Road Food
One of my husband’s co-workers passed on a little book published this summer by Our State magazine. It’s the second edition of “Interstate Eateries,” and it’s organized by the road, not region or cuisine, starting with Interstate 26 (from East Tennessee through Asheville and down to the South Carolina state line) and ending with Interstate 95. Though we’re as a whole spending less time on the road, it’s still a good idea. Just as good road food a rare breed, there’s nothing worse than pulling up to another fast food window. And I’m now recalling a particularly wretched meal at the Cracker Barrel one year on our way north for Thanksgiving. I was trying to forget those chicken and dumplings. I think I’m still digesting them, four years later.
The book’s written by D.G. Martin, who hosts N.C. Bookwatch on UNC-TV. His recommendations run from traditional Southern meat-and-threes to Margaret’s, a Mexican cantina that’s been around forever in Chapel Hill just off Interstate 40.
In Dobson, he suggests the Lantern Restaurant, and the Basin Creek Country Store in Elkin for cheeseburgers. In Kernersville, he likes the Plaza Restaurant and of course Keaton’s BBQ (chicken) in Cleveland (off 40’s exit 162).
A little heavy on country cooking and barbecue (we’re more diverse than that, now), “Interstate Eateries” is still a nice reference.
A great website to plot your trip by food stops is roadfood.com. Jane and Michael Stern write the Road Food column for Gourmet and are on the Splendid Table on WFDD every week.
