A Savvy Take on Lexington, 34 Days Before We Let the Games Begin

You know how you always think other people are really, really smart when they say things you have been thinking? I’ll confess, and even throw in adverbs like “sheepishly,” I just had to make an adjustment in that direction in my previously self-righteous attitude toward Garden & Gun magazine.

I won’t even go into all the predictable smarmy swirl of my up-till-now knee-jerk negative views on a publication that had the cheek to put “gun” and “soul” together in title and tag line ["Garden & Gun: Soul of the New South"] – well, and “new,” for that matter. What’s new about guns and the south?

But anyway. Hat tip to my much more open-minded friend and talented colleague MW, who sent news about Garden & Gun’s pre-Alltech FEI WEG coverage of Lexington, Kentucky, my own good place.

First thing to note: the magazine had the wisdom to engage University of Kentucky writing prof/author/environmental conscience Erik Reece to write the main piece. Reece observes carefully and writes clearly about the good and the still muddled-up that constitute our community and its central Kentucky setting at the moment, and in doing so, makes Garden & Gun a lot more appealing.

Reece acknowledges and then moves briskly beyond horses to other important aspects of central Kentucky. Like Kentucky food and those who prepare our foods in special ways, for example – but that’s not all. In compact, connected paragraphs, Reece covers a lot of [Bluegrass] ground:

• Honors history and our ties to Mary Todd Lincoln
• Praises our Purchase of Development Rights program as one way we support green
• Switches easily to blue to align with University of Kentucky men’s basketball [while disavowing the dishonorable (my term) Wildcat Coal Lodge decision]
• Champions treasures like Stella’s Kentucky Deli and the “visionary restaurateurs” who launched it (see one of them, Les Miller, above right)
• Plus Holly Hill Inn
  • Wallace Station
    • Dudley’s on Short
      • Ouita Michel
        • Dr. Everett McCorvey
          • McConnell Springs
        • Lexington Farmer Market
      • Barry McNees
    • Debbie Long
  • Community gardening
• Eric Sutherland (facebook page)

—- and more. I mean it: More.

You may also enjoy the 47 photos in The Layers of Lexington, a Garden & Gun slideshow. No, it’s not another feature about backyard hens.

Since Savoring Kentucky has lauded many of these same people, places, and initiatives, and since we deplore the same lack of progress here and there that Reece deplores, of course we think highly of the story and the highlighted places and people. The Games are coming in 34 days. Erik Reece’s graceful, sharp writing helps people know good things about our place, while also coming clean clean about what’s still in our “Needs Work” column.

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The world is coming to visit central Kentucky this year for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. To help our visitors know more about Kentucky’s food and food ways, Savoring Kentucky is rolling out 116 Savory Kentucky Bites, one for each of the 100 days before WEG begins, and 16 for the days during WEG, September 25 – October 10. Today’s Savory Bite is number 66.

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by Rona on August 20, 2010 · 2 comments

in 116 Savory Kentucky Bites,Food Media