ABROAD AT HOME: MORE RALEIGH
Oakwood Historic District
Last week, we decided to try one of noted local chef Scott Crawford’s restaurants for dinner. We went downtown in the late afternoon to Person Street and then spent about an hour wandering up and down a few streets in the Oakwood District. This section of town is home to many 19th and early 20th century houses in a wide variety of architectural styles from Queen Anne to Colonial Revival to Craftsman.
Given that this was mid-November, remnants of Halloween decorations remained as well as pumpkins galore adorning entry ways and steps.
We saw many charming homes and lots of front porches, reflecting an era when folks sat outside, often in rockers, and watched the world and their neighbors parade by. I well recall my grandparents’ Victorian home in Adrian, Michigan with a row of rocking chairs on its front porch.
At family reunions, my father, uncles, and grandfather seemed to inhabit these seats. Were the women in the kitchen preparing the next meal? Likely.
Dining at Jolie
Jolie is Scott Crawford’s unpretentious French bistro on the corner of Person Street next to his larger sister restaurant, Crawford and Son. The space is narrow with a bar on the right and tables located on the left side against the wall. The menu is short and tempting. The bread and French butter to start set the tone for this delicious meal. The Chief Penguin began with a lovely squash bisque with lump crab meat and fried sage and followed it with the duck confit with pommes sarladaise (echoes of our time in the Dordogne region.). I had the swordfish grenobloise entrée. It was exquisite. Swordfish with a caper cream sauce accompanied by florets of roasted cauliflower and broccoli and mini brioche croutons.
The pumpkin cheesecake and the Videri chocolate cake sounded tempting, but we saved dessert for a future visit. Highly recommended!
Independent Bookstore
As we wandered, we were pleasantly surprised, I in particular, to find a little bookstore tucked in on Person Street. So & So Books is small with a well curated inventory. New books, fiction and nonfiction, North Carolina titles, and a cozy children’s corner with picture books, chapter books, and graphic novels. Needless to say, I discovered and bought a few titles as gifts plus some artist notecards for myself. Being in a bookstore is always a treat!
SATISFYING CRIME SERIES
A Killing of Innocents by Deborah Crombie
A Texan who splits her year between the U.S. and the U.K., Deborah Crombie is the author of A Killing of Innocents. It is her 19th novel featuring Scotland Yard detectives Duncan Kincaid and his wife Gemma James. I have read nearly all of them and enjoyed them immensely. Her plots are complex with intriguing twists, but her well-developed characters who grow and change over the years are what keep me coming back for more.
In this her latest, a promising young doctor, Sasha Johnson, is stabbed as she crosses Russell Square in Bloomsbury London. Sasha is primarily focused on her work with few outside friends except for the potter with whom she shares a flat. When a colleague of hers turns up dead several days later, the web of suspicion widens as the detectives investigate other connections and the activities of both Sasha’s brother and her flat mate Tully’s brother.
In addition to Duncan and Kincaid, their three children, Kit, Toby, and Charlotte, also have a place in the action along with detectives Melody and Doug, whose less than perfect personal lives factor into solving the mystery of these deaths. (~JWFarrington)
Note: Header photo is a Queen Anne style house in Raleigh’s Oakwood District. All unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)
I learned about Deborah Crombie from you years ago, Jean, in a post, and I’ve now read them all and eagerly await new ones. I agree that the characters are what keep me coming back. Happy Thanksgiving to you and Greg!