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When you pause and let your mind wander, where does it go? Maybe it goes to a time far away to a family trip to the lake. Perhaps it moseys off to summer days spent at your grandparents’ house. Possibly it drifts back to an amusement park visit with brothers, sisters, and the whole family. Wherever it goes, it always seems to be a summer place. Evidently, warm weather makes warm memories. ...read more
Inspiration | Mast Family Favorites
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When was the last time you wrestled a pickle jar? Truly engaged in “person versus pickle” combat with one? Sure, we’ve all been there… ...read more
At Home | Mast Family Favorites
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Did you know the State of North Carolina’s official folk dance is clogging? Yep, the North Carolina General Assembly adopted clogging as the state’s folk dance and shagging as the state’s official popular dance in an act executed on July 20, 2005. That’s recent history, but the roots of clogging extend to the country’s colonial period and even before. Photo courtesy of Joe Shannon's Mountain Home Music and Lonnie Webster. ...read more
Local Flavor | Travel
Asheville | Annex - Valle Crucis | Boone | Hendersonville | Knoxville | Roanoke | Original - Valle Crucis | Waynesville
... Our favorite foods! Food is universal because everybody’s got ta eat! And the last two months of the year are filled with more than their fair share of family meals, work gatherings, special outings to favorite restaurants, tins filled with homemade cookies and fudge, and the anticipation of food traditions handed down from generation to generation ...read more
At Home | Recipes
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Even before we bought the Mast General Store, we were taken by the beauty of Valle Crucis. We’ve heard people describe the drive out Broadstone Road as traveling through a time portal. In the 1970s, fields in the river bottoms would be filled with tobacco, cabbage, or high with hay to feed cattle that were grazing in the summer pasture. ...read more
Local Flavor | Mast Family Favorites
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The lucky few who have seen the Earth from a different perspective – astronauts - all echo the same viewpoint upon their return. Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut and the first human to go to space, commented, “Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it.”
Behind the Scenes | Inspiration
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Would you think it's possible to make a good fried sweet potato pie at home that is not loaded with saturated fat?
Well, I must admit, that's a darn good question. I was asked some years back about Southern cooking and why we enjoy so many things that are fried. My answer was, "Because we are going to eat what we want and die happy."
In the time since that quote, I've tried to moderate my fried food eating habits, a bit at least. I've found an easy way to fix fried squash in the oven, which is even better than in a skillet, and I've started baking my hand-cut French fries, too. But, for your question, I thought I needed to consult with someone with a real food background.
So, Sheri Castle, author of the New Southern Garden Cookbook, shared some suggestions and observations with me. She says that it's going to be really tough to accomplish if you want the same taste experience as the real thing. You're faced with a hard choice – if you use shortening, you save on saturated fat, but hit the jackpot on trans fat. Lard will be high in fat, but the fats it contains are a bit healthier.
She said that in the limited baking she has done without lard, butter, etc., she's used a vegan butter substitute called Earth Balance (sticks, not the tub variety). You may be able to find it at Earth Fare or a larger Harris Teeter. This could be used in the crust and in the pan for frying.
It's always hard, when you are making something like this – my Granny's fried apple pies were some of the best things you could ever put in your mouth, but if I had to bet, they weren't the healthiest. But hey, you have to splurge every once in a while. I'm hoping this helps some, and thanks for your question.
Francine