Real Food

Earlier this month we went to the First Friday event sponsored by the Zonolite businesses.  The rain stopped, mostly, in time for the event, which ended up being lots of fun.  We talked to Sally Sears at the South Fork Conservancy's display and I bought a T-shirt with the Nickle Bottom Community Garden logo on it.  I got a tomato plant from Habersham Gardens for signing up for their mailing list and we visited some of the businesses that were open that evening.  Ray Bowen was there, at Invictus Forge, but was out of propane so we didn't get to see him at work.  There was music at the Motorcar Studio and Tom spent some time talking to the team from the Atlanta Soto Zen Center.  We got food from the food trucks and enjoyed listening to David Payton in one of the Floataway buildings.

Gather &  Garnish had a sampler for one of their cook-it-yourself-from-locally-sourced-ingredients meal kits.  Caroline and I made it for dinner the following evening.  It was a real treat, the cold zucchini soup and salad with goat cheese and bread.  Everything but a few pantry staples (salt and pepper, olive oil, and so forth) came with the kit, and the instructions were good enough that even a less experienced cook could probably be successful with the meal.  Here's the zucchini and potatoes and onions cooking, before it was puréed into smooth green soup and and chilled.

We will probably try Garnish & Gather again later this summer; the kids will all be out of the house for a couple of weeks next month, and this is perfect for us as empty nesters.  But it also inspired me to try a little harder on shopping and cooking and meal planning.  The next evening we made the banana pepper and cashew soup recipe I had gotten from the Truly Living Well display at Streets Alive last year and that was delicious too.

This morning Iain and I went to Alon's and then the Morningside Farmer's Market, where we got lettuce and arugula, and heritage zucchini and blueberries and tomatoes.  And there were peppers that D & A Farm had, that looked like oversized banana peppers.  So we may try that cold zucchini soup again, and the banana pepper-cashew soup again this week.  I told the woman at the D & A Farm stand that I'd let her know how it came out.

It's not so hard, eating better.  And it's really better.