Whirlwind

I enjoyed a whirlwind tour of Atlanta this weekend.  While Robert competed at the Cobb Galleria, I made it to the Farmer's Market on E. Ponce de Leon in Decatur.  It had been recommended to me a number of times by friends, former Atlantians, who know well my love of cooking.

It was . . . a religious experience.  Oh my God, I have never been to a place like that.  Think Whole Foods on steroids with good prices.  There were items I was able to buy to bring home, but a whole lot of stuff I simply could not, due to perishability.  Even with the cooler, and access to a refrigerator in our little suite, the trip home from Atlanta would have been too long, too hot, and too perilous for the quail, the blue crabs, and the goat.  But with what I did manage to bring home, I have planned on kasha cholent with those big, gorgeous lima beans, and chicken paprikas because I found, for the first time since Paprikas Weiss closed it's doors, real Hungarian sweet paprika.  Lemon poppy pound cake ... Swedish meatballs with lingonberries ... devilled eggs made with a spicy mayonnaise rich in Tabasco sauce and pepper pulp.

On our way up, we stopped at Adcock Pecans.  There is a pecan-crusted catfish dinner in somebody's future, and a small box of GooGoo Clusters in the candy locker.  On the way home, we stopped, as always, at Lane Orchards for Elberta peaches, preserves, dips, and sauces.  Finally, we stopped at Ellis Pecan Farm and found pecans used in every imaginable way.  The samples alone were worth the stop.

And, I have finally finished the Antimony Shawl.  It just needs to be blocked, and that's  a whole other project, but the knitting is done, and I am quite proud of the final result.  The yarn, which is Paton's "Lace", worked up to a soft, warm, and truly lovely shawl.  Started another circular shawl ... yes, I'm bad.  Still have socks to finish knitting, and other items in various stages of completion.  But when a process knitters gets a bug, the only thing to do is swat it.

In the news - the Norwegian attacks.  The US debt ceiling battles. Murdoch is going down.  Amy Winehouse is gone.  Football is back.  Basketball is up in the air.  There's more, and some of it has to do with Casey Anthony, but I'm going to skip that except to say that the air has been cleaner since she hightailed it out of Florida.

Oh, and while I was wandering starry eyed around the Farmer's Market?  My husband was kickin' butt at Cobb Galleria.