NW GEORGIA’S PREMIER FEATURE READER / MARCH 2011
M AG A Z I N E
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v3magazine MARCH2011 Departments/Features 14 HEARTWARMER
D'Ann Downey and the four-legged healers at Compassionate Paws show us that there's no better therapist than a furry, silent one
18 THE DISH
You asked for it for years, dude, now you have it. Rome's own "stony" incarnation of Mellow Mushroom hits 238 Broad Street
Columns 26 CENTS & SENSIBILITY
Gov. Deal reopens the statewide debate on Sunday alcohol sales, but can he lead enough horses to water to let us drink?
28 COVER STORY: Q+A
38 INSIDE & OUT
40 BUSINESS BUZZ
44 TAKE ON HEALTH
Former Top Chef finalist and Woodfire Grill co-owner/executive chef, Kevin Gillespie, tells us why life is like a slice of hog heaven
Want to save some coin while giving Mother Nature a hand? Cartridge World have an "ink"-ling as to what you should do
Though Marietta, Atlanta and L.A. have all gotten a taste of V3 columnist Dianna Edwards, Cave Spring feels like home
Millions of Americans are being shadowed by a silent killer. Dr. John Kirkland tells us how to throw him off the trail
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE For those of you who know me personally or read this page regularly, you know I am a proud Florida Gators fan.
And for those who don’t and/or aren’t fans of the Gators (which would, in all likelihood, be the majority of you), I’m sure that reading the previous sentence made you nauseous. No problem. I fully understand that feeling, seeing as how the teams you root for make me feel the same way—or at least most of them. But hey, without a little hate, the sport we all love just wouldn’t be the same. That being said, if you haven’t already heard about the scandal on which I’ll be basing this commentary, I’ll try to shed some light on it as briefly as possible: Some time last December in Auburn, Ala., 62-year-old Harvey Updyke poisoned the two 130-plus-year-old oak trees at Toomer’s Corner. The massive oaks are traditionally toilet-papered by rabid Auburn fans after a home victory. As a die-hard University of Alabama fan, Updyke says he became outraged when thinking back on Auburn fans' (supposed) T-P'ing of the trees to “celebrate” legendary Crimson Tide coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s death on Jan. 26, 1983—a claim Auburn fans say is a ludicrous urban legend. Then, following this year’s 28-27 Auburn victory over the Tide in the Iron Bowl, a brave Auburn fan (or two) placed a Cam Newton jersey on the bronze statue of Bryant found outside Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. Apparently, for Updyke, this was the straw that broke the elephant's back, and to exact revenge for these insults, he decided to poison the precious oaks at Toomer's Corner with a lethally potent herbicide known as Spike 80DF. He then, in an even dumber act of bravado, bragged about it on Paul Finebaum’s nationally-syndicated sports radio show. This led Auburn officials to test the soil, and when it came back positive for Updyke’s poison, a warrant was issued for his arrest. The 62-year-old oak killer turned himself in to authorities on Feb. 17 and could now face up to 10 years in prison if convicted. According to experts, there is a very slim chance the trees will survive, and though a healthy hatred of rivals makes for a lot of the passion in the sport of college football, traditions are just as important. (The rolling of Toomer’s Corner is, if you ask me, one of the sport’s best.) Essentially, Mr. Updyke has robbed Auburn fans of this tradition, which, after all, was his intent. It was malicious and, luckily, he is going to pay for it. This event will also bring an already heated rivalry to a fever pitch for years to come, and it would be foolish not to expect some sort of retaliation at the hands of the Auburn faithful. And while I want to make it clear that the town of Auburn, its university, its students and its alumni are undoubtedly the real victims here, I have to admit that I actually felt sorry for Alabama fans when this news hit the live wire. Of course, we all like to think that OUR school has more “class” than any other, but the unfortunate truth is that for every level-headed, friendly fan of ANY school, there are four Harvey Updykes out there just waiting to disgrace everything the rest of us value. You may not like to hear it, but it’s the truth. I have travelled to almost every stadium in the SEC and most of the ACC, and I have horror stories to tell with regard to just about all of them. The ones I don’t have an ugly story for were benefactors of a mixture of luck, the intensity level surrounding that particular matchup, or just my being a fan with a free ticket and no ties to either team. It's a shame that respectable Tide fans out there will be forced to shoulder this embarrassment, all thanks to a single idiot who took things way too far. From the classic bar fight to the age-old mascot theft, for decades this kind of over-the-top fandom has resulted in crimes of varying nature—even manslaughter, God help us. Are we all not fed up with these morons—and by every reasonable definition, Harvey Updyke certainly falls into that category—ruining the fun for everybody? I know I sure am. So listen, folks: Hate your rivals all you want. Pray that they lose every game by 100 points. Walk proudly when your team embarrasses them before a live TV audience. All I ask is that you keep it clean and respectful for the rest of us, a.k.a. the REAL fans, who can handle enjoying a victory or suffering a loss without verbally or physically abusing the other team’s fans and/or traditions. The Updykes of the world will be there alongside us whether we like it or not, but just remember, they cheer for your school, too.
Ian Griffin, Managing Partner
M AG A Z I N E NW GEORGIA’S PREMIER FEATURE READER / MARCH 2011
M AG A Z I N E
GEORGIA'S OWN "TOP CHEF"
KEVIN GILLESPIE TALKS
REFINED PALATES, THE PERILS OF FAME, AND HIS STRANGE LOVE AFFAIR WITH SWINE
6 DEGREES o BACON f
$4.00
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF + PRODUCTION MANAGER + ART&DESIGN neal howard STAFF WRITERS anna armas, will seifert, reagen lowrey, matt rood, brian foster, j. bryant steele, dianna edwards PHOTOGRAPHY derek bell COVER SHOT + CONTRIBUTING PHOTOS fredrik brauer CHIEF OF ADVERTISING + OFFICE MANAGER/SALES DIRECTOR ian griffin AD SALES + CLIENT RELATIONS chris forino, shadae yancey, terence broxterman AD DESIGN + CREATIVE ENGINEERING brittany howes PUBLISHER v3 publications, llc CONTACT one west fourth avenue, rome, ga 30161/ phone: 706.235.0748 email: v3publicatons@gmail.com
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The team of fourlegged "therapists" with
compassionate paws show us why there's no time for whimpering when there's healing to be done
pawsfor
a cause t he eyes beckon—well, except for when Sinatra, the cat, decides to climb onto a lap (that was being used as a makeshift desk for note-taking) and take a long snooze. Snellville, Ga., as she seeks to further
But the three Schnauzers continue gazing, looking on, outstretching a paw for attention. It is solace they seek, and solace they are trained to provide. These adorable and intelligent animals are the pets of D’Ann Downey, founder of Compassionate Paws, and, in many ways, the pets of numerous others who have benefited from Downey’s endeavor. The animals of Compassionate Paws, in conjunction with Delta Society’s Pet Partners program, visit hospitals, assisted living homes, hospice care and other healthcare facilities across Northwest Georgia to bring comfort to human beings. Downey is even working with a group in
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expand what she started in July 2007. “The radius is definitely growing,” Downey says, with approximately 20 teams of volunteers and their pets now visiting 11 healthcare operations. The pets who dedicate their days to Compassionate Paws are mostly dogs, but groups can include cats (like Sinatra) or even bunnies. Whatever the makeup of the crew, when it comes to soft and fuzzy, the lonely and/or infirm will certainly perk up. “People have a bond with animals,” Downey says. “Many patients recall pets they once had earlier in life.” She believes that the experience provided by Paws benefits not just patients, but also the volunteers; adding
that the organization she founded is rooted in her desire to help others, a smaller component of her greater “spiritual journey.” It’s a need now met in a way that could, perhaps, be considered an unusual one, seeing as how the work has come to include our schools. Here, children who are shy about reading aloud—those who speak
D'Ann Downey with two of her Schnauzer work buddies, Ayla and Noah
text by j. bryant steele
photos by derek bell vini vidi vici / v3 magazine
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Laurie Angel and Shadow
was sort of skidding on the freshly polished floors, unable to really keep his feet under him. (Angel later resolved this with doggie boots.) But on that first visit, Angel and Auggie would encounter a wheelchair-bound resident who was waiting for a physical therapy session. Auggie lost his footing in front of her, prompting the elderly woman to look down and say to him, “Are you all right?!” Then she reached down and gave him a gentle stroke about the head. Later, a nurse told Angel that prior to Auggie’s impromptu slip, the patient had not spoken for two years. “That’s why we do it,” Angel says. “That showed me how what we are doing can make a difference.” When Downey, a Rome-based psychologist who completed a dissertation on the special relationships between middle-aged women and their pets, was mulling the idea of Compassionate Paws, she says, “I wondered what form I would do it in.” She decided to form a non-profit organization, summarily hiring a graduate student from Berry College to construct a business plan and apply for 501(c)3 status. Downey then consulted Delta Society, the nonprofit overseer of Pet Partners based in Bellevue, Wash. But the idea had originated in her heart. “All my life, animals have been there for me. They pull a depth of empathy out of me, and I think they do that for many people. It’s sort of like the saying, ‘Stop to smell
“It’s sort of like the saying, ‘Stop and smell the roses.’ Pets get you out of a ‘doing’ mode and into a ‘being’ mode. English as a second language, for example— are more comfortable reading to a pet. “Some children aren’t comfortable reading aloud to other students. A dog doesn’t care about how (children) pronounce words,” says Laurie Angel. She and her daughter currently take their three pet volunteers, Auggie, Shadow and Beanie, to Cave Spring Elementary School for regular visits. “The kids need a little one-on-one time … We see 8 to 10 children, some almost every week, with teachers or counselors present.” Angel adds, “I joined Compassionate Paws and tested [my dogs through Pet Partners, thinking it would be a helpful cause].” Soon after, Laurie and her furry underlings decided to get involved with the READ (Reading Education Assistance Dogs) program. In an anecdote predating her dogs’ work with area students, Angel recalls the first healthcare facility she and Auggie visited. The floors were slick, she said, and Auggie
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the roses.’ Pets get you out of a ‘doing’ mode and into a ‘being’ mode. You learn how to be with yourself and then with other people. Animals thrust us into the moment, and many [patients we serve] live in the moment.” Downey recalls a nursing home patient who generally didn’t speak, but whenever a Compassionate Paws volunteer and her dog would arrive, the man would perk up, pet the dog and find his voice. “Some may think of it as people just petting the dogs and miss how transforming it can be. I think my dogs make a difference in [peoples’ lives], and it opens the door for so much more togetherness.” But for all the cuteness and fun involved, let us not forget: There is work to all this. It’s not simply a matter of taking just any old pet into a healthcare facility or school. The animals must be trained and Delta Society-certified every two years; they must prove themselves patient, calm-natured and obedient; they must be content on a leash; they can’t allow themselves to be distracted by loud noises; and, most importantly, they have to be comfortable with people— which explains those beckoning eyes from Downey’s three Schnauzers. (Noah and Ayla are Delta certified; Downey is currently working with Bailey, the most recent rescue dog, for certification.) “People are surprised and curious,” Downey says, when the animals, proudly donning their Pet Partner vests, enter a healthcare facility. As for the future of Compassionate Paws, she wants to continue her plans for expansion. “We need more volunteers and pets.” Perhaps that’s where you all come in. VVV For more information on how you can become involved with Compassionate Paws, please visit RomePaws.org
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vini vidi vici / v3 magazine 10/19/10 3:0217 PM
After years spent pining for a local installation of America's "trippiest" pizza franchise (a.k.a. MELLOW MUSHROOM), at long last, RomeFloyd diners finally have their...
Templeof
’SHROOM Text by Brian Foster
Photos by Derek Bell
vini vidi vici / v3 magazine
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W
“We have four colleges here, and there really wasn’t a large pizza restaurant like Mellow Mushroom in town when we made the decision to open up here. The building is beautiful and when corporate saw it, they were blown away. They didn’t want the restaurant to be anywhere else.” Duke, a resident of Rome, partnered with his stepfather, Truman Webb of Calhoun, to bring the Georgia-grown eatery to 238 Broad. From the jump, Webb, who also co-owns the Mellow in Myrtle Beach,
e all thought that it was just another rumor. For the past couple of years, the murmurs had already begun rippling across town. Are they really coming? When? Where? But, as it turns out, all the gossip was proven true late last year, when owners Jeremy Duke and Truman Webb unfurled the "Coming Soon" banner over the double-doors at 238 Broad Street. Many Romans had experienced the megapopular restaurant firsthand over the years via one of its 100 locations across 15 states. Therefore, they knew what to expect from this laid-back pizza joint. Others, however, had only heard stories of a mythically large beer selection, creative sandwiches and mind-blowing pizza. As for the new Rome location, avid fans and first-timers alike had their first opportunity to grab a booth when “The ’Shroom” opened its doors Jan. 17. It was a packed house that day, and some six weeks later, the flood of excited patrons has yet to subside. “Rome is just a great location for a Mellow Mushroom,” says co-owner Jeremy Duke.
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S.C., was well aware of the great potential for success in a Romebased franchise. “The downtown here is thriving,” he says, “and there are lots of people that [like] to come out, enjoy themselves and eat good food. We thought Rome was ideal.” The original Mellow Mushroom, located on Spring Street in Atlanta, near the fringe of the Georgia Tech campus, was the brainchild of three Atlanta college students who set up shop in 1974. As hungry throngs of Techies ventured across 1-75 for a new combination of their two favorite food groups, pizza and beer, word soon got out about the trippy little dive, and the small, eccentric pizzeria began to thrive. Now, after 37 years of booming business, Mellow Mushroom has slowly spread its fungal roots from Virginia to Arizona. Yet, Georgia remains the heart of the ever-growing company. The Rome location is the 41st franchise Mellow has installed within our state borders, and the pizzabeer combo that has nourished thousands in cities like Athens, Carrollton, Savannah, Albany and Statesboro has taken each consecutive town by storm. We are more than just pizza and beer! company officials are adamant in reminding us. And while, yes, this is no doubt true, those forever classic staples remain its company cornerstones. The pizza menu is
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With bottled and keg beers sold numbering 100 strong, the Rome [Mellow Mushroom] offers the largest and most well-rounded selection of suds in all of Northwest Georgia. hardly confined by traditional ideas of what pizza should be, though, and with a bevy of topping options, it is merely a reference guide for creative diners looking to build their own pies. Want a 16-inch, barbecue pizza with bleu cheese, cheddar cheese, jalapenos, broccoli, avocados, bacon and jerk chicken? No problem. In addition, the Rome Mellow Mushroom also offers event catering for parties, business lunches and other functions. With a $120 minimum order, groups can experience the exotic and colorful flavors of Mellow Mushroom without ever having to leave the comforts of home or the office. But, until independent beer delivery is legal in this state, the real Mushroom experience lies at the bar. Is that the restaurant with the beer club? This is a common question among those who are unfamiliar with arguably the most unique
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and popular feature The ’Shroom has to offer. With bottled and keg beers sold numbering 100 strong, the Rome location offers the largest and most well-rounded selection of suds in Northwest Georgia. It even rivals the best package stores in the region, says Duke. Hard-to-find wheat beers, IPAs and porters from award-winning brewers such as Bell’s Brewery in Michigan, Delaware’s Dogfish Head, and Georgiabased favorite Sweetwater punctuate the beer list, quenching the palates of both the novice and experienced beer connoisseur. For those willing and able, Mellow Mushroom also offers patrons a tempting challenge: The 100 Beer Club. The deal is, if one can successfully drink all 100 beers offered, he or she can visit any Mellow Mushroom location at any time and receive
four ounces of free beer for life. “The lucky ones pay a 16-ounce price for 20 ounces of beer,” Duke elaborates. “If you like beer, that’s a pretty great deal. You also get your name on a plaque.” Awards such as pint glass, t-shirts and gift cards are handed out along the road to 100, as drinkers meet certain milestones signified throughout the challenge. But if you think that you’ll be the first in Rome to successfully conquer all 100 beers, think again. “I had a guy who finished up on day 30 of our being open,” laughs Duke. “There was a guy at the end of the bar at 92 [beers already], and he didn’t know about the guy at the other end at 99. He walked over and gave his congratulations when 100 was hit.” Maybe the thought of experimenting with tens of beers from around the world—many of them entirely unfamiliar and exotic-tasting—isn’t your idea of a fun night out. If this is case, the old-time domestic favorites of Bud Light, PBR, Miller, et cetera still have a home at the Mellow Mushroom bar. So no need to worry if your wallet is running thin or your stomach is too full for a heavier brew. Like many Mellow Mushrooms across the country, the Rome branch will also view music as a key component of the dining experience. Great classic rock and alternative favorites drift from the in-house speakers throughout the day, along with many great new tunes brought in by the young staff. Ultimately, though, owners Duke and Webb hope to expand the restaurant’s audio atmosphere by hosting regular live music acts. “We have a great third-floor area that, right now, is a banquet room,” says Duke, “but we definitely had live music in mind [from the beginning]. We hope to have bands play up here really soon.” Downtown Rome is quickly developing into an attractive go-to for diners and music lovers of all age brackets. A number of wonderful restaurants line Broad Street, giving Romans a host of choices when looking for a bite. Mellow Mushroom, a longtime hopeful for many locals, has finally made its appearance and, thus far, has truly been worth the wait. VVV
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CENTS+SENSIBILITY with J. BRYANT STEELE
DIBS on the SABBATH Gov. Nathan Deal breathes life back into the state’s Sunday alcohol sales debate, but will it lead enough horses to water to let us drink?
T
he Southeast continues to look like it could become the auto manufacturing base of America. Popular catchphrases have come to refer to the region as the “new” or “next” Detroit, or “Detroit South,” which is a bit of a stretch, but the trend is undeniable. At a recent Detroit auto show media event, Nissan announced it would move production of its Rogue, a crossover utility vehicle, to its plant in the Nashville suburb of Smyrna, Tenn. The Japanese company intends to assemble 100,000 of the vehicles annually beginning in 2013. Already in the region are the Kia plant in West Point, southwest of Atlanta; BMW near Spartanburg, S.C.; Mercedes-Benz near Tuscaloosa, Ala.; Honda near Birmingham; Hyundai in Montgomery; and the Toyota plant nearing completion near Tupelo, Miss. Nissan also has a plant in Canton, Miss., and its only American engine-assembly plant is in Decherd, Tenn., not far from Smyrna. But for Northwest Georgia, of course, the hopeful jackpot at the end of the rainbow is the Volkswagen plant taking root in Chattanooga. The number of jobs it will provide, however, depends on a few things:
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Can existing auto parts manufactures change gears to accommodate VW? Will parts suppliers locate or relocate to NWGA where there is abundant space for industrial parks? And how far will VW need to span its reach to hire onsite workers? The answer, at least for now, is more hope than reality. Still, it is a growth opportunity that regional business leaders are pushing. Northwest Georgia Technical College and other schools are training students for auto assembly jobs. Construction has traditionally been a mainstay in leading an economy out of a recession by providing jobs, but new housing remains stagnant, foreclosures still lurk, and real estate sales have to adapt. Auto manufacturing is not going to replace housing, but might it be ahead of housing in creating jobs for the immediate future.
BIZ BITS
Sunday sales of alcohol in package stores seemed to have momentum when the General Assembly convened in January. Gov. Nathan Deal had said he would support a measure to let cities and counties put such a proposal onto local ballots,
allowing voters to decide in their respective communities. (That was never going to happen under former Gov. Sonny Perdue.) Now such a proposed bill seems all but dead. There’s some humor, irony and hypocrisy in all this, but just to confirm, I strolled through a couple of Rome package stores to talk to employees and shoppers. It seems the employees don’t like the idea because they like having Sundays off. The customers said everybody knows you have to go to the package store during the other six days of the week, and Sunday sales wouldn’t mean a thing. There was unanimous agreement that Sunday sales wouldn’t increase jobs or sales or tax revenue. “People should have a day off,” says Ricky Singh, owner of Rome Liquor and Tobacco. It used to be such that, in Georgia and other states, you couldn’t purchase alcohol on election days. Now you can. Has the repeal of that provided us with a better bunch of lawmakers? I think not. And it used to be that other types of stores couldn’t open on Sunday, but restaurants could. This is where the hypocrisy starts to creep in.
Personally, it doesn’t matter a whit to me whether package stores are open on Sunday. But why is it that in a restaurant you can have a glass of wine with your meal on a Sunday, yet you can’t go out and buy a sixpack on, say, Super Bowl Sunday? And who declared Sunday as the official Sabbath? For numerous people, the Sabbath is on Saturday. Other people don’t observe a Sabbath at all. And some people go to church on Sunday, then maybe have a snifter of brandy later in the day and don’t see any sort of conflict. The proposed bill would still have banned package sales until 12:30 p.m., so what about people who go to church on Sunday evenings? To be consistent, package sales should be allowed on any day—or banned on both Sundays and Saturdays. (And probably Wednesdays, because some people go to church then, too.) One of the little ironies in this is that state Sen. Don Balfour, a Republican from Snellville, is a co-sponsor of the bill and chairman of the Rules Committee that decides which proposed bills go to the floor
for a vote. Balfour is also an executive with Waffle House, which, of course, doesn’t serve alcohol but is open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. It appears you can have a waffle on Sunday, as long as you don’t order a beer—both of which will probably start costing more. The latest predictions are
two summers ago, Americans really start conserving gasoline when prices go up. And being a huge consumer, oil-producing nations don’t like it when Americans conserve. They are more comfortable when oil is selling at between $70 and $80 a barrel, which translates to under $3 a gallon for us. On a final note, I recently suggested to a group of friends that we start a campaign to do away with the phrase “smart phones.” I was irritated because while trying to send an e-mail, my smart phone kept auto-correcting “its” to “it’s.” Please, I know when I want to use the modifier and when I want to use the contraction. Then, later, I was trying to send an e-mail from my so-called smart phone to a woman nicknamed Babs. The auto-correct feature kept changing Babs to “Bans.” No big deal, really, I just went into the address book and added Babs to my list. But still, why do we call them smart phones? VVV
...It doesn’t matter a whit to me whether package stores are open on Sunday. But why is it that in a restaurant you can have a glass of wine with your meal on a Sunday, yet you can’t go out and buy a six-pack on, say, Super Bowl Sunday? that the recent harsh weather will drive up food prices, as well as the price of other consumer goods, for a while. This comes along with gasoline reaching $3 a gallon, partly on the unrest in the Middle East and Arab nations. Will gasoline reach $4 a gallon again this summer? I don’t think so, but maybe I’m just being hopeful. As the world learned
J. Bryant Steele is an award-winning journalist published locally and internationally.
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Stickin’ withthe
PIG
INTRO TEXT BY NEAL HOWARD
Q+A BY IAN GRIFFIN
PHOTOS BY DEREK BELL
V3 When did you first
realize that cooking was what you really wanted to do? Was there a specific dish you made early on that inspired you to pursue the craft professionally? KG I don’t think it was a dish, per se, but really a series of different things. I grew up in a big family and [we all live] very near one another, and my grandmother was the only person who ever wanted to cook. Everyone else just sort of lost the desire to cook as the generations went on, and I could tell, even as a small child, that someone was going to have to fill in once she decided not to do it anymore. Cooking was always interesting to me. It gave me something to do other than just sitting around, so, as a kid, I made her teach me how…to a certain degree. In doing that, I discovered that A) I was good at it, and B) it seemed like fun. It never [felt] like a job, it felt like something fun to do—like going out to play… Then, when I was probably seven or eight, I told my parents that I wanted to be a chef. At that time, I don’t think people aspired to be chefs; it wasn’t the “in” or cool thing to do. But my parents went with it…and they planned a trip to a culinary institute for me to take a tour—like a little field trip … As time went on, I went the academic route and decided I would just go to college like everyone else. Then, as I got to the very end of high school, I realized that maybe
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it wasn’t just a pipe dream; maybe it wasn’t just something that sounded fun as a kid, but something I would genuinely like to do for a profession. I decided to take that leap of faith, drop the whole traditional college route and pursue culinary school. Did you have any experience at all working in the restaurant industry? No, I didn’t. None at all. What’s funny is that I had passed up my scholarship to college, so I didn’t have any money for culinary school. I had to find another scholarship, and the only one I could find in time was a cooking competition (hosted by the Art Institute of Atlanta). The requirements of the competition were that you had to have experience, a portfolio of recipes, and a restaurateur to sign off on your behalf saying, yes, this guy can do whatever he says he can do. So, I made all the recipes up myself—I just wrote them and pretended as if they’d been tried and true and tested—and got my friend’s dad, who owned a barbecue restaurant, to sign my paperwork for it. …I ended up winning it, and that’s how I got my scholarship. It could’ve been a total disaster, but it worked out pretty well.
get out what you put into it. But I think that in culinary school it’s a bit more true, because there are qualities about what we do here, as chefs, that are very cerebral. You’re trying to dig deep to find this drive and passion and creativity; then there are other pieces of this [profession] that are a skill set,
“[People like us looked at cooking] as sort of an outpouring. There was an allure to it because it gave you a creative outlet, even if, in many ways, it was still a blue-collar job.”
What dish did you make to bring home the blue ribbon? For that competition, it’s a planned menu where everyone has to make the exact same dish … The entrée was a chateau brion beef, which is funny because I haven’t cooked a chateau brion beef since that competition. It’s so old school that I’ve never done it again and probably never will, but, essentially, it’s one little center mass of a beef tenderloin served with Pont Neuf potatoes, carrots, and a pan sauce made from [all of ] that. Very, very classic—but on an even playing field because everyone had to make the same dish. You’re a product of the Art Institute of Atlanta’s culinary wing. How would you characterize your time there? Culinary school is interesting. I guess this could be said for all schools, but you really
a craft, and you have to practice and hone your craft. The interesting thing is that in culinary school there were a broad mix of people who had already cooked at some point in their lives, so maybe their technique was better or, at least, gave them a better starting off point. Then there were a few people, like myself, who knew they could be very good cooks but didn’t know a lot. Whatever skills they had they were lucky to have, essentially. [People like us looked at cooking] as sort of an outpouring. There was an allure to it because it gave you a creative outlet, even if, in many ways, it was still a blue collar job … If you went in there expecting to come out a chef, maybe you weren’t very successful— because I really don’t think that when you
leave culinary school you’re a chef. I think that when you leave culinary school, if you have committed your time to it, you’re given a foundation to work from and, hopefully, a respect for the people who came before you. Then you go to work. You learn how to be a chef at work. Your grandmother and parents were big supporters, of course, but who at the Art Institute really helped manifest your talent? The school setting was interesting because of the fact that I had competed to win this scholarship. I sort of came into school with a bit of celebrity attached because it was a national competition, and in winning and going to the school that it was held at, I had already met everyone in the matrix of teachers and higher-ups in the department. So, rather than having one particular instructor who I was able to grab hold of, it was really supportive all the way around. While I went to school, I was on the competition team and I worked with a gentleman named Daryl Shular, who still teaches at the school periodically and has since moved on to (food service provider) PFG Nolan’s… He was a young guy, and what I respected about him was that I could tell we had that same drive, that same passion. It was great to see someone who was not so much older than you, someone who you realized had been where you were shortly before you had gotten there, and it made it a little bit more realistic. Most of the other instructors are quite a bit older than you and they come from a different “school”—a more old-school approach to cooking. [Our generation has ushered in a new era] in cooking here and it’s not the same way that it used to be, so to find someone who’d had that traditional upbringing but was…young and had that youthful drive was pretty cool. There seems to be a lot of competition among chefs relative to where they attended school. Absolutely. There is definitely an air that if you went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park (N.Y.) that you’re somehow a better chef. I don’t mean to disparage the school, because it’s a great school—as are Johnson & Wales and a number of others—but as I said before, I think what separates you isn’t the school you went to, but what you did while you were at school, what you chose to focus on, and how you spent your time.
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Moving on to your reality TV fame: Were you a fan of Top Chef before you appeared
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Woodfire Grill
as a Season 6 cast member? I had never seen Top Chef before I went on the show—or at least that’s what I have told everyone. I have since realized that I had seen maybe two or three episodes (fellow Atlanta-based chef and Season 4 runner-up) Richard Blais was in, because he and I had known each other beforehand. But I was not a fan of the show or an avid viewer in any way. It was funny, because when I received a phone call here at the restaurant and they said this is so-and-so, I’m a producer for Top Chef, I thought it was someone screwing with me and I was less than kind. (Laughs) I told them where they could go and hung up. They immediately called back and I was like, Dude, seriously, I’m busy. Click! Then they called back about three hours later and I was like, Oh, ok, sorry about that! Umm, so you’re from calling from Top Chef? Let’s start from the beginning. It caught me by surprise that they had called in the first place. I couldn’t figure out why, and they’re pretty secretive as to how they got your name… But they said hey, we’d love to talk to you about doing this show, and I immediately said, No thanks, I’m not interested in doing the show. Well, that conversation ended, then a few days later I got a call from a higher-level producer. He said would you come to L.A. and at least talk to us in person? We can tell you all about it, we can give you the specifics as closely as we can. Just have a conversation with us.
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Well, I was like, Sure, I’ll take a free trip to L.A.! (Laughs) I thought it was going to be no big deal. I have a lot of friends in L.A. and I thought it was going to be a lot of fun. Then I got there and realized that you can’t leave your hotel and you’re, like, sequestered there during the whole interview process. So, it kind of backfired on me and I was really put off by the whole idea. Simultaneously, while all this was happening, we had just purchased Woodfire Grill…as a failing business and felt that we could…make it better, revive it, and give it some newness. And even though… we were doing really well in reviews, et cetera, we weren’t doing good business. We were slow, and we were slow to the point that I was concerned we might not be able to pull this off. It was really frustrating to think that the first place I owned was going to tank so quickly. Well, while in Los Angeles, I made a call to [Woodfire] after service one night to talk to my sous chef and he said that it had been a really bad night and that we had done zero people. No one had come in. That was like a bomb going off. It hit so hard that I immediately got on the phone in my hotel room, called the producers and said, I’m in. I don’t care what the details are. You don’t have to tell me anything. I’m in.
It was out of desperation. It was, I need something to keep this business alive— because I believed in it and I knew that it could be something great. But I also knew that if I didn’t take advantage of [the show] I could potentially lose it … It’s not one of those fairytale ways of doing things, but once I committed to doing it I was like, you know what, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it on my terms. And so I think having not ever [really] seen the show helped me because I didn’t know what to expect, so I didn’t fill my head with a bunch of crazy stuff. When I got there, there were so many people who had already decided how this whole thing was going to flesh out—this day we’ll do this, this day we’ll do that—and I had no idea what they were talking about… I just reacted to the situation instead of getting stressed out about what may or may not occur. On your season, you had three chefs from Atlanta. Richard Blais had [represented Atlanta] on Season 4, but with three chefs from the metro area appearing on Season 6, you guys were really putting Atlanta
“...When I received a phone call here at the restaurant and they said this is so-and-so, I'm a producer for Top Chef, I thought it was someone screwing with me ... I was like, Dude, seriously, I'm busy. Click! ” on the map. How do feel about being a big contributor to the rise of Atlanta’s culinary status in that regard? If I can do anything to help the city I’m from—the city I believe in—then that’s great. Atlanta has never gotten the credit it deserves. It’s a city with many great restaurants and many great chefs, and it doesn’t have the clout of the New Yorks, Chicagos and L.A.s of the world. In some ways that’s frustrating and, in other ways, maybe that’s a good thing. What I mean is that because Atlanta hasn’t been under the
microscope, it has given us a chance to grow and create something that’s unique. At this point, I travel constantly. I’m gone around the country and, oftentimes, around the world, and I have the opportunity now to dine in a lot of different cities and a lot of different restaurants. I feel like Atlanta holds its own amongst all of them. We have some really great places here. I hope that Woodfire can be one of those places, and anything I can do to advance Atlanta culinarily benefits us all. You said before that your lack of preparation [for Top Chef] may have been your biggest asset, but watching the show, you guys were asked to do some pretty impossible things in the kitchen. Of all the tasks asked of you in competition, which did you find to be the biggest challenge? The absolute hardest challenge…was the Bocuse D’or, the very last one before the finale. It was impossibly difficult. I would never, ever, ever task someone to do that. Daunting is not even appropriate terminology. …But the most difficult part of the show [in general] was being able to cope with
the mental stress of being on the show. You get no sleep—maybe three hours a night, if you’re lucky; you only have about four or five hours a day when they’re not filming and it becomes very challenging to deal with that; you have no communication with home; you’re not allowed to talk to each other unless they’re filming, so you’re silent a lot of the time with no books, no magazines, no TV, no internet, nothing. You’re literally sequestered in a room, then asked to perform every day. So the hardest part about Top Chef is learning to not become your own worst enemy. …Watching any season, you can watch someone’s uptick. You can watch [a given contestant] growing more and more agitated as the days go on, and people oftentimes mistake a competitor as, Ooh, that guy’s a jerk. He’s not. He’s just breaking under the strain… A lot of people feel that you were robbed in the Season 6 finale (Gillespie finished third out of three finalists). Any thoughts on that? (Laughs) Why should I go back and try to squelch this whole conspiracy theory about how I got screwed out of winning?! That’s
great! Huge momentum for me. If there’s always this theory about how it got rigged, I’m good to go. You hobnob with the biggest names in the business nowadays, but on the show you got to meet some of the biggest chefs in the world for the first time. Who was the cream of the crop for you, personally? You know, it’s weird. You’d think the biggest deal would be Joel Robuchon, because he’s certainly the most accomplished of all of the chefs that were on the show. But he’s the nicest person—I didn’t expect it at all— and, frankly, incredibly understanding. You don’t see it on the show, but when he sat there at that dinner, the other chefs were incredibly critical of the food that was being [served]. Joel constantly reminded them: You know what, these guys are not cooking in their kitchens, they have no knowledge of what’s to come, they don’t get any sleep, they’re stressed, and they’re cooking food that’s foreign to them. If you were taken and thrown into some American’s kitchen and asked to cook classic dishes from Americana without having any preparation time or any tools to find out what they were, you would probably fail, too. And just to hear someone
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who had built a career around being the best, and uncompromisingly so, I thought that was pretty amazing to hear. The person who it was hardest for me to talk to, though, was certainly Thomas Keller. His career has had a direct effect on my career. His French Laundry book was the book, definitively, that changed me as a chef. I had already entered culinary school, I knew I wanted to be a chef—whatever that meant—and I read his book, and that’s when I said I want to own a restaurant that is mine and do fine dining. That changed my entire path and solidified where I was going … I can say with absolute certainty that it has done more for my career [than anything else] … I still, to this day, have had numerous run-ins with Thomas Keller and can barely, like, form a sentence. I find him really intimidating, even though my friends are like, Thomas is a really nice guy! I don’t want to talk to him. I’m just going to stand over here in the corner. I notice a lot of the contestants on Top Chef use gastro techniques. You, however, seem to prefer to keep things simple, and you said that yourself [many times] on the show as you discussed your dishes. Have
cook complicated food. If there are only three components on a plate, those three components have to each be cooked to perfection or the dish fails. A lot of people can cook things with a ton of layers and a ton of complexity that doesn’t work, but it’s hard to figure out whether it works. It almost confuses the diner to where they’re not sure whether they just don’t get it or whether the dish doesn’t work. Part of my strategy on Top Chef was to… take the approach that I’m going to out-cook you and out-think you. If we both sauté a piece of fish, mine will be better cooked than yours ... And it worked ’til the end because it’s hard to argue with really well-seasoned, really delicious food. It really is hard to lose if you just make better-tasting food than the next person ... We already had a million things to be stressed about, so there was really no need to add another layer of complication.
than anything else. If I cooked a dish I was very happy with personally, then it didn’t really make a difference to me whether it won or if I got sent home for it… What changed most in your life after the show aired? Obviously, business [at Woodfire] went through the roof, and it has stayed that way. The thing that’s funny is, actually, maybe [the show] wasn’t even necessary. Because it started getting busier, seemingly, the moment I signed on for Top Chef and no one even knew that’s where I was. It was like we
That blasé, “whatever happens, happens” attitude seemed to really tick off the
“Part of my strategy on Top Chef was to...take the approach that I'm going to out-cook you and out-think you ... It really is hard to lose if you just make better-tasting food than the next person.” you stayed true to that approach? Well, we had always used some of those [gastro techniques at Woodfire Grill]. It wasn’t like I didn’t know how to use them, that’s the funny thing … We use immersion circulators here, we use ISI canisters, we use some of the chemicals—but we take a completely different approach to it than a lot of people do. My opinion is that [gastro techniques] are simply an addition to the arsenal of tools available to a chef. I don’t think that they replace things; I don’t think they are a standin for having solid cooking technique; and that’s where I chose to take a stance. You can’t cover up the fact that you don’t know how to make a mousse the right way by putting it in an ISI canister and pumping it full of CO2 so that it froths up. They are not the same. They will never be. I prefer dishes that are rooted in simplicity for a couple of reasons, but one of the biggest ones is that there’s nothing to hide behind. It’s funny, it seems like a conflicting statement to make, but it’s harder to cook simple food than it is to
winner, Michael Voltaggio, throughout the season. How much of that was TV and how much was real? A lot of it was TV. It’s funny, Michael and I have probably stayed closer since the show ended than myself and any of the other contestants. I just had dinner with Michael in Los Angeles two weeks ago. Our mothers talk, like, every two days. They have become like BFF at this point, so… (Laughs). The thing is, though, it didn’t make Michael mad. What people took as anger and resentment is not that, it’s Michael’s fuel for pushing himself harder. Michael is a competitor in all forms of his life and he needs to lose…to keep him pushing and working harder. It’s losing that made him want to win even more. It was sort of a problem for me in the sense that I’m more like, Yay, let’s all have a good time!—which doesn’t really translate well into a drive to constantly beat people. Mine was a personal satisfaction thing more
had finally started to round the corner and get busy on our own, but then Top Chef blew the doors off. It was like a train that was already accelerating and then just kicked into a whole new gear, and it has stayed consistently busy for what’s approaching a year-and-a-half. …But all of that comes at a price. And the price is that when [fame] happens to you, when you become a facet of the public eye, you fall under a level of criticism that most people, understandably, don’t want to deal with. Simple mistakes become epic failures, so on and so forth, and that’s the price you pay for that fame. For all the good that has come, another side has come with it.
Continued on pg. 37 34
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What has changed is, maybe, the food and where it comes from. I grew up in the South, and I studied and trained in a largely French format. And so the food here now, rather than having a sort of Californiameets-Italian kind of quality—as was the style of the previous chef—has become, by most magazines’ definition at this point, this “modernizing” of Southern food.
... Final question: Why do you have such a love affair with “the other white meat”? (Laughs) Pork! Actually, I was having this conversation with my wife the other day— she’s from the Midwest—and she made the comment that she ate beef every day when she was a kid … And that’s what we [in the South] do with pork. My entire life, pork was in at least one meal every day, and it’s just because it’s such a staple in Southern culture. But I love it because I can’t think of any other meat that has the capacity to be so universal—to play a starring role, to play a secondary role in a dish without stealing the focus from the dish itself. I love it for that. I love the fact that you can eat it fresh, that you can dry it and make salamis, that it has so many different uses. I just don’t see that with anything else. I think there’s something admirable about the pig, too, an animal that has the social skills pigs do. If you come to my house, I think I have the world’s premier collection of pig art. It’s kind of out of control, actually. I’m waiting for the day Southern Living wants to take photos. VVV
“My entire life, pork was in at least one meal every day... I think there's something admirable about the pig, too, an animal that has the social skills pigs do.”
A darker side? Yes. And it’s not something that you’re bitter or angry about, it’s just something that takes a while to get used to—the fact that any move you make becomes something that people can and will criticize. For all the fans who loved what I did, there were just as many who hated it.
I never really set out to make “modern Southern”—I don’t even really know what the hell that means! (Laughs) But that seems to be what we’ve been labeled as, and I’d like to believe the reason is that I am Southern, we are in the South, and we are cooking with food sourced from Southern ground. It should taste Southern. That seems to make sense.
You cashed in on the first high-stakes season for QuickFire Challenges. How much bank did you end up taking home? I think, when it was all said and done, I took home about $60,000 or something like that. Which is only $40K short of the $100K grand prize. Exactly. And if you go back and look at the points, I won more than any [other contestant] on Top Chef. If I had won it all that would’ve been great too, but you know what, I have to pay enough money in taxes. (Laughs) Moving forward to 2011 and what you all are doing here at Woodfire Grill: What was your vision for Woodfire when you guys first took over…and what do you want diners who come here today to walk away with? When we bought Woodfire Grill, we bought a restaurant that already had a history of sourcing the best quality products, cooking locally, cooking seasonally, then putting that onto a plate with a lack of pretention and a focus on simply delivering you, the guest, what should epitomize the pinnacle of quality for that food. We didn’t change any of that. That has continued to be the mission of Woodfire Grill.
LOOKING FOR FUN? WELL, IT’S JUST AROUND THE CORNER.
256-634-4344
www.cloudmont.com MENTONE, ALABAMA
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INSIDE+OUT
HOME WEwith CARRY US
with DIANNA EDWARDS
the
A father's declining health surfaces interesting parallels from an Alfred Lord Tennyson classic
“I
n the spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love….” These lines, often quoted, are from one of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poems, “Locksley Hall.” It is a masterwork; a dramatic narrative from a weary soldier passing by his childhood home. The poem is about love and the span of time and the beauty of the world. All the things I ache with every spring. Read: In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast; In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove; In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. I have just begun my fourth year in Cave Spring. My fourth season seeing the Robins and Bluebirds pass back through on their migration north. For several weeks, the trees and grounds will dance with color. The feeders will be busy. The cats will stalk
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the birds and we will thwart them in this pursuit. The trees near the woods sound with the drumming of the crow-sized mated pair of pileated woodpeckers that have settled in with us. We had two great herons as guests this week. Wesley O. Connor, the man who built our home, was a great birder. We’ve been told he planted the grounds here to attract rare species. (Prior to 1900, the Pileated Woodpecker was a rare specimen. Mr. Connor would be happy to know that’s no longer the case.) One of these days, I’ll research and document Mr. Connor’s efforts in botany and landscape design. Everything about the lay of this land indicates he followed the works of Andrew Downing, America’s first landscape architect and the father of the American Park Style—later perfected by Frederick Law Olmstead. But for now, I’ll know it in my heart.
When the centuries behind me... …like a fruitful land reposed.
More lines from Locksley Hall. The older I become, the more my fancy turns in spring to the earth. I am no farmer. It is a hard life, I know, but there is much about it that I envy. It always strikes me as a miracle that we can put seeds in the ground and food or flowers grow from them. This winter, I let some red potatoes go too long and decided to plant their warty little eyes on my sun porch, in the big pots left vacant after my last attempt with a Palm Tree failed. Thus far, I’m pleased with my crop. Long, leafy vines with pretty little green leaves are heading up the backs of my overstuffed chairs, dangerously close to where Tigre, champion mouser, sleeps in the sun. Unless Tigre decides to interfere with the vines, I think the little red potatoes will do just fine. I don’t know how many potatoes one gets to the round pot, but if I bring even one to mashing maturity, that’ll be enough. Cave Spring inspires me throughout the year but especially in the spring. It isn’t just our most famous road—those 10 miles winding between Six Mile and downtown. That stretch of worn asphalt is a Nile Delta
of farmland. Acres of tilled red Georgia earth in stripes of green and vermillion and purple clover just waiting for some lush crop to spring up from the ground. Sometimes it’s all I can do not to stop the car and fill my hands with that earth and see if the color rubs off. I wonder if the Cherokees who lived on this land more than 200 years ago felt the same way.
The mind of a stroke/dementia patient is a fruitful land of its own. Marietta is the town of my birth. I know its buildings and its byways as well as my
vision to impact its growth. Los Angles was never my home. It was a beautiful, greatly fun place to visit. But never anything close to home. Cave Spring is my home now. And I take it with me wherever I go. In the emergency room Saturday night, I showed pictures of my house and Vann’s Valley to fellow patients. The pictures calmed me; centered me; helped me keep my focus. And somehow, they worked that magic on others as well. I have visitors coming to see the park, the spring, the valley…as soon as their wounds are healed.
I came to Cave Spring just as I’d lost my mother. I stand on the edge of loss again. But this time, I have a home and friends and their strength surrounds me.
When i clung to all the present... …for the promised that it closed. The more I read Locksley Hall, the more the story tears at me. What is home to this soldier? A place? A woman? The mother he never knew? I have thought much about how I define home lately. I’m writing this from a room in Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, Ga. My father is here, breathing badly. His body is broken all down the left side from a bad fall. On concrete, on the driveway of his own home where he receives 24/7 care. Why he took that walkabout, only he knows.
own face. I know the buildings that are gone, for that matter. I know the people for whom the streets are named. I remember the great trees that were in the town square. I remember seeing classic movies before they were classic movies at the Strand Theatre. I fell in love with tiger oak in the old chapel of my church, the First Baptist Church of Marietta. Atlanta was my home as an adult. I know its byways and buildings, too. I know many of the people for whom the streets—and some of the major institutions—are named. I have seen Atlanta grow and I’m honored to know some of the people who have had the
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers... …and I linger on the shore. I came to Cave Spring just as I’d lost my mother. I stand on the edge of loss again. But this time, I have a home and friends and their strength surrounds me. And I have what Tennyson’s narrator in Locksley Hall did not. I have the great love of my life beside me. And he is home and love and all nourishment for me. VVV
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Eric Labbe, Cartridge World franchise owner/operator
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1CARTRIDGE saving the planet...
AT A TIME
Eric Labbe and cartridge world put the “ink” in thinking more wisely about cutting down on costs AND environmental waste text by brian foster photos by derek bell
n
o matter how hard the folks at Google, Apple and Facebook try to make it obsolete, the printed page is not yet a relic of the past. But, all too often, there are those days that we all wish it would meet the same fate as the stone tablet—usually when the printer starts pumping out pages with faint, grey type, illegible to both you and your boss/ professor. The dilemma: You are out of ink. And it’s going to cost you time, money and, more
often than not, your sanity when trying to find exactly what you need at your local office supply store. What do you mean you don’t carry OfficeJet K5400dtn?! It isn’t the year 2311, buddy! I still need to turn in my 45-page thesis with my own two hands! Though our universal hatred for printers, fax machines and copiers is likely to persist, the heightened stress levels and personal battles with the toner cartridge just got a little more manageable thanks to Cartridge World. Located at 315 Riverside Parkway, Rome’s sole ink and toner emporium opened its doors in 2010, and according to Rome franchise owner/operator Eric Labbe, it is in business to help individuals
printers, as well as large office printers, copiers and fax machines. All major printer and cartridge manufacturers are stocked by Cartridge World, including Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Canon, Brother and Lexmark. Ink cartridges for smaller home or business printers can be refilled with either color or black and white ink, while larger laser cartridges can be remanufactured. The remanufacturing process includes disassembly, cleaning and replacement of worn or damaged parts. “We usually replace the component parts,” Labbe explains. “These are the imaging components that are made of metal, plastic and rubber. All of that is replaced along with the toner, and what we reuse is the housing or core.” Ink and Laser cartridges can cost hundreds of dollars. The reuse of the cartridge housing can go a long way in saving consumers money, especially corporate clients who were traditionally forced to discard expensive laser cartridges, often many times over per month, costing companies thousands of wasted dollars each year.
“The average savings that customers see [when using Cartridge World] is 30 to 40%... We have had one client, a large company, save over $5,500 in just six months using our Rome store.” and companies spend more time on the project at hand and less time worrying about whether or not they can find that allimportant—or painfully obscure—cartridge to finish the job. Cartridge World is the industry leader in the refilling and remanufacture of ink and toner cartridges for personal home
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“The average savings that customers see [when using Cartridge World] is 30 to 40%,” says Labbe, “and just based on consumption, large businesses can save a substantial amount of money when they have cartridges remanufactured. We can reuse the housing up to four times, so the chance to save money is huge. We have had one client, a large company, save over $5,500 in just six months using our Rome store.” For many companies, Cartridge World not only equals savings, but also convenience. Labbe and his team have an easy-order system for his business clients; it utilizes a database that keeps track of all cartridges a company uses for its printers, copiers and fax machines. Cartridge World will pick up spent cartridges directly from clients and, depending upon the condition and number of times reused, will return to them a remanufactured cartridge or altogether new one. Cartridge World also carries many remanufactured (and thoroughly vetted) cartridge models, offering customers who may not have an empty cartridge on hand
a cheaper alternative to retailers who carry only new products. With a dedication to reuse, Cartridge World has proven to be an environmental steward, and with every trip to one of their 1,700 global locations, customers can do their part to make sure the impact ink and
figures are highlighted by the fact that nearly 70 percent of the world’s laser cartridges will be discarded after a single use, and these millions of cartridges will take hundreds, if not thousands, of years to decompose. “We work with recycling companies to make sure those parts that cannot be reused, such as some of the plastic and rubber parts, do not go to waste,” says Labbe. “Much of this is repurposed into asphalts and used [to pave] roads in developing countries.” Customers, schools and businesses who have printers or copiers they may no longer be using are welcome to bring the cartridges from these machines to Labbe. Cartridge World will ensure that they are reused or recycled and that they don’t end up as one of the eight cartridges said to be thrown away every second in the U.S. “The overall objective at Cartridge World is to provide a quality replacement product for ink and toner cartridges,” says Labbe. “We provide something good for our customers by saving them money, but we also do something great for the environment.” VVV
“We work with recycling companies to make sure those parts that cannot be reused...do not go to waste. Much of this is repurposed into asphalts and used[to pave] roads in developing countries.”
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toner cartridges have on our ecosystems is minimal. It takes an entire gallon of oil to produce just one new laser cartridge, and it is estimated that more than 350 million cartridges are discarded into North American landfills each year. These numbers continue to rise. By using Cartridge Worlds refilling and remanufacturing services, consumers can help keep up to 2.5 pounds of metal and plastic out of our landfills each time a laser cartridge is reused. These
Unique Boutiques&
Services
We’ll tell you the best places to shop and be pampered in Northwest Georgia.
Hills SnazzyRags Seven Salon and Spa BOUTIQUE
www.ciaobellarome.com 407 E. 2nd Ave. Rome, GA 30161
PH: 706-291-0501 Ciao Bella is a contemporary day spa featuring the most up to date skin and body treatments available. Services include: massages, facials, hair cut and styles, body wraps and scrubs, cellulite treatments, tanning, waxing (including Brazilian), and try our new Shellac manicure that lasts for two weeks with no chipping!
8 Rome Road Cave Spring, GA 30124
PH: 706-777-0523 Country Cousins, located in the heart of Cave Spring, is the NW
Upscale Resale
201 Glen Milner Blvd. Rome, GA 30161
100 West 2nd Avenue Rome, GA 30161
412 Broad Street Rome, GA 30161
PH: 706-234-1122
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Shelia B's
Salon & Day Spa www.sheliabs.com 424 Shorter Avenue Rome, GA 30165
PH: 706-528-4260 Spring is approaching at Shelia B’s
Biddy Boutique
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116 Court St. Calhoun, GA 30701
110 Court Street Calhoun, GA 30701
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Vascular disease is among the leading causes of death in the United States. There
are generally no symptoms until a stroke or aneurysm rupture occurs. Vascular screenings are available to detect problems, but millions of Americans at risk for stroke or death from vascular disorders remain unaware of the danger. In an effort to help encourage the diagnosis of this potential problem before it occurs, John Kirkland, M.D., Medical Director of the Harbin Clinic Vascular Laboratory, fields your questions. Why should I have a vascular screening? Around 795,000 Americans will have a stroke this year, and 135,000 will not survive. One in 20 Americans over the age of 50 has peripheral arterial disease (PAD). PAD impairs circulation, leading to a reduced ability to walk and, in some cases, leg amputation. What does a vascular screening include? An ultrasound scan of the aorta is used to identify aortic aneurysms. An ultrasound scan of the carotid arteries is performed to assess the risk for stroke. Blood pressure measurements in the legs are performed to identify PAD and the risk of heart disease. I feel fine, so why should I be concerned about these conditions? All three conditions can remain symptomfree for years. Over time, plaque builds and the aortic wall continues to weaken. Your risk of stroke or complications due to PAD increase as the amount of plaque increases. If we identify this early, we can modify risk factors such as controlling cholesterol and blood pressure. It is important to identify an aortic aneurysm early. A ruptured aneurysm is a life-threatening event and, oftentimes, it’s the first moment people learn they have a condition.
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Tracking a Silent Killer: Harbin Clinic answers your questions regarding vascular disease and treatment options
What happens if my screening comes back with one of these conditions having been identified? The earlier your doctor knows about the presences of atherosclerotic disease or an aortic aneurysm, the better. In the absence of symptoms, PAD and carotid artery disease can be managed medically. That means modifying risk factors and repeating ultrasounds to make sure the progress of the plaque slows or stops. A small aortic aneurysm may require little more than simple monitoring. Your doctor may repeat ultrasounds every 6 to 12 months, watching for changes in aneurysm size. As long as it remains small and stable, monitoring may be all that’s needed.
technologists (RVT) to perform your screening. The lab is also accredited by the Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Vascular Laboratories (ICAVL). In addition, your screening will be read by one of Harbin Clinic’s five board-certified vascular surgeons, who have a combined 75 years of vascular interpretation experience. All of these designations speak to Harbin Clinic’s commitment to quality patient care. We are a part of the community and should you ever need us, we will be there to take care of you in the future.
How long does it take, and how will I receive the results? All three exams will take a total of about 15 to 20 minutes. The exam will be reviewed by a Harbin Clinic board-certified vascular surgeon. The report will be mailed to you within two business days.
Is this covered by my insurance? Oftentimes it is not, and that’s why Harbin offers special pricing for this screen. Insurance carriers are beginning to see the value in vascular screening, but most have yet to act upon the mounting scientific evidence that supports the need for early detection. Medicare does have an abdominal aneurysm screening available to new Medicare recipients. Unfortunately, it is only for a limited timeframe after becoming Medicare eligible. This means most insurance carriers do not cover vascular screenings for many at-risk people 50 or older. People with a family history of heart disease or PAD are especially at risk, and those with risk factors even more so. VVV
Why choose the Harbin Clinic Vascular Laboratory to complete my screening? The Harbin Clinic Vascular Laboratory employs only registered vascular
John Kirkland, M.D., is the medical director of the Harbin Clinic Vascular Laboratory. Staff members include Mike Rogers, M.D., Jonathan Molnar, M.D., Trent Prault, M.D., Michael Amendola, M.D., and Technical Director Randy Jasa, B.S., R.V.T. Please contact the Vascular Laboratory at 706.233.8510 with any questions involving our vascular screening service.
Will the vascular screening hurt or be uncomfortable? All three exams performed are non-invasive, using only an ultrasound and blood pressure cuffs. That means there are no needles, dyes or any harmful radiation exposure—i.e., the exams are not painful or dangerous.
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Looking for the PERFECT Steeplechase dress?
201 Glen Milner Blvd. Rome, GA 30161 • 706.234.1122 *Hours: Tuesday-Friday 10am-6pm Saturday 10am-4pm
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C O M M U N I T Y O P E N H OU S E
Please Join Us Community Open House Sunday, April 10, 2011 Noon - 3:30 PM Everyone Welcome!
TONY E. WARREN, MD CANCER CENTER
255 West Fifth St., Rome, GA 30165
www.harbinclinic.com