Recreational food shopping.

The grocery list is an important communications tool in the Knitternall home. Each of us adds to it during the week, and I edit when I work on menus, check the pantry, and add essentials.

• Chocolate syrup (please?)
  
• Dishwasher stuff
  
• Chocolate ice cream (please?)
• TP!!!!!!!!!!!
• Grown-up cereal ("grown-up" underscored several times)
• Chicken piquant - 4 small chicken breasts, 2 lemons
• Veggie bacon (2 points)
  

Depending on what's on the list, I head to Wal-Mart, Publix, or Kroger. Wal-Mart is first pick when we need lots of cleaning supplies and dog food. Way cheaper. Publix is my go-to store most weeks because it's close by and familiar. Kroger is less convenient, but has terrific sales on meat, poultry, and frozen foods. I visit Costco once a month for bulk items such as toilet paper and frozen chicken breasts. These shopping trips are straightforward, routine, and necessary. They've also become much more expensive lately.

People in Dunwoody like to talk about food shopping. They share special finds at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's (the salmon! the oatmeal!), praise a Fresh Market crown roast that was both investment and indulgence, order their Thanksgiving smoked turkey at Olde Hickory House, and fret that a favorite goat cheese provider at the farmer's market won't have the special blend they love. The lemonade cake at Wright's Gourmet is a must-have for a teacher dessert buffet or church committee meeting. The creative people at Trader Joe's suggest combining this sauce with that chicken to create an affordable, easy, tasty dinner. A high protein cereal is out of stock at the natural foods store, to the dismay of its fans.

This sensory enjoyment of food shopping is a mark of our affluent culture, and a shock to visitors from other countries (and less affluent parts of America) where food is necessity, not recreation. Not everyone is comfortable with this affluence, hence the growth of backyard gardens, the local food movement, and interest in back-to-basics comfort food.

People seem to fall into two camps: planners and spontaneous shoppers. Undoubtedly, the planners save more money and always have what they need on hand. Spontaneous shoppers grab what looks good, have duplicates of things they forgot they had, and make multiple runs to the grocery store. One friend always shops on Sunday morning because it's quiet, less crowded, and she can calculate her spending and savings in peace. Another picks up dinner on the way home from work because she can't plan ahead whether the family will be together that evening.

I wonder what life would be like for all of us if we couldn't be planners or spontaneous . . . if the food we ate was the food we had. The answer isn't just in third world countries. Drive a few hours north, to the Cumberland Mountains region of Tennessee, for a taste of reality for many, many people.

Just thinking . . .

Bibimbop

The Dunwoody Nature Center staff hosted lunch at the Wasabi House in the Village today, to celebrate a couple of birthdays, thank several volunteers for over-the-top service during the recent office renovations and program brochure, and sundry other blessings.

Mmmmmm. Bibimbop. It's my favorite dish at Wasabi, a one-bowl Korean lunch of hot rice topped with stir-fried vegetables, bean sprouts, fresh greens, and an egg on top. I usually add some shrimp to the mix. Topped with a mild chile sauce and stirred together, and it's comfort food at its tastiest. Dunwoody is filled with special little places like Wasabi House and Wright Gourmet and Goldberg's and Villa Capri and El Azteca. The chain places are largely confined to the Perimeter Mall area, close enough for convenience, but not so intrusive as to take away the townie feeling of the Village and environs.

This was a busy day, participating in a Dunwoody Schools Cluster Council meeting at the high school, dining with the splendid company of coworkers and compatriots, and finalizing plans for cool classes. The Chicken Whisperer - who turns out to the son of one of our past Board Presidents - has a Saturday class that's filling before we've had a chance to promote it. The Square Foot Garden classes are so popular (and full) that we need to schedule another round in May. We've put together a Sustainable Pantry class as well, for those like me who are still novices when it comes to finding, storing, and serving fresh, locally grown, organic foods.

It's fun to live and work your ideals. I'm blessed to be part of Dunwoody Nature Center and this town-in-the-making.

I (Heart) Dunwoody.

When I was little, we moved every eighteen months to two years. That's the life of an Air Force family. Dad was involved in flight logistics, and specialized in bases that were scheduled for closing. I was the "new kid" so many times I thought it was normal. And every time we moved, we enjoyed the honeymoon period of a new place, but never stayed long enough to explore beneath the surface.

I've lived in Dunwoody ten years now, and I'm still finding new reasons to love this place.

Favorite breakfast: Olde Hickory House, with one egg, rye toast, and some really good coffee.
Favorite Starbucks: the one in Dunwoody Village, because it has a drive-thru and I need that mocha latte right now because I have five stops to make in the next 30 minutes!
Favorite grocery store: Publix. It's small enough to find everything I need and "Dunwoody-fied" enough to get special stuff like lamb chops and Silver Palate pasta sauce.
Favorite I-don't-feel-like-cooking-tonight-solution: Fresh Market. A loaf of crusty sourdough and some gourmet mozzarella for a grilled cheese sandwich, plus one of their homemade soups, and the whole family is content. Yummmmmm.
Favorite route from our house to Peachtree Charter Middle School: Up Mt. Vernon Road to North Peachtree Road, a leisurely 25-mile-per-hour ride across Tilly Mill, and on to the school. What the drive lacks in speed, it makes up in time saved, because I rarely pass many cars.
Favorite sight driving down Mt. Vernon Road at night: the stained glass window gleaming from St. Luke's sanctuary.
Favorite carwash: Sunshine!
Favorite teacher at Dunwoody High School: Kara Bryant, the Latin teacher. She's smart, funny, highly organized, "gets" teens, and stays connected to parents. Wow.
Favorite walking path: A 3-mile loop from our house, up Mt. Vernon Way to Meadowcreek, a cut through the social trail and on to Dunwoody Park, up Roberts and Chamblee-Dunwoody Roads, a left at the library and Womack, back to Mt. Vernon Way via Vernon Springs, and left on our street.
Favorite sight whether driving or walking: the Great Dane who walks his owner and has a huge stuffed bone clenched in his jaws as he lopes along.
Favorite house renovation: the home at the corner of Mt. Vernon Way and Meadowcreek has me sighing with pleasure every time I see it.
Favorite Dunwoody idiosyncracy: The centerpiece of the village is a farmhouse, but we're way too urbanized for actual farming.
Favorite post office: Definitely the one at the Wal-Mart shopping center on Ashford-Dunwoody Road. If you live in Dunwoody, you try to avoid the one in the village.
Favorite fundraiser: the Friends of the Dunwoody Library book sale. It's great to recycle finished books and get "new" ones for next to nothing. The volunteers who run the sale are efficient at setting up the sale and making sure members get first dibs. (There's steel in those magnolias.)
Favorite sandwich: The turkey salad on white at Wright Gourmet. It's really not healthy, but it sure is tasty.
Favorite "I'll bring dessert" without actually making it: The lemonade cake at Wright Gourmet.
Favorite service at St. Luke's Presbyterian Church: It's a caber-toss-up between the Scottish Heritage Festival (this weekend!) and Christmas Eve (the one that ends at midnight).
Favorite Fairy Godmother: Donna B, the doyen of volunteers at Dunwoody Nature Center.
Favorite neighborhood Christmas display: Redfield!
Favorite people to call when the garage door breaks: Dunwoody Door Lift.
Favorite heating and air conditioning guys: Dunwoody's Choice.
Favorite newspaper. Duh. The Dunwoody Crier.
Favorite Dunwoody blogs. www.sustainabledunwoody.com and John Heneghen's timely news.

That's just a few of the things I love about Dunwoody, the center of our universe and the best place to live. Bar none.

Howdy, neighbor

Just a few of the reasons I love being in Dunwoody for the holidays . . .

1.  Light Up Dunwoody and Cocoa & Candles. The Knitternall family can walk the three short blocks between our house and the farmhouse, enjoy the jostling, smiling, familiar crowd, and shiver in the shift from sunset to darkness before hitting the luminaria-lit trails at the Nature Center with warm cocoa in hand.

2. My darling little Preschool Phonics friends starting to wear Christmas dresses and shirts, with bows in mussed up hair, lick-lipped chap marks making perfect circles around their mouths, and hands shooting up into the air to tell me everything and anything going on in their families (I promise I believe only half what I hear).

3.  The rare quiet of very little traffic on Mt. Vernon Road on Thanksgiving and Christmas Days.

4. Red Velvet Cake from Wright Gourmet, Moravian Sugar Cookies from the Fresh Market (a taste from Winston-Salem that we'd otherwise miss), a smoked turkey from Olde Hickory House, and peppermint cocoa from Starbcks.

5.  Redfield's Christmas Eve gala, with hundreds of cars meandering through street after street of magical Christmas lights displayed by neighbors competing for bragging rights in a variety of categories (Knitternall Family Favorite: the Kids' Choice!). Plus, we always have to see the gi-normous display at the estate in the heart of Dunwoody Club Forest.

6.  The huge Great Dane who walks his owner through my neighborhood with genteel dignity, foot-long stuffed bone pillow grasped firmly in his slobbery mouth and a happy gleam in his eye as he ambles along. 

7.  The local Griswold house in Wyntercreek.

8.  The 11:00 Christmas Eve service at St. Luke's,  with its carols, communion, chrismons, and candlelit lullaby.

9. Running into friends and familiar faces in the aisles of Kroger and Publix  as I make yet another run for that one ingredient I thought was on my list but completely forgot and the gingerbread/stuffing/fudge/buckeyes/hard sauce etc. MUST BE MADE.

10. Holiday dinner leftovers. Yummmmm.

I love the holidays!