A Year-Round Guide to Franklin and Nantahala

Listen as the pages of the magazine come to life in the Storytellers podcast showcasing the voices of six Our State writers. Each podcast episode features a writer reading their

Rosemary and Goat Cheese Strata

Listen as the pages of the magazine come to life in the Storytellers podcast showcasing the voices of six Our State writers. Each podcast episode features a writer reading their

Listen as the pages of the magazine come to life in the Storytellers podcast showcasing the voices of six Our State writers. Each podcast episode features a writer reading their column aloud, allowing each distinct voice to shine. Click below to listen to Editor in Chief Elizabeth Hudson read her column aloud. 


Frigid winter mornings take me back to my high school days when I slept too late and had to bolt out of the house, leaving behind the bleak prospect of a bowl of cold Frosted Flakes and grabbing, instead, my book bag and car keys and jumping into my Nissan Sentra, shivering as the heater sputtered. Instead of driving directly to school, as I should’ve, I’d veer in the opposite direction, toward town, drawn to the drive-through at The Biscuit Company, where I’d roll down my window and speak my order into the icy air.

In minutes, I’d be back on the road, one hand on the wheel, the other clutching a buttery, savory, salty country-ham biscuit, its crinkly wrapper spread across my lap as a makeshift napkin, doing its best to catch the crumbs.

I’d miss homeroom, but I’d slide into my desk just in time for first period, AP English, that biscuit long gone but its warmth carrying me through the hour. To this day, I’m convinced that my love for literature is linked to those cold-morning detours: a biscuit in hand, a stack of books on the passenger seat. My senior year readings — The Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Beowulf (I can still rattle off its prologue) — were fueled by those breakfasts, by the biscuits that hushed my rumbling stomach and eased me into the day.

My grandmother made fine biscuits, but hers were different — softer, delicate, meant for butter or a dab of jelly, much too tender to hold up to country ham or sausage, and certainly not meant to be eaten on the go.

In North Carolina, we have restaurants devoted to barbecue, with pitmasters perfecting their craft like artists, but biscuit spots hold their own, too. I’ve waited in a line that stretched down Goldsboro Street at Flo’s Kitchen in Wilson for a cathead biscuit — you need two hands for that one — and I’ve swung through Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen in Chapel Hill for a bacon, egg, and cheese. I still marvel at the decadent jam bar at Biscuit Head in Asheville. And am I even a little embarrassed to admit that barely half an hour after leaving Asheville, I’ve stopped at Blue Ridge Biscuit Company in Black Mountain for round two? I am not.

For all my travels across this state — every corner of North Carolina, every one of its 100 counties — the search for a good biscuit remains one of my most satisfying quests.

In 1978, when Biscuitville opened in its bright yellow building in Asheboro, my grandfather, ever curious, took my grandmother and me to try it. I still remember my first order — a chicken biscuit — and how the three of us settled into a booth near the front, sunlight angling in through the wide windows, warming our faces. That morning marked the start of a Saturday tradition that held for as long as my grandfather was alive, one that taught me something lasting about food. It’s more than hunger answered; it’s comfort and connection, a taste of place and shared moments, of memories made in the company of people we love.

 

Elizabeth

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth Hudson
Editor in Chief

 

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This story was published on Jan 15, 2025

Elizabeth Hudson

Hudson is a native of North Carolina who grew up in the small community of Farmer, near Asheboro. She holds a B.A. degree in English from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and began her publishing career in 1997 at Our State magazine. She held various editorial titles for 10 years before becoming Editor in Chief in 2009. For her work with the magazine, Hudson is also the 2014 recipient of the Ethel Fortner Writer and Community Award, an award that celebrates contributions to the literary arts of North Carolina.