http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/home.aspxThe dish on eating local from Deborah Geeringen-usCopyright 2012, AtlantaMagazine-NAWed, 22 May 2013 08:00:52 GMTThu, 15 Nov 2012 18:00:34 GMT1http://emmisinteractive.comIf you’ve been thinking of cooking up a “locally grown” theme for your Thanksgiving dinner, I’ve got some good news and bad news for you. The bad news is this: If you haven’t already arranged to buy a Georgia heritage turkey, you aren’t likely to find one at this late date. Locally, humanely, naturally raised turkeys are in such high demand in these parts that most are spoken for before the poults have become proper poultry.But here’s the good news: You can still buy most everything else for the big meal from local producers—as long as you act quickly. Think about your menu now. Start shopping this week if you can, so you won't be caught by surprise if your favorite farmer runs out of sweet potatoes, or if your usual farmers market is closed for the holiday.Here’s a partial list of where you can find locally produced ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10465627http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10465627Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:00:34 GMTAlthough several farmers markets around metro Atlanta have now shut down until next spring, we lovers of fresh, local food still have plenty of options. In fact, each year more and more markets opt to extend their seasons. Here's an updated list of area markets that are still in operation. Sunday Grant Park Farmers Market: 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. through Dec. 16 Marietta Square Farmers Market: 12 to 3 p.m. through Nov. 18 West End Farmers and Artisans Market: 12 to 4 p.m. through Nov. 18 Tuesday Emory Farmers Market: 12 to 5 p.m. throughout the academic year (closed during breaks) Wednesday Dunwoody Green Market: 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. through Nov. 21 Peachtree City Farmers Market: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. through Nov. 21 Decatur Farmers Market: 3 to 6 p.m., ongoing Truly Living Well at East Point: 2 to 7 p.m., ongoing Thursday East Atlanta Village Farmers ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10461611http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10461611Tue, 13 Nov 2012 23:14:53 GMTThough we Americans tend to overdo the amount of sugar in our diets, I admit to loving the now well-entrenched “spoonful of sugar” food trend ... you know, the one that has us adding a hint of sweetness to otherwise savory dishes. It’s the concept behind Brussels sprouts drizzled with maple syrup and butternut squash paired with caramelized onions. The idea works with greens, too. This fall I’ve taken to combining naturally sweet root vegetables, like carrots and sweet potatoes, with pungent greens. The net balance is a little surprising, but comforting, too.If you’ve never tried hakurei turnips before, now is a great time of year to do so. The little round, white turnips themselves taste more like a radish than a traditional turnip, only sweeter. In fact, you can eat them raw like a radish. Their greens are milder than traditional turnip greens as well, but they still ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10462713http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10462713Wed, 07 Nov 2012 20:43:29 GMTAt Burgess-Peterson Academy in Atlanta, vegetable-loving children take turns caring for the school’s hens and share in their output of fresh eggs. At Crawford Long Middle School, science teacher Tiarra Moore has commanded an impressive list of grants and awards to build aneducational organic garden and orchard. And at Morningside and Springdale Park elementary schools, students participate in garden-themed science lessons and are treated to cooking demonstrations from visiting chefs. The “farm to school” movement, which seeks to improve the health of children by creating connections between them and real food, has taken root in Atlanta Public Schools. But many parents, in APS and other metro school districts, hope to extend the movement's reach, incorporating more garden-based lessons into the curricula, serving more Georgia-grown food in cafeterias, building more gardens on school grounds, and creating more ties between local farms and classrooms.  This Saturday, Nov. 3, Georgia Organics and ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10458780http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10458780Wed, 31 Oct 2012 15:10:52 GMTWe’re lucky, in this part of the world, to have several tenacious farmers who produce food year-round. But as the days get cooler and some farmers markets shut down for the season, it does get harder to find the delicious greens, radishes, lettuce, squash, turnips and sweet potatoes that farmers are harvesting right now. Thank goodness that some markets operate year-round and that others run right up to the holidays. You just have to know where to look. Here’s a list of farmers markets that are still in operation, sorted by market day. Click on the link to find more details, including location. (A complete list of metro-area farmers markets, open and closed, can be found at our Farmers Market Guide.) And if you’re on Twitter, follow me! I send daily updates about metro Atlanta’s farmers markets, and I give occasional cooking tips for seasonal foods, too. Have you ever ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10448454http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10448454Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:12:58 GMTIf you notice a number of home bakers coming out the woodwork in your community, you can thank Sara Rylander. The Acworth baker (right) got the ball rolling on Georgia’s new Cottage Food Program, which allow entrepreneurs to prepare certain types of foods in their home kitchens to sell directly to the public. Before the new regulations were released by the state Department of Agriculture in September, Georgians were prohibited, under most circumstances, from selling any type of food that was not prepared in a commercial-grade kitchen used solely for commercial purposes. Technically speaking, if you wanted to sell birthday cakes out of your home, you had to build a second kitchen used only for that purpose and meet the same inspection standards required of restaurants or other commercial kitchens. That bar was too high, and financially impractical, for most folks to meet. The result: a lot of home cooks ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10455544http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10455544Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:35:41 GMTA few weeks ago I happened upon a startling discovery: Some of my favorite area farmers do not care for eggplant. They grow it; they sell it. Apparently, though, they don’t eat it. How could this be? Eggplant is so lovable, especially from a farmer’s perspective. It’s insanely easy to grow in the South, as it loves heat and humidity. It’s abundant right now, when most other summer produce is fading, and it keeps producing right up until frost. It’s a beautiful plant, too. The fruit comes in colors ranging from pure white to a deep purple, sizes ranging from small eggs (hence the name) to large globes and elongated pods, and skin patterns ranging from solid to speckled to striped.Despite all this charm, eggplant is an interloper on many Southern tables. Where it has crept into American cuisine, it has often come through Mediterranean and Asian influences—appearing in ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10439922http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10439922Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:57:34 GMTHere in the Southeast, we locavores have it pretty good. In a land where a bounty of food grows year-round, it’s a heck of a lot easier to eat locally than it is in, say, Minnesota. Even so, there are some foods we just can’t reliably produce here. Coffee comes to mind. And lemons, bananas, artichokes, cherries, avocados (the good kind), cocoa. OK, artichokes we can live without. But what about coffee and chocolate? If you’re trying not to burn more than your fair share of fossil fuel but can’t imagine life without those staples, how do you have your mocha grande and drink it, too? Like-minded consumers have settled on a compromise: When you can’t produce it locally, process it locally. By bringing the processing close to home, you simplify and control as much of the distribution chain as possible—and you create a fresher, better-quality end product, too. It’s ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10445863http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10445863Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:52:04 GMTThe local food movement in Georgia has definitely got the attention of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That much became clear last Friday, when the USDA announced the 2012 recipients of its Farmers Market Promotion Program grant money. Eight organizations in Georgia received funding for local food projects, capturing about 7 percent of the $9 million awarded. Only two states, California and New York, had more programs acknowledged.  Launched in 2006, the Farmers Market Promotion Program is intended to establish and expand direct producer-to-consumer marketing, including farmers markets. Administered by the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, it has awarded more than $32 million. The big winner this year in metro Atlanta is Clarkston Community Center, which was awarded $89,875 to expand the monthly Clarkston Farmers Market to a weekly operation and support the food distribution efforts of refugee farmers in the area.  In less than a year, under the ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10443094http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10443094Wed, 26 Sep 2012 18:22:10 GMTAfter reading reports of a study suggesting that organic foods are no healthier than conventional foods, and then reading the source of those news stories in the current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, I find that my reaction is mostly one of annoyance. Did I read the same study those other reporters read? The study, “Are Organic Foods Safer or Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives?: A Systematic Review,” assessed other studies of nutrient and contaminant levels in foods as well as 17 studies of humans, including three that measured clinical outcomes. It found no significant difference in the allergic symptoms between those eating conventional and organic foods and no significant difference in nutrient levels of various fluids produced by adults, but it did note that two studies found significantly lower urinary pesticide levels in children. It found no significant differences in nutrient levels in the foods themselves, but it did ...http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10434880http://www.atlantamagazine.com/covereddish/localfoods/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10434880Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:48:11 GMT