latest obessions
Our editors’ most recent discoveries will have you hooked, too
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Tear Jerky
T’S TRUE, WE ARE SMITTEN WITH Two Brothers Jerky. Not just because one of their signature flavors is named after our city (Bull City Original Jerky), or that their products are flavorful, 100% grass fed, and made with no hormones or preservatives. It’s Paul Brock and Eddie Wale’s story that gets us. Paul and Eddie, brothers born a year apart in the mid-1960s, were adopted separately through Children’s Home Society of North Carolina. They met each other for the first time six years ago. Their biological mother (whom Paul had reconnected with later in life, too) had told Paul of Eddie’s existence and, after a few months of searching and building up the courage to reach out, Paul connected with his long-lost bro. “We knew we were brothers from the start,” Paul says. However, they do come from different backgrounds: In Durham, Paul is a family law mediator and owns the residential property renovation company Toro Properties; he used to own The Broad Street Café for five years. Eddie is a restaurant owner in Columbia, S.C. (his home state). The pair started Two Brothers Jerky two years ago as a way to combine their passions and intertwine their lives. “This company allows us to hang out together, talk daily and just strengthen the family ties,” Paul says. “It gave Eddie and I an opportunity to do something we love together.” The siblings are now on a mission to give back, collaborating with the organization that facilitated Eddie’s and Paul’s adoptions to their respective families, sponsoring events like We Believe in Families in Raleigh and donating a cut of their profits annually to the cause. “We are also interested in working with reunification organizations because our reunification has been such a cool thing for our family,” Paul says. You can purchase their Bull City Original Jerky – a traditional, meaty jerky made with real hickory smoke – at The Glass Jug, Sam’s Quik Shop, Sam’s Bottle Shop, Fullsteam Brewery, Bulldega, Durty Bull Brewing Company, Rockwood Barbershop and Art Market at Vega Metals. It’s made
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October/November 2016
from quality beef sourced from a fourthgeneration family farm near Asheville, where Paul grew up. “We wanted real, natural beef and to get rid of the artificial preservativeladen taste that most commercial beef jerky flavors have,” Paul describes. “In short, Eddie and I wanted to provide a beef jerky as good as I have been producing in my kitchen for family and friends for nearly 30 years.” “I think [Bull City Original Jerky] connects to Durham,” adds Paul, who has lived here since graduating from UNC 24 years ago, “in that it is the real deal. There is not a lot of pretense to Bull City Original; there’s not a lot of pretense to Durham. And they both have an element of nostalgia.” – Laura Zolman Kirk
Paul (left) and Eddie's love of food drove the pair to start Two Brothers Jerky.