The Glenwood Grill, Raleigh, North Carolina

After a great and adventurous meal at the Log Cabin, I left AlbemarIe and took a break from my tour of 26 Essential NC Barbecue Places and headed up to Raleigh to visit with my brother, Jim, and his wife, Cantey.  You met them briefly here.  Jim and Cantey live in Raleigh, but they’re never there.  They’re away in the mountains, at the beach, or in Charlotte or Florida or Scotland or Ireland or God knows where.

Jim is much, much older than I — over four percent older!  He was three years ahead of me at Indian Springs, the high school we both attended, and some teachers always called me “young Tanner.”  No one does that now.  People only call you “young” when you don’t want to be thought of as young.  Then they stop.

After Indian Springs, Jim distinguished himself at Chapel Hill — I won’t say how — and, after a few years working in Birmingham, had a successful career in mortgage banking in Raleigh.  His greatest success was having both of his sons and a passel of grandchildren wind up living less than two miles away.  Jim also is a source of information about barbecue places all over North Carolina.

Cantey is a wonderful sculptor, mainly of young children.  Treat yourself to a tour through her website, and next time you’re in Blowing Rock, enjoy the bronze of a young girl reading.  It’s in front of the library.  Cantey’s daughter, Preston Gannaway, inherited the artistic gene.  She won the Pulitzer for Feature Photography in 2008 for photos chronicling the experience of a family dealing with a parent’s terminal illness.   In our family, my younger brother David inherited all of the artistic genes.  Jim and I are completely free of artistic talent.

Both Cantey and Jim are interesting, intelligent (don’t tell Jim I said that), and fun.  And Cantey is very attractive.  Here they are being interesting, intelligent, and fun  (and attractive) at Liza’s wedding —

I arrived in Raleigh and Jim and Cantey suggested I might want a break from barbecue — it wasn’t an intervention — and I graciously (and honestly) agreed.  We went to the Glenwood Grill, a neighborhood place with very good food.  It’s a very friendly place, and I decided not to take pictures or notes.  I’m pretty sure we all got seafood, and that it was fresh and well prepared.  I can still remember what I took for lunch on elementary school field trips, but I need notes to remember what I had just a few weeks ago.  Of course, in elementary school I had either cold fried chicken or a pimiento cheese sandwich on field trips, and things are more varied now (although it’s not easy to beat Dear’s cold fried chicken — no longer available, alas — or a pimiento cheese sandwich.)  But I’ve been there a couple of times before, and the food is always good.  The Glenwood Grill is a lively place, but it isn’t really loud.  You actually can carry on a conversation without resorting to texting the people across the table.   Take a look at their menu.

The next morning began with another reason I love visiting Jim and Cantey — Jim cooks up a lot of bacon at breakfast every morning.  Other food is available, but it’s mainly bacon.  They are both on a diet that involves a lot of bacon.  It clearly works.  Both of them are slim and trim, and very active — and happy.  Bacon does that.

Give the Glenwood Grill a try.

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