Here are two upcoming events for those who follow a gluten-free diet:

• Whole Foods in Chapel Hill is hosting a gluten-free festival from 4-7 p.m. Feb. 20. Those who follow a gluten-free diet can sample products and meet the vendors as well as enter to win giveaways. The Chapel Hill store is at 81 S. Elliott Rd. The event is free to the public.
• Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen in Cary is offering a gluten-free cooking class from 11 a.m.- 1 p.m. Saturday. Chef Jay Pierce will teach how to make sweet potato hushpuppies, ham cream sauce, creamy grits, tasso gravy, shrimp and grits and Scuppernong wine jelly. The class costs $39. For more information or to reserve your place, call 233-1632.
   

Piedmont Grown, a new local food certification program, launched late last month to help consumers identify foods and products grown, raised or made by a local farmer within a 37-county crescent from Raleigh to Charlotte.

So far, about 110 farmers, restaurants, grocery stores, artisan food producers and others have been certified to use the Piedmont Grown label while another 70 have expressed interest. Consumers can see who has been certified at www.piedmontgrown.org.

The Piedmont Grown label is aimed at helping consumers seek out local food. "It helps them verify that a product is local by a third-party system," said Noah Ranells, a Piedmont Grown board member and Orange County's agricultural economic development coordinator.

The standards for certification differ based on who is applying. For example, farmers have to swear that their farm is in one of the 37 counties and their products are grown on that farm or another Piedmont Grown-certified farm. When it comes to meat marketed as Piedmont Grown, the animal must have spent 75 percent of its life on a Piedmont Grown-certified farm.

Meanwhile, a restaurateur or retailer may use the logo on a menu or deli item if the ingredients included in the name of the dish are from a Piedmont Grown farm and 51 percent or more of the dish's ingredients by volume came from such a farm.  

Jay Pierce, another board member and executive chef at the Lucky 32 restaurants in Cary and Greensboro, hopes that the program will help increase the demand for local food, and therefore the supply.

"It's easier for me to buy from local farmers if more people buy from local farmers," Pierce explains.
 

Lucky 32's executive chef Jay Pierce  and his collard greens are featured in the March issue of Southern Living. Congrats to Jay!

The article titled, "My Secret to Collard Greens," was written by Amber Nimocks, my former boss at the N&O and now a producer at The State of Things and the food editor at The Indy. (I've attached a copy of the article below.)

The restaurant has two locations: one in Greensboro and a second at 7307 Tryon Road in Cary.

Documents:

More than 40 people have already bought their tickets for the next Triangle Foodie Tweetup. This event will be from 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 7 at Lucky 32 in Cary.

Chef Jay Pierce will be offering highlights from the fall menu, including pork belly sliders, bacon-wrapped meatloaf, jambalaya and buttermilk pie. Tickets cost $5, plus the eventbrite fee, so the total cost is $6.11. To purchase tickets, go HERE.

The News & Observer restaurant critic Greg Cox recently gave Lucky 32 a 3-1/2 star review. To read it, go to:http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/09/03/659747/eatery-takes-a-lucky-turn-south.html

You do not have to be on Twitter to attend this event. If you love food, this is a great opportunity to mingle with fellow food lovers and try what a restaurant has to offer at a very reasonable price. I hope to see you there.

Chef Jay Pierce just sent over the menu for the next Triangle Foodie Tweetup:

Sweet Potato Hushpuppies with Country Ham Cream Sauce

Whistle Bites: Pork Belly Sliders with Green Tomato Chowchow and Pig&Whistle sauce on Anna Mae Rolls

Jazz Fest Shrimp Bread

Voodoo Pig Bread

Roasted Chicken Salad

Mini-Black Bean Cakes

Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf with Red Wine Mushroom Gravy

Stew Beef & Rice

Pulled Pork on Johnny Cakes

Boiled Peanut Succotash

Collard Greens

Pintos & Chowchow

Whipped Sweet Potatoes.

Now that's a deal for $6.11 a ticket. Go HERE to read more about the event.

Our next Triangle Foodie Tweetup will be from 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010 at Lucky 32 in Cary.

This event will follow the same format as the first tweetup: appetizers in the bar area and a cash bar. Chef Jay Pierce will be offering highlights from the fall menu. Tickets cost $5, plus the eventbrite fee, so $6.11. To purchase tickets, go HERE.

To avoid the confusion at the last tweetup, you have to buy tickets before noon Oct. 6. Please bring your tickets to the event.

To see the restaurant menu, go to http://www.lucky32.com/

The News & Observer restaurant critic Greg Cox recently gave Lucky 32 a 3-1/2 star review. To read it, go to:http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/09/03/659747/eatery-takes-a-lucky-turn-south.html

As usual, you can follow the discussion on twitter by using this hashtag: #trifoodietweetup. You also can follow the hostesses on Twitter: Andrea Weigl, food writer for The News & Observer, @andreaweigl, Debbie Moose, N&O Sunday Dinner columnist and cookbook author, @DebbieMoose, and Johanna Kramer, aka @durhamfoodie, a Durham food blogger whose blog can be found at http://johannakramer.com/

You do not have to be on Twitter to attend this event. If you love food, this is a great opportunity to mingle with fellow food lovers and try what a restaurant has to offer at a very reasonable price.

Our next Triangle Foodie Tweetup will be from 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010 at Lucky 32 in Cary.

This event will follow the same format as the first tweetup: appetizers in the bar area and a cash bar. Chef Jay Pierce will be offering highlights from the fall menu. Tickets cost $5, plus the eventbrite fee, so $6.11. To purchase tickets, go HERE.

To avoid the confusion at the last tweetup, you have to buy tickets before noon Oct. 6. Please bring your tickets to the event.

To see the restaurant menu, go to http://www.lucky32.com/

The News & Observer restaurant critic Greg Cox recently gave Lucky 32 a 3-1/2 star review. To read it, go to:http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/09/03/659747/eatery-takes-a-lucky-turn-south.html

As usual, you can follow the discussion on twitter by using this hashtag: #trifoodietweetup. You also can follow the hostesses on Twitter: Andrea Weigl, food writer for The News & Observer, @andreaweigl, Debbie Moose, N&O Sunday Dinner columnist and cookbook author, @DebbieMoose, and Johanna Kramer, aka @durhamfoodie, a Durham food blogger whose blog can be found at http://johannakramer.com/

You do not have to be on Twitter to attend this event. If you love food, this is a great opportunity to mingle with fellow food lovers and try what a restaurant has to offer at a very reasonable price.

Our next Triangle Foodie Tweetup will be from 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010 at Lucky 32 in Cary.

This event will follow the same format as the first tweetup: appetizers in the bar area and a cash bar. Chef Jay Pierce will be offering highlights from the fall menu. Tickets cost $5, plus the eventbrite fee, so $6.11. To purchase tickets, go HERE.

To avoid the confusion at the last tweetup, you have to buy tickets before noon Oct. 6. Please bring your tickets to the event.

To see the restaurant menu, go to http://www.lucky32.com/

The News & Observer restaurant critic Greg Cox recently gave Lucky 32 a 3-1/2 star review. To read it, go to:http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/09/03/659747/eatery-takes-a-lucky-turn-south.html

As usual, you can follow the discussion on twitter by using this hashtag: #trifoodietweetup. You also can follow the hostesses on Twitter: Andrea Weigl, food writer for The News & Observer, @andreaweigl, Debbie Moose, N&O Sunday Dinner columnist and cookbook author, @DebbieMoose, and Johanna Kramer, aka @durhamfoodie, a Durham food blogger whose blog can be found at http://johannakramer.com/

You do not have to be on Twitter to attend this event. If you love food, this is a great opportunity to mingle with fellow food lovers and try what a restaurant has to offer at a very reasonable price.

Greg Cox returns to Lucky 32 as it becomes a Southern kitchen. Go HERE to read his review.

I don't often write about my dining experiences on  this blog. I'm not the restaurant critic; I try to leave that job to Greg Cox. But I felt like I rediscovered a restaurant I had previously written off so I thought I'd share the experience.

Last week, I dined at Lucky 32 with the chef Jay Pierce. (Per the N&O ethics policy, I paid for my lunch and it was not the N&O's money.) The last time I dined at Lucky 32, around 8 years ago, the restaurant's focus was American regional cuisine. I wasn't really impressed and never returned. Pierce, a New Orleans native, has been with the restaurant for 3 1/2 years. There is one in Cary and another in Greensboro. Now, the restaurant's tagline is "Southern Kitchen." As Pierce says, "What could be more Southern than a meat-and-three?" So the  restaurant's side dishes, such as whipped sweet potatoes,  pintos and chowchow, pot liquor and cornbread and deviled eggs and Benton's ham, are available as a vegetable plate, albeit a modern version. The sides cost $3 each, and you build your plate from there. You also get to choose two to three sides when you order any of the entrees.

However, I didn't get to eat the side dishes last week, a mistake I soon  hope to correct. I went to Lucky 32 to taste the pork belly sliders with green tomato chowchow, which were a big hit at the Farm to Fork picnic. However, they ran out before I got a taste. My other favorites were the grilled peaches filled with Goat Lady chevre and wrapped in country ham; chicken and dumplings with lovely gnocchi-like dumplings; and the one dish that I can't stop thinking about -- the scuppernong wine jelly cocktail. The name doesn't do it justice. It's essentially scuppernong "Jell-O." The jello slides across your tongue with its sweet and citrus flavors, and finally, the scuppernong's familiar flavor asserts itself. It really is delightful. I can't wait to get back to have some more. 

I know what my order is next time: a vegetable plate and scuppernong jelly for dessert.