A weekly look at the draft selection in beer-friendly bars across the country.

Ben Volen, general manager of the Distillery, agrees: Savannah, Ga., is a very traditional city. "For a long time there was nothing on at any of the bars besides Bud draft, Miller draft, Yuengling had just come into town ... Corona in a bottle," Volen reflects. So when the Distillery opened around this time last year, the idea of a craft beer-centric bar was certainly a change of pace.

Volen had attended school in New York when the craft beer trend was gaining momentum. Upon returning south, he brought his love of New York brewers like Brooklyn and Captain Lawrence back to Georgia, looked at the burgeoning beer scene in nearby Atlanta and constructed a plan for his bar.

Savannah reacted appreciatively. "We've been welcomed with open arms," Volen says. "We've completely changed this town and how they look at beer." Since their opening, according to Volen, most restaurants now carry at least a couple of craft brews.

Read more about the Distillery and see yesterday's entire draft list after the jump.

Tommy Lanigan pulls potatoes from a cast-iron kettle of liquefied rosin. Photo: Carol W. Waters.

There was a hotly contested cakewalk, a patriotic parade and a beauty pageant featuring girls of nine different age divisions at last weekend's annual celebration of turpentine in Portal, Ga. -- all the festival was missing was the substance celebrated.

"We weren't able to find any tar," explains Jerry Lanigan, vice president of the Portal Heritage Society.

Without pine tar, festival organizers can't make turpentine in the town's still, which until this year was the nation's only continuously operating turpentine cooker. And without turpentine, there's no rosin, which is the fancy name for the vapors that rise from heated tar. And without rosin, there aren't any rosin potatoes, a staunchly vernacular folk dish that was developed in the 1930s by workers at Portal's turpentine plant.

"Everybody loves them," Lanigan says of the potatoes, which bake in a pool of melted rosin. "We have people who try them and say 'I don't know why I haven't tried them before.' It's one of the old arts."

Trappeze Pub in Athens, Ga. Image: Trappeze Pub.

A weekly look at the draft selection in beer-friendly bars across the country.

It's summer. School is out of session. Probably seems like the wrong time to be hitting up bars in a college town like Athens, Ga. , home to the University of Georgia. But Trappeze Pub sees slightly smaller crowds during the summer months, making July and August the perfect time to stop by this sophisticated suds spot.

"Some bars close down for a month and a half in the summer," explains owner Eric Johnson about the fate of other neighborhood watering holes in need of student bodies to fill their spaces. "The lion's share are all about who has the best keg deal on. Even the local beer geeks said [Trappeze] would never work!"

But work it did. With 39 taps and a beer engine containing only "the best of the best" in the brew world, this pub quickly made a name for itself. After being open for only three months, in early 2008, the pub bought the coffee house next door to accommodate crowds. "Turns out there was a sizable group of folks in Athens that were just waiting for a place to do craft beer well," Johnson told us.

Gena's peachy bread pudding. Photo: Erica George Dines Photography

Part of a continuing summer series by grilling expert Gena Knox.

Growing up in Georgia, my summer jobs always revolved around produce. From the time I was eight years old, I worked selling boiled peanuts, silver queen corn and peaches on the side of the road.

Once I turned 16 and could drive, I began working at a local packing shed, Lane Packing, selling peaches and peach ice cream in their retail department. At the time, it was not air-conditioned, and you can only imagine how sweltering it was in July. I gave tours to Northerners, who were fascinated by the process of packing peaches, and was always entertained when I had to explain exactly what boiled peanuts were.

Needless to say, peaches were ample in our household and we never ran out of ways to cook with them. Fresh peaches not only pair well with grilled meats and seafood, they are also delicious simply grilled on their own.

Three of the state's top-producing peach farms are within a 15-mile radius of my hometown. Lane Packing Company, Taylor Orchards and Pearson Farm all produce top quality peaches, and you are missing out on the taste of summer if you don't order a box to enjoy yourself.

Get my Bourbon Peach Bread Pudding Recipe after the jump.

This way to the Waffle House. Photo: Shana Lee, Flickr

The key to winning marathons might just be a stop at the Waffle House, if 1978 Boston Marathon winner Gayle Barron is to be believed. According to this Atlanta Journal-Constitution piece, the Atlanta woman discovered the chain best known for its fluffy waffles and late hours a decade ago after a session with her running group. WaHo, as it is known to devotees, discovered Barron's fandom and declared her their spokeswoman. She touts the tastiness and energy boost of her thrice-weekly fix of grilled chicken, hash browns and scrambled eggs.

A member of the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, Barron has won the Atlanta marathon five times and still runs 15 to 20 miles per week. And though a stickler might note these runs are not, er, waffle-powered (a nutritionist notes Barron's meal is heavy in protein), some might say this is a pleasant contrast to hardcore athletes who consume raw egg milkshakes and dry, so-called performance bars. Pass the syrup.

[Via Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

This is the first in a series of blog posts by grilling expert Gena Knox.

Although it is a little early for summer tomatoes, I discovered beautiful red and yellow beets, huge heads of Bibb lettuce and fresh eggs at the farmers market here in Athens, Ga., last Saturday. My garden is already full of herbs such as parsley, basil and oregano, so adding them to what I found at the market created a fresh, seasonal menu that didn't take all afternoon. The minimal time I spent in the kitchen reminds me that if you cook seasonally with fresh ingredients, the less you have to do to make them taste delicious.

Memorial Day kicks off summer and (hooray!) grilling season. Outdoor entertaining, summer garden parties and casual, last minute burger grill-outs consume my summer months and I love every minute of it. See what I cooked up with my finds (blue cheese-and-bacon deviled eggs for starters) and the recipes after the jump.

What'll ya have? those are the words I heard many a time when I approached the counter at the Georgia institution of hot doggery, The Varsity Drive-In. I lived in rural, middle "Joe-Ja" out on a hidden cove on Lake Sinclair near Milledgeville for two years of grad school. Broke, working on two masters degrees at the same time, my entertainment budget was nill. Cheap eats were the norm and my roommates (two pretty gals, a blonde and a redhead) raised a lot of our own food and hunted, fished, and bartered for the rest. Every now and then we'd take a road trip and go shopping and partying in Atlanta or Athens. On the way home it was almost mandatory to make a visit to The Varsity to fortify ourselves for the long drive home.

The default choice is a chili dog, if you ask for a hot dog that's what you'll get. A frank on a soft bun with mildly interesting chili meat sauce and a streak of yellar mustard along its back. Two of those, plus an order of the fries or the fantastic onion rings, a peach fried pie for dessert (I dream of those at times), and you were good to go. To wash down your chow it is a must to have an FO, a Frosted Orange, which is a super tasty and refreshing creamy orange drink that tastes sort of like a creamsicle.

There are six locations of The Varsity. The Mother Ship, which is the worlds largest drive-in at "more than two acres and can accommodate 600 cars and over 800 people inside," serves around 10,000 people a day, double or triple that on game days at Georgia Tech, handing over "two miles of hot dogs, a ton of onions, 2500 pounds of potatoes, 5000 fried pies and 300 gallons of chili... daily."

I've recently become pretty good frinds with someone from Georgia (the one in Eastern Europe, not the one in Southern US). Of course, he's very proud of where he came from, and my friend has been busy educating me on food from his native country. These are eight of my favorite things so far.

1. Sulguni is a famous cheese that you can literally peel layer by layer. Unfortunately, we were only able to get a "sulguni-style" cheese from New York, so it wasn't exactly the same.
2. Tkemali is a sour plum sauce that can be purple or yellow, used as a condiment for grilled meats, and very yummy.
3. Adjika is another condiment sauce, but made from red peppers, vinegar and spices. I was assured that the brand we got wasn't like homemade, but I liked it anyway.
4. Hinkali, which is Georgia's version of a boiled, meat filled dumpling.
5. Khachapuri (pictured above) is Georgian comfort food, made of bread that has cheese and eggs baked in it.
6. Mzhave niori, or pickled garlic, is a great side dish or snack in a Georgian meal.
7. Pakhlava is a walnut pastry similar to Bhaklava but made with dough instead of phyllo.
8. Did I mention Georgian wine? I don't know how many times I've been told how great is Georgian wine, but sadly haven't gotten any yet.

Shoppers in Atlanta, Georgia may want to take note that Trader Joe's is planning on opening a store within the next 12 months. Unfortunately, representatives from the company have been pretty tight-lipped about a location, but it does say that it will be "midtown" on the Trader Joe's website.

The California chain, as we all are probably well aware by now, is known for offering gourmet foods with a focus on quailty and convenience, at very low prices, often under its own label. Instead of producing all of the products themselves, they work closely with national or global brands that meet their quality standards to get lower prices for shoppers. One of the reasons that this strategy works so well is that the stores have a wide variety of items, but a very limited choice in each category, so once a product makes it into the store, it will not face much, if any, competition for sales. Many products are packaged to serve two or four, making them ideal for busy families or couples.

If rumors can be believed, the company is planning more than one Atlanta location to follow this first store, as well.

The largest commonly eaten nut is the brazil nut. The 4-5cm nuts grow on one of the largest species of rainforest tree, which reaches about 30–45-m tall and 1–2 m in diameter. The nuts are grown in coconut-like shells that weigh approximately 4.5-lb and contain up to two dozen brazil nuts. The coco de mer, the fruit of a palm tree grown in the Seychelles, is usually considered to be the largest nut in the world. Also grown in a coconut-like shell, the mature fruit can reach up to 65-lbs and contains several seeds, which are also the world's largest.

The rest of the world's largest nuts tend to be of the inedible variety. The world's largest pecan, for example, is located in Brunswick, Missouri and is 7-ft. high. x 12-ft. long, and weighs about 12,000-lbs. The world's largest peanut is in Ashburn, Georgia

Incidentally, the world's largest nutcracker is located in Germany. The device stands about 19 ft high and can crack any nut up to the size of a coconut (which is a drupe, not actually a true nut).

Looks like school lunches are finger-lickin' good. Or finger-scannin' good, that is.

Earlier this summer, Nicole mentioned the implementation of finger print scanning system in schools in the UK. The system has landed in the US.

In an effort to speed kids through the cafeteria lunch lines, Rome City Schools in Georgia has implemented a scanning system that allows students to pay for their meals with their fingerprints. Previously, students punched in a PIN number that added their meals to a growing "tab." Now, according to one second grader, "The finger's better because all you've got to do is put your finger in, and you don't have to do the number and get mixed up."

Some parents are worried about the security of their children's information. Me? I'm just worried that children will forget how to remember things. Like numbers.

[via: engadget]

Fruits and veggies, shellfish and such are best eaten in season. When it comes to bragging rights over who grows the best grapes, is privy to the best fishing banks, you will certainly have a food fight on your hands. In this case, I'm talking about peaches. Georgia, the peach state, grows a good peach. Alabama, too. But I'd like to turn you on to peaches grown in western Colorado, and the several varieties that have peaked or are at peak right now. Specifically, peaches grown around the rural town of Palisade, CO., are among the sweetest, if not the sweetest I've ever tasted (in particular the O'Henry and the Rising Star). Western and Southwestern Colorado also produce some of the finest cider and applesauce apples in the world.

As to peaches. Check out this recipe for Peach Delight that won grand prize at the Palisade Peach Festival a couple of weeks ago. I tried a variation that did not include the egg replacement (since it's not cooked, don't mess around with raw eggs these days: salmonella) and it was divine.

Now, I'm usually not one to split hairs, but as I read this AP story about this year's crop of watermelons in Georgia, I found the following sentence a little odd: "Watermelons are often viewed as a fruit, but they technically are a vegetable, related to cucumbers, pumpkins and squash." Last I checked, all of those were fruits. I'm no botanist, but I know that watermelons are the seed-bearing parts of the vines that they grow on. Anyone with more knowledge of the plant kingdom care to weigh in? As for this year's Georgia watermelons, they're supposed to be some of the sweetest ones seen in recent years. Apparently all the recent dry heat has something to do with that.

Yesterday Alabama Gov. Bob Riley signed a bill that made the peach Alabama's official state tree fruit, according to the Clanton Advertiser. Some of you may recall a post about a minor row between Alabama and Georgia ("The Peach State") over whether or not the peach should have that title in Alabama. Most Georgia and Alabama politicians involved regarded it as a friendly dispute; and they should, considering the fact that California produces more peaches than either state. Pride for Alabama peaches is obviously as strong as ever, judging by a recent comment from Alabama Sen. Hank Erwin: "they are better peaches than Georgia ever thought about."