Turning a secret recipe for barbecue sauce or homemade pickles into a packaged product is a lot harder than it looks. But it's getting easier. That's thanks to the hard work of some food-loving entrepreneurs, and a growing sector in the middle of the local food chain. Host Frank Stasio talks with Nick Hawthorne-Johnson, co-owner of The Cookery in Durham, and with Jennifer Curtis, director of NC Choices and co-founder of Farmhand Foods. Both Hawthorne-Johnson and Curtis help fill the gap between the farmer and the food buyer. Also on the show are some of the folks behind your favorite North Carolina-made goodies: Carla Squires, owner of Bamboo Ladies Pickles; Page Skelton, owner of Cackalacky Sauce; and Lisa Gordon Stella, owner of Kismet Crackers.
Amber Nimocks came to The State of Things in January 2009. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a survivor of 15 years in the newspaper business. As a reporter and editor, her posts have included such exotic locales as her hometown of Fayetteville, Robeson County, Wilmington, Raleigh and Fort Worth, Texas.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.