Tag: savannah

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historic savannah savannah

Shopping on Whitaker

sorghum syrup

In historic Savannah, many people shop on Broughton which has several moderate and high-end chain stores and retail brands. However, Whitaker is where you find many locally-owned retail businesses. Last Thursday, there was a shopping night that featured many of the shops on Whitaker Street. It is called the downtown design district. Savannah’s Downtown Design District resides on Whitaker Street, between Charlton Lane and Gaston St.

These are the shops that I stopped by to have a snack and a glass of wine were the following:

Mamie Ruth– A place for fun and funky Bohemian fashion.

No. Four Eleven– Monogrammed luxuries, furniture, gifts & interior design

circa lighting savannah

Circa Lighting– Antique reproduction and vintage modern lights

One Fish Two Fish– Furniture & gifts from around the world, and upscale souvenirs.  Salacia Salts sell their products there.  I love their soap which has grits in it.  

Bottega Bellini– Savannah’s destination for everything Italian.  Kitchen, home and Italian accessories.

PW Short General Store– A lovely mix of kitchen and camping supplies.

Madame Chrysanthemum– A florist for when you want a special arrangement.

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food savannah

Shalom Y’all: There Are Jewish People In Savannah

Latkes

Shalom Y'all Jewish Food Festival

Savannah may be deep South, but Congregation Mickve Israel is Savannah is the third oldest synagogue in the country. Mickve Israel was founded in 1733. There is a history of Jewish people living in Savannah that predates the recent migration south of New Yorkers to the city.

This year marks the 27th annual Jewish Food Festival, which is aptly named, Shalom Y’all. The smells of the food wafting through Forsyth Park on Sunday reminded me of being at Katz’s or 2nd Avenue Deli in New York. Last week, I was reminiscing about Mo Pitkins which was one of the first restaurants to start the revival of Jewish cuisine.Though Mo Pitkins was more of a music and comedy venue, the original menu had an appreciation for Jewish food.

Hebrew National Hot Dogs

 

A few years later, Mile End popped in Brooklyn, and David Sax wrote Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen.  At the Shalom Y’all Jewish Food Festival in Savannah, there was plenty of food. There were latkes, blintzes, challah bread,  matzoh ball soup, sweet kugel, Hebrew National hot dogs, pastrami, Sephardic lamb and more. Potato kugel is the one that wasn’t there that I really wanted, but it was nice to smell the food and heard the sounds of Brooklyn. All of a sudden, people was speaking Yiddish with a Southern drawl. I was half expecting to see Marty Markowitz walking among the crowd.

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savannah

How Savannah Does Tech: GeekEnd

GeekEnd Banner

Over the weekend, I went to GeekEnd. Recapping a three-day conference is harder than recapping a single season of Game of Thrones. There are few too many characters, and I wish could rewind to remember the best quotes.

It’s best for me to do this in reverse order starting from Saturday’s night after party and going back to Thursday.

The after party was fun.  I had never heard of the band French Horn Rebellion which was kinda like Bastille or Capital Cities but with the french horn as the lead instrument.  The music was very danceable but a little too “on the nose” of 80s music. They definitely can move the crowd.

All events were either at The Guild Hall or at Chromatic Dragon which around the corner. This was very convenient. It helped retained attendees, and you could easily go back and forth from one conference session to another.

The last panel I attended was the social media analysis bootcamp.  Lindsey Johns of Flutter Media and Ashlee Perkins of Forge[X] gave the audience members and me great advice on using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.  I also learned about what types of Twitter post (ones with photos) get more attention.  I was so inspired that I started tweeting more from my Gnatty Savannah twitter account.

The “What’s Beyond Email” was cathartic. It was a safe space to rant about everyone’s frustration with email. The panel which was moderated by Kevin Lawver, offered suggestions on how to make email less painful.

” Email is a giant bucket of sad” – Kevin

“Don’t use email for conversation” – Katheriin Liibert  of Fleep

“Don’t place information in a place that’s hard to find.” Steve Ross of Oak. Works

“Use Slack or Chat Ops” Josh Nichols of GitHub

The founders of Selfie On A Stick are Bravo tv show waiting to happen.  Jacqueline Verdier and Dominic  Suszanski may be an overnight success story, but there have sharp business and promotional skills that any entrepreneur could employ.

If you don’t have any customers, you don’t have a business.”  Jacqueline Verdier, CEO of Selfie on A Stick

The gift bag included a Tattly robot tattoo. I love Tattly temporary tattoos so this was a score.

At lunchtime, you could eatup and meetup.  After meeting John from Urban Savannah and having a couple of sliders and hot dogs from Sly’s Sliders, I wandered back inside to hear Renay San Miguel of Georgia Public Broadcasting talk about the changing landscape of media. Basically, everyone is a publisher.

LittleBits, which is a startup that create DIY electronics for kids and adults held a workhop.  Eric Sharpe is the Savannah Chapter Leader for littleBits.

Friday,  I listened to the panel of start-ups and pivoting before I had to leave for work.

Thursday, I checked out The Pitch Circus which was like Shark Tank meets the New York Tech Meetup.  Brian Bason, former CTO of Niche, has a new start-up Bark which won the Pitch Circus.  Green Badger came in second place.  Tommy Linstroth of Green Badger is a  cloud-based Saas for the management of LEED construction projects.

I had a great time at GeekEnd meeting new people, learning new stuff and thinking about how I can use technology to solve problems.

PS. Check out the Storify of my tweets during GeekEnd.

 

 

 

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art business savannah

Crafternoons At Starlandia Art Supply

Starlandia Art Supply

Starlandia Reclaimed Art Supply

Starlandia Creative Supply is an art supply and craft store that sells new and reclaimed art supplies. It opened at 2438 Bull Street four months ago, right around the time I moved to Savannah. I love shopping in the store for DIY interior design ideas, and it is a great space to spark creativity.

Employing a business model similar to a clothing thrift store, you can donate art supplies for credit and then use the credit to shop in the store.  There’s everything from canvas and picture frames to buttons and tennis balls.  Anything  that inspires artist to create is at Starlandia. The store is bright and colorful and it is like the Willy Wonka factory of art supplies.

One of the things that make Starlandia a great addition to Savannah creative community is that it provides an opportunity to reuse and upcycle items and facilitate recycling. What may be considered to be scraps to one person becomes inspiration to another.

Recently, I had the pleasure of spending the morning crafting with the owner of Starlandia, Clinton Edminster. We made a vision board and I wrote about it in the September issue of Well FED magazine.

Starlandia will be hosting crafternoons for the next two Saturdays (October 17th and 24th) to help Savannahnians make their Halloween costumes. There will be lemonade, cookies and hot glue! Work on your upcoming Halloween costume, or try a variety of different Halloween Decoration crafts to add some spook to your Pumpkin Day Celebration.

 

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food savannah

Gospel Dinner Cruise on The Savannah River

Gospel Choir on Dinner Cruise

Soul Food Dinner

On Monday evenings in Savannah, you can be uplifted and filled with the sounds of gospel music and delicious soul food.

During a two-hour dinner cruise on the Savannah River, both tourists and locals can enjoy a spirited evening hosted by Savannah RiverBoat Cruises .

Last Monday, I was invited to go on the dinner cruise and I had a wonderful time.  The ship itself is spacious, so this is a great way for big groups to gather together and eat dinner.

The food is plentiful, so there’s no need to bum rush the chafing dishes. It’s a buffet that will appeal to Southern soul food lovers. Vegans need not apply.  The menu includes macaroni and cheese, greens, fried chicken, candied yams and squash casserole. I especially liked the pulled pork. I went for seconds and ate it with some cole slaw and the cheddar biscuits. Yes, I said “cheddar biscuits”. These are not the ones from Red Lobster, but more like ones your grandmother made with cheese in them.  Yum! For dessert, there’s peach cobbler and banana pudding. The cobbler is worth the calories.

The food is good, but the gospel choir is great.  The Mass Production Ensemble sang familiar gospel songs that are American folk songs like “Amazing Grace” and “How Great Thou Art” as well as contemporary gospel like Hezekiah Walker’s “Every Praise“.  They also sang the “Happy Birthday” song (which is now legal to do) as well as love songs to the couples on board the ship who were celebrating wedding anniversaries. One couple had been married fifty years. Golden!

The season for the weekly riverboat dinner cruises is ending at the end of October, so you have three more weeks to indulge.  At 45.95 per person, the Gospel Dinner cruise is a great value for dinner, music and scenic views of the Savannah River.

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forsyth park people savannah

Savannah Picnic In The Park

Hooray For Hollywood

Linda Dancing

What’s the big deal about a picnic in the park? It’s a big thing when it is the annual Picnic In The Park when the Savannah Philharmonic plays. Annually, Savannahians convene at Forsyth Park with decorated tents,bringing picnic baskets and dressing up based on a theme. This year’s theme was “Hooray for Hollywood”. BTW, I learned that the song was actually written by Savannah native Johnny Mercer.

My friend Linda invited me to hang out at the tent where her friends, Brian and Jeanine who had created this wonderful tent which was like the outside of the theater where the Oscars happen. They had a red carpet, step and repeat and a concession stand with popcorn. There were even movie posters of the two most famous movies that were filmed in Savannah, “Forrest Gump” and “Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil“.

Brian is a chef at a hotel here in Savannah.  He made chicken teriyaki skewers, stuffed mushroom, cantaloupe soup,  and  fingerling potato salad. He also brought as well as a fruit tray, a crudites tray and a cheese plate. With Jeanine’s attention to detail and Brian’s delicious food, they came in second place Yay!

I walked around a lot taking photos. It was one of the best people watching I have experienced in the four months I have lived here.

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forsyth park savannah

Be An Ally Any Day and Everyday

Savannah Pride

 

The crowd at Savannah Pride

Being an LGBT ally means more than being OK with gay marriage because you love “Modern Family”. Being an ally means you support LGBT issues and you speak out against LGBT injustice. Being an ally means being consistent. Today I volunteered at Savannah Pride, but I won’t wait until next Pride weekend to support LGBT.

When it comes to LGBT in popular culture and media, it is still mostly focused on the Gay White Male. That needs to change. A few years ago, I got to speak at a conference, Salon LGBTQ, and I spoke about how to be an ally in the social media streams. At the conference, I got a chance to re-introduce myself Riese Bernard, one of the founders of Autostraddle, one of the most popular and influential lesbian blogs.

“Orange is The New Black” has brought attention to lesbian women of color and transgender women, but there’s still a dearth of Black, Asian and Latino gay men. I bet most people have yet to see “Noah’s Arc” or even “Paris is Burning” which is the source of all current slang today. No shade. 😉

Anyway, I want to see more like people who look like me in the forefront of the LGBT movement.  Just like not all “skin folk is kinfolk”, not everyone who looks like an ally is actually one. #CaitlynWhatsGood

 

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food savannah

Dora Charles And The Rehab of Paula Deen

Dora Charles

Dora Charles

Dora Charles who worked for Paula Deen for over twenty years is finally getting her due with her first cookbook, A Real Southern Cook In Her Savannah Kitchen.

I got a copy of the cookbook and it’s a great primer for real southern/soul food cooking. I was talking about the cookbook last week with Erika who is the Yelp Savannah Community Ambassador, and she said,

“Why does soul food have to be elevated?! It’s from the soul, so it is already elevated.”

I agree. Soul food does not have to elevated. The family recipes in Dora Charles’ cookbook will remind you what your Mudear or Auntie made for Sunday dinners. The book comes out September 8th. The New York Times’ Kim Severson interviewed Dora Charles, and she’s doing press at the Decatur Book Festival this weekend. Hugh Acheson blurbed her book, but I’m not sure how much promotion the book is getting in Savannah.

Savannah is still Paula Deen’s town. Coincidentally Paula Deen has a cookbook coming on September 8th as well, and it was announced that she will be one of the celebrities on Dancing With The Stars. It was ONLY two years ago that Paula Deen got in hot water for saying the “N-word”. More disgraceful is that she grossly underpaid the employees at her restaurant. Dora Charles was reportedly making only $10 an hour. Why is Paula Deen allowed to be on TV? Did she go to racial slur rehab? I don’t know Paula Deen. I don’t know what’s in her heart, but I do know what’s in her wallet-wads of CASH.

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savannah

Gratitude Circle: A Weekly Place Of Grace

savannah square gratitude circle

GRATITUDE turns what we ALREADY have into ENOUGH.
-Melody Beattie

Joanne Morton is the founder of the weekly Gratitude Circle here in Savannah. Every Wednesday at noon, Joanne gathers people at one of the 22 public squares in Savannah, form a circle and say what they are grateful for. Some gratitude statements are about family and friends; some are about nature and art. There is no competition. Every gratitude is equal in the circle, just as every person. On October 7th, Gratitude Circle will be celebrating its 100th consecutive week. I have been living in Savannah less than three months, and I go to it every Wednesday. Gratitude Circle is a weekly meditation of the abundance we all have.

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business savannah

Maven Makers: A Place To Create, Make and Play

Tim and Ty of Maven Makers

 

Maven Makers  is a new maker space that will open this month at Creators’ Foundry.  Founders Tim Cone and Ty Donaldson are encouraging the residents of Savannah to create, make and play. Maven Makers will have a professional wood shop as well as other tools to make things. They will offer classes to instruct people how to use tools properly and safely.  Equipment usage is granted to those who have been through all equipment training classes meaning they have access to all the equipment in the shop.  Membership levels start at $75/month.

I wrote about Maven Makers in the July issue of Well FED Savannah.

Maven Makers was one of the thirteen teams who competed in the 2nd Annual Mattress Dash on Sunday, October 18th.  The Mattress Dash is a fun fundraiser that supports green initiatives in Savannah.