Road Trip to Food Co-ops in Lexington and Asheville

Ahhh...home again after an adventure. We took a little road trip behind the bus filled with Sounds of South choir kids, who were performing in Gatlinburg, Tennessee last Friday. Sav has collected a few hundred photos of the kids on the bus, in the town, and in the Smoky Mountains. Here is just one of some of the gang.

Andreas and I made our own meandering way, with a first stop in Lexington, Kentucky, where we had lunch at Good Foods Market and Café. We had a chance to visit my friend Anne Hopkins, the general manager, and Danielle Dove, the new marketing manager.

It's great to have a network of co-ops across the country, mixed in there with the Subways, Short Stops, Cracker Barrels and such. For a map and a list go to NCGA.coop. There's more to come: visit Food Coop 500 to learn how to start a food co-op in your community. There isn't one yet in Gatlinburg, only a very crowded and chaotic Food City.

We drove through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Asheville, North Carolina on Saturday to visit the sweet brick French Broad Food Co-op there, across the street from Laurey's, where the philosophy is "Don't Postpone Joy." It's right across from The Orange Peel, a Social and Pleasure Club, too: a nice scene there in Asheville, Cornelius Vanderbilt country.

In the rain on Sunday we circled back to Good Foods, where the café was hopping and the food was was fantastic. Kale, berry pudding, fresh butternut squash ravioli, lima beans with delicious herb seasoning...you can't find these things at the big boxes or chains.

All along the road (alongside the shops selling "Genuine Antique Reproductions") the redbuds and dogwoods were in bloom. It was the perfect moment for a trip to the Smokys – except for that endless bottleneck at the car show in Pigeon Forge!

Inspiration Portfolios

Here are two very cool things. The first is something I recently repurposed (don't you just love that word?!) – an aluminum make-up case, purchased long ago for my daughter. (She was probably too young for make-up, but she found this magical case to be so inspiring...what's an artistic mother to do!?)

At some point, the gorgeous silver box was hanging around unused, filled with eye-shadowed smudges on velvety warped plastic product displays. I tore those out, scraped off the glue residue, cleaned up the box (which has a nice see-through plexiglass lid), and went to town lining the inside with that thin cork that comes on a roll. Now I am on a roll with my portable inspiration box, where I can pin down images and arrangements. It looks nice next to my laptop, too: the same silvery burnished aluminum.

Inside the box in the photo, here is another very inspiring thing – a gift I received at a National Cooperative Grocers Conference for marketing types, held in Portland, Oregon. During a workshop on creative development, artist and actor Bekka Lindström gave EACH person in the room (about 45 of us!) a tiny hand-crafted portfolio filled with small significant images (and a pressed ginko leaf, to help us 'remember').

This was her very powerful take on the (oftentimes dreadful) PowerPoint presentation. We were all touched and impressed, and the message about the value of art, of the human hand, and of a gift (however small) made a deep impression. If you click on the portfolio picture on the left, you will go to a review of the play The Lightning Field, at the Oval House in South London. Bekka had recently finished a run in that show when she showed up at our conference with all of these tiny extraordinary portfolios. Of all of the presentations I've ever attended at a conference, this one made the strongest, most lasting impression.

Please tell me...what inspires you?