NC Pie Series: What comes at the end is always remembered: the goodnight kiss, the famous last words, the three-point shot at the buzzer, the homemade pie following a fine meal. What’s a plate of flounder in Calabash or oysters on the Outer Banks without a slice of lemon meringue, served on a Styrofoam plate with a plastic fork? Can you imagine a rib eye at the Angus Barn in Raleigh without the grand finale — that famous chocolate chess, drizzled with syrup, dolloped with whipped cream? What of the perfectly fried chicken at Mama Dip’s in Chapel Hill, culminating with a slice of sweet potato or pecan? Sure, we love our cakes, cobblers, and banana puddings, but pie provides the sweetest memories.
“The Jarrett House was the first North Carolina restaurant I ever ate in,” Karen Barker remembers. Like the Jarrett House itself, she and her husband, Ben, are culinary legends around here — for their iconic, award-winning restaurant, The Magnolia Grill, which lived in Durham from 1986 to 2012. Years before that, when Ben was a student at Western Carolina University, he worked at the Jarrett House as a server, Karen says, and ate a slice of vinegar pie “every shift he worked.”
The cozy inn was a fixture amid the mountains in Dillsboro for more than a century — it opened in 1884 and just recently closed — and the vinegar pie was arguably its most famous offering. This old-school, Southern dessert is a classic “desperation” or “make-do” or “pantry” pie. In other words, a recipe that relies on kitchen staples versus seasonal, perishable ingredients. Instead of using apples, say, use apple cider vinegar. And instead of using buttermilk, use a lot of melted butter. The result is as humble as it is addictive.
Jarrett House
100 Haywood Road
Dillsboro, NC 28575
(828) 586-0265
jarretthouse.com
1 stick margarine, melted and cooled
1½ cups sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
3 eggs
1 (9-inch) pie shell, unbaked
Combine the first six ingredients and pour into the unbaked pie shell. Bake at 300º for 45 minutes.
North Carolina Pie Series: Lemon Milk Pie
In Gorges State Park and other remote areas of our state, swinging suspension bridges — practically woven into the woods around them — transport hikers over rivers, across creeks, and into the past.
North Carolina’s state symbols make up a one-of-a-kind collection that tells our story. They include our native plants, the art we create, the crops we grow, and so much more.
He was smitten with the flavors of her Zimbabwean cooking. She was intrigued by his rural North Carolina upbringing. Together, they created a life in Durham — and a namesake restaurant that was the first of its kind in the entire country.
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