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 . . .

Rush hour on the sidewalk.

One of my favorite indulgences is an hour plus walk early Saturday morning before the family stirs. In the winter, I watch the sun rise in solitary peace. In the summer, I bump elbows with runners, bikers, dog walkers, jogging strollers, and phone-chatters as the sidewalks around Dunwoody Village fill with neighbors enjoying the morning cool. (Why do people walk and talk on the cell phone at the same time? Don't they WANT to disconnect from busy-ness?)

My dog longed to meet two stately chocolate labs who walked shoulder to shoulder next to their owner. We met them twice; I crossed the road to avoid a mix-up the first time; the owner stepped kindly into a yard the second. His dogs were much better behaved than Scooter the Wonder Dog.

Two neighbors ran past me on the last leg home. We have a meeting this afternoon to discuss our pending litigation about the daycare center going in behind us, so we called a greeting and a reminder to each other.

There's a stretch of sidewalk on Womack, near the library, that's so overgrown that the sidewalk is half its normal width. Of course, that's invariably where several of us will need to pass each other. Two runners jumped into the lane of traffic to go around me and the dog. I stopped and stepped back into the overgrowth to let a stroller pass by. I thought that if we were all in cars, there might have been much less "after you" and more "get out of my way."

When the light changed at the intersection of Chamblee-Dunwoody and Mt. Vernon Road, I had the pedestrian go-ahead to cross. I stepped into the crosswalk, then had to stop when a car came from behind and darted left in front of me. Hmmm . . . pretty sure that was both rude and illegal. But it happens nearly every time I walk, so I'm careful.

The outdoor seating at Starbucks was filled with guys in baseball caps, gals in pony tails chatting before their tennis game (I'm not a mindreader - they were wearing really cute tennis outfits), and several reading the morning paper. I love the smell of coffee that wafts from the shop.

The Fresh Market had a great display of seasonal fruits outside; soon, their grill will join the one at Publix to fill the air with roasting meat. Add the smokey barbecue coming from Olde Hickory House, and it's hard to fight the temptation to fire up the grill at home.

It's Saturday morning in Dunwoody. What a wonderful start to the day.

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.

You know you're in Dunwoody . . .

I'm sure every overachiever community like Dunwoody has its share of quirks. But since this is my habitat, Dunwoody's special flavor is an everyday experience.

Dunwoody is officially an unincorporated part of DeKalb County, an urban metro Atlanta landscape that is really too big to attend to its distinctive communities. I equate our set-up to the area around Boston. Instead of one government body trying to run the entire show, there are a multitude of small towns and villages, each taking care of their own business.

That's what we want for Dunwoody. Only problem is, we're the majority tax base for the rest of the county. They love our money. Hate dealing with us.

Right now, we're trying to become a town. If only the Legislature agrees we should make that choice for ourselves. (They're bogged down in "they don't really know what's good for them - we know ever so much better" discussions at the moment.)

What, in addition to a desire to self-govern, makes Dunwoody special?

• You can't eat ice cream, have a cup of coffee, buy groceries, or pick up a prescription without running into people you know.
• Our town hall is a farmhouse.
  
• Even though rush hour traffic snails its way down two-laned Mt. Vernon Road and Roberts Drive, we are in no hurry to widen the roads. We LIKE slowing people down. Many neighborhoods even have "traffic calming" devices such as speed bumps and road islands to make sure everyone is driving a decorous Southern 25.
  
• If you're stuck on a side street trying to enter Mt. Vernon Road, you can rest assured that someone will slow down and let you into traffic.
  
• One of the busiest places at dinner time is the local Fresh Market, where harried commuters grab gourmet bites and a cup of funky coffee before heading home.
• The Dunwoody Publix has the best outdoor grill around on weekends, stationed right beside the entrance - you can buy tasty hot dogs, hamburgers, and slabs of ribs as you exit the grocery store. The prices are amazing and the food is delicious.
• If you have small children, you can fill their entire week without leaving a five-mile area: preschool, soccer, t-ball, swimming, music lessons, karate, art, playgrounds, doughnut holes, ice cream, Sunday School, and more are right here. As they get older, you can add Cotillion, movies, Youth Group, Scouts, fencing lessons, ALTA tennis, swim team, and more to your daily rounds.
  
• Social calendars have a distinctive Southern twang: Dunwoody Woman's Club, Rotary, Dunwoody Homeowner's Association, Friends of the Dunwoody Library, Dunwoody Preservation Trust, Dunwoody High School Boosters, Dunwoody Country Club, Dunwoody Nature Center, and more are opportunities for civic participation. Depending on your neighborhood, you can add Book Club, Garden Club, Bunko, and Progressive Dinner to your agenda.
• We have our own newspaper. The Dunwoody Crier covers our town with a charming mix of small town news bites (who made the dean's list? who just earned an Eagle?), political discussion, columns by elected representatives, investment advice, historical tidbits, and letters to the editor that are downright entertaining.
  
• We're close enough to Buckhead, midtown, and downtown Atlanta to ease the commute but perched just outside the perimeter to keep a sense of separate identity.

There are also some rather quirky aspects of Dunwoody that make me wonder why the county wouldn't WANT us to take care of ourselves.

Hey, nobody's perfect!

It's a Southern thing.

We were in Greensboro, NC for the annual family reunion. One of the "potluck" foods brought to the table was cocktail biscuits from Biscuitville. I really, really miss Biscuitville.

(Note to Biscuitville corporate management: Fresh Market has moved into Dunwoody with great success. Since they're a Triad-area corporate neighbor, why not consider joining them here? There's a vacant Boston Market right across the street that would fit you just perfectly. Those of us here who are ACC and NASCAR expatriates would sure appreciate it!)

There's just no other place like it here in Atlanta. These miniature gems of butterymilky goodness were filled with tiny slivers of country ham. Just a mouthful, but wonderfully good. They're not PC, but they're such a rare treat for us now that my husband loaded up on them. (He was at the end of the 50+ line of family members, so felt perfectly comfortable getting as much as he wanted.)

Calling a miniature country ham biscuit a "cocktail biscuit" is about as Southern as you get.

I love the South.