Tag: Stacey Greenberg

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

The return of Edible Memphis.

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

There was one thing Bill Ganus promised himself for 2018: no new projects. But … an opportunity arose that he couldn’t pass up. “I had the chance to tell important stories about connecting people with food systems,” he says. The conduit for those stories was Edible Memphis, which was shut down a year ago by founder Melissa Petersen after 10 years in print.

Ganus, who is partner in such businesses as Flow Cryotherapy and the Rec Room, admits he has no background in media, but he plans to call upon his skills in leveraging and team-building. For the team, he recruited as his editor in chief Brian Halweil of Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn. Halweil will work on Edible Memphis from New York.

“I’m ready to see potential Edible ideas, community-building ideas, in another area,” says Halweil. He sees a bit of Brooklyn in Memphis. But it’s a Brooklyn that no longer exists. He sees it in the breweries and coffee shops, in the logos. He finds the city’s energy exciting.

Justin Fox Burks

Bill Ganus (left) and Stacey Greenberg

Another key member is Stacey Greenberg, who will act as managing editor. “She lives and breathes Memphis food,” Ganus says, pointing out that Greenberg is about as an authentic foodie as they come. “Memphians demand authenticity,” he says.

“My vision for the magazine is that it really represents Memphis. All of Memphis,” says Greenberg. “I’ve tried really hard to find a variety of writers and photographers to help us create something special. I reached out to the MABJ [Memphis Association of Black Journalists] and the internet at large to find some new voices, and I’m really excited with who I found. They’re people I’d love to get all in one room someday — until then the magazine is that room.”

Petersen, for her part, says giving the keys to Ganus made sense to her. “We had several people who were interested in taking over the magazine, but several were only interested in one or two pieces of the process. There are not-as-fun parts of creating a magazine — selling ads, doing the bookkeeping, delivering hundreds of boxes in July — but they have to be done,” she says. “Bill Ganus really did the legwork to come up with a plan for the entire process. And he’s assembled a team of people to share the work and grow things exponentially.”

Part of that growth is upping Edible Memphis‘ online game — create a usable website and posting on Instagram and other social media. What was never in consideration, however, was to make Edible Memphis online only. Ganus says that there is no substitute for opening a magazine, turning the pages, and seeing a beautiful spread of food photography. “It works best in paper,” he says.

Another part of the plan is to introduce up to five food festivals to complement Memphis’ lineup of other food festivals.

Edible Memphis will be on a quarterly release schedule, and Halweil imagines profiling local farmers and highlighting locally made products. They will not do restaurant reviews. They will not break news. He defines the editorial approach as akin to boosterism. “It will be celebratory and educational, a little bit rah-rah,” he says.

Ganus sees Edible Memphis as an invaluable source to Memphians who care about food. (We all care.) He says, “Edible Memphis will be the go-to local outlet for food and agriculture-related news. I’m committed to doing it well.”

Edible Memphis will relaunch in early November.

One byline you can expect to see in the new Edible Memphis is that of Justin Fox Burks and Amy Lawrence, aka the Chubby Vegetarian. Burks and Lawrence are the author of two cookbooks. They’ve cooked at the James Beard House and contributed their vegetarian recipes to several local restaurants.

Amy Lawrence and Justin Fox Burks, aka the Chubby Vegetarian

Their latest venture is a partnership with PeachDish, a meal kit delivery service.

According to Burks, PeachDish followed them on Instagram and became fans of the Chubby Vegetarian. Amy reached out to them and suggested a collaboration.

PeachDish suggested they veganize their recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes Po’boy with their Cold Oven Sweet Potato Fries.

Fried Green Tomatoes Po’boy

Burks says what sets PeachDish apart from other meal-kit services is their commitment to use only local produce. The company also keeps packaging waste to minimum.

Ultimately, Burks says, he’s for anything that gets people in the kitchen and cooking.

The Chubby Vegetarian meal kit will be available September 10th, peachdish.com.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Get Off Our Lawn

Memphis Zoo overflow parking on the Greensward

Cars parked on Overton Park’s Greensward are not an uncommon sight when the Memphis Zoo parking lots fill up, but Citizens to Preserve Overton Park’s (CPOP) new campaign called “Get Off Our Lawn” wants them to do just that.

The city and the zoo have long had a handshake agreement that allows parking on the Greensward, the large, wide-open field that surrounds Rainbow Lake and the park’s new playground. The fight to reverse that agreement has been simmering for about as long as the agreement has been in place.

But some members of the CPOP hope to bring that fight to a boil with its new campaign. They say the damage done to the park is “unacceptable” and want the Greensward restored to “a calm public space, not a chaotic private parking lot.” 

CPOP member Stacey Greenberg (an occasional Flyer contributor) walked to the northern end of the grassy Greensward Thursday morning until she reached the edge of a dirt driveway — packed as hard as concrete — that leads from the zoo’s parking lot to the field.   

“It’s sad, and you can tell it’s been going on for a really long time,” Greenberg said, looking at the dirt driveway. “We’ve all come to sort of accept this as part of the park, but it doesn’t have to be. We want them to get off our lawn before it becomes a dust bowl.”

When the zoo’s parking lots fill up, incoming vehicles are directed to the dirt driveway and then on to the park’s field, near where people picnic on blankets, walk their dogs, and let children run around. Parking on the field creates a loud, dusty environment that runs against the original, peaceful intent of the green space, Greenberg said. On a busy day, the fleet of vehicles can easily take up a third of the entire Greensward.

A zoo official said the Greensward was used for parking on 64 days in 2012 and 63 days in 2013. The field is used when the zoo has exhausted all other options.

“The Memphis Zoo certainly understands that parking is a problem, and we respect this group’s desire to find a solution,” said zoo spokesman Abbey Dane.

Overton Park Conservancy spokeswoman Melissa McMasters said her group and the zoo are working together for a long-term solution to the problem. The zoo has long considered building a parking garage on its property but those plans have been stymied by cost concerns; the last garage plans were priced at $5 million. 

“That process won’t happen overnight because it will likely require a good deal of fund-raising, but it is a high priority for us,” McMasters said. 

Dane said the zoo and the conservancy have an agreement that if a garage was built, the zoo would no longer use the Greensward for parking.

In the meantime, Get Off Our Lawn has suggested running shuttles from Crosstown or the new parking garage at Overton Square. The conservancy is exploring this idea for peak visiting days, McMasters said, as well as improving bike and pedestrian access to the park. A series of public hearings in May will focus on enhancements to park entrances.

Until any of that can happen, though, cars will continue to park on the Greensward.

Categories
News News Feature

Kidding Around

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

When the police showed up at Dan Harper’s Central Gardens home in April to investigate complaints about a noisy party, they didn’t discover a bunch of college kids having a kegger. They found a bunch of pre-schoolers swarming the backyard, high on popsicles and juice boxes and the live music of hip Midtown music acts Noise Choir and Amy LaVere.

It was the first Memphis Rock-n-Romp, a semi-regular live-music party for kids and their parents. The Memphis Romp — inspired by a sister organization in Washington, D.C. — was started by Stacey Greenberg, a 34-year-old mother of two boys, ages 2 and 4.

Greenberg, in addition to holding down a full-time job, writes about eating out with her kids on the blog Dining With Monkeys (www.DiningWithMonkeys.Blogspot.com) and is a regular contributor to the Flyer‘s dining section (“I’m like a super multitasker, I guess”). She first heard about the Washington Rock-n-Romp a couple of years ago from a friend who went to one in Baltimore.

“I thought I’d like to do something like that in Memphis and wondered what it would take to make it happen,” she remembers. Greenberg e-mailed Washington Rock-n-Romp founder Debbie Lee, eventually getting her blessing to use the name.

Greenberg talked up the idea with like-minded friends who had kids and formed an eight-person planning committee. The group includes Harper as well as a couple of music-scene-connected parents, musician Robby Grant (Vending Machine, Big Ass Truck) and booking agent Mike Smith.

“I ran into Robby Grant at the Children’s Museum, and he was excited,” Greenberg says. “That’s when I thought it could happen, because he was in a band and if he was interested in doing it, other people would be to.”

Greenberg and her friends planned three events for their “trial year” and will conclude the first season of the Memphis Rock-n-Romp this weekend.

“It’s a kid-friendly show in a backyard,” Greenberg says, summing up Rock-n-Romp’s simple concept. “It’s not kids’ music; it’s adult music, but at a kid-friendly volume and in a kid-friendly space.”

For their first event in April, each member of the planning committee was asked to invite 10 other parents, which resulted in more than 100 people being invited. From there, Greenberg says, they’ve sought to expand the event beyond their circle of friends.

“The only rule is you have to have a kid with you,” Greenberg says. “We haven’t had any weirdos [show up]. Just typical Midtown parents and their kids.”

The attendance at September’s Romp, which featured music from Jeffrey James & the Haul, Two Way Radio, and Cory Branan, was mostly toddlers and pre-schoolers (and their parents).

“It’s been more of a new-parent experience,” Greenberg acknowledges. “The cut-off [for kids] is 10 years old. But we’re pretty open if someone has a little bit older kid [they want to bring]. We just don’t want people to think of it as an all-ages show.”

Greenberg sees the Romp as benefiting everyone involved. “I’m hardly ever awake at midnight, so even if a band is playing that I want to see, I would be asleep or would need a babysitter,” Greenberg says. “It’s a way for parents to see music and also expose kids to music. When I first had kids, it was like my CD collection was all kids’ music. My kids love the Ramones. Now my kids know Vending Machine and Two Way Radio.”

As far as the bands, the benefit, according to Greenberg, is in getting “to play to a crowd that doesn’t usually get to come out and see them. And a lot of musicians have kids and want a chance to play where their family and friends and kids can all come.”

The musicians also seem to have a lot of fun. At the first Romp, LaVere did a song about a cow with her kiddie audience providing mooing accompaniment. At the September romp, Branan set up a microphone for kids to add their own vocals to his songs.

This weekend’s Rock-n-Romp will have a Halloween theme, with kids (and parents) encouraged to come in costume and with pumpkins on hand for kids to paint. Parents interested in attending can go to MemphisRocknRomp.Blogspot.com to request an invitation.