Provisions (Or Where to Find Mozzarella)

There's no shortage of food shopping choices in Charlotte. There are still some specific items that aren't available, or not of the same quality we were used to, but for the most part you can find what you need.

The supermarket scene is dominated by Harris Teeter ("the Teeter"). Down on the south side, between Ballantyne and Matthews, it seems like there's a Teeter every few blocks. Personally, I think they are solid stores, with good prices and selection. Some (like the one on Providence at Ardrey Kell) are open 24 hours a day. The one downside, for us, is the meat and fish selection. This is just personal opinion, but the beef isn't very good. Oddly, their house brand roast beef in the deli section is very good.

Lowe's Foods is another nice supermarket in the area. It's slightly more upscale compared to the Teeter, and has an excellent wine selection. They also seem to have a better seafood selection than the Teeter. They aren't as common however, and are a bit more pricey.

Other choices are Food Lion and Bi Lo, depending on where you are located. Both are fine, with a smaller selection and cheaper prices.As for smaller, specialty markets, there are a number in the area worth checking out. I'm sure there are others that we haven't discovered yet, but these can be vouched for!

The Fresh Market has a few locations in Charlotte including the one we visit on Pineville-Matthews Road. They have a good bakery section, as well as sandwiches, meats and seafood. They carry some harder-to-get items like Spainish chorizo, an array of cheeses and coffee beans. It's not cheap, but everything is of a high quality.

EarthFare has a more organic bent to it, but is a full-size market in the Ballantyne area on Johnston Rd., just north of 485.

Trader Joe's just opened two stores in Charlotte, including a store on Rea Rd., just south of Highway 51. It's been a madhouse there with long lines on the weekends, but if you like their stuff you know why! The chocolate ganache cake is great, as are their chocolate covered pretzels. Their frozen foods are quite tasty considering they are, well, frozen. There is parking in the back that no one seems to no about.

Dean and Deluca has two shops in Charlotte. One in Stonecrest and the other at Phillips Place.

Ferrucci's Italian Market is an oasis for those on the north side of town. Located off Exit 28 on I-77 in the Shops on the Green. It is a bit of a drive, but well worth it. They have a fresh meat section, prepared Italian delicacies, fresh mozzarella, sausages, pasta and cannoli, among other items. They also make excellent sandwiches and cater.

Pasta & Provisions on Providence Road has fresh pasta and deli meats, along with prepared meals and other Italian type fare. The food is good, but it has a reputation as being snooty and expensive. It's a place where the ritzy Dilworth crowd seem to go.

For the more adventurous types, some of the best meat we've found in the area is at a gas station. Seriously. Well, okay, it's a market attached to a gas station. The Peach Stand, in Fort Mill, SC, just over the state line on Highway 160, has an excellent butcher counter, along with fresh produce, pies and preserves. Until we found the place mentioned below, this is where we would go to get steaks to cook on the grill. Ask them to season them for you before they wrap 'em up. As they name implies, they also sell fresh peaches, preserves and pies too.

For the really adventurous meat-lover, there is a wholesale butcher shop in Waxhaw where you can get anything you want. Except veal cutlets, which are apparently not a very southern thing to eat because they are really hard to find here. (The Teeter recently started carrying them, but, they don't look too good and are often stringy.) Anyway, Frontier Meats is at 8303 Lancaster Highway. They're closed Sundays and Mondays, and cut meat from 7AM to 2PM on all other days. You can pick up strange cuts of meats here, such as ox tail, rabbit and tongue along with the usual stuff. The NY strip steaks are good, and the filet mignon is buttery and only $11 per pound. Everything here is very cheap, but quality. It doesn't hurt if you can speak some Spanish, as all the meat cutters are hispanic and very friendly. It gets very busy on Saturday, but is definitely worth a trip out in the country.

Bring a cooler and some ice and stock up!

Bon appetite!

Homeowner's Association (HOA) Hell

When you buy your new home in Charlotte, you're going to have the option to choose a neighborhood that either has a Homeowner's Association (HOA) or doesn't. I have had the pleasure--and displeasure--of both options.

When I first arrived to Charlotte, we lived in Providence Country Club in South Charlotte for two years. In the middle of our time there, a new board was elected to run (or should I say rule) the neighborhood. Almost immediately, this new nazi board enforced every single rule in the neighborhood handbook to the extreme. Almost immediately, a slew of people on my particular block got letters for what the new board felt were a variety of infractions. For example, a bunch of them got nasty correspondence about their swingsets that might be in view of the driveway.

My immediate neighbor had a swingset for his three boys that had been sitting in the very same spot for 10 years, and it was also the regulation wood tone that the neighborhood requires. One morning I'm sitting in my home office and I see a car stop right in front of my driveway with a telephoto lens pointed at my neighbors yard. I had no idea what was occurring at the time, but it did feel like I was witnessing a case of espionage happening. Several days later I hear from my neighbor that he'd received a letter along with a photo explaining that he had to move his swingset out of view and screen it with shrubbery. Folks, the thing had been there 10 YEARS! He was so aggravated that instead of moving it, he took it down and sold it.

I got a letter about my garbage pails while living in PCC. You see, you're not allowed to have your garbage cans in plain sight either. Heaven forbid anyone in the neighborhood has children that actually go on swings or that we make garbage! What a horror! In the winter, I have no problem keeping my garbage can in the garage--but come summer, no one wants that stinky thing in a 125 degree garage. So, out it goes right next to the house. And there came a lovely letter citing chapter and verse from the PCC bible on the Architectural Committee's view on garbage pails: "Thou must not have a garbage can that may be seen from the driveway, and it must be removed from the street within 16 minutes of the garbage truck picking up your filthy mess." Of course, I'm exaggerating a bit, but you get the picture.

Neighbors got letters because they had their boats sitting in the driveway while getting ready to take them to Lake Norman, and they got letters about their lawns. When I moved there, I purchased a home that was a foreclosure and the lawn had not been maintained for close to 2 years. It was nothing more than patchy crabgrass. So, we immediately set upon turning it around and hired a landscaper to do weekly cuttings and Lawn Doctor to start killing the weeds and planting seed. Now, those of you who are gardeners know that you can't turn a lawn around in two weeks. It can take a season or two to make an impact. Well, wouldn't you know that we got a letter right after moving in to tell us to hurry up the process.

I immediately responded to the nazi board with my own letter explaining that we'd just moved in and were trying to fix the lawn that had been completely neglected by the previous owners for years, and that this process would take time. I also provided receipts for the services that I had retained to repair the lawn as proof that I was spending money to make improvements. I wrote that they would simply need to be patient while the lawn regenerated. I never heard from them on that subject again, and by the following season I had one of the prettiest lawns on the block.

The PCC monthly newsletter was a hoot, too. Each month, the residents had a finger wagged in their faces by the writers who proceeded to tell us what bad people we were. We were told that if we sold our homes we HAD to lease ($150!!) one of the For Sale signs available at a local sign shop or else! We were told that our fences had to be wood or iron or the god's would strike us dead. If you had a tree or shrub die in your landscaping, you were admonished if you did not replace it with exactly the same variety that had just perished. Imagine what would happen if you replaced that holly bush with a crape myrtle? They'd probably splash your face on the front page of next months newsletter with a big red X across your face! Matt was even ready to put out an anti-PCC newsletter where he mocked all the nonsense they wrote about each month. Needless to say, we finally decided to just move because the HOA was so insane at Providence Country Club.

We wanted to make sure that in our next neighborhood there was absolutely no HOA. I'm all for rules that are reasonable, and we wanted a community that still had protective covenants that the residents would abide by so that property values would be retained. For example, you shouldn't park a semi on your front lawn; you shouldn't keep a ratty old sofa on your stoop for 6 months, and you shouldn't be allowed to keep 17 howling dogs in your backyard. The grass on your lawn shouldn't hit your knees, and if you decide to paint your front door purple with pink polka-dots your neighbors have every right to give you hell about it.

Finally, after much searching we found our current neighborhood in Union County with no HOA. I can't be happier to have my sanity back--and my garbage cans are proudly sitting in their rightful spot beside my garage as they should be. And I no longer fear checking my mailbox for a damned HOA letter!

So, hopefully you'll be lucky enough to live in a neighborhood with a reasonable HOA board, but I'm not willing to take that chance ever again. Don't let your realtor advise you about the antics of the board either--remember, they're just looking to make a commission. And no one knows better than someone who lives in the neighborhood itself, so get out of your car and knock on some doors and inquire about the sanity of your HOA board before you buy that beautiful home.

Better to find out now, than in a letter!