Saturday, October 3
HOTOBERFEST
Hotlanta’s Oktoberfest celebrations kick into gear with the second annual Hotoberfest in Glenwood Park, from noon to 7 p.m. The festival offers a beer competition judged by the fest’s attendees, kids activities such as face painting, and a build-your-own puppet workshop from the Center for Puppetry Arts, plus live music. Competing beers include Sweetwater, Guinness, and Brooklyn Brewery. Advance tickets to the beer garden cost $30, tickets at the door are $35.
FILM ‘FEASTIVAL’
The Greater Atlanta Dietetic Association will hold a film festival from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Virginia-Highland’s Inman Middle School as a benefit for the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Featuring the Sierra Club’s The True Cost of Food and the Southern Foodways Alliance’s The Rise of Southern Cheese, the festival will culminate with a panel discussion on eating well, including Woodfire Grill executive chef and Top Chef contestant Kevin Gillespie as a panelist.
Sunday, October 4
HARVEST MIDTOWN
Helping to break in the newly renovated Georgian Terrace Hotel, the sixth annual Harvest Midtown lets its patrons indulge in fine cuisine and top-shelf wines while enjoying live jazz, dancers, art displays, and fashion shows. The festival, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., will exhibit the culinary work of Pura Vida, Nickiemoto’s, and Dolce. Advance tickets cost $45.
FIELD OF GREENS FESTIVAL
Half an hour east of the city, Whippoorwill Hollow Farm will host the annual Field of Greens festival from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The event showcases locally grown food along with live music and educational workshops on green living. One of this year’s big draws? The succulent Three Not-So-Little Pigs cook-off, a barbecue competition between three chefs preparing three pigs, each raised by a different local farmer. Various Atlanta cooks are also participating in the festival to demonstrate their flair for the locally grown, including chefs from 5 Seasons Brewing, Restaurant Eugene, and JCT Kitchen. Tickets cost $15, while all children under twelve are free.
Monday, October 5
BLOODY MARY’S 75TH ANNIVERSARY
To celebrate the invention of the Bloody Mary seventy-five years ago at the St. Regis New York, the Atlanta branch of the St. Regis is stirring up a spicy deal. The hotel’s bar will serve two classic Mary’s for the vintage, 1934 price of ninety-nine cents a pop. The first is the New York original: the Red Snapper; while the other is our Southern take on it: the West Paces Mary, featuring cayenne pepper and pickled okra juice.