Spring at the Grovewood: Asheville’s Grovewood Cafe is welcoming spring with a new seasonal menu, and the eatery’s outdoor patio area is also ready for warm-weather dining. The Grovewood is located at 111 Grovewood Road, next to the Grove Park Inn; for more information, call 258-8956. Hop to it: Looking for a great way to … Read more
To many who lived in Asheville during those days of downtown desolation, the sculpture came to represent the town’s resurrection. Every work of art has a life story, and Asheville’s Energy Loop — the city’s first public sculpture — has a fascinating one. Controversial from the beginning, its modernist style proved grating to residents used … Read more
North Carolina is failing African-American children, literally and figuratively, and most state leaders don’t seem too worried about it. Less than half the African-American males who enter the ninth grade graduate from high school four years later — a statistic that rarely makes it into any speech by Gov. Mike Easley or state education officials. … Read more
Weaverville’s future has been sold On April 14, the Weaverville Board of Adjustment approved the special exception to allow a mall, larger than the Asheville Mall and Lowe’s combined, to be built on the corner of I-26 and 25/70. After a large percentage of the public in attendance cited stories, statistics, laws and lore opposing … Read more
Farm women speak The Sustainable Agriculture Program at Warren Wilson College will host Cynthia Vagnetti, who will present her film, Voices of American Farm Women at the school and at Malaprop’s Bookstore and Cafe. The work is a narrative documentary of Upper Midwest farm women who are forging new local-food systems based on biodiverse farming … Read more
Six Democrats are vying for the chance to challenge Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford, a Republican who’s served in that capacity since 1994, in the general election this November. For the first time ever, last week the candidates in the May 2 primary participated in a public debate. In an April 11 forum moderated by … Read more
A brook trout is such a rare and fine thing that I nearly wept the first time I saw one. I mean it. Nothing in my carp and catfish sensibilities had prepared me for this, a fish whose coloration is equal parts earth, water, fire and air. The brook trout has bronze sides, amber fins, … Read more
“Wal-Mart is terminating this project and will no longer be pursuing this site.” — April 11 memo to the city from Wal-Mart’s attorneys The word went out just before noon on Tuesday as neighborhood activists, Council members and staff, and the media were all steeling themselves for a long night: Wal-Mart had backed out. The … Read more
I have thrice confronted more daunting garden challenges than the one now glaring up at me from the yard below my office window. Three times I have cleared forested land to sate my penchant for growing crops other than acorns, beech nuts and pinones. Then again, I was, respectively, 35, 26 and 23 years younger … Read more
Red hot • Who they are: (left to right) Emily Sarkissian, Kristin MacLeod and Mary Jo Marshall in Red Ball (see Try This On) ensembles they found at Honeypot (86 N. Lexington Ave., 225-0304). • What they’re wearing: On Emily, strapless glam dress, stretch satin gloves, black Jackie O glasses, glass beads and chunky bracelet; … Read more
