It’s 3 p.m. on a weekday, a time when any restaurant would be well within its rights to be all but empty. But business at Granny’s Kitchen in Cherokee is humming along steadily, the main parking lot about half full and the hostess busily engaged with fielding phone calls, ringing up customers on their way out and welcoming customers on their way in.

Western Carolina University’s Mountain Heritage Day, a free family oriented festival that celebrates Southern Appalachian culture through concerts, living-history demonstrations, competitions and awards programs, will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30, on the WCU campus in Cullowhee.

Named one of the top 20 festivals in the Southeast by the Southeast Tourism Society, this year’s event will include additional musical acts, vendors and an expectation of more visitors, organizers said.

To combat the rising cost of feeding inmates, Macon County commissioners chose to ditch a $360,000 food contract with Mission Health and Angel Medical Center for a less expensive option.

I had just reached for the eggplant parmesan sandwich when it was asked.

“What do you think about God?”

Caitlin Derico was 11 years old when her family’s Christmas tradition shifted from stockings to service.

It’s bittersweet.

“I really would hope that this program would expire,” said Tom Knapko. “But, that hasn’t been the case with increasing need for these baskets.”

There are few things more American than fast food. 

In the United States, fast food restaurants serve more than 50 million customers each day; on average, we each spend more than $100 a month on the salty, fatty fare and consume 54 gallons of sugary carbonated soda each year.

Tucked away along a squirrely offshoot of Jonathan Creek Road, Dennis “Bear” Forsythe’s 15-by-15-foot greenhouse is like his own private Eden. The small outbuilding in rural Haywood County holds 500 plants representing 58 species, everything from pineapple to pepper. 

“I just love doing it,” Forsythe said. “You have running water and it’s soothing, it’s relaxing. You come out here and you say, ‘I grew everything here from seed.’”

By Doug Wingeier • Columnist

Good news! General Mills has recently announced that — in response to consumer pressure — it has removed GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) from its original Cheerios cereal. And Post has done the same with Grape Nuts. These are victories for folks like me who like our morning bowl of cereal but are wary of food products that are untested for consumer safety and identified by some studies as giving cause for concern. It’s too soon to celebrate, though, as General Mills has 11 other types of Cheerios (such as Multi-Grain and Honey Nut) that still contain GMOs.

Green space and gardens dominate much of the Western North Carolina landscape, but what determines whether people here actually eat the fruits and veggies that abound? That’s what April Tallant, health professor at WCU, hopes to find out as she crunches the numbers from her latest research project.