusty Styons told the News & Observer that pepper spray or ammonia was likely to blame. The injured complained about burning eyes and noses.

"It appeared to be airborne," Eddie Ross, an official with Eastern Wake Emergency Medical Services, told the paper. "I don't think it was anything in the food."

An unnamed employee said someone left pepper spray on the hand dryer in the men's restroom and it spread after the dryer was turned on, the Associated Press reports.

[Via News & Observer]

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Growers in the nation's southernmost commercial apple-producing region are fighting a change in crop insurance law, which they claim could wipe out a 200-year-old industry.

Henderson County, N.C. -- a stretch of Southern Appalachia where the first apple trees were planted by a Loyalist on the run from the Revolutionary Army -- today generates about $24 million in annual apple revenue, representing 85 percent of the state's apple crop. But the region's 150-plus growers have been hard hit in recent years by calamities including frost, wind and hail.

"You name it, it's happened," sighs Agricultural Extension agent Marvin Owings.

Owings credits the Federal Crop Insurance Program, which reimburses growers for lost apples at a rate of $9.25 a bushel, with keeping area orchards solvent. He's worried a new proposal to significantly lower disaster payouts for lesser-grade apples could prove devastating.

Photo: miskan/flickr

A Domino's Pizza franchise in North Carolina was forced to close its doors forever last week, and its owner puts the blame on disgusting videos two former employees posted on YouTube.

"My business was off 58 percent because of YouTube," franchise owner Kevin Hendren told the Hickory Daily Record. The store closed on Sept. 22.

The franchise's troubles began when two employees of his Conover, N.C., Domino's Pizza allegedly created videos of themselves showing one putting cheese in his nose and then putting it on a sandwich, sneezing on cheese sticks and pulling down his pants, wiping himself with a sponge and then using that sponge to clean a pan. The videos were discovered in April and have been removed from YouTube.

Hendren told the newspaper he will not reopen the Domino's franchise. "I'm just living day to day right now," he told the Daily Record.