Grove Project reader Bill L. sends along this notice about Wilmington’s first Twestival, to be held downtown at Port City Pub on Grace, and featuring lots of musicians and other artists performing in a benefit for charity:water.

Update: Here’s our friend Bruce Brown on the Twestival and its object, charity:water:

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Beautifully hand knit fingerless gloves with an edgy little felt owl on the left hand.

Edge of Urge 18 Market Street, Wilmington, NC 28401 edgeofurge.com

Blood is the New Black / $40
Graphic T-shirts that showcase emerging artists like this one by Keaton Henson.

Edge of Urge 18 Market Street, Wilmington, NC 28401 edgeofurge.com

Stained Glass Panel / $50-$150

Thoughtfully hand crafted from their stained glass art studio here in Wilmington. Paddlewheel uses traditional leaded technique as well as the Tiffany method to make each piece beautifully unique.

Paddlewheel Stained Glass 26 Covil Avenue, Wilmington, NC 28403 paddlewheelstainedglass.com

Glass Vase/$50-$150

Making the news: vibrantly hand painted and decoupaged vases by J. Pope have graced the set of CNN News for several years. Pope’s vases are exotic and beautiful. “They are not fired or baked. The paint is applied directly to the vase so that the colors may come through vibrantly and clearly.”

Blue Moon Gift Shops in the Racine Art Gallery 203 Racine Dr. #100, Wilmington, NC 28403 (910)452-2073 racinecenter.com

Belly Dancing Lessons / $65

Give six weeks of rapid, hip-moving lessons from Marcy at the Juggling Gypsy Hookah Bar & Entertainment Lounge.

1612 Castle Street, Wilmington, NC 28401 (910) 763-2223 jugglinggypsycafe

Cable Leg Warmers/$80

Fabulously sexy while still managing to be as warm and comforting as a hug from mom. These leg warmers are sustainably made using 100% yak down.

Sambuca Front Street, Wilmington, NC 28401 (910)343-0201 sambucalifestyle.com

Reflexology/$65

Feels like a wonderful hour long foot massage but is actually an ancient therapy that works with the body’s energy flow to stimulate self-healing and maintain balance in physical function. Merry Christmas to yourself?

Sambuca Front Street, Wilmington, NC 28401 (910)343-0201 sambucalifestyle.com

Challenge: Find one person on your holiday gift list who you can’t find a gift for at Planet. From gas masks to pretty woven sweater dresses, Planet has something to offer everyone. Especially wonderful are the unique stocking stuff-able items such as a tin of sushi band-aides, a “bacon wallet”, Curious George flashlight or a two-way trick squirt camera.

Planet 108 North Front Street, Wilmington, NC 28401 (910) 341-0036

White and Yellow Phalaenopsis Orchid/$45

With gorgeous blooms year-round, this truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

Azalea Coast Florist 713 N 4th Street, Suite 100 Wilmington, NC 28401 #800-858-6426 13 azaleacoastflorist.net

Co-op Wine/$9.99-$11.49

Tidal Creek Co-op commissioned local artist and architect Bruce Bowman to design the label (love it!) for their new private label wine. Fly the Coop Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc from Mendocino County will be available at the co-op in time for the holidays.

Tidal Creek Co-op 5329 Oleander Dr. Wilmington, NC, 28403 (910)799-2667 tidalcreek.coop

CD/$11.99

Pick up some new music at CD Alley downtown, where the staff is helpful and extremely knowledgeable (like /High Fidelity/ knowledgeable). Try Jessica Lea Mayfield’s latest release _With Blasphemy So Heartfelt_ or Brett Dennen’s _Hope for the Hopeless_ (You can tell this author is a Penguin fan). Or D’Angelo’s ageless R&B masterpiece _Voodoo_. Whichever way you go, CD Alley’s got it or can get it.

CD Alley Music 8 Market Street, Wilmington, NC 28401 (910)762-4003

Novel/$24.99

“Rash’s masterful balance of violence and beauty yields a riveting novel that, at its core, tells of love both honored and betrayed.” Set in a logging camp near Asheville, North Carolina, during the Depression Era, Serena is a story of unchecked hubris and greed. Rash is a poet. While he writes to expose the ugliest underbelly of human nature he does so with such grace and delicacy that his literary prowess takes one’s breath away.

Pomegranate Books 4418 Park Ave, Wilmington, NC 28403 (910) 452-1107 pomegranate.booksense.com

Trolldom Troll/$9.95

The best part of giving this gift is going to Trolldom on Market Street to pick it out. Each troll comes with its own unique story. Here’s one: “Lintzi loves roses. In fact his house is covered in roses and his favorite thing to eat is pizza with a nice green salad.” Helena, Minna and Johannes Kuuskoski have been making trolls since 1952, and Trolldom is a special, magical place that Wilmington is lucky to have.

U.S. Trolls 2305 Market Street, Wilmington, NC 28403 trollforest.com

Fred Eshelman is the CEO of PPD, one of Wilmington’s largest and most successful businesses, a pharmaceutical research firm that’s recently built its worldwide headquarters on Wilmington’s north side. With 1000 employees moving from PPD’s previous location in Midtown, on 17th near the Cameron art museum, and 1000 more slated for hire, Wilmington’s downtown would enjoy two thousand mid-day shoppers, lunch-eaters, two thousand extra bodies downtown, two thousand people looking for a place to stop for milk or quaff a beer standing up on the way home from work.

Has this happened? I’m not sure. PPD started in a modest space downtown ten or more years ago (?) and quickly outgrew it. The story of PPD’s return after having been, according to some reports, kicked out of downtown despite having the area’s best interests at heart, and then brooding for years on nearby 17th Avenue like Achilles in his tent, is the recreation myth of Wilmington. When PPD expanded, the mythology goes, the company outpaced what Wilmington’s then-mayor Harper Peterson would allow in terms of commercial development in or near the historic downtown. These two clashed and Eshelman repaired to Midtown, where he vowed to return to the downtown he loved and wanted to support when the political climate (of historical preservation and anti-commercialism) was improved and Peterson was out of there.

In the many years that Eshelman waited and prospered in Midtown, he had incentives and offers from all over, and would have been greeted as a hero of commerce by any number of medium-sized or large cities. Charlotte and Greensboro would kill for PPD but Eshelman…abided.

Now he’s back (near) downtown in a new, immense, controversial corporate high-rise, whose effect upon the downtown has been middling at best (Is there better news about all those PPD employees drinking beers on the way home? I haven’t heard it.), and he’s spending millions of dollars to promote the conversative agenda, especially around tax policy (read: no taxes), and he’s using a 527 group called RightChange.com.

What?, many people asked. The guy’s a right-winger? A corporate survivalist? Eshelman, the savior of Wilmington??

Having spent more than a million dollars of his own money right before the election — and just after a folklorically-large economic crisis that has even the right-wingers saying they have to get serious about government, protection of citizens, regulation — he’s obviously thrown his money right down the tubes. Which is great, in my mind. I don’t relish the rich convincing the not-well-off that they, the rich, should be taxed even less than they are, but it’s absolutely their prerogative as a rich people to spend on this. The stories around Eshelman, Peterson, downtown’s success or failure commercially, historic preservation, the pharmaceutical industry and its spending excesses — all of these lend to the reading of this Big Move by Eshelman readable as epic, and certainly hubristic, and possibly tragic.

There’s an interesting, high-level editorial from Thomas Friedman about energy policy and some opportunities we’ve already missed since 9-11 to regulate right (“If America calls, will they answer?”), and especially this editorial on our downtown farmers’ market, which we also went to last weekend and got carried away by: perfect weather; friendly, diverse crowds, dogs and kids; a good spread, the river running by.

This editorial about good times and farmers’ markets as a bargain in general when food and gas prices are going high is quoted here in full:

With prices at the grocery store rising higher than a field of sweet corn, farmers markets are becoming a more economical option for shoppers.

It’s always felt good – and tasted good – to purchase produce grown by a neighbor. There’s something satisfying about buying a batch of tomatoes from the person who tilled the soil. But because of economies of scale, farmers markets didn’t always serve up a competitive price for someone on a budget.

But with gasoline prices fueling higher shipping costs and foodstuffs fetching premium prices on commodities markets, local, small-scale growers – whose idea of long-distance shipping is from Burgaw to downtown Wilmington – are becoming more competitive on prices.

We are lucky to have supermarkets with large selections of produce, and farmers markets are likely never to replace them. But it’s a nice option to have – and it’s fun.

A recent trip to the Saturday morning market in downtown Wilmington found Water Street almost as crowded as an Azalea Festival weekend, sans funnel cakes and onion blossoms.

Not only was there lots of fresh, local-grown produce, but also breads, plants, meats, cheeses and pickles. Where else can you find a jar of habanero pickled collards?

The markets also hearken back to the days when Southeastern North Carolina was a major truck-farm region, with train cars of strawberries and other Southern spring and summer delights being shipped to cooler climes.

Ideally, purchasing locally raised food would become just as convenient as a trip to the supermarket. And the large grocery stores don’t have to be left out – it would be nice to see more local produce available in the big stores, and prominently advertised as locally grown. (It was disappointing recently, in the middle of the local strawberry season, to find a table full of California berries as the only selection in an area grocery store.)

Currently, large markets are held Saturdays downtown and Wednesdays at Poplar Grove Plantation near the Pender-New Hanover county line. Perhaps a third day would become viable.

And beyond the farmers markets, there are usually roadside stands to stop at as well as year-round markets, such as Holden Brothers Farm Market and Indigo Farms Produce Center, both near Shallotte.

As the upward price trend continues for shipped-in produce, it seems like the idea of more days or even a year-round, permanent market might be ripe for the picking.

Though my family has been southern nearly as long as the country’s existed, I don’t know much about southern food and its nuances (Or are the virtues of southern cuisine rather its honest lack of nuance? See I don’t know…I’m not a foodie.)

The coffee is middling, I don’t like the hash browns much, but the grits are great, as are the apple sausages and other breakfast components. The place is more open, less stuffy, but no less funky or comfortable with a recent redesign that had them closed for a few months last year. The owner and staff seem great. The Dixie now has nighttime hours and beer taps, and a longer drinking and eatin’ counter where every kind of person saddles up.

[where: 28401]

Find more events in the area to celebrate the MLK jr. holiday at:

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080121/NEWS/801210344/-1/RSS

The Children’s Museum of Wilmington, which moved downtown from its original location farther east on Market St., has really grown on this family. Things looked, on our first visit or two, a little random. The museum is organized into areas that engage the kids — an art activity room; a camping area with tents and rubber fish on the fire; a large, nautically-themed space featuring a pirate ship with an air-compressor canon you can fire, a theater area with a TV production basement just for media locals; and many others.

You are invited to walk around, play, manipulate, sit at mini-chair stations and construct things like bird-feeder-goodie-necklaces with Crackin’ Oat Bran. There are all sorts of objects to engage you, strewn haphazardly — costumes, fake vegetables and checkout stands in a Lowes-sponsored shopping corner, glow-in-the-dark snorkeling goggles, exotic local animals when they’re in season. There’s a giant, overused Thomas the Tank Engine train set on the main floor that subverts all the kids away from the more museum-like projects.

That’s the thing. The requisite sponsorship flags are everywhere, there are flyers and color themes and people in official vests, but the place just seems…odd the first couple times you go. Odd and expensive. Tentative. This is a kids’ museum?, you want to ask. The first time we went the “toys” and objects to play with in the shopping area were empty macaroni boxes that had been taped back shut and used milk cartons.

But you can really warm to the desultory, paint-outside-the-lines feel. We have. More like a very interesting friends’ house than a cordoned gallery, the place is casual but always full of good stuff, always changing. It uses its resources, doesn’t seem interested in any sacred museum cows, for kids’ museums or otherwise, and most of all is bent on doing rather than looking.

And is the occasion for my posting some pictures from our walk downtown.

View of Front Street from the parking deck

Nope. An all-too-common sign downtown:
This one says the store has stopped opening on weekdays, and is now open only on Saturdays and by appointment.

South Front Street

Old retail space that’s just been renovated and is available to rent for anyone but bars and night clubs!

Scruffy and pleasant Ron Paul supporter exhorting us to legalize the Constitution

Civic debate

[where: 28401]

I think I lost a little tread from the sole of my shoe when I skidded to a stop to check out the freshly opened Gourmet Market on Front Street downtown. I have lived in Wilmington for three years and have been absolutely dumbfounded by the lack of a grocery store downtown. Rationales I’ve heard from locals about why we’re missing this basic necessity (conceivably the heart to our downtown!) include lack of parking-lot space, the possibility of crime, and just not enough general interest. I won’t say these reasons are completely unfounded, but they just aren’t show-stoppers in my opinion. In SoHo Dean & DeLuca does not provide parking for the thousands of customers who walk through their doors every day. And as for crime and general interest, the former would go down and the latter would surely go up if downtown had enough substantive businesses to keep it bustling.

Enter Seyoum Joseph, owner of Gourmet Market.

Originally from Ethiopia, Joseph has called Wilmington home for the past eleven years, and says he was greatly inspired by businesses like Trader Joe’s, Tidal Creek and Lovey’s Market when making plans to open this Front Street shop. It’s hard to imagine that this carefully renovated, well lit, clean space, boasting shelves and shelves of organic (yes, organic!), healthy food and products was once the site of the hoary Reed’s Jewelers.

Joseph says he’s committed to providing his customers high quality, organic products, and he intends to do this by using distributors that adhere to the guidelines set forth by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). Relying heavily on his organic distributing company to provide him with product information and merchandising ideas, he seems absolutely enthusiastic in his mission to provide downtown Wilmington with healthy and organic products. But he also gets a steady flow of requests to sell soda and candy bars. It must be tempting to carry sure-sell items like these, especially when the rent is due and there are bills to pay. All this journalist can say is, Please stay true to your commitment to sell healthy organic products, Mr. Joseph!

Grove Project: Your shop is great looking. Was it an easy/fun transformation from jewelery store to gourmet market?

It was a major renovation project that took two and a half years to complete. We had to redo all the electrical wiring and some of the plumbing. We put put in brand new refrigerator cases as well as new heat and air conditioning components. We also pulled up layers and layers of carpet in order to find the original hardwood floor and then restored it to this beautiful blond wood you see today.

Grove Project: What is your vision of the store’s future?

Well for the immediate future of the store we are working on getting more fresh, locally-grown organic produce. We also have a deli case being installed in the next few days so we can sell hormone- and pesticide-free cold cuts, and perhaps some cold salads. As for the not-so-immediate future, we hope to expand—to continue to fill our shelves with healthy and organic products.

Grove Project: What can our reader’s expect to find consistently in the store when they shop?

Customers can expect to find fresh fruits, vegetables, locally grown produce, organic grocery items such as canned and dried beans, pasta, pasta sauces, dairy products, healthy snacks and drinks, spices, vitamins and coffee.

Grove Project: I’ve heard through the grape vine that some of your businesses have included convenience stores. If this is true, will we start to see more convenience type items like Doritos and Coca Cola in the store?

Joseph pauses for several seconds. I’m not intending to bring in items that non-healthy, non-organic products. As I mentioned before, I have been greatly inspired by other local health food stores.

Grove Project: What has your reception from the community been like thus far?

Since the opening of the store on October 14, 2007, people have been extremely excited to find us here. Some people have even asked for hugs because they are just so excited about the store, and most people just say ‘thank you’ over and over again. It has been a really wonderful experience and has kept me motivated to continue to find good products to bring into the market.

Grove Project: If your family and friends were coming to visit for Thanksgiving what items from the store would you definitely want to bring home?

I would definitely bring home a bag or two of chocolate tortilla chips from Food Should Taste Good. All of our customers really love those and we have the jalapeño tortilla chips coming soon as well. I would also stock my pantry with Acqua Panna sparkling water from S. Pellegrino because the water tastes great, and the bottle itself is very attractive for sharing with guests. I would bring home a bag of 100% Sumatran Coffee from Coffees of the World. Oh, I also would not forget to bring home some paper towels from Earth Friendly Products.

Grove Project: I am now going to pick up something to make for dinner. Any suggestions?

For a very quick and easy meal you might enjoy one of the several varieties of organically made canned soup we carry. Or perhaps you would like to try something from the Mediterranean section of the store. You could bring home a jar of dolma, rice and spice stuffed grape leaves marinated in oil, to serve with a cold couscous salad. We sell packaged couscous from Near East that you can cook and combine with chopped onion, tomato, cucumber and olive oil, all of which we carry here in the Gourmet Market.

[where:27 North Front Street, Wilmington, NC]

http://www.wwaytv3.com/node/4169

Killing was here: map, which one user calls the among the most dangerous areas in Wilmington. City council candidate Ronald Sparks also quoted as a neighborhood resident.