Blog bits: Overheard at the Wedge, a slam-packed herb festival, the pork lobby in action and more

Some random tidbits:

• Patio at the grill?: Looks like 51 Grill, the cool little restaurant attached to the Exxon station on Merrimon Avenue close to downtown appears to have built a little wooden patio for diners. Eat outside at a gas station, and listen to the bustling Merrimon traffic. Cool. I’m not gonna knock it until I try it, and maybe the wooden deck is for some other purpose.

• Herb festival slammed: The annual herb festival at the WNC Farmer’s Market was absolutely slammed Saturday morning. It’s always been pretty busy, but I’ve never seen it like this. Traffic was lined down Brevard Road in both directions. Meantime, people were grabbing up all kinds of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, etc. It was definitely the herbs and vegetables that were selling – not the flowers. That tells me that the economy has really pushed people this spring to plant and grow more of their own food. Which is a good thing. The festival continues Sunday — if there’s anything left.

• Overheard at The Wedge: The Wedge brewery down by the railroad tracks was packed Friday night. One dude’s talking about how he’s writing a screenplay. He didn’t want to talk about it, because he was so cool or something, but one cute girl and a few brews later, he spilled the premise: It’s a Hollywood comedy – Bigfoot gets recruited to play football. Nice.

• Pork lobby swings into action: It’s been almost a week since news of the swine flu broke and everybody freaked out. We’ve been hit over the head by the media telling us everything we never wanted to know about the swine flu, and how to protect ourselves from it. It took a few days for the pork lobby to get on its feet and kick into high gear, but when it did, it moved forcefully. Overnight, the media references switched from “swine flu” to the “H1N1 flu.” Steve Plever, who hosts WCQS weekday mornings and does occasional news stories, said outright on the air that the N.C. Pork Council had asked the station to stop using “swine flu” and start referring to the virus as “H1N1.” Wow. on Friday promo-ed an NPR story noting the name change. My correction: Plever did not mention the N.C. Pork Council, or any request by the council, on the air.

• Becky Anderson, the founder of HandMade in America, will be the speaker at Salem College’s commencement May 23.