"If You Recycle You Turn the World..."

"If You Recycle You Turn The World All The Way Around By Helping" Jessica Rehberg, Age 7. My mom and I found a newspaper article about my sister winning a poster contest about recycling. Who knew she was so poetic even back then? Though this post is not about recycling per se, it does have a little bit to do about saving the planet.

I am still at home. Where is home really for me? I would argue to say that home is where my mom and my sister are, which means home can be a number of different places. But now that I have been so far away from Georgia, I also can argue that the South in general is home to me: Destin, Winder, Athens, Thomasville, Atlanta, Monticello, Tallahassee, etc, and I plan to say that I visited all of these places when I head back North.

Second to Thomasville, I have spent the majority of my life in Destin, Florida. I remember when Destin was not the "cool" place to go, yet the Barrett family always knew it was special. My sister got lost and was rescued on that stretch of sand in front of the GulfShore Condominium. The Target where GulfShore Drive dead ends with Highway 98 used to be a Delchamps shopping center with a bookstore called the Book Nook. The days we visited the Big Kahunas water park and the Track were the highlights of our summer. Colored zinc oxide on our face only made us cuter, and believe me, I was super cute back then. I remember when our walkway to the beach was a lot longer than it is now. We have survived many hurricanes and tropical storms. Hurricane Opal in 1996 was devastating, and I can personally say that I waited out one tropical storm, with water pouring underneath the doors, hollowing winds outside, and my mom worrying in Thomasville. Destin has changed over the past twenty three years, but nothing compares to this summer.

I stayed in Destin for almost a full week, a few days with my mom and grandmother and a couple days with Jess. It was almost like living in a ghost town compared to Destin in summers past. There is no traffic. The beaches are relatively empty. You can walk into restaurants at 6:30 with no wait. Two boats out in the Gulf in front of our condo are a constant reminder about the oil spill, and the realistic possibility of the oil's lasting effects on the gulf coast. The more and more I think about it, the more it upsets me. I know that, for the most part, I am uneducated on the subject of oil and how oil affects my every day life, whether I know it or not. However, it baffles me why we, as Americans and human beings, find the need to disrupt and mess with Mother Nature to the extreme. I stepped on a tar ball while walking along the beach, and I could not get the oil off of my heal. Imagine the hundreds of thousands of different species of birds, fish, etc. trying to live in this oil. This is an environmental disaster, with its effects lasting well into the future. At what cost will we say that enough is enough? With the oil spill capped and the relief well to kill the gusher almost drilled, people are misled into thinking that this problem that began on April 20th is almost over. It is just beginning. This is my plea for the Gulf, my slice of heaven, my slice of home. The coast is open for business.

Jessica and I did eat at Commander's Palace near the Destin marina. The original Commander's Palace is in New Orleans, Louisiana, one of my favorite cities on earth, a city where I would love to extern. I just thought, with this being my blog of sorts about food, that I should share what we ate. For appetizers, Jess ordered the oysters BLT, and I had the soup trio, with a sampling of their signature turtle soup, gumbo, and the soup du jour. For our main course, Jess had pecan-crusted fish, and I loved my barbecue shrimp (though they did not compare to Pascal's in NOLA). For dessert, we shared a Frangelico ganache chocolate cake. Frangelico ganache= alcoholic nutella!!!! The meal was delicious, and the view was not too bad either.

My mom convinced me to help work with her and the hospital kitchen staff at the new Oncology Center opening gala last Thursday. (Question: what is the proper pronunciation of "gala?") This new facility is a "new home for cancer care and a new home for hope." Over six hundred people RSVPed to the gala, and they were greeted with a beautiful new building and amazing food. (I took some pictures and hopefully will be able to show a sampling when I get back to New York in a few days.) I helped my mom with the dessert table. With desserts and sweets being a favorite of women, it was decided to theme this table for the awareness of breast cancer. The tablecloths were pink, as well as the roses. There was an ice sculpture of a cancer ribbon, with a pink back spotlight. We served everything from creme brulee, to white chocolate bread pudding, to chocolate fondue, to chocolate-covered pretzels, to fried cheesecake. During the actual event, I was the dessert bartender, really, helping with the dessert shooters (chocolate martini, lemon drop martini, and raspberry bellini, each with their own sugary treat on top) and the kahlua punch. I enjoyed myself, saw some familiar faces, and worked harder than I have in a while. Thanks, mom, for building my resume.

On Friday, I packed the car again (in Valdosta in Catherine's car) to head to Atlanta to visit some high school friends. It was such a fun weekend, catching up with old friends and exploring different parts of Atlanta. On Friday, we started the night at Tin Lizzy's in Buckhead, where we drank margaritas and ate (well, I did not eat because I had Chickfila on the ride) what looked like amazing tacos, etc. From there, we ventured to a couple of places, including Churchill's and a diner (for pancakes because I was hungry by this time). We made it back to Melissa's apartment by 3:30am. Saturday, though Melissa does not believe us, was a great day, complete with new friends, unexpected delays, rain, welcoming strangers, and the Chattahoochee; we will definitely not forget the day. Melissa and Trevor (her bf) took me, Catherine, and Mary Glenn to a wonderful little tapas place called Eclipse di Luna. I ordered the salmon with orzo and the stuffed peppers. Melissa wanted dessert at Yoforia (which is like the Yoguri in Athens.) I am so glad we ended the night with dessert there because the Ferrero Rocher yogurt was amazing. The next morning, Catherine and I headed to Starbucks for breakfast and to do a little shopping at Lenox before completing our trip with Doc Chey's (an Athens favorite for us). Catherine, I have decided that you should work really hard this year to go to PT school in Atlanta, I can extern there, and then I can move to Atlanta when I graduate from the CIA. Then, you will always have me to help you navigate around the city! This sounds like a dream.

Now, I am packing the car and hitting the road (again! I have definitely made up for not driving for six weeks) to head to Winder/Athens tomorrow. These three weeks have zoomed by, and I am both excited/sad about going back to New York. No worries though; I already have flights for two weekends in September for dum-dum-de-dums.

GOT DOUGH? I AM ROLLING IN IT!

Hay Reh

*Thanks, Melissa, for being a wonderful hostess in Atlanta. I cannot wait to visit you in Macon, if your future Doctor schedule allows.