TCB Aug. 5, 2021 — 'My body is sacred.'

AUG.5—10, 2021 TRIAD-CITY-BEAT.COM

W-S EDITION

‘MY BODY IS SACRED’ Kris Brown-Neville uses yoga to heal and resist.

BY NICOLE ZELNIKER | PAGE 9

gso’s breadmakers PAGE 10

history of hogtying PAGE 8

motels as apartments PAGE 6

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK AUG.5—10, 2021

It comes around

Brian in 1998, beghind the bar at Igor’s.

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1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336.256.9320 BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com

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SPECIAL SECTION EDITOR

CONTRIBUTORS

Michaela Ratliff michaela@triad-city-beat.com Nikki Miller-Ka niksnacksblog@gmail.com

EDITORIAL ADVISOR

OF COUNSEL

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EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR

ART ART DIRECTOR

STAFF WRITER

SALES SALES EXECUTIVE

Jonathan Jones

Sayaka Matsuoka sayaka@triad-city-beat.com Nicole Zelniker nicole@triad-city-beat.com

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CHIEF CONTRIBUTOR

Robert Paquette robert@triad-city-beat.com

Drew Dix drew@triad-city-beat.com

TCB IN A FLASH @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1. ©2021 Beat Media Inc.

Chris Rudd chris@triad-city-beat.com Carolyn de Berry, James Douglas, Matt Jones, Jordan Howse, Jen Sorensen, Clay Jones

COVER

W-S: Kris Brown-Neville strikes a yoga pose.

Photo by Owens Daniels GSO: Ingrid Chen McCarthy and Jeff McCarthy are the owners of Breadservice in Greensboro.

Photo by Sayaka Matsuoka

have an Igor’s “What year was this?” I asked. story for you.”

“Around 1998.”

This was “That was probably me,” I said. “I worked from a longfrom 2 a.m. until 10 a.m. most nights from time reader named 1995-2000.”

David Locklear, “Nah,” he said. “This guy had kinda long who had asked hair and a goatee or something.” to interview me “Yeah,” I said. “That sounds like me.”

by Brian Clarey for his upcoming In 1998 I was 28 years old. I met the podcast. Naturally I agreed — I do like to woman who would become my wife that go on about myself. And anytime someone year, in that very bar; it would be two years tells me they have an Igor’s story, I feel before we started having kids and moved obligated to pull up a chair. to Greensboro. I was beefier then, perhaps Locklear had done his research, and 25 pounds heavier than I am now — I drank found out that I worked for many years a lot, and ate most of my meals in great at that 24-hour bar, lounge, game room, restaurants. Plus, I worked the graveyard laundromat and grill, a shift at a dive bar; I had to bastion on St. Charles be big enough, at least, to I was beefier then, Avenue in New Orleans for push people out the door perhaps 25 pounds decades. or wrap them up and carry heavier than I am He had been there them out. And everyone before, he said, on a trip to had a goatee in 1998. now — I drank a lot, the city. He and his friends Locklear still wasn’t quite and ate most of my were exploring some of the convinced. But there was meals in great Garden District graveyards a photograph of the barafter midnight, those tender, he said, taken that restaurants. raised crypts forming what morning on a film camera, New Orleanians call the and that a print of it existed Cities of the Dead. Just somewhere in his records. before dawn they got caught in a feroHe said he would take a look. cious Louisiana downpour and ran for the He got back to me later that day in an streetcar line, where Locklear says they saw email: the lights of Igor’s beckon from across the “Holy fucking nostalgia, Batman! I found thoroughfare. A laundromat where we can the picture, and it’s definitely you. What a dry our clothes! he remembers thinking. He trip….” and his friends, he said, felt like it had been And there I was, smirking at myself from placed there just for them, a New Orleans across the bar, an Igor’s story that took miracle. And they hung out for hours, nearly 25 years to tell. he remembered, making friends with the bartender while their clothes dried.

AUG.5—10, 2021

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UP FRONT | AUG.5—10, 2021

CITY LIFE AUG. 5-8

by Michaela Ratliff

Coronavirus in the Triad: (As of Tuesday, Aug. 4)

Documented COVID-19 diagnoses NC 1,062,300 (+20,691) Forsyth 38,303 (+586) Guilford County

49,360 (+741)

COVID-19 deaths NC

13,679 (+73)

Forsyth

432 (+1)

Guilford

731 (+0)

THURSDAY Aug. 5

MusicConnects Series @ Winston-Salem Symphony (W-S) 12 p.m.

With the theme of Black Lives Matter, this year’s MusicConnects series consists of five online discussions of expanding racial equity in the arts. This week’s guest lecturers are A. Kori Hill, a PhD candidate from Ohio whose works have examined Black/New Negro music modernism and Er-Gene Kahng, concertmaster with the Fort Smith Symphony. Learn more and register to attend at www.wssymphony.org/musicconnects.

Still I Rise: The Black Experience at Reynolda Virtual First Look @ Reynolda House Museum

1,012,724 (+6,959)

Forsyth

*no data*

Guilford

47,466 (+274)

Current cases NC

35,897 (+13,659)

Forsyth

*no data*

Guilford

1,162 (+467)

of American Art (W-S) 12 p.m.

In partnership with Bookmarks, Reynolda is offering a virtual sneak peek of the exhibition Still I Rise: The Black Experience at Reynolda, a closer look at the lives of the Black men and women that helped shape the museum after the Jim Crow era. Visit Reynolda’s website to register.

Spellbound @ Carolina Theatre (GSO) 7 p.m.

1,580 (+489)

Forsyth

*no data*

Guilford

*no data*

Vaccinations NC First Dose

4

4,926,178 (+69,757)

Fully vaccinated

4,934,740 (50%, +35,859)

Forsyth First Dose

195,787 (+4,003)

Fully vaccinated

182,741 (48%, +2,174)

Guilford First dose

284,789 (+12,206)

Fully vaccinated

266,620 (50%, +9,393)

SATURDAY Aug. 7

Fresh Start Fair @ High Point Opportunity Center (HP) 9 a.m.

Guilford Child Development’s enrollment and resource fair is a free family event designed to help you discover resources and programs helpful for the upcoming school year. Learn more on Guilford Child Development’s Facebook page.

After its cancellation last year, this year’s Music Carolina SummerFest returns with concerts by musicians from different genres including classical, jazz and opera available throughout the month. Tickets are selling out quickly, so visit musiccarolina.org/summerfest-2021/ to purchase yours.

Creation & Energy Artist’s Reception @ Brewer’s Kettle (HP) 7 p.m.

Meet the artists of Creation & Energy Sarah McClintock and Kris Saintsing during their artist reception. Creation & Energy is an installation of black light artwork and acrylic pieces. Learn more from the event page on Facebook.

SUNDAY Aug. 8

Barre & Brew @ Brown Truck Brewery (HP) 11 a.m.

Grab a mat and head to Brown Truck Brewery for a free pop-up fitness class hosted by Pure Barre. Visit the event page on Faceook for more information.

Hospitalizations (right now) NC

Head to the Ramkat’s Gas Hill drinking room for an opening reception of Kat Lamp’s exhibition of concert posters she’s created over the past 11 years. Learn more at the event page on Facebook or katlamp.com.

Music Carolina SummerFest @ Various Locations (W-S) Varies

Documented recoveries NC

Favorite Things: Concert Posters by Kat Lamp Opening Reception @ The Ramkat (W-S) 5:30 p.m.

As part of its Summer Film Festival, the Carolina Theatre is showing a screening of Spellbound, a psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Read more about the film and purchase tickets at carolinatheatre.com.

Chocolate Chip & Company @ Baxter’s Tavern (GSO) 3 p.m.

FRIDAY Aug. 6

Science Live! @ Kaleideum North (W-S) 2:30 p.m.

Take your little learners to Kaleideum for an afternoon of hands-on science programs. Staff and volunteers will teach visitors about astronomy, physics and more.

Science Live is included with general admission. Visit kaleideum.org for more information.

For just $10, enjoy the R&B, soul and rock and roll sounds of Chocolate Chip & Company Band as they set Baxter’s Tavern on fire with a live performance. Visit baxterstavern.com to purchase tickets.

Have an event in the Triad coming up?

Send an E-mail to calendar@triad-city-beat.com

AUG.5—10, 2021 | UP FRONT

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NEWS | AUG.5—10, 2021

NEWS

W-S developers look to old hotels for affordable housing

by Nicole Zeniker kash Rohera sees the affordable housing crisis as an easy fix, if only more developers knew where to look.

As Rohera knows, there is a deficit of affordable housing both across the country and in Winston-Salem. Essentially, there are more people who need affordable housing than there are residences available. In his position as the finance director of Vivo Living, he and his team turn old hotels into residences WinstonSalem locals can actually afford.

“Last year, a ton of hotels were going under with COVID, so many hotel owners were trying to sell one or two to float their other properties,” Rohera said. “So we’re buying these things for really good pricing.”

Vivo can then rent out the properties at lower rates than other apartments in the area. A one bedroom in their North Pointe Boulevard property is $875 compared to the average rent in Winston-Salem, which is $991 according to RENTCafé.

Experts recommend spending 30 percent or less of income on rent, which would make it $875 affordable to someone making $35,000 per year. According to City-Data, the average Winston-Salem resident makes $44,576 per year.

The problem, is that rent keeps going up, making the affordability of the average apartment dubious for the average renter. That, and there are fewer apartments than people who need housing. As Richard Angino of Third Wave Housing noted, “We have a demand of 14,000 units and nowhere near that many.”

Development for Vivo is minimal, since the apartments are already built and furnished. Vivo acquired a property on North Pointe Boulevard in September 2020, and Rohera says it took the company just four months to prepare for opening. The apartments, now called the Vivo Apartments, are already at 95 percent occupancy after opening at the beginning of this year.

Other properties owned by Vivo are located across the country, in places like New Braunfels, Texas, and Omaha. In New Braunfels, where the average studio

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CORRECTION: 6

costs $910 according to apartments.com, Vivo studio apartments are $600.

“Most of the markets that we’re buying in are smaller, rising cities,” Rohera told Triad City Beat. “Getting things done in major cities is impossible. But in the cities that we’re in, they’re supportive of us.”

Vivo is not the only organization doing this kind of work. The Durham HeraldSun reported in 2017 about a hotelturned-apartment complex in that city.

Hotels have transformed into everything from senior living homes to tiny living spaces according to Senior Housing News and the Wall Street Journal.

Mark Okrant, professor emeritus of tourism management at Oklahoma State University, noted that while this has been a trend for a while, COVID-19 has certainly changed the real estate market, gaining traction for this idea.

Okrant says that motels, specifically, are the way to go. He has conducted tourism research all over the country, specifically in Alaska, Maine, New Hampshire and South Dakota as well as in Canada, Puerto Rico and Romania.

As the author of No Vacancy: The Rise, Demise, and Reprise of America’s Motels, he has seen the industry decline over the last 50 or 60 years. And although TSA data shows people are traveling at rates close to 2019 again, Okrant says that plenty of hotels from the 20th Century are out of use and stand empty.

Plus, he noted, with the Delta variant putting cities across the country back into lockdown, he cannot be sure people will continue to travel or for how long.

“I would rather see a motel retained than destroyed, which is of course the alternative, and God knows we need affordable housing in this country,” Okrant said. “If it no longer has functionality as a motel property, then I’m all for it. It’s a great idea, and it should be doable.”

Like Vivo, Third Wave Housing, based out of Winston-Salem, turned a similar building into a series of residences on Cherry Street. In the next 10 years, Richard Angino, owner and manager of Third Wave Housing, predicts growth for this movement.

He and other advocates are asking

the city for more funding to help them convert the old Budget Inn on Peters Creek Parkway into housing. The project has been in the works for a while now, and was supported by former councilman Dan Besse, who called the project “a comprehensive, mixed-use redevelopment providing additional quality workforce housing in mind at the heart of it.”

Demolition began in January 2020.

WFDD reported that the project received a $600,000 grant from the city, $600,000 in loans from the Forsyth County and $300,000 from a private foundation.

Third Wave is also looking at old office buildings from the 1970s and ’80s.

“They’re a good opportunity, especially if not everyone goes back to a traditional office,” Angino said. “We’re seeing a demand of two-bedroom apartments, so they have space for office space or for people visiting. That’s becoming more of a demand.”

Pamela Ingram, a manager at Experiment in Self-Reliance, has seen this need up close. EISR is an organization that aims to alleviate poverty through their own programs or referrals to other organizations. Ingram says that COVID-19 has only made it worse for the people she serves. Their clients are largely WinstonSalem residents needing housing.

“In the midst of COVID, rents have been going up and we know that because of the individuals we are working with,” she said. “Before COVID, there was an effort already to identify safe and affordable housing, but it was already a concern, having affordable housing for everyone.”

As the Center for Disease Control instills a new eviction moratorium through October 3, which will allow a thin layer of protection against evictions for renters, people wonder what will happen when the smallest of reprieves during the pandemic ends and they are stuck paying the rents they owe from those months.

“Everybody should have the same opportunity for safe and affordable housing,” she continued. “There was already a shortage, so within our community, we’ve had great conversations about what that’s going to look like.”

Last week’s news story, “Former employees allege sexual harassment, racism against Embur Fire Fusion manager,” incorrectly stated that Dolce & Amaro bakery was co-owned by Embur owner Koco Tamburi. But the bakery has not been associated with Tamburi since 2019. Triad City Beat regrets the error.

AUG.5—10, 2021 | NEWS

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NEWS | AUG.5—10, 2021

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GPD officers hogtied mostly Black victims, many women — including one who was pregnant — in the months prior to Marcus Smith death

by Sayaka Matsuoka

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pregnant Black woman crying out for two minutes while being restrained.

An elderly woman with dementia complaining about the pain in her arms.

Multiple victims crying out that they “can’t breathe.”

These are just a few examples of incidents in which Greensboro police officers hogtied people in the months leading up to the killing of Marcus Deon Smith on Sept. 8, 2018. The revelations came out through an additional brief and motion filed by the Smith family’s legal team late on Monday night.

The examples of people being hogtied or “maximally restrained” by Greensboro police officers were described by the Smith team in the motion after they viewed body-worn camera footage from the 50 incidents leading back from Marcus Smith’s death. They were able to do so after a judge upheld a decision to compel the city to turn the footage over to the Smith team. According to Flint Taylor, with the People’s Law Office of Chicago and the lead attorney for the Smith family, the footage from the bodyworn cameras is essential to the civil lawsuit because the police incident reports turned over by the city aren’t detailed in how or why people were hogtied. While a RIPP Hobble device can be used by police in different ways to tie hands and feet together, Taylor said that in the 50 cases that they watched, people were restrained in the same manner Marcus Smith was, with hands and feet tied together behind their backs, facedown.

“The videos show what actually happened whereas the reports did not,” Taylor said. “All the reports did was identify incidents where the word ‘maximum restraint,’ i.e. hogtying, appeared in the report, but the police who hogtied were under no obligation to describe who was hogtied, how they were hogtied, that kind of thing.”

The city of Greensboro officially banned the use of the RIPP Hobble, or restraining someone by their hands and feet, in November last year and banned hogtying in 2018, after Smith’s death.

According to Taylor, he and three others who are a part of the legal team split up the work of watching the videos from the 50 incidents dating from Dec. 19, 2017 to Sept. 7, 2018. Of the 50 incidents viewed, 38 victims are Black,

amounting to 76 percent. Also, 24 of the victims were women, amounting to 48 percent and “all of the women were hogtied either by all male officers or by a crew of majority white officers.” According to previous data released by the Smith family lawyers, in 275 instances from 2014-18 in which Greensboro police officers hogtied people, approximately 68 percent of the victims were Black and about 17 percent were experiencing a mental health crisis.

For this newly released set of incidents, Taylor said a number of factors appeared to prompt officers to use the maximum restraint, otherwise known as FILE PHOTO a RIPP Hobble.

Marcus Smith was killed in September 2018 after Greensboro police hogtied him using “Some were having mental-health crithe application of a RIPP Hobble. ses, some of them were being arrested or stopped for relatively minor things like a from Jan. 2014 to Nov. 2017 in which but now that we have it, it is a powerful DWI, for falling asleep in a car or being the officers who are listed as defendants weapon in the litigation going forward.” involved in a car accident,” Taylor said. in the suit, were involved.

Taylor also noted that he believes that “Just all sorts of things that the officers, Some of the videos released to the the city should reconsider pursuing an by and large, rather than deescalating team involving the defendant officers independent investigation into Smith’s end up escalating and hogtying. So yes, include the hogtying of a Black woman death, something that councilperson there certainly were situations where who was restrained with her legs “at less Michelle Kennedy supported, but was people like Marcus than 90 degrees from apparently overruled on during a closed Smith were having her body, left prone on city council session in June. While ‘Just all sorts of things mental-health crises, the ground for more Kennedy could not be reached in time that the officers, by and but more frequently, than five minutes, with for publication of this piece, she has they were just regular large, rather than her breasts exposed, supported an independent investigacitizens where there deescalating, end up yelling and screaming tion into both Smith’s death as well as was some kind of relain pain, outrage and a wider departmental investigation of escalating and hotgying.’ tively minor transgreshumiliation.”

Another the Greensboro police department as a sion that escalated into -Flint Taylor, Smith family attorney example noted the whole. Taylor stated that in his view, the a situation where police “hogtying of a Black new information brought upon by the officers hogtied them.” victim without apparent cause” with the Smith team’s motion should compel the As part of the motion, Taylor and his defendant stating that “he ends up RIPP city to pursue an independent investigateam are asking to reopen the discovHobbling people all the time for some tion. ery process in the civil suit so that they reason.”

“I think the sheer weight of watching can depose again some of the officers Last month, both the city and the all of these videos and analyzing all of involved in the death of Marcus Smith Smith family agreed to reconsider methese videos was shocking as well and and who were also shown to be involved diation as part of the civil suit, someshould be viewed by the city council and in some of the 50 incidents. If discovery thing that has not taken place since the mayor so that they can reconsider is reopened, the Smith family’s lawyers October 2020. However, the new motion their cavalier secret decision not to have will have the opportunity to ask specific and brief filed by the Smith team on an independent investigation that Miquestions about how Greensboro police Monday may change the course of that chelle Kennedy called for,” Taylor said. officers acted in each of the 50 incidents mediation.

“She called for an independent investithat they have viewed.

“I think the motion that we filed gation not only into the Marcus Smith According to the brief, at least 12 of certainly is a game-changer in the litigahogtying but also into the culture of the the incidents involve one or more of the tion,” Taylor said. “It speaks for itself in police department…and these videos are officers who were involved in Smith’s terms of the power of these videos and an incredibly powerful support for such death. Now, the legal team is petitioning what they depict…. It’s not only for the an investigation showing the systemic the courts to ask to reopen the discovery public but for the city council and other racist disparities in hogtying and the bruphase of the case so they can ask further public officials to actually know what was tal and unnecessary and routine nature questions of the officers as part of the going on routinely in their name and in of hogtying within the department.” suit. As part of the brief, the Smith team that sense, I think that this motion speaks The city did not response for comis also asking for the courts to order the to that question and we’re asking to be ment in time for publication. According city to release body-worn camera footage able to fully explore this evidence which to Taylor, the city now has a few weeks from 28 additional hogtying incidents the city fought so hard not to give us, to respond to their motion.

Culture

by Nicole Zeniker

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oga is a tool for self-acceptance and resistance for Kris BrownNeville.

Brown-Neville, who uses they and them pronouns, began teaching yoga in October 2020 at Lotus Yoga Academy, located on Vine Street in downtown Winston-Salem. Around the same time, they got involved with the Triad Abolition Project, a local organization whose members aim to put an end to incarceration.

“I had always wanted to get more involved in activism work and had been in conversation with TAP,” they said. “It wasn’t until maybe two months ago that I said I’d love to get more involved in the community work. I didn’t know too much about the group, just that it was an avenue to get more involved with abolition work.”

Brown-Neville, who has been practicing yoga for two years, shared that the practice became a way to cope with trauma when their father John Neville died at the hands of Forsyth County Detention Center officers in Dec. 2019.

This is what prompted them to think about abolition and how society views Black bodies.

OWENS DANIELS “In the moment, I felt not only that somebody close to me was a death in Kris Brown-Neville used yoga to process the death of their father at the hands of law enforcement in Forsyth County in December a system that has failed Black people, 2019. but that I was just another Black body waiting to become a statistic,” Brownthough the community was pretty white, taking the practice This should not be a hard task for the yogi, who radiates Neville said. “I would always have to and understanding it for myself healed a lot of how I looked at positivity. Brown-Neville, who wore rectangular glasses and fight to be seen as equal.” race in relation to my body. It healed a lot.” a bright red sweater on a recent afternoon, smiles constantly Yoga, which originated in south Asia, The details of John Neville’s death became public the and speaks compassionately about their community. became popular among white Europeans summer of 2020, not long after George Floyd’s death. This Through yoga, Brown-Neville said they want to create a when British and Portuguese colonizers prompted Brown-Neville to get involved with TAP, whose space where people can learn and practice radical compassion. learned the practice, according to an members led an occupation of Bailey Park in July 2020.

“We’re holding each other’s hands here trying to create a article by Kalamazoo College. Scholars Leaders demanded the city answer questions about Neville’s compassionate space in our community,” Brown-Neville said. credit Indian monk Swami Vivekananda death, ban hogtie restraints, notify the public of all deaths “It’s teaching people to first give themselves a safe space to with bringing yoga to the United States and drop charges against protesters. release any stigma or chains or internal prisons and then resoin the 1890s when he visited Europe and “They were here for us, to make us feel worthy,” Brownnating that message out into the community.”

North America.

Neville said of TAP. “That lit a fire for me, In the future, they hope to continue working with TAP and Now, Brown-Neville and and I wanted to make other people feel advocating for historically marginalized communities. Their others are decolonizing it.

To learn more about worthy.” second session is going to allow attendees at the end to Brown-Neville joined the According to Brown-Neville, ahimsa is discuss what they felt during the time they spent meditating, Kris, follow them on healing and transformative the idea of harmlessness, or more accuincluding any harm, which Brown-Neville believes is an imInstagram at justice group within TAP and rately, non-harmfulness. It is about the portant next step to creating an inclusive culture. Really, they worked with both TAP and @kris_bn or take one intent of not causing harm and acting want others to be able to find the kind of acceptance for their Lotus Yoga to create Ahimsa & benevolent toward all. bodies that they were able to find through the practice. of their classes at Abolition: An Abolitionist Yoga “It’s taking non-harming and turning it «My body is sacred and I should not keep myself in this lotus yoga academy.

Workshop Series. The first sesinto radical compassion,” they said. “This prison of what the white gaze wants,” Brown-Neville said. “I’m sion took place on July 14. does still include the marching and the allowed to see myself as enough and valuable. I deserve good “My whole life I’ve had to be an exchanting and everything. I want the yoga itself to allow people things and I’m worthy of growth and prosperity and safety. tremely palatable minority to be worthy to do the internal work, but also they can learn to radiate this These are rights that I have as a human being.” of acceptance,” they said. “In yoga, even message outside of themselves and into the communities.”

AUG.5—10, 2021 | CULTURE

Kris Brown-Neville, son of John Neville, uses yoga for self-acceptance, healing and abolition

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CULTURE | AUG.5—10, 2021

Culture

by Sayaka Matsuoka

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Greensboro chefs and bakers share their love of breadmaking

ast year, as the unprecedented pandemic descended upon us all, thousands of people turned to an old pastime to assuage their fears and uncertainty: baking bread. In the span of just a few weeks, flour disappeared from the shelves of grocery stores as quickly as toilet paper and hand sanitizer. The problem became so widespread that King Arthur Flour, one of the most popular brands, instituted a two-bag maximum for all online orders.

And while many in the general public broke out their dusty rolling pins and swept cobwebs off of their Kitchenaid mixers last year, a handful of chefs in the area have been perfecting the art of baking bread longer. This week, we spoke to them about their process, their favorite kinds of bread and tips for those who want to get started.

‘Bread requires a certain amount of respect of the ingredients’

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few months ago, Caitlyn Ryan broke the burners on her kitchen stove. She had been cooking soup and baking bread for months to sell and give away during the pandemic and as it turns out, her home kitchen wasn’t cut out for creating meals in 150-quart pots.

“I broke the burners on the stove because the pot was so heavy,” Ryan remembers.

Ryan has since opened a brick-andmortar location off of Yanceyville Street in Greensboro in a strip mall next to a coin laundromat and an Asian supermarket. The shop, called Little Light Bread and Soup Co., is an extension of Ryan’s COVID business, which she started out of her home in September.

The idea, she says, was to sell soup and bread so people could have easy meals throughout the pandemic. Whatever she didn’t sell, she would give away. Now in her restaurant, Ryan continues the tradition of creating soups every week but has also expanded to offering sandwiches on the lunch menu and provincial Italian meals during dinner service. She still gives away the leftover food. And at the heart of it all is the bread.

“It’s really easy to make an edible loaf of bread and it’s really difficult to make a really good loaf of bread,” Ryan says.

Ryan, who grew up in Philadelphia, says she cut her teeth in Irish pubs and restaurants in the city. And while she’s

SAYAKA MATSUOKA

Caitlyn Ryan is the owner of Little Light Bread & Soup Co., a new restaurant that aims to bring a sense of community to homecooked meals.

mostly had experience cooking, she’s been practicing making bread for about a decade, she says. At Little Light, every soup comes with bread and the sandwiches are made with housemade bread. Almost all of it is created by Ryan, who is the main cook in the kitchen.

To start, she says she practiced making a white focaccia.

Now, she offers honey sunflower, focaccia, rye and white bread depending on what soups she’s making that week.

“Cooking is like a forward process, where you can always change things up until the end,” Ryan says. “And baking is really a backwards process where you need to look at what you want and work backwards to get there. And bread kind of goes from both directions.”

She says that she’s gotten a lot better at baking bread than when she started, but she knows that there’s always room to grow.

“Bread requires a certain amount of respect of the ingredients,” she says.

“I think a lot of people get deterred when their first loaf or first loaves don’t come out right and it’s just, people devote their whole lives to baking; it’s one of those ten-thousandhour type deals,” she continues. “When you learn how to paint, they tell you you’re going to have to throw away some paint…It sucks to throw away food but that’s how you learn.

You’re going to burn some of it, you’re going to overproof some of it. You’re not going to be able to eat everything that you mess up but that’s ok.”

Learn more about Little Light Bread and Soup Co. at littlelighttriad.com and on Facebook and Instagram.

Visit at 3205 Yanceyville St. in Greensboro.

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p until a few years ago, Jeff McCarthy was miserable. He loved his job as a pastry chef for a high-end restaurant, but the hours were killing him.

“I realized that being an executive pastry chef and working 80 hours a week was never going to let me be the kind of dad and husband that I wanted to be,” McCarthy says.

“It was his dream job,” says Ingrid Chen McCarthy, Jeff’s wife and business partner. “And he was miserable while he was doing it.”

Shortly afterwards, while McCarthy was working part-time as a pastry chef, he began messing around with sourdough starter and experimenting with making bread. Then, in 2017, the couple moved to Greensboro with their newborn and started Breadservice, a home-based microbakery soon after. They initially began selling their products at the Corner Market in Greensboro but then the pandemic hit, and they switched to selling out of their home.

McCarthy says that coming from an exacting pastry background, the flexibility of baking bread was refreshing.

“I find the process addictive because it’s an organic, dynamic experience,” McCarthy says. “Every day I come to make bread, it’s a little different than the last and I call it the ‘conversation.’ You have to COURTESY PHOTO be in tune with not only the ingredients but also the environment.”

Jeff McCarthy began making bread a few years Initially, McCarthy was making about eight loaves Breadservice’s ago, after spending decades as a pastry chef. at a time using Ingrid’s mother’s oven. Now, out of their home in College Hill, the baker is making 100 The science of the fermentation process is one of Mcloaves per week.

Carthy’s favorite parts of baking, he says.

The business model is pretty simple. Because of the “It will never not be magic to me to basically make couple’s commitment to a work-life balance, they this paste of flour and water that turns into something are sticking to a subscription model in which customthat has strength and vitality and increasingly complex ers can pre-order loaves for pick up from their home flavor and is literally alive and then you murder it; it’s so every week. They’ve also recently started to partner fucking metal,” he says. with some restaurants like Rascals Tavern. And just Their most popular product is the house sourdough. this week, they signed a partnership to sell their bread They also added a public pan bread, perfect for sandin Deep Roots Market starting on Friday. But for now, wiches, which may look more familiar to those who that’s as much as they want to grow. aren’t accustomed to a round loaf. Then there’s the “We don’t offer delivery,” Ingrid says, jokingly.

Baker’s Choice, which changes week to week, and “There’s a lot of things we’ve put firm boundaries on to their immensely popular sourdough cookies. And even keep it as sustainable for our family as possible.” though he had decades of experience in the kitchen “I don’t make a living out of this,” McCarthy adds. “I prior to taking up making bread, McCarthy says it’s still get a lifestyle out of it. It’s always been super important a learning process and for those just starting out, to be to us that that is maintained throughout everything we patient. do.”

“Regardless of how many times I make bread, and He notes that he’s only able to fulfill his passion I’m making it day in and day out, there’s always a bit because of Ingrid’s support as the full-time breadwinof a leap of faith and a bit of trusting in the process,” ner. And despite McCarthy’s assertion that he’s doing it McCarthy says. “And that aspect of it, it appeals to the for the love of it rather than for the money, many in the skateboarder, snowboarder, adrenaline junkie in me.” community view his bread as the best in town. For example, Tal Blevins, owner of Machete, is a Breadservice Learn more about Breadservice at breadservice.net subscriber. And that’s a testament to McCarthy’s talent and on their Facebook and Instagram. Email for baking, it seems.

“The main difference between pastry and bread is the breadservice.gso@gmail.com to sign up for the exactitude of it,” he says. “I think I brought a meticusubscription. Pick ups are on Wednesdays and lousness to the breadmaking process from pastry that I Fridays every week. think as really paid off.”

AUG.5—10, 2021 | CULTURE

‘I don’t make a living out of this; I get a lifestyle out of it’

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CULTURE | AUG.5—10, 2021

SAYAKA MATSUOKA

Kevin Cottrell, the executive chef at Machete, loves making focaccia, his favorite kind of bread. He and his co-workers craft the menu at the restaurant to include a new kind of bread every season.

F

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‘At the end of the day, it’s about having fun’

or Machete’s executive chef Kevin Cottrell, making bread is just another way for him to push the boundaries of food and experiment.

“We always kind of go in our own direction a little bit with things too,” Cottrell says. “So, still following the process and respecting it but doing things a little different.”

And that in essence, is the motto by which the chef creates dishes at Machete. The fine-dining restaurant, which opened in February of last year, has gained popularity for its well-crafted small plates that push the boundaries of food by bringing a playfulness and levity to each dish. And that’s how Cottrell approaches breadmaking too. On every menu, which Cottrell helps create, there is a bread dish. This season, it’s a milk bread — a type of fluffy bread that’s popular in Japan and China. It’s something that Cottrell, who has been in the restaurant industry for 12 years, tried a few years ago and has had his eye ever since.

Cottrell says he began making bread about five years ago. He started with focaccia, which to date is still his favorite kind of bread. Since then, he’s made focaccia, sourdough, rolls and now milk bread for Machete’s menu. In the fall, he’ll roll out something new again.

To create the milk bread, Cottrell said he did extensive research and it took about three batches before he ended up with a product he was happy with. The difference from other breads, Cottrell says, is that it uses a technique known as tangzhong which involves cooking a mixture of flour and water to create a kind of roux that gets added to the bread dough, creating a softer, fluffier bread. But as a chef who is constantly thinking of new ways to try making food, Cottrell says

that his milk bread isn’t necessarily a strictly traditional rendition.

“We have a thing where we have to break the rules a little bit,” he says. “At the end of the day, it’s about having fun. I’m 100 percent sure it’s not a 100 percent perfect Hokkaido milk bread…. We brush the top of our bread with sweetened condensed milk and it just gives it a shinier, crunchier, sweeter texture.”

The end product, he says, reminds him a little bit of a King’s Hawaiian roll because of its sweeter flavor.

His favorite part of the breadmaking process is the fermentation, he says.

“I love science projects, so I love any sort of fermentation,” Cottrell says. “Anything that’s just active by itself like a living organism is super cool to me. Especially being able to hydrate flour and then all of a sudden, an hour later, it’s bubbling and talking to you; it’s super cool.”

And while the bread isn’t necessarily the star of Machete’s menu, Cottrell says he views it as an important part of a meal because it adds substance and allows the chefs to showcase their different skills. In the future, he jokes about wanting to do a take on the rolls from Outback Steakhouse.

“I love baking because I don’t know nearly as much about it,” he says. “I love getting into stuff that I just know nothing about, but then it’s super satisfying when you learn a technique or learn how to make something that if you never tried, you never would have been there.”

Learn more about Machete at machetegso.com or follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Visit at 600C Battleground Ave. in Greensboro.

Preaching to the choir

W

e generally try to avoid cliché in this space and every other one in our paper, but we need to address the Delta variant, the steep rise in new cases in our counties and elsewhere, and our vaccination rate, which is nowhere near the place it needs to be nor is it rising commensurate with the new threat.

And we know that our readers, by and large, are of the demographic most likely to trust science in the face of this dire threat to humanity — or, at least, a threat to the much-anticipated summer/fall slate of events. And as readers of Triad City Beat, we know you seek accurate and current information — excepting, of course, those of you who read us because you hate us.

But we’ve got to wring our hands about this anyway. In our state alone, new daily coronavirus cases are hitting pre-vaccine numbers and current hospitalizations have climbed back up into four-figure territory. Deaths are escalat-

ing, too, almost exclusively among the non-vaccinated.

And yet, most Guilford and Forsyth county residents have yet to become vaccinated, the rate stuck still at 48 percent. Statewide just 47 percent of the population has been vaccinated. And the pernicious nature of the Delta variant means we are all vulnerable to it, whether we’ve gotten the jab or not.

So how can we keep ourselves and our families safe from this pool of COVID deniers and Delta superspreaders?

There is a process in place. Restrictions are coming back already, including masking and social distancing. If the numbers don’t take a turn for the better, events will start getting cancelled again, one by one, just like they did in March 2020. Perhaps that will drive it home.

Still, one of the characteristics of COVID-19 is that it has a way of asserting itself among those who don’t believe in it: It infects them. In that, it can be quite convincing.

AUG.5—10, 2021 | OPINION

EDITORIAL

OPINION

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SHOT IN THE TRIAD | AUG.5—10, 2021

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

North Church Street, Greensboro

CAROLYN DE BERRY

Masterful climbing at the Greensboro Children’s Museum.

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CROSSWORD ‘It’s All There For You’— at least I think so.

SUDOKU

If you read

Across 1 5 10 14 15 16 17

19 20 21 22 24 26 28 29 30 33 36 37 40 41 42 43 45

47 48 51 53 55 57 58 59 60 64 65 66 67 68 69

___ weevil (plant pest) Makes “turn” look like “tum,” say Amorphous lump “Caprica” actor Morales Get from the ASPCA Uncontrolled fury Former second lady who crusaded against obscenity in music lyrics “Jane ___” (Bronte novel) Mythical beast Levi’s competitor Puzzler’s precaution B complex component Best-selling Japanese manga series ESPN tidbit Gumshoes, for short © 2021 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) At no time New album, e.g.

“Biggest Little City in the World” Poker pot Lisbon’s river Branch out Roll call response 2-in-1 component, maybe Comapny that sold the DieHard brand to Advance Auto Parts in 2019 Answers from last issue Before, poetically IRS paperwork 12 Fairy tale monster Lizard kept as a pet 13 Tap output Proposal rejection phrase 18 High-society group Defeated team’s lament 23 Skedaddle “Pay you later” note 25 Job interview subjects 2021 Billie Eilish song titled for a legal document 26 Falls on many honeymoon trips ___ mater 27 Take for granted They’re low in the pantheon 29 The bird that gets the showy feathers Fly (through) 31 Grammy-winning rock producer Brian Oceanic ring 32 Sudoku constraint Ocho ___ (Jamaican seaport) 34 “M*A*S*H” ranks “Devil Inside” rock band 35 Sixth sense, familiarly Some marching band members 37 They’re like “Eureka” but shorter Therefore (or the word hidden in the four 38 Society column word theme answers) 39 Handful while hiking

Down

1 Support with a wager 2 Bearded Egyptian deity 3 Pet for a sitter?

4 Trash talk 5 Pejorative name The Guardian called 2020 “The Year of” 6 Sidle 7 “Winnie-the-Pooh” marsupial 8 “Ask Me Another” airer 9 Take the wheel 10 Selfless concept to work toward 11 Takes a break on a journey

44 “Days ___ Lives” 46 Of concern, in “Among Us” 49 “Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette” painter 50 1993 De Niro title role 52 Book that’ll show you the world 53 Caroler’s repertoire 54 “Ted ___” (Apple TV series) 55 “Now then, where ___?”

56 Verve 57 Enchanted getaway 61 Greek vowel 62 “Red” or “White” follower 63 Aspiring M.A.’s hurdle

then you know...

• Why Freedom Clay paints faceless figures

AUG.5—10, 2021 | PUZZLES

by Matt Jones

• Where to find boba tea in the Triad.

• Why Reno Brasil is under fire ©2021 Jonesin’ Crosswords

Triad City Beat — If you know, you know

(editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

To get in front of the best readers in the Triad, contact Chris or Drew

Answers from previous publication.

chris@triad-city-beat.com drew@triad-city-beat.com

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