Amongst the Atlanta Community Food Bank’s fall lineup of cooking classes, is this very Decaturish option (pointed out by Angie, ACFB’s PR manager)…

Delightful Dumplings

• Chef Billy Allin and Pastry Chef Cynthia Wong of Cakes & Ale
• November 9, 7-9 p.m.
• Location: The Cook’s Warehouse – Decatur
• 108 West Ponce de Leon Ave., Decatur, GA 30030
• $55 – Demonstration and Tasting

Simple Abundance continues its tour of popular, notable restaurants with Cakes & Ale, owned and operated by Decatur residents and known for seasonal, locally sourced ingredients and cuisine made from scratch. Chef Billy’s First Course features a Fall Vegetable Salad – arugula with butternut squash agra dolce and for the Second Course, he will share the secret to his hand-made, pillowy Gnocchi with Fennel Sausage. A sweet treat will round out the menu with Chef Wong’s Figgy Toffee Pudding. The evening includes wine tastings sponsored by Sherlock’s Wine Merchant and a chance to win fabulous door prizes provided by Atlanta Beverage, Bella Cucina Artful Foods, Cabot Cheese and Via Elisa Authentic Fresh Pasta.

And the best part about it all?  “One hundred percent of class tuition benefits Atlanta’s Table, a project of the Food Bank that collects food from our local hospitality industry and delivers it to more than 40 nonprofit partner agencies that provide meals for those in need. For details or to register, visit www.ACFB.org or call 404-892-FEED, ext. 1444.”

From the agenda of the next school board meeting…

Requested Action

2)Awarding the Superintendent 96.7% of the Performance Bonus for successfully meeting goals for the 2008-2009 school year;

3)The Superintendent’s request to defer the Performance Bonus Award until the end of the 2009-2010 school year so the health of the budget can be adequately assessed.

Financial Impact

The contract states that the Board may award up to $20,000 to the Superintendent for meeting the performance goals. It should be noted that [at] the 2008 Retreat, the Superintendent met a substantial percentage of the stated goals and refused to accept the approximate award of $15,000.

It should also be noted that the Superintendent did not request a raise and her salary will remain as per the 2008-2009 contract. However, teachers and staff received an approximate bump of 2.5%.

And that was done in spite of a larger than expected ($6.4 million) fund balance, which is the focus of another agenda item that looks to reduce the fund balance by over $1 million to $5.6 million infusing that money back into the system after the $2 million cuts earlier this year.  (see Agenda Action Item “a” for more details)

Ken Edelstein asked me to post this weeks ago.

This weekend, before or after you head down to Oakhurst for the Arts & Music Festival, take MARTA down to Candler Park for some more festival action!

According to the Fest’s website, you’ll be able to dye your hair green, play dress up, see Kingsized perform on Sunday night (and Baton Bob on Saturday), and even invade people’s homes (what some folks call a “tour of homes”)!

But what I really wanna know is, why on earth is the New York Times a sponsor of a Candler Park festival?

Looks like the city is a little dissatisfied with its unofficial description “Where Mayberry meets Berkeley” and may be looking for a new slogan.

Lyn Menne’s challenge in the latest issue of the Focus (not yet online), is to follow in the footsteps of Hemingway’s famous six word story and provide an accurate description of our fair city in 6 words – no more, no less.

Definitely not an easy task, seeing that I’ve been pondering it for two days straight and have yet to come up with anything worth jotting down.

Whatcha got smart-pantses?

It’s Friday and you know what that means…FFAF!…which I can only assume is pronounced “phaf”.

Use this post to make comments and ask questions about local topics not discussed over the past week.

Comments will be closed on Monday.

Phaf it up!