Free-For-All Friday 11/22/13
Decatur Metro | November 22, 2013Feel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local issues not yet discussed here over the past week.
Comments close on Monday.
Feel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local issues not yet discussed here over the past week.
Comments close on Monday.
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Steinbeck’s Chili Cook Off tomorrow from 12-4 behind the restaurant! $5 to taste, kid and adult drinks available. Come one, come all! (Oh, and vote for “Bad Mommy Chili”…)
I know this was mentioned in another thread this week, but I thought I’d formally ask here in the hopes that we get a real answer. Why are the Christmas trees upside down?
it’s a commentary about the inversion of our values—a critique of our capitalist exploitation of a sacred holiday.
the war on christmas has been won?
Walmart, et al, won the war on Christmas long ago.
Well, if you want to be a pedant, Christianity won the War on Yule a few centuries back….
I think they are beards
Really upside down? That’s weird. The city needs to reinstall, if so.
Would somebody please take a photo of the upside down Christmas decorations? I’m having a hard believing this is not just a leg pull, and don’t have time to drive to Decatur today and see for myself.
I didn’t believe it until I met a friend for lunch this week and drove down to WePo. Even if they’re not supposed to be trees and instead are supposed to be “triangles,” they LOOK like they’re supposed to be trees and they’re installed upside down. It’s kind of embarrassing.
Google “pine spray” and “center mount” together and you’ll get links to the folks who sell these commercially for decorations. They are indeed right side up, even though they still look like upside down christmas trees to me!
Go to the company website and ask THEM why the Christmas trees are upside down.
Link to a COD blog post that is comically contrite about Garlandmmagedon:
http://thedecaturminute.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/sometimes-new-things-just-dont-work/
Awesome. Can we get Lyn and COD to fix Obamacare now?
VERY classy apology. I like leaders who have enough self-confidence and moxie to recognize when they are wrong and apologize!
OK, thank you. I feel 100% better.
Love the “arrow towards great shopping” play
Ironically, my hair stylist JUST brought the upside down Christmas tree decorations situation up while doing my doo. Said the city bought “new” decorations this year (the trees) but decided to hang them upside down so as to not offend anyone with the blatant (my word) Christmas theme. Wonder what that means for the giant tree on top of Little Shop (or vicinity). Don’t know if it’s true, but stylist works on the square, so I’m sure he hears a lot…….
Just looked at the upside down trees/triangles. Not as bad as I thought they’d be. In daylight, their darker green is actually nicer than the faded wreaths. I think they are supposed to look like a garland around the posts. But their modern geometric style is too easy to interpret as an upside down triangle of greens, i.e. tree. Got to see them at night before I pass judgment.
What will happen to them if they are replaced?
They took them down this afternoon.
I went looking for the new decorations and found they have been replaced with wreaths almost everywhere. I did see a couple of the new swags still up near Marta. They are probably down now. Thanks to a responsive city government.
I haven’t looked this morning, but yesterday there were still some on N McDonough.
We talked turkey (and a little cranberry), but does anyone want to share a recipe for a favorite side dish? I’m trying to shake things up this year. We had “Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad with Fresh Walnuts and Pecorino” this year at a fabulous Italian restaurant in another city and found the recipe on Epicurious– perfect side dish because it doesn’t take precious stove or oven space in the crucial last hours!
i’m partial to the culinary classics: frozen french cut green beans mixed with cream of mushroom soup, topped with cheddar, and sprinkled with durkee canned onion rings. i think it’s a Jean-Georges Vongerichten recipe, but i’m not sure.
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
it’s actually made it to our table as part of a shared dinner with friends, ala “we’ll host, smoke the turkey, make dressing, and a dessert, and the rest of you can bring your favorite dish to share.”
it’s a sad little casserole, an artifact of our 70’s make–it-fast-mommas-got-a-job-now culture. typically it sits in a remote gulag of the dinner table, barely touched, cold, congealing—a lonely Thanksgiving orphan with its face pressed against the window, looking on as everyone gorges on other the dishes it only wishes it could be.
Thank you, Rick. That was damn funny.
I still love this dish if for no other reasons than (1) it is a throwback to my childhood and (2) only on Turkey Day would I contemplate eating something of this caloric intake and a small number of redemptive qualities. Long live the green-bean casserole!
That’s why my sisters and I love the English pea and asparagus casserole — never make it any other time but don’t feel we’ve had Thanksgiving without it. Connects us with our mother and grandmother, and with the sweet simplicity we like to think that time represented. (Of course, we now know life was ever complicated, a melange of misery and merriment. But back then, the misery wasn’t ours to worry about and so we like to eat goopy casseroles occasionally.)
I won’t do it again.
You forgot the water chestnuts.
+1
I ate that a lot as a kid. No joke. Or variants thereof (cream of something soup, add a vegetable and/or pasta for substance, put a texture on top, bake). But the beans in mushroom soup was one of my favorites.
My 78 yr old dad has to have LeSuer baby peas out of the can. No fresh peas will do to satisfy his craving. Says it takes him back to his childhood.
I try to get away from the dreaded green been casserole every year, but my three boys always request it, saying it’s not Thanksgiving without it. I curse the in-law who introduced it to them!
Everybody laughs about the green bean casserole but it always gets eaten, down to scraping the sides of the dish.
You should try Alton Brown’s version of the green bean casserole.
Brussels sprouts with bacon and simmered in chicken broth is now a Thanksgiving necessity. But it’s not to supplant green bean casserole, plenty of room for both!
A T’giving staple in our family is Waldorf salad: diced apples, diced celery, chopped pecans, mayonnaise. Easy to make, consumes no oven or stove top space, and a lovely counterpoint to the heavy, rich dishes on the menu.
Dish I recently discovered: fennel & apple salad. Thinly sliced fennel and Granny Smith apples, with a lemon-tarragon vinaigrette. Also no cooking involved and works well made the day before. Recipe is online somewhere.
Red cabbage (family staple since my sister made a mixed marriage w/ an upstate New Yorker in the late ’70s): shredded red cabbage, an apple, some vinegar, not sure what else. (Bro-in-law makes it.) Requires cooking (stove top) but also good made ahead & reheated.
Ohhhh, man–that apple/fennel salad sounds scrumptious!! Won’t be trying it for T-Day (that menu has long been set), but definitely gonna make it soon for a weeknight dinner.
My mother always made that same Waldorf salad every year. She’s been gone for 27 years and just reading about it brought back lots of good memories. I’ll have to make it this year and reinstate the tradition!
Creamed perl onions.
Use heavy cream, Gruyere cheese and whisky.
Ooooh. This seems like a nice alternative to the bland version.
aspic…
Big fan of green bean bundles (very popular at our house) – you wrap canned (gasp!) green beans with bacon and sprinkle brown sugar, ground mustard and salt and paper on top of the bundles and bake them til the bacon is cooked and caramelized. I guess you could cook your own fresh green beans but that sounds like more work. http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/1417388-Sandra-s-Green-Bean-Bundles?full_recipe=true
Carrot Souffle
Makes 8 servings
Preparation time: 20-25 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
1 1/2 pounds carrots, sliced
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter or margarine
3 large eggs
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 1 1/2-quart souffle
dish; set aside.
Cook carrots in boiling water to cover 15 minutes or until tender;
drain. In the work bowl of a food processor, combine the carrots, butter,
eggs, flour, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon and process until smooth,
stopping once to scrape down sides. Spoon into prepared souffle dish. Bake
about 1 hour or until set and lightly browned. Serve immediately.
Per serving: 393 calories, 20 grams fat, 119 milligrams cholesterol,
424 milligrams sodium.
Dianne, for your church turkey dinner, have you considered using free standing electric roasters to cook more of the inexpensive turkeys? My family always did this growing up, with lots of great birds and regular oven free for sides. Maybe some church members have some to borrow? I’ve also seen them for sale @ Marshall’s or the like for $25- could be good addition to your household or great donation to the church.
Maple-Ginger Roasted Sweet Potatoes:
4 sweet potatoes, peeled & cubed
1/2 c. maple syrup
1/2 c. melted butter
1/4 c. walnut or grapeseed oil (olive imparts too heavy a flavor profile for this)
1 & 1/2 TB light brown sugar
1 TB grated ginger (powdered will work, but it’s much better using fresh)
1/2 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 450. Toss cubed sweet potatoes with the remainder of ingredients, place in glass baking dish. Place in oven for 5 minutes, then lower heat to 400. Roast potatoes for 35-40 additional minutes, then let rest 10 minutes before serving. These are simple, but fabulous!
I use a few epicurious recipes regularly at Thanksgiving: Triple-Cranberry Sauce, Apple Walnut Salad with Cranberry Vinaigrette (usually with pecans instead of walnuts), and Spiced Sweet-Potato Cake with Brown Sugar Icing for the non-pumpkin-pie eaters. My son wants me to make a Nutella Pumpkin Pie this year. I like Nutella and pumpkin but I am not sure about how well they’ll go together.
Everything else is pretty standard, like mashed potatoes, corn, mashed sweet potatoes (with cream, maple syrup and brown sugar on Thanksgiving only) and bread stuffing.
Now I am hungry.
Do you have leaf problem? DHS lacrosse players want to help. Email . They charge by the bag (the tall brown leaf bags), not by the hour. $1.75/bag if you provide the bags; $2.25/bag if they provide the bags.
In the spirit of high school yard work, my son Jacob asked me to give a shout out for his Pressure Washing business. Get your decks and walkways clean for the holidays. Great price, good work.
Text or call Jacob – Two Guys and a Pressure Washer: 404 309-9863
Cranberry Orange Peel Salad
Chop 2 c cranberries together with seeded orange sections in the food processor. One large orange. Clean the orange peel of the white inner membrane and add it in. Add sugar to taste.
Delicious!
Thinking about giving a telescope as a gift this year? 5 PM tomorrow at Fernbank Science Center will be a free presentation by the Atlanta Astronomy Club called “Telescope Buying Guide”. They’ll offer advice on features to look for and, I think, specific models and price ranges. As someone who gave a telescope to his sons years ago, I would have loved the chance to talk to knowledgeable folks like these. They also are offering a “How To Use Your New Telescope” program in January – – also free!
Every time I get a telescope they make me register.
Has anybody tried the $5 Buck Lunch at DQ? Are those harvested wild or farm raised?
I get the “grammarian shudder” whenever I see those signs. Using the $ sign and the word buck is redundant. So it comes across as the 5 dollar buck lunch.
Yes, I’m fully aware of my grammatical OCD tendencies, but I’m trying to deal with them.
Oh, and it’s probably pink goo based.
You must love that that you capitalized all the words in your screen name except for one.
OH. MY. GOD!!!!!!!!! Great catch! I just can’t believe I missed that.
Dude, I totally owe you one.
You have to pay for the $5 Buck lunch with cash you got from the ATM machine (assuming you remember your PIN number.
Shouldn’t there be a comma instead of three periods after “books”? The ellipsis indicates that words have been left out, but no words are omitted. (Typos jump out and grab me by the throat, I swear!)
Words have been left out “…so little time!”
Good point. I chose an ellipsis instead of a comma to represent an intentional silence, indicating my frustration that I just don’t have enough time to read. But I’m happy to change it to a comma if so desired.
I don’t care. It’s your pseudonym.
Wow. That was a lot of work just to point out that she’s anonymous and doesn’t use her real name like the respectable people do!
+1. For the most part, folks who use screen names here are pretty darned polite & civil to each other. Just because someone uses their “real” name doesn’t automatically stamp their posts with the imprimatur of kindness or respect.
Wait — that’s NOT his/her real name?
Uh, OK. You called out what you felt was a grammatical error and I explained my reasoning. I assumed you did care, since you chose to comment.
I feel attacked, so I want to explain. You called out a grammatical mistake. Somebody else called out one in your screen name, and I noticed another one. Felt like it was all in light-hearted fun, until people started attacking ME for being rude. I don’t think it’s my place to tell you what fake name you use here. I do, however, think people are far nastier to other people when they use pseudonyms. If you felt my response was rude, I apologize. I didn’t intend it that way. I imagine it would have been much ruder for me to insist you change your name.
Your first comment was fine. In fact, I conceded you made a good point, and I explained why I used an ellipsis. But your second comment, which you claim wasn’t intended to be rude, sure felt that way. It was the written version of “(shrug), whatever. You’re dismissed, because you used a pseudonym.”
It seems others read it that way, too. And given your penchant to complain about those who use fake screen names, it’s easily understandable.
Anyway, no hard feelings on my side. It’s all good (but I’m still not going to use my real name).
The use of ellipses to indicate a longer pause than a comma may indicate is perfectly correct, although some style guides prefer dashes for this purpose.
I guess the screen name is truncated on the iPhone. It merely says “So many books….” I will have to log in on a computer to see what comes next!
This will satisfy your sweet tooth so much that you can have it as a side or dessert!
Sweet Potato Heaven
Ingredients
4 cups mashed sweet potatoes
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup chopped pecans
Directions
In a mixing bowl, combine the sweet potatoes, white sugar, eggs, milk, salt,
1/3 cup butter and vanilla. Mix together and pour into a greased 13×9
inch baking dish.
To prepare the topping, combine in a separate bowl the brown sugar,
flour, 1/3 cup melted butter and pecans. Mix together and crumble
over sweet potato mixture.
Bake uncovered at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 35 to 45
minutes
This became a top request of my family up north. One bite and they were hooked.
Yeah, it’s so sweet that we Northerners will almost forget it’s not covered with mini-marshmallows!! This stuff would give Heisenberg a run for his money on the street.
Does any one have a person or group that cleans gutters!! i had a guy but moved he use to drive around our area now i am in a new location and need someone!
Call Dwight Calhoun (404) 317-0115, he’s done my yard and gutters for years, first in oakhurst and now in east lake
Any suggestions of local places for Christmas Eve dinner? We don’t require anything fancy, but festive would be nice.
We are having our Christmas dinner at Cakes and Ale. We are celebrating early because we are flying out of town so not sure if/when they will be open Xmas Eve or Day. We have previously had a fabulous Xmas Day dinner at Legal Seafood in downtown Atlanta– gorgeous floor to ceiling windows overlooking the skyline. Bonus: you can ice skate at Olympic Park before or after dinner and have dessert in the rotating Westin restaurant – all walkable. Last year we did Buford Hwy Xmas dinner and it was awesome as well.
Oakhurst Presbyterian’s Holiday Marketplace is this Sunday from 1-3pm in the fellowship hall. There will be homemade pies for sale, lovely work by local artists, fair-trade coffee/chocolate, and a delicious chili lunch to keep you nourished while you shop. Our Marketplace promises to be a much more pleasant shopping experience than Black Friday, plus it supports our youth and local artists at the same time. There will be handmade jewelry, pottery, cards, prints, soaps, knitted scarves and hats, handmade dresses for American Girl dolls, handbags and more. We hope to see you there!
I can tell that the holidays are truly upon us. Good will has spread! Almost an entire day of Free For All Friday has passed without a heated argument.
Or maybe it is because we just do not have a balanced audience at this time of year.
Who will come to the defense of the Center Mount Pine Spray decorations for Decatur’s street lights?
Who will stand up for the “classic” Green Bean Casserole? I would just recommend you have your cholesterol checked before you stand, if you have been a steady consumer of Green Bean Casserole.
Ya know, somebody could park a Fiat 500 or a Mini-Cooper between the Adair bikes. Or perhaps an electric car.
Interesting that there are no reflections on the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination – I guess there aren’t that many of us that post here who remember it. I was in the 7th grade at Avondale Elementary. We got the news as we were coming in from recess. Who else remembers where they were?
Sixth Grade, Holy Family School on Utopia Parkway, Flushing. We were on the stage in the basement where the Sunday overflow Mass was usually celebrated (some friends and I hijacked it in high school and made it the folk Mass) with Sister St. Claude rehearsing us for the Christmas assembly. The principal, Sister Miriam Augusta, came in and asked for our attention. She announced that JFK had been assassinated. Tough moment; I bet half the kids had a Kennedy portrait or plate hanging somewhere in their homes.
A few months later Sister St. Claude told us 11 year olds that she was pretty sure Kennedy’s murder was connected to the death of Joe McCarthy via the CIA. Tail Gunner Joe was her political hero. I am lucky to have survived parochial school. Fortunately I moved on to the Jesuits in 1966.
In the womb. I was at one of his famous speeches though, but alas, also in the womb.
Funny how the only person in the world that doesn’t remember where they were that day was George H.W. Bush. He was in the CIA at the time and was in Dallas on that day. But he doesn’t remember where he was when JFK was shot…
I was in the 1st grade and have no recollection of hearing the news, although I do clearly recall the shock and confusion among the adults in my life. In retrospect, I realize some of it had to do with their trying to reconcile opprobrium for the man and his politics with sick outrage at the assault on our republic that his assassination represented. (I grew up in a household that would shortly thereafter permanently cancel the Atlanta Constitution subscription because of Ralph McGilll’s editorial stance.)
In contrast, my recollections of June 1968 are very vivid. In Panama City with a school friend, her mother, older sister, and older sister’s friend… Friend’s mother was much more liberal than my folks, and it was quite a shock–in the best possible way–for my adolescent brain to hear some of the things she had to say as we watched news coverage immediately following RFK’s assassination. I remember thinking my parents never would have let me go on that beach trip if they’d bothered to tune in to Mrs. C’s politics!
Disappointing that the unrelenting “commemorative” news coverage the past few weeks has been so heavy on histrionic rehashing and largely void of thoughtful commentary (other than rehashing what’s been observed before).
Fifth grade. Mr. Clausen gave us the news in our classroom. It was my father’s 37th birthday. He would be 87 today. I remember my parents crying, Jack Ruby shooting Oswald, and everything closed on Monday for the funeral. And the salute from John John…
Am I the only person tired of hearing about JFK? I know very well where I was when I heard about it: History class-it was well before my time. This morning when even ESPN talked about him I wanted to throw my TV out the window onto the grassy knoll beside the house.
Yeah, Monty. And forget all that 9/11 stuff, too while we’re at it. Boring history class stuff. And forget my uncle too, who was in the last plane shot down over Germany in 1945. Heck, that happened before this grey head was born.
Don’t worry dude. This will all be over tomorrow. End of news cycle.
+100
The 9/11 analogy is accurate and obvious. It was the start of a new era, almost instant in nature.
WWII and the sacrifices made by those such as your uncle were of monumental significance to the evolution of society worldwide. The assassination of JFK was a tragedy of one death-not three thousand civilians within hours, nor 60 million over years.
As long standing as the conspiracy theories are, the seem to arise like the 24-hour news cycle.
Yeah. One life only. Makes you wonder why Shakepeare bothered to write the play about that Julius Caesar guy.
The assassination and Pearl Harbor were the two biggest game changing events of the 20th Century. Sorry you weren’t around to find out about them in your Twitter feed.
I never said JFK was one INSIGNIFICANT person. The point is this: Later generations could have the fullest academic understanding of 911, for instance, yet some events have such immense significance that they can only be fully appreciated by those who lived through them.
You fault me on an intellectual basis but that is nonsense. You doth protest a bit too much in suggesting an unawareness of History. Shakespeare was married to Anne Hathaway. He must have had a way with words, because that lady is beautiful in her latest movie.
Allow me to make a clarification/apology for any umbrage I may have caused about this issue. I had not read a single posting when I expressed my exasperation. I was speaking about the media’s apparent continuation of the tendency to expend great effort trying to convince viewers that en easy story is an important one. “Where were you when…” has become cliched attachment to almost any dramatic and profound event; and in cases such as 9/11 or JFK it is a very real point of inquiry. I would never presume to say that someone’s actual feelings about such historical events are illegitimate. Not having been here for the JFK assassination, it is hard, to impossible to anticipate anything comparable to 9/11. For any accidental rudeness conveyed, I sincerely apologize.
Thanks.
You bet. My idea was people did not think it was AS big a deal as the media wants it to be. I was dead wrong as proven by the discussion underway on DM.
Pun not intended.
It was a very big deal, at the time and ever after. The media coverage prompted by the 50-year anniversary has been, IMO, appallingly superficial.
There was one special program which, alas, I missed, that discussed what might have happened if today’s forensic technology had been available 50 years ago.
I deserve more flaming than this! Is this the best you guys have??
What’s the phrase – those who forget history are doomed to repeat it? At least the JFK coverage has given us a reprieve from the babble regarding the new Braves stadium.
CNN must have forgotten all about the JFK assignation because they sure do repeat themselves. I assume they consider the event “Breaking News.”
And the even more inconsequential story of the 400 toll lanes ending. Good lord you’d think people had been handing over their first born for twenty years instead of 50 cents, given the endless coverage.
+1 on this.
Of course, when an inconsequential story gets overplayed, it means there’s no real news. Thank goodness.
+1
I’ll take inane stories to the tragic ones any day.
“Of course, when an inconsequential story gets overplayed, it means there’s no real news.” — I disagree completely. It simply means they think the “real” news won’t be as big a draw.
What gets me is that instead of putting their efforts into real news, they put their efforts into trying to brainwash us into believing that whatever cheap stuff they put on is good.
40th Annual St. Thomas More School 8th Grade BAKE SALE
Saturday 10:00 am – 8:00 pm and Sunday 8:00 am – 1:00 pm in the Middle School
Just in time for your Thanksgiving table, you’ll find hundreds of home-baked goodies…pies, cakes, breads, family-recipe cookies and more. The bake sale is the main financial support for the annual 8th grade retreat, held each January.
Get there early for best selection!
Does anyone know how long it takes for DecaturFreeCycle membership to be approved? I submitted a request about three weeks ago but have received no response. Thanks.
typically a day or two. they respond to your request to join and there’s a deadline (2-3 days?) for you to respond back to them. check your spam filter to see if their response to you got hung up. (that happened to me once)
That was the problem! Thanks, smalltowngal!
Anyone know what happened to that little orange kitten owned by the Oakhurst Community Garden?
The cat’s name was Pepo and she passed away. Last I heard, they didn’t know the cause. The other cat, Cardoon, is still there. I only know these things because I’m one of many people on duty who will be helping to feed/water the cats over the holidays. Pepo was a sweet girl…sad she’s gone.
More sad news that Chef Ria Pell has died. Love Ria’s Bluebird.
OMG–where did you see this??? How awful!
It’s on the front page of AJC.com
Saw a tweet last night and now a short blurb in AJC.
http://www.atlantaintownpaper.com/2013/11/rias-bluebird-cafe-chef-founder-ria-pell-died/
Sad news indeed. Never met her, but Ria’s Bluebird is one of the places that defines east Atlanta in my view.
Ditto. Ria’s always has some of the best soups ever! Their cream of asparagus is soooo comforting…hope they find a way to survive. I’d hate for her restaurants to die with her.