benefiting the Liver Foundation at the Georgia Freight Depot. (404) 633-9169. www.flavorsofatlanta.org

Prime Pickings for Georgia Produce 

March/April 2007

By Melissa Libby

“Every day is a fresh beginning,” wrote author Susan Coolidge. Sure, we all say that when the New Year rolls around and resolutions are abundant. Thanks to Georgia’s mild climates and year-round growing conditions, a resolution for eating local is getting easier to keep.

Buying fresh, local, and sustainably grown produce during peak harvest times delivers the best flavor and nutrients from your food. Contrary to the global food business that erases seasonality and delivers summer berries grown in the Southern Hemisphere in the deep of our winter, the type of local produce available varies with the seasons throughout the year.

To assist chefs and consumers in making the most of our regional, seasonal bounty, Georgia Organics’ Local Food Guide includes a Georgia harvest calendar that serves as a handy guide to when local fruits and vegetables are prime for the picking. The Local Food Guide offers a statewide listing of farms, markets, restaurants and other businesses that support sustainable food and farms in Georgia, and can be found at www.georgiaorganics.org.

So, with a tip of the hat to those farmers using season-mitigating hoop and greenhouses, here’s a quick overview of what you can expect from Georgia’s growers throughout 2007.

January – March

During the first quarter’s harvest, root crops such as carrots, parsnips and turnips are at their peak. The larger root crops are tough and tolerate cold weather well, waiting until fall before they start putting on bulb growth.

Jonathan Szecsey of A&J Farms in Winston, Georgia, pulls his parsnips out of the ground in mid-January, where they have been since last May. “All root vegetables are planted in fall or winter and harvested the following season,” he says. “Keeping them in the ground longer is the key.”

Winter harvest of these larger root crops has benefits. “When the ground freezes here, the coldness brings out more sweetness in root vegetables,” says Szecsey. “Root crops are very starchy at first, but after a frost, they become sweeter. For example, the frost won’t kill a carrot if it’s mulched with leaves, it will only make the carrot sweeter. If you eat a carrot that was grown in the spring, it will taste much different,” Szecsey explains. 

Szecsey also works at Restaurant Eugene in Atlanta, which gets many vegetables and even some fruit from Szecsey’s farm. One of his favorite root vegetables is kohlrabi, a bulb with a taste and texture similar to cabbage. Kohlrabi is technically a root crop even though its bulb grows more above ground, and is often roasted and used in soups.

Hearty dark greens, a natural source of calcium, also thrive in the mild Southern winters. Collards, all varieties of kale, and heartier mustard greens will tolerate heavy frost and put on leafy growth during the winter months.

Looking for locally grown Mesclun greens in the middle of winter? You’ll need to find a farmer growing them in a hoop or greenhouse. These season-extenders are the ticket for growing spring and some summer crops regardless of how low the mercury dips.

From rutabagas and sweet potatoes to parsley and kale: a quick tour of the local producers’ market quickly displays what local farmers are bringing in during the winter, greenhouse or no. More than a few markets now operate year-round, including Atlanta’s Morningside Market and the Decatur Organic Farmers Market.

April – May

The air warms in the Spring, and soil temperatures slowly catch up. The cool, wet weather favors tender, leafy crops. English peas, crisp lettuces, tangy arugula, quick-growing radishes and later on, beets and fennel, rule the local produce roost. Plants of the onion family, including Vidalia onions and garlic, mature now after waiting largely dormant throughout the winter. The star fruit of the season is the strawberry; it wastes no time before blossoming with a fruit that ripens quickly during the April’s longer daylight hours and still-cool nights.As the spring matures, it’s the season’s first heirloom tomatoes that growers, consumers, and chefs alike crane their necks in search of. An intricate calculus that considers anticipated weather patterns, micro-climates, growing conditions, and a good deal of luck dictates farmers’ planting-and therefore, harvesting-schedules. The risk is high; plant outdoors too early and one late frost will knock the young plants out. Generally, the farmers who grow their tomato plants in frost-sheltered spaces reap the first harvest.

June – September

Most leafy green crops call it quits in Georgia’s hot, long summer days, but not to worry, there’s harvest galore in this time of plenty. What to look for now?  Potatoes mature and are joined by all things fruity: melons, okra, sweet corn, beans, field peas, edamame, cabbages, cucumbers, tomatoes, figs, peppers, summer squashes, and among others, blueberries.

Most plants tire of summer’s heat come August. Summer crop yields tail off and the fall crops slowly start to appear, winter squashes like spaghetti and butternut among the first to make their appearance.

October – December

Autumn’s cooler temperatures up the amperages of squashes, usher in sweet potatoes, and welcome back the greens including lettuces-if the weather stays mild. Turnips and the larger root veggies start to reappear, but unless they’re the mild, sweet, white-bulbed Hakurei turnips, count on apples to provide the season’s sweetest note.Executive Chef Dean Dupuis of South City Kitchen, uses Fuji and Little Lady apples from local farmer Dan Moore to create salads, entrees and desserts. Because these apples are so sweet and tasty during the fall and winter months, simply serving them raw with something to accent their flavor is often a winning approach, advises Dupuis.

Locally grown produce complements the contemporary Southern aspect of South City Kitchen’s menu. “I think that people really get into eating things that were growing or living just around the corner from where they live,” says Dupuis. “I try to use local products whenever possible-not only to help sustain local farmers, but because we get items that are harvested so close to the time that we are serving them. We can sell guests a great grilled local Fuji apple salad with hydroponic watercress, Sweet Grass Dairy’s goat cheese, salted pecans and cane syrup vinaigrette with apples that were hanging on the trees a day or two ago.”

Dining patrons often notice the use of organic produce in dishes and restaurants are capitalizing on this. According to Dupuis, guests are always excited when the restaurant talks about using organic produce, which for South City Kitchen and many other Georgia restaurants, is usually the local produce.

Becoming acquainted with peak harvest times for local produce is one of the most enriching ways to support area farmers while appreciating our unique bounty of regional foodstuffs. Local produce has become a vital part of the Georgia’s culinary scene, a trend we hope the Georgia Organics Local Food Guide will make easier than ever to support.

Georgia Organics, a nonprofit organization working to integrate healthy, sustainable, and locally grown food into the lives of all Georgians provided this article. To learn more, visit www.georgiaorganics.org, or call 678.702.0400. Melissa Libby is the co-founder, along with Kristina Hjelsand, of the Red Clay Collective, an Atlanta marketing and public relations partnership founded in 2006 that represents Southeastern food artisans.

Largest fund-raising event for the High Museum of Art. (404) 733-5335. www.high.org.

at the Classic Center. Contact Shelby Wright, event coordinator, (706) 425-2574 or shelby@foundryparkinn.com.

at the Atlantic Athletic Club. (404) 325-6973. www.wineandrosesgala.com.

at the Cobb Galleria. For more information, call (404)774-8313.

March/April 2007 

Determination In The Kitchen

By Sally Hansell

While their backgrounds are as different as Buckhead and Taipei, three female Georgia chefs share winning qualities for becoming a top chef. Determination is a key ingredient. Other success factors include finding a niche, creativity, passion, a gifted palate, and the capacity for hard work. Chefs Wendy Chang of Eurasia Bistro in Decatur, Carvel Grant Gould of Canoe in Atlanta, and Audrey George of Chef Audrey’s Bistro and Bakery in Warner-Robbins share such traits and are at the top of their game.

Audrey George of Chef Audrey’s Bistro & Bakery in Warner Robins has expanded her talents beyond the kitchen. The 40-something entrepreneur hosts a FOX 24 television cooking show on Friday mornings and a radio show on Saturday mornings. She sings, sometimes breaking out into hymns at work. On the last Thursday of every month, she organizes a “Soul Food for the Soul” lunch in the 50-seat bistro, serving comfort food like collard greens and pork chops while pastors preach from a pulpit.George grew up in Birmingham, the fourth of six children in a pastor’s family. She started cooking at age eight, adding that her mother made her learn a few things before getting out the pots and pans. “She took me to the library,” George says. “I had to learn how to work a budget and look up recipes, ingredients and herbs and spices before I could cook anything.” For her first culinary effort, George wanted to make hazelnut-crusted lamb. “My mom said we had no money and I had to make it in our budget. So I made peanut-crusted pigs tails,” she recalls.

Such youthful culinary creativity bode well for a future chef, but once armed with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Miles College George wanted to become an attorney. She was studying for the LSAT when Jefferson State Community College introduced a new food technology degree that lured her back to her passion for cooking. She worked as a student apprentice at Bon Vivant restaurant in Birmingham and took over the pastry chef’s job.

George was Pastry Chef at the Wynfrey Hotel and the Sheraton Hotel in Birmingham, a European-style bistro and bakery similar to her current eatery before moving to Clayton, GA to open her first restaurant. Seven years later, in 2000, she moved to Warner Robins working first at BellSouth and then as a chef at a retirement center before finding the right spot for what she calls the only fine dining establishment in the city.

The biggest challenge for George is finding good servers to match her upscale menu. “Service is more important to me than the actual meal,” she says. “I tell my staff, Before people get to my meal, they meet you. If you take too long to get water, they’re slightly perturbed.’” But desserts like white chocolate coconut torte or caramel cheesecake certainly leave lingering sweet notes.

March/April 2007 

Determination In The Kitchen

By Sally Hansell

While their backgrounds are as different as Buckhead and Taipei, three female Georgia chefs share winning qualities for becoming a top chef. Determination is a key ingredient. Other success factors include finding a niche, creativity, passion, a gifted palate, and the capacity for hard work. Chefs Wendy Chang of Eurasia Bistro in Decatur, Carvel Grant Gould of Canoe in Atlanta, and Audrey George of Chef Audrey’s Bistro and Bakery in Warner-Robbins share such traits and are at the top of their game.

When Carvel Grant Gould decided to leave the University of Georgia and become a chef, she stunned her parents: They’d envisioned a career along the lines of a doctor or lawyer. Her mother, a professional model who dined regularly at the Buckhead Diner in Atlanta, arranged for Gould to meet with Chef Gerry Klaskala. “He was supposed to convince me that I didn’t want to do it,” Gould recalls. “He said, I’ll put you on my line for three days, and you’ll never want to work in a restaurant again.’” Instead, that first-ever restaurant experience sealed the deal. She started making salads and desserts; two years later was running the whole line.Gould next cooked at 103 West, but didn’t enjoy the closed kitchen, having become addicted to the roaring energy of a dining room at full-throttle. In 1995 Klaskala recruited her for the opening team at Canoe, with its open kitchen and seductive view of the Chattahoochee River. She started as a saucier and worked her way up to Chef de Cuisine. She left for a year to head Che, a short-lived tapas bar in Buckhead, then returned to Canoe as Executive Chef. In 2005 Canoe was inducted into Nation’s Restaurant News’ Hall of Fame.

Heading a kitchen staff of 34, Gould blends leadership with nurturing. “This is certainly a training kitchen. I feel very strongly about my kids, as I call them,” she says. “I’m really concerned about all these guys’ careers and developing them and moving them from station to station.” She knows every employee’s strengths and weaknesses, “who has a strong palate and who has a visual sense.”

She also takes a personal interest in customers, greeting many by name as she circulates the dining room this, even though she feeds as many as 400 diners on weekend nights in addition to cooking for a special-events tent. Customer information such as favorite wines, food preferences and anniversary dates is collected in an OpenTable computer system for staff to review when reservations are made.

The 36-year-old says her current challenges lie in management and training skills and in developing new flavors. She adds, “It’s all a challenge. It’s never easy. Different things can happen at any given moment. There are so many, many variables.” And if she wasn’t creating dishes like sage-roasted pheasant with huckleberry sauce? “I know indisputably that I would be a trauma surgeon. I like all the chaos.”

trade show at the Georgia International Convention Center. For more information, call (404)765-9900.

50-year-old Company Revolutionized Ham, Introduces New Concept 

March/April 2007

By Michael Patrick

Responding to increased customer demand for fresh, ready-to-serve meals, The HoneyBaked Ham Company opened four new neighborhood concept stores in the metro Atlanta area, Marietta, Roswell, Alpharetta and Lawrenceville, plus additional locations in Florida and Colorado over the last few months.

These new concept is modeled after old-fashioned delis: Customers come in, order the portion sizes they want (of fresh ham, turkey, side dishes, desserts) and take it home for dinner. The goal is to provide a simple way to grab a good dinner on the run.

“Many consumers consider us as a standard part of their holiday entertaining. But the convenience of this new store will make us a regular part of their dinners year-round,” said Chuck Bengochea, CEO. “There is a great opportunity to fill a void for consumers, and we believe consumers will really react to this.”

Anticipating success, “we have 50 new stores slated for construction all over the southeast, if these first pilot stores do well,” says Dan McAleenan, Vice President of Sales. The company strives to create a new “neighborhood market feel” with the smaller, more integrated store, he says. Space in the new stores will be reduced from 3,000 to 1,400 square feet to help reduce costs, emphasize profit increases and streamline customer service. Residential neighborhood locations are targeted for greater customer accessibility. Another unique element is aimed to increase fun: the once back of the house style of roasting and glazing the hams will be brought to the front for all to see. McAleenan says this “glazing theater will hopefully make the consumer want to buy the product and leave a lasting impression on the consumer.”

Since the beginning, the company’s success has required commitment to an idea. In 1924 Harry J. Hoenselaar invented a machine that would change the way people see ham, but that change took time. The bone-in spiral-slicer actually cooked and smoked the ham, but the invention was of no interest to any meat company for the first 24 years of its existence. Hoenselaar continued to work on improving his invention while trying to sell it to various meat companies. But it wasn’t until 1957, by which time Hoenselaar had taken a second loan out on his house for $500, that he started to realize his dreams by opening his own storefront business with his four daughters in Detroit, MI. Today The HoneyBaked Ham Co. and Cafe’ and The HoneyBaked Ham Company of Georgia are part of the HoneyBaked Ham system, the well-established market leader with more than 300 locations nationwide. In addition to the corporate and franchise locations across the country there’s a booming online and catalogue business.

Quick and convenient has become an American way of life. In response, HoneyBaked Ham has “a new, no wait’ policy,” says McAleenan. To make sure customers don’t have to wait in lines, the company has committed to increasing staff and registers during the busy holiday season. “We are touting no more than 15 minutes at our busiest times during the holiday,” he says.

Customers demand value, and in response McAleenan says that the new stores offer ready-to-eat convenient lunches and dinners featuring the company’s famous ham, smoked turkey, roasted turkey or ribs with two sides and a drink for about six dollars per person. Desserts like cheesecakes, brownies and cookies will be available as well.

While McAleenan says, “we will always be strong at the holiday times”, in fact, holidays draw 70 percent of total business, the new concept is aimed at positioning HoneyBaked Ham as a convenient, year-round destination.

Features of HoneyBaked Ham’s new neighborhood concept stores include:

• Glazing galleries - for the first time in the company’s 50-year history, customers will be able to see how the hams are glazed
• Dinners-to-go - portioned servings of meats, side dishes and desserts
• Sampling stations - taste what’s new, from meats to sides to desserts
• Condiments - a selection of gourmet mustards, salsas and spreads
• Environment - a cozy neighborhood food shop atmosphere