running with tweezers

wine-ing and dine-ing

It's been a bit since my last post and for good reason - it's been a busy, challenging week or so with no time or energy to dedicate to any real cooking. I've been getting lots of emails about all of the wine and food events that are coming up. It's that time of year when all of the tastings, outdoor festivals and markets start popping up. Here is a quick list of things on my radar. I'll be back on Monday with a real fungus-filled post!

• One of the best events I went to last year was Wine Enthusiast's Toast of the Town - you can see a wrap-up of it here. The 2nd Annual “Toast of the Town” takes place on Thursday, April 16 at the Georgia Aquarium and will feature 500 premium wines and spirits from internationally acclaimed wineries (i.e. Castello Banfi, Clos du Bois, Frei Brothers, J. Lohr Vineyards, Wakefield Wines, Whitehaven, etc.) as well as signature dishes from Atlanta’s leading restaurants including Joël Restaurant and Woodfire Grill. 100% of the proceeds from the event’s silent auction will benefit the education programs at the Georgia Aquarium; some of the items offered for the auction include special reserve vintages, large size bottles, and a 200+ bottle EuroCave, courtesy of Wine Enthusiast Magazine, with premium wines, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal. You can get all the info and purchase tickets here.
   
• If you are a Zinfandel fan, which I most certainly am, then you're in luck. Atlanta plays host to the Zinfandel Advocates and Producer's Grand Tasting Tour on May 12th. Over 30 member wineries will be participating in the event which also makes stops in Michigan, Dallas, Seattle and Portland. Click here for more info.

• The organic farmer's markets are about to get back into full swing here in Atlanta. The Decatur market will be back at 100% next week and the Morningside Market begins again in earnest this weekend, including their chef demos, as does the Peachtree Road Farmers Market. 

• It's time again for The Taste of The Highlands, sponsored by Intown Friends and Fifth Group Restaurants. It will feature tastes from local restaurants such as Ecco (one of my faves!), La Tavola, Krog Bar, Parish and Rathbun's, as well as live music.

Photo by Tony Clark Photography

bits and bites

While I am working on some new recipes - a couple great salads! - for the blog this week, I am gonna make sure all of you out in blogville know about some things that are happening!

- Jugalbandi is dedicating the current edition of Click - an online photography contest - to raised money for Bri over at Figs with Bri. She has been fiercely battling cancer and the contest is doubling as a fund-raiser to help counteract her staggering medical expenses. You can take part in the photo contest - with the color Yellow as the theme - and make a donation here.

- If you haven't been over to MeleCotte, a food blog run by Chris, you should do so! She has started pastry chef duties at a local restaurant here in Atlanta...and has been chronicling the trials and tribulations of getting her tasty desserts off the ground. I will be meeting up with her tomorrow (we live in the same city and have never met!!) to take some shots of her creations.

- For those folks in Atlanta, I wanted to make sure you knew about a very special wine dinner happening at Ecco, one of my favorite spots in town. The Fresh Flavors dinner will be happening on June 24th at 6:30 pm. The vegetarian tasting menu will be paired with wine for $50 per person. I have made reservations for this as my birthday dinner - well...the dinner on my actual birthday!

- Please be my friend! Running with Tweezers (and myself) are all over the Internet! We want to get to know you. You can be my friend on Facebook (we even have a Running With Tweezers group!) or Myspace. I take lots of photos - of food and otherwise - which you can see here on Flickr. Lastly, you can also take part in all the fun banter and "tweeting" by following me on Twitter - there are a lot of great food bloggers using the service.

in the meantime...

Remember this from last year? It's my Lemon Linguine that I contributed to Barbara's (from Winos and Foodies) LiveSTRONG event called A Taste of Yellow. I am busy working on a post to take part in the event today...but I wanted to make sure everyone knew about the event and that the deadline is SATURDAY.

While I'm at it, here are some other events and posts that I think are pretty newsworthy:

- For all of those people in Atlanta, we are lucky to be hosting a fabulous new event this year: Wine Enthusiast's Toast of The Town on April 17th, 2008. 30 local restaurants (including favorites of mine like Ecco and Woodfire Grill) will be serving dishes alongside over 60 wine and spirit companies for a really delicious evening. In case that wasn't enough of a draw, it's being held at the Georgia Aquarium! We will be attending and bringing a wrap-up of the event - a good way for those of you not in Atlanta to take a peek at a bit of our food scene! The event also takes place in Chicago and San Francisco. Information and tickets can be found here.

- Do you have trepidation about cutting up those whole chickens? One of my favorite food blogs done by a fellow Atlantan, RowdyFood, has posted an interesting and easy-going video about butchering a chicken. Once you've breezed through that, you can move on to Step 2: perfecting your Southern Fried Chicken.

- If you prefer bacon over chicken (and I'm not going to say who doesn't), check out this video of the ultimate BLT - a pound of bacon barely being held together between two flimsy pieces of bread. Can you hear your arteries clogging as you watch?

- For those people who need to drink their meals, check out the site for MeatWater. This is seriously one of the most brilliant and creative projects I've seen in a while.