ATL’s citizen farmers fighting food insecurity
Tuesday, Sept. 22 — Happy Tuesday! Welcome to the table.
👩🌾 This week’s “Family Meal” features a story on Atlanta nonprofit Concrete Jungle and the citizen farmers who help it harvest more than one million pounds of surplus produce annually to help fight food insecurity.
As part of the adventure pick program at Concrete Jungle, volunteers harvest everything from apples out of people’s backyards, to bushels of late-season corn at a farm in Sylvester, to muscadines at a neighborhood vineyard in Norcross. Check out Sarra Sedghi’s story below to read about the founding of Concrete Jungle and joining an adventure pick.
👍👍 Plus, I’m sharing a new vegan brunch spot to put on your radar where you can also get a zippy NA drink that riffs on a Moscow Mule and espresso tonic.
Finally, Ponce City Market restaurant Atrium shares its recipe for chicken Milanese, served with homemade romesco sauce and petite greens.
Cheers!
🍸 Beth
✨ The Atlanta Greek Food Drive-Thru returns Sept. 25–27! Pre-orders are open now, or order directly on-site all weekend. Learn more and pre-order now. (Pre-orders close at 11:59 p.m. on Thur., Sept. 24) SPONSOR MESSAGE
Volunteers Harvesting Surplus Corn, Muscadines Are Helping Fight Metro ATL Food Insecurity
🍇 On a Saturday morning in September, a collection of cars began lining up along one of the gravel roads in Adam’s Vineyard. Concrete Jungle volunteers arrived at the vineyard in the Norcross neighborhood from around metro Atlanta and Athens to pick muscadines for a local church to help fight food insecurity.
By 12:30 p.m., the volunteer group had picked and packed nearly 700 pounds of grapes for Cross Pointe Church and its CarePointe program in Duluth.
According to the USDA, more than a third of the country’s available food goes to waste. Concrete Jungle Director of Programs Virginia Ruiz Lawley said the statistic is startling, especially given the recent rise in food insecurity.
🍎 Concrete Jungle began life as an apple-picking endeavor in 2006. A bunch of Atlanta college students put out a call for apples to make homemade cider. They purchased a cider press and found urban apple trees growing in yards and on public properties throughout the city. The event grew into an annual Ciderfest and led to the founding of the Concrete Jungle nonprofit in 2009.
The organization now forages and donates more than one million pounds of produce annually. To date, the volunteer-run organization has mapped out about 4,300 fruit trees in metro Atlanta and Athens.
🌽 In 2016, Concrete Jungle launched volunteer adventure picks like the one that took place at Adam’s Vineyard. The produce, which ranges from pears picked from an orchard in Tiger, Georgia, to excess corn harvested from a Sylvester, Georgia, farm, is redistributed to local food pantries and relief organizations.
Picks vary by location and range in intensity. The Adam’s Vineyard picks in Norcross are the closest to Atlanta and require the least amount of physical endurance. Corn picks in Sylvester, for instance, can yield between 15,000 and 30,000 pounds of produce, and are some of the Concrete Jungle’s most challenging surplus harvests.
👩🌾 Read Sarra Sedghi’s story on the org’s volunteer harvesting here.
A Taste of Tennessee: Benton’s Ham & Bacon
SPONSORED BY MODA
🥓 In 2009, Esquire called Benton’s the best bacon in the world. Sean Brock, David Chang, and Tom Colicchio have all put it on their tables.
For more than fifty years, this small Tennessee smokehouse has cured ham and bacon the same way: salt rubbed in by hand, hickory smoke, and the passage of time.
→ On Wed., Oct. 14, join us at MODA for a Food x Design conversation with Darrell Benton. A tasting of ham, bacon, and High Wire’s Benton’s Smoked Jimmy Red Bourbon will follow.
Editor’s Pick
🍂 I’m ready for the summer heat to hit the road. With fall beginning today, cozy season in Atlanta isn’t far behind. That means cooler temps, layering for the perfect fit, apple cider doughnuts, and warm drinks in hand. We aren’t quite there yet, so it’s still very much espresso tonic season. Sorry, pumpkin spice: wait your turn.
But for those of us who love the lightly carbonated espresso tonic, seasons don’t exist. I can drink espresso tonics year-round, especially living in the South, where heat and humidity don’t really take a back seat for very long.
☕ 🍹 La Semilla serves one of my favorite takes at brunch. The award-winning vegan restaurant in Reynoldstown just launched Sunday brunch. (Make a brunch rez. Order the chilaquiles and masa pancakes. Thank me later.)
Honestly, I would come to La Semilla just to order the Mexican Spro Mule. Think of this drink as a nonalcoholic riff on a Moscow Mule — ginger beer and lime meeting the caffeine kick of an espresso tonic, with a spicy twist from cascabel chiles. And for those wondering, La Semilla uses espresso beans from Latina-owned coffee cart Cometa Coffee based right here in ATL.
Chicken Milanese Recipe
🐔 This week, we’re sharing a recipe for the chicken Milanese from the Ponce City Market restaurant Atrium. The chicken comes served with romesco sauce and a petite greens salad.
Atrium’s recipe is a take on the classic Italian Milanese cutlet, which has origins in 12th-century northern Italy. Some historians believe the Milanese cutlet is actually a variation on schnitzel from Austria. Italian immigrants would later bring chicken Milanese to the Americas during the 19th century.
➡️ Get double the Atlanta food and dining coverage with “Family Meal,” edited by Beth McKibben, on Tuesdays at 5 p.m., and “Side Dish,” edited by Sarra Sedghi, on Thursdays at noon. Subscribe to both here.
