From The Decatur Minute…

The Heliotrope family invites the community to join them in remembering and celebrating the life of Marc Reynolds, co-owner of Heliotrope. The Memorial Celebration will be held Sunday, August 29 from 6 – 9 p.m. at Cakes & Ale.

All are welcome.

1000 block of Atlanta Avenue, Decatur, GA (pic submitted by Andisheh)

When you think of the Decatur Housing Authority, do you think of Starship?  Apparently you’re not the only one.

Also if you’re interested, the floor plans for the new “Phase 1″ buildings currently going up at Allen Wilson Terrace are now online.

Last I checked, we don’t refer to our neighborhood gardens as “local gardens” or “animal rights gardens” or “foodie’s delight gardens” or “weight-loss gardens” or even “environmentally friendly gardens”.

When friends and neighbors come together for any number of reasons and start a communal garden – as the late Sally Wylde and her then husband did in Oakhurst back in 1994 – it is first and foremost referred to as a “community garden.”

While the central tenet of “community” may seem glaringly obvious when looked at it in this specific way, this component is one that is often ignored in many of the larger conversations about “local food”.  Big picture questions about what it means, who it should be helping, and who it ultimately reports to.

As the popularity of “local food” has evolved out of the “Back to the Land” movement of the 1970s and entered the mainstream, it has quickly been claimed by nearly every conceivable “cause” in the country.

To the ardent environmentalist, local food is a way to wean ourselves off cheap energies like oil.  To those with great concern for animals, it can be an alternative to becoming a strict vegetarian.  For those interested in worker’s rights, it’s a way to support a local farmer, who isn’t hiring for positions so grueling that only the most desperate among us will apply for them.  To the “foodie” (“gourmand” if you’re old-school) it’s all about taste.  To the nutritionist, it’s the commonsensical respite from a decade of powerful, mainstream diet fads.  And so on.

However, the vast promise in the simple act of “eating locally” has also, in some ways, become its own Achilles heel.

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Playing off Decatur’s love of resourcefulness, my semi-obsessive talk about local foodways, and the fact that we’re Decatur’s #1 “homegrown” news source, I’m thrilled to announce that Decatur Metro is sponsoring the brand-new “Homegrown Goodness” track at this year’s Decatur Book Festival.

Six different author events aligned with the track promise to offer practical, how-to advice on a number of “homegrown” activities.  From backyard homesteading, to bee-keeping, to knitting, to canning, to candy-making, we’ll have you covered!

Here’s the list…

• Recipes from the Root Cellar , Saturday, 11:00 at Cooks Warehouse Stage
• The Backyard Homestead, Saturday, 11:15 at Decatur Presbyterian Sanctuary Stage
• Knitting Socks TWO at a Time! , Saturday, 12:30 at Eddie’s Attic Stage
• Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees: Honey Production, Pollination, Health, Saturday, 3:00 at Decatur Conference Center Stage (Ballroom B)
• Canning for a New Generation, Sunday, 2:00 at Cooks Warehouse Stage
• Candy Construction! , Sunday, 3:45 at Decatur Conference Center Auditorium

I gotta say I’m quite excited about DM’s expanding relationship with the Decatur Book Festival.  We have another couple cards up our sleeve for coverage we’ll be providing over the course of the festival, so stay tuned!