Lunch at the Weathervane, Chapel Hill, NC

Marcia and I spent our day out Wednesday by first dropping Dan at his lab at Duke University and then doing a bit of shopping at Target before heading to Chapel Hill for lunch at the Weathervane. The Weathervane Restaurant is a full-service restaurant located adjacent to Southern Season in University Mall.

The Weathervane is a pleasant place for lunch especially on a nice day like yesterday when it was perfect to dine out on their patio.

Patio at the Weathervane.

 There are two dining rooms inside, a formal one and a more casual one.  But we enjoyed dining al fresco.

The more formal dining room at the Weathervane.

Casual dining room area in Weasthervane.

When Marcia and I go out to eat we often end up ordering the same items from the menu and that was the case yesterday.  We each had soup and half sandwich.  The soup of the day was tomato basil, and we selected as our sandwich egg salad with bacon, lettuce and tomato.  Both the soup and the sandwich were quite good and reasonably priced at $11.00.  For good food and pleasant ambiance I can enthusiastically recommend the Weathervane for lunch. And when the weather permits, by all means choose the patio seating.

Soup of the day, tomato basil.

Egg salad sandwich with bacon, lettuce and tomato.

After lunch we browsed through the adjacent Southern Season, a gourmet food store that specializes in local and international fine food, wine, specialty gifts & cookware.  Craig Claiborne, the late NY Times food critic, once described Southern Season as “wall to wall and floor to ceiling…a visual and gustatory delight!”

Eye candy at the Southern Season from the elegant to the......

...whimsical.

It's always dangerous for me to enter Southern Season, because rarely do I leave without purchasing something.  This time I found items that I really needed though---a pretty tablecloth, platter, and paper plates and napkins in the color scheme that I will use for a graduation/bon voyage party next week for grandson Zach and his girlfriend Claire.

Items I purchased at Southern Season for the graduation/bon voyage party for Zach and Claire.

A few days after graduation Zach will be traveling with Claire and her mom to Australia to visit her mom's family.  What an experience that will be for Zach!

Christmas Table Decorations

I'm finally getting in the Christmas spirit.  Today I decorated the dining table and with very little expense.  In the News and Observer the other day I saw a suggestion to use your crystal glasses inverted as candle holders.  Following their suggestion I used two iced tea glasses and two water glasses and filled their cavities with silver ribbons, tied ribbons around the stems and placed the glasses down the center of a green runner that I've used before.

Inverted tea glass as candle holder.

Silver ribbons fill the cavity of the glass.

At Target I found these LED votive candles which I placed on the now inverted feet of the glasses.  On Christmas Eve and Christmas I'll use real votive candles, but with the LED candles I can leave them lit in the evenings until then and not worry about catching something on fire. 

LED votive.

In the center of the table I used a silver vase and arranged white hydrangeas and variegated acuba from the garden to make a very simple yet effective arrangement. Spill a string of silver beads down the runner and voila the table is finished. 

Arrangement of white hydrangeas and acuba.

The acuba complements the white hydrangeas nicely.

Silver beads spilling down the green runner.

Add the silver chargers I bought last year at the After Christmas Sale at Target and the table is ready to be set and for less than $50.00 including the fresh flowers.

Silver charger purchased on sale last year.