Consumption! A report.

Went to Atlanta this last weekend, Henshaw, and had a silly-good time. And now none of my pants fit quite right. Although yes, like just about all my Atlanta-visits, I can track this one via the delicious restaurants and food-stands I visited, the real reason it was refreshing was all you Atlanta folk whom I love so well and miss so much here in Beachtown. You are my real sustenance, people! MWAH!

That very important point aside, let’s now look at this particular weekend’s Tour of Food.

Friday
The last three hours of my seven-hour drive to Atlanta was spent listening to Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, about a tragic Mount Everest expedition, and I was on the final, wrenching chapter of the book by the time I pulled into East Atlanta, riveted and tempted to just drive around and around to finish the book out, arse-numbness-be-damned.

This last part of the book is all, “I walked out thirty yards from my tent and found that Simon and Joe were face-down in the snow, dead, as well. By this point, I, personally, was so starving and wasted that I couldn’t produce tears.” It had been going on like this, only much worse, for a while when I pulled into my friend’s driveway. I was ready to go someplace and turn on lots of lights, and just cry. Or speed around the city in a sporty car. I was also ready to eat.

Our first stop was the vegetarian Indian restaurant where we always order and consume our body weight in dosai and curries, and where we always order black tea and this request is either first ignored completely, or responded to with explicit instructions—i.e., the waiter frowning and shoving the plastic canister that holds the sugar packets towards Marshall repeatedly, saying, “Sugar. You’ll want sugar with the tea. Sugar,” until Marshall nods and says, “Yes. Okay. Sugar. Thanks.” It made us start to feel very British, in a very bad way, all this tea-inspired tension.


Saturday
The next day’s stop on the food tour was Italian, though uniquely enmeshed with the very essence of all that is Atlanta. More on that soon. First though, Saturday, as many of the more well-informed of you may know, was the Kentucky Derby Party and Race in Cabbagetown.

Race requirements were: a human-powered vehicle such as a scooter or a bicycle, and some sort of horse-head figure. Actual vehicles included skates, bikes, a vacuum-cleaner and roller skates. Oh, and one amazing contestant spent the day making his own wooden/metal/scrap cart. I think he was actually the true winner. The real Miss Firecracker, if you will.

The afternoon’s Great Race sped around the block, with a pit stop at which point there was the required leisurely consumption of one beer of the contestant’s choosing, before finally ending in dramatic triumph back in front of the host’s house.

Marshall and I had managed to find at two(!) separate thrift stores the Morning Of, two of those stick horses that whinny when you push a button on the ear, and a friend loaned us both scooters. Marshall was also dapperly dressed in an outfit whose original intention was White Linen Kentucky Gentleman, but somehow morphed, in the execution, into creepy Dali/Hunter S. Thompson figure. (Which is just perfect, actually, when you consider Thompson’s oeuvre.)

The lucky third-place winner received the bronze horse-head plaque. (Ahem, it made the ride back to Beachtown quite nicely; thanks, ya’ll.) After the race-proper, the street was blocked off, and the New Orleans funk dance-party portion of the race ensued.

At this part of the story, it should be noted that while festivities—the mint julep and polite socializing portion of the festivities—began at four p.m., and many of us were quite prompt, the racing gun did not fire until six p.m. The dancing after the race, it was quite spirited. And it is a wonder that nobody died in the race, from running into a parked car, perhaps, or simply falling off his or her trusty steed.

So the athletes were hungry, of course. Two pizzas were ordered and a few walked down the road to pick them up in the midst of the dance party. Their return was heralded with a cheer, and the proud delivery volunteer sped into a run. In the middle of Savannah Street, his box slipped open and the vegetable pizza fell, cheese-side-down, onto the pavement. And, even as they groaned in dismay, the lubricated athletes fell upon this pie, this street-pizza, grabbed individual slices, and ate.
Just a sign that these were true patriots of this historic neighborhood, of this dear, dear city.


Sunday
Sunday, we didn’t get such an early start.

But the thing about an actual city, versus a sleepy, friendly oceanside community such as the one where I now make my home, is this: You can open the free weekly paper at any given point on any given day, and choose among a number of amazing things to do. Your fun is laid out for you. And on Sunday morning, the clear choice was the Latino Festival at Centennial Park.

Dirk, our old friend, decided to come along. Great quantities of caffeine were consumed, and I, still in my smalltown mindset, was shocked as we drove into the vicinity of the park, to see the great Atlanticlike waves of humanity that had descended there. Oh yeah, I remembered. We’re in a city, now. When we finally found a forty-dollar parking spot in a near-ish-by garage, we went into the park and discovered the following attractions:

1. Live music on a giant stage. Which was loud, and pretty awesome.

2. People. Everywhere. We groggily navigated around the mobs, to see what was drawing them all. The answer turned out to be:

3. Lines. Great, winding lines of people snaking all around booths for Fanta, for Coca-Cola, for the local radio stations, tortilla companies and energy drinks—the last of which was giving away scantily-dressed-lady calendars. This line was populated with people not noticeably different from the others: They were couples and children and groups of men and old ladies. All awaiting their very own free pin-up calendar. The draw of the other lines were primarily:

4. Spinning wheels. Every booth that didn’t have free samples, and this was most of them, had ticking spinning wheels that visitors could whirl and which, in each case, seemed to earn them a packet of coupons.

Marshall really wanted to spin a wheel, but since the lines were so long, usually wending back past the neighboring booth and around a corner, we settled for the shorter lines, for free things. We consumed orange Fanta, disgusting McDonalds sweetened iced coffee and Starbucks-brand sour, hot coffee, all because, as Dirk noted, “It’s free.” If someone had handed us a free drink made of rancid chicken livers, we probably would have taken it. Dirk also told us that he was starting to feel hung-over, too, just being there with the two of us, confusedly navigating the crowds.