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Friday, February 8, 2008
Classes introduce kids to growing veggies, fruit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The farm to school movement is picking up steam in Atlanta, with schools like Trinity, High Meadows, E. Rivers, Cascade and Morningside Elementary introducing children to growing food.
If you’re interested in getting more hands-on with the movement, or simply want to learn more about gardening as a family, there are a couple of opportunities coming up.
The Georgia Organics convention, Feb. 28 to March 1 in Dalton, offers a daylong farm-to-school workshop for children on Saturday, March 1. The program, for children ages 5 to 12 and a limited number of adults, includes a session on making bread and butter, another on planting seeds and composting, along with music and art activities. For adults, there are lessons in incorporating the activities into their children’s schools. The fee is $30 for children who aren’t members of Georgia Organics; $20 for members’ children, and includes a Friday night banquet.
Farmer Lynn Pugh, whose Cane Creek Farm community-supported agriculture program was profiled last summer in the AJC, is branching out beyond the organic gardening classes she offers to adults with a new offering for families. Pugh, a former teacher, is setting aside 16-square-foot plots for those enrolling in a three-hour class she’s teaching on Saturday, May 3. Families can work in the plots on Wednesdays and Saturdays throughout the growing season. Pugh will provide information on plant selection, soil development and harvesting. To register for the $50 class, contact Pugh through her web site. There’s a limited number of garden plots available.
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Absinthe Shines On
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“The Absinthe Drinker” by Edgar Degas 1875-76 Musee d’Orsay, Paris ©Photo RMN/Herve Lewandowski
“After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, which is the most horrible thing in the world.” - Oscar Wilde
The moonshine cocktail piece that covered the AJC’s food section yesterday ajc.com garnered a few interesting stories from readers, including this one from Riley O’Connor of Brookhaven:
“Oh, it’s just not the same, being able to just walk down to the local store and buy a bottle of moonshine. Non-tax paid liquor represents a long and wonderful tradition.
At Christmas, I had a contact in North Georgia who would run off a batch of the stuff for his friends. The product was distinctive because it came in two-quart jars instead of the more common one-quart (and later the plastic bottle). You’d take a slug and say to yourself “Hey, there’s nothing to this.” And then the fires down below would begin to burn. After several slugs, everybody would be doing their Tom Shane: “Now you have a friend in the moonshine business.”
Nor is this confined to the United States. Irish poteen is a long standing way to avoid British taxes. And, I remember sitting at the Drei Kröner restaurant in Uetikon, a suburb of Zurich, sampling what I have come to call “Farmer Steiger’s Rocket Fuel”. During the day, while the tax authorities were present, the product of local vineyards was turned into brandy. After hours, when the doors were locked and the tax boys were safe at home in their beds…”
What struck Rich Eldredge and I the most when writing the story was that the bartenders were completely unaware of the fact that moonshine was sold legally. And everyone, like Mr. O’Connor, has their own “connection” for the stuff.
Another libation once banned for consumption in the United States that is now available again (though not in its truest form) is that gloriously green bohemian liqueur, absinthe. Originally banned in 1912 (production of the anise-and wormwood-laced liqueur had been banned in its home country of Switzerland several years earlier), absinthe was purportedly the liquid equivalent of dropping acid.
A few liquor stores in the area are carrying the new brands of absinthe, but I’ve yet to see it on any bartender’s shelf. The ritual for preparing it for drinking is involved — it’s traditionally served over a glass with a special slotted spoon crowned with a sugar cube to dilute it. Which makes it primed to become the latest cocktail craze.
Have you tried absinthe? Do you know of any bar in the area that serves it?
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