I love this New York Times story about local food in Durham, North Carolina. I grew up a few hours west and went to school in nearby Chapel Hill - reading this made me ache for some buttermilk biscuits with country ham or Crook’s Corner’s shrimp and grits.

Mostly, though, I love the simplicity of the food and its elevation to high art with a focus on fresh, local ingredients. We seem to be in the middle of a renaissance, eschewing the factory food production of the past half century, borrowing from old world local traditions with uniquely American spins that are neither fancy nor fussy. A place like Magnolia Grill will, of course, make an amazing meal but there’s nothing about that kind of cooking that needs to be limited to a restaurant.