With four new breweries either opening or recently opened in Durham (I count DSSOLVR, Flying Bull, Atomic Clock, and Proximity, am I missing one?), one might think that the market here is getting oversaturated. I distinctly remember Fullsteam opening in 2010 and the packed out taproom there was the default event venue for every baby shower and birthday, complete with links from the Farmhand Foods (now Firsthand Foods) truck . Soon thereafter (2015), Ponysaurus took the reins as the go-to brewery location for hangs. With the crowds subsided from both those locations, and from going out in general post-Covid, I ask, are we now at Peak Beer here in Durham, or is this just a build-out for a more populous future in the Downtown district? Or are these breweries just the pet project of well-funded amateurs investing in a declining business model?
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Best of 2023
Thursday, November 2, 2023
Artisan Baker Raven Norris
Thursday, October 5, 2023
Murders in Durham
The recent spate of violence in Durham is nothing like what is happening now in Portland, but for anyone who works Downtown, the increased violence and schizophrenia of the panhandling and unhoused community is well known. In a terrible quote from the Times article above,
He estimated that based on the body’s temperature, this victim had been dead for more than an hour, which meant dozens of commuters had walked by his body during rush hour before one stopped to check his breathing and call 911.
Monday, a Duke grad student was murdered, and the man held in custody is someone known to the bar and restaurant industry of Durham as a regular.
Last night at 11pm, my own neighbor in Northgate Park was shot at in his car as he pulled in. In the morning, I found the car window punctured with a bullet hole, and four spent casings littered the curb next to my eucalyptus tree. Thirty people have been shot and killed this year in Durham, and 115 non-fatally. Growing up, the only pops I heard where from a tennis court nearby my home. Now I have to tell my son not to be scared when he hears gunshots.
Implicit in the Times article is that we are all complicit in the stepping around of a dead body laying out in the street. Two months ago, arriving at work, a Durham ambassador told me as I stepped out of my car, "You got a body in your bathroom". There was a man sprawled out on the bakery customer bathroom floor, a dirty knee twisted as if to draw a perfect chalk outline. He could have been sleeping, so I spoke to him. No reply. Not even a flickering of the eyelids. His skin color was between olive and gray. I yelled louder. No response. Should I check to see if he's breathing? Five minutes later, I put 911 on speakerphone. After a couple minutes, the sound of the dispatcher must have roused him. He got up and scampered away, leaving his phone charging in the wall outlet.
We depend on our City officials to provide safety and security for the residents. We depend on first responders to handle crisis situations. We depend upon the health care system to tend to mental illness and addiction. We depend on the legal and penal system to provide pathways to rehabilitation for offenders. Right now, none of these systems are working, either independently or together. It's enough to give you a panic attack.
That is exactly what happened to me. In the second year of Covid (2022), I began getting panic attacks from the overwhelm of everything that was going wrong. I eventually began seeing a holistic chiropractor/therapist and went down the path of becoming a trained breathwork guide and ice therapy coach. It's helped. And I've been able to train others. For every systemic malfunction, there are people like Michael Bock who are like Jedi, like angels literally trying to "hold back the ocean". The ocean is coming, and the question remains what we're going to do about it.
Friday, April 7, 2023
Sights and sounds
Anywhere are you go in Durham you can hear the pop of a nail gun hitting timber for a new four-on-one development.
Saturday, March 25, 2023
Sunday, February 26, 2023
Saturday, February 11, 2023
Thursday, February 9, 2023
Isaac’s Bagels: An Appreciation
I got to know Isaac Henrion his second week distributing bagels at the Burch Ave community garden. I introduced myself, him in his trademark leather jacket, bandana, and occasionally incomprehensible UK accent. Thinking I was out to compete with him, he was suspicious of my interest in his business, and his bagels. What he later learned was that it was actually an obsessive interest in bagels and baking that made the connection.
Sunday, January 15, 2023
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
Friday, December 16, 2022
Best of 2022
Tacos: Tacqueria Allende NL, Green Flea Market, Durham
Sunday, December 4, 2022
Brewing and Baking
I don’t know why it should be a crack thing to be a brewer; but it is indisputable that while you cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was and brew. You see it every day.
- Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Inflation / NYT
We have been feeling cost inflation since January, and it seems the Fed may likely overshoot its interest rate cooldown in an effort to tame it. When staples like bread and eggs go up in price, a market cooldown of assets like housing or the stock market is not likely to bring down the price of these essentials due to their demand inelasticity. I expect we will see 6-10% inflation year-over-year for at least another nine months.
Here in the New York Times, there is a great description of the bread inflation costs and prices happening globally.
Here at the Ezra Klein pod, we hear about the devastating international effects of US interest rate increases due to a dollar-denominated global economy.
Monday, October 17, 2022
One Must Ask
"There’s nothing holy about Babka to me, but if it’s like a salami and cheese Babka why bother? “What is the integrity of the food?” One must ask." - MFK Fisher
Thursday, September 22, 2022
Covid Diary 10-1-21 to 9-30-22
10-15-21
Sociology to the rescue (Zeynep Tufekci):
Research on the unvaccinated by KFF from this September showed the most powerful predictor of who remained unvaccinated was not age, politics, race, income or location, but the lack of health insurance.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/opinion/covid-vaccines-unvaccinated.html
10-18
It's been a slog, but it's going to get better.
10-19
Our downtown fate has been sealed: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/400-W-Main-St-2605-Durham-NC-27701/2067850157_zpid/
10-22
The bakery can no longer get cake boxes due to: Supply Chain Woes: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/business/shortages-supply-chain.html
10-29
The Great Resignation: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/style/quit-your-job.html
11-2
Everything is Conditional
11-3
Workers are scare and empowered: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/03/business/jobs-workers-economy.html