Georgia Traveler; 407; Georgia Originals

This week's Georgia Traveler kicks off in warm springs and high mountains, where you can dine on a farm that operates with the same community traditions as the days of President Franklin Roosevelt. It's then off to an open Mike Opera House and would find that glorifies the deep south. We head to Wakecross in the heart of the legendary Oki-Fanoki Swap for a swap fest spectacular ride in the heart of Gator Country. We have Gator's Chomping. Get things cooking in Atlanta with CAD at a restaurant with a top chef in a homegrown roast. That family-like quality gives what gives us such a personal touch when people come in for dinner. And celebrate St. Patrick's Day Irish style in Georgia's own Dublin. I'm OK for every season. I want a green one. All right.

Georgia Traveler is coming right up. Let's begin this week's journey in warm springs and explore community farming traditions that have stood the test of time. The little White House in warm springs, Georgia, was 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt's home, set far and away from the stresses of everyday life. The therapeutic pools filled with water from the actual warm springs became

a method of treatment and enjoyment for the polio ridden president. And when you visit the Roosevelt Institute and the little White House in warm springs, you can learn about the president's keen interest in farming and how he uses this small rural town and nearby Pine Mountain as a national model for community-based farming practices. Roosevelt bought the resort property here in 1926 and he started planning for the development of warm springs right away. And also one of the things he also did was start buying additional land in the area as a farm. He tried many different things looking for ways to make farming more profitable. He wanted to give people alternatives to cotton. They grew grapes and made wine, a variety of vegetables. He had bought a special bowl to improve his cattle and he was willing to let all of the neighbors use that to improve their stocks as well.

Marion Dunn was born in Pine Mountain and began working with Roosevelt and this farming project known as the Pine Mountain Valley Cooperative in 1938. And Marion is one of the only people around who can share memories of Roosevelt's influence on local farmers. He planted a garden, planted a couple of extra rolls after his neighbor. If you could have tree, you planted a tree. He was that conservation mind. But he also knew that the cotton was depleting the land the soil was washing away and it was depleting the land. So he was encouraging the farmers out to plant. He won a cover crop of grain or something or he planted something in the spring of the year that it would help build your land up and it came up with soil beads and peanuts and they would help build your soil back up. And over here on this side right between here and around the curve up there, they had a big grape vineyard and a scrubbing vineyard behind it. And grape for making money? Yeah, they were selling some wine, Georgia wine, right in Atlanta. And they had a fruit stand sitting out up in that curve up there with a corn-set building there. They would sell the people that

were just traveling up and down the road to Columbus and do it now. Under Roosevelt's death on April 12th, 1945, the Pine Mountain Valley Farming Project fell into disarray. But in recent years, farmers in this same region have revitalized the fields with many of Roosevelt's community ideals. So if you take Roosevelt's basic model for farming practices and implement them into today's society, can it be successful? Well, the Jenny Jack's son farm in Pine Mountain is one example of how it can. There's much more of a cooperative economy as opposed to a competitive economy. But what we're working with now. The Jenny Jack's son farm is one of several relatively new small farms in Georgia. Chris in Jenny Jack's and found a community they love and decided to begin their family farm right here in Pine Mountain. The farm has a market that opens in late April and runs through November. They also offer family-style dinners on the farm in most spring and fall where farm to table enthusiasts can watch the sun go down over the hills, sit at a table,

set in the fields, and enjoy food grown and cooked with love by the locals. That's one of the aspects of that era that we really like. And now, for example, we do some bothering with, we have a really great yoga teacher in this community. And so we bother food with her for yoga. There is probably not any better people in the world than in this small community here. How important is it to the area to have farms like yours? I think it's very important. Over the past 50 or 60 years, people are trying to get off the farm. And it's not taught in school that farming is a viable career anymore, which is really sad. I have to depend on the grocery store and on fossil fuels. The average food item is going to travel 1500 miles and that's really dependent on fuel and on fuel prices. So the more small local farms that we have, the more offering is out there for folks to eat healthy. Chris took me around the farm explaining how chemical free farming is different from conventional methods. No chemicals are pesticides, meaning a lot more labor and less pay, but in the

end, a more rewarding product. So how large is the farm? The farm is 160 acres, but we're growing on about three and a half acres. So what do you have here, Chris? This is a rainbow chart. And folks really like it. It really stands out, obviously at the market. It's easy to cook. The stems can also be cooked. So it's fast saute and butter and olive oil, maybe some salt and pepper, balsamic vinegar on the stove top. And it's excellent. It almost has maybe a spinach texture flavor at the very end. These birds are for egg production, not for meat production. And they live in this chicken tractor, which is stationed on a trailer. And so it's the purpose of that. There's no bottom in it. So whenever they're inside, the manure falls through. So each week, we move it to a different spot on the farm. The hands are really our partners in this farming endeavor, because they provide us eggs, but they're also spreading their manure out in our garden plots.

So you got some eggs in here? They've been hard at work. There's one hard at work here. And here's a couple in here. Oh, nice. So you got the different colors. You have kind of the pink skin tone. Yeah, there's some browns and light browns. Yeah, that one was probably just laid. Wow. It's a traditional and rewarding style of farming that banded this West Georgia region together in the 1940s and still works today. It's finding people like Chris and Jenny Jackson who devote their lives to quality and sustainability regardless of the financial sacrifice and truly believing community right in line with the vision of our nation's 30-second president. We now join Ricky and Woodbine to an open-mic opera house where old-time music and southern traditions are ever present. It's Friday night here in Woodbine in South Georgia, and this is the only place in town

to be for this community. Nothing gets between them and their music. Ladies and gentlemen, it is now Woodbine opera time. Let her go, boys. When it's Woodbine opera time, everyone's invited. Whether you're old, young, want to play your instrument or just tap your toes to the beat. The doors to this community concert are open every Friday and Saturday nights. To spend a night at the opera, this music-loving town of 1300 gathers in the former Woodbine high school.

The Woodbine opera kind of evolved and we had this school building that they were going to hear down. Obrich co-founder Hoyt Rurie says he started the concert in 2000 as a fundraiser to save his high school from being turned into a parking lot. The first concert was so popular, it took on a momentum of its own. The music drew crowds, a raffle of home-baked cakes raised money, so the Woodbine opera kept on going. How I made the first cake, it was raffled here and only one cake and it was a red velvet cake and we got $67 for it. After a few years, what started as a one-time concert had raised enough money to save the school and turn it into a community center. Some of the classrooms still need work, but the concerts continue to raise money for renovations. Are these the original seats?

These back here are, and we put three rows of these original dance for the folks that wanted the original and the rest of them were just cushioned seats. Well a moment of truth, which are more comfortable. Comfort and community are what you'll find here at the Woodbine Opera. It's where music makes everyone feel welcome. I think it means a lot, especially to the senior citizens, because it's been a godsence for them. You will see, it's packed with senior citizens every week and gives them a place to go. It's now off to Wakecross for a big-time festival that celebrates the legendary Okie-Fanokie

Swamp, Okie-Fanokie, a creak and seminal Indian phrase meaning land of trembling earth. Spread across approximately 400,000 acres, the Okie-Fanokie Swamp located in the southeast corner of Georgia is the largest black water swamp in North America. In Wakecross, Georgia, you'll find the entrance to the swamp and before you even step foot in the park's welcome center, you are almost guaranteed to spot your first alligator. The swamp has been designated as one of Georgia's seven natural wonders and after a short visit, you'll understand why. As you stroll into the welcome center, be prepared to encounter the jaws of a 14-foot alligator. Of course, these are only the bones of a legendary gator named Oscar, who used to be the dominant male on this swampy water. Don Berryhill is a guide at the Okie-Fanokie Swamp and took on the difficult project of reassembling the bones when Oscar passed

away back in 2007. It is estimated that Oscar lived to be 100 years old and was actually this large when the welcome center was first built in 1945. And if you take a closer look, you'll notice a couple of bullet holes in his skull. But as the hunters found out, a few simple shots were not enough to take down Big O. He died of natural causes. Now the people of Wakecross have always embraced this swamp and its prehistoric inhabitants. In fact, they even pay tribute to their beloved wetlands the first week in November at the annual swamp fest. Since we're here at the Okie-Fanokie Swamp, we always try to have it nature-related, and always try to bring in some creatures that the children can see that maybe they don't get a chance to touch and feel all the time. Creatures explain creatures. Creatures, we have snakes crawling and gators chomping. Swamp fest is located in the heart of the town square where the rides, games and crafts are accompanied by a few shows that spotlight

the region's lore. We have the lumberjack show where they're going to be log rolling and throwing the axe and doing some designs in the woods. And of course, Okie-Fanokie Joe originated from the Okie-Fanokie Swamp and he, I can remember as a child, seeing him come through and do the talks in the schools and everybody remembers him. And then Don Berry, who is a local historian, is going to be doing a live gator show following the snack show and that's very exciting. Mama made the snack on whoever's hanging around. Now the alligators like Oscar in this general area are loved and protected in the Okie-Fanokie wildlife refuge itself, but never have I been to a festival where there are so many opportunities to actually eat alligator. Are you getting the gator kebabs? I got gator kebabs here. What are you getting? I'm going to get a fun game kebabs. Funnel cakes. They got gator kebabs.

We're a gator country, right? That's how you get. Ah! Oh, I'm a good gator. Oh, you're a good. So after you've had your fill of gator on a stick for one day and still believe you have room in your stomach for something else, Swamp Fest offers several more delightful eating opportunities. Eating competition, spending rides, and swamp-wise guys keep the action going until nightfall when the fans take over for the night. So next time you visit Waycross, be it for gator watching or the annual Swamp Fest Shindig. Just remember that no matter you're all my mother, you are in gator country. Like many Georgia towns, Waycross began as a transportation hub, which is how it got its name. You see, back in the horse and buggy days, several roads intersected in this small South Georgia town.

It was also a main hub for passing trains, Alan Rigden, who has lived in Waycross since 1942 remembers the days when the actual Ways crossed. We have trains used to, you know, going in all four directions. It's a North-South East and West, and I follow the engine there with the railroad, work and grew up with it, and used to walk the passenger trains a good day every day. Forty trains and twenty-four hours, day and night. And that's how Waycross got its name. Let's join Cat at Atlanta's Woodfire Grill for some farm to table cuisine prepared by a top chef finalist. In Atlanta, booties from around the country are flocking to a restaurant that takes a homegrown approach to contemporary American cuisine. That's right.

Five nights a week, Woodfire Grill has patrons asking, what's good? Everything's good. That's because executive chef owner Kevin Gillespie, an Atlanta native and finalist on Bravo TV's Top Chef Las Vegas, insists that nearly all of the main ingredients used in his signature dishes are delivered fresh daily from close to fifty local Georgia farms. We want to cook seasonally and we want to cook food that has sort of a heart and a soul behind it. We need to buy the best possible things we can and get them as fresh as we possibly can. Which means that even though the doors at Woodfire Grill don't open until 530 for dinner, preparations for the restaurant's unique dining experience start before dawn. It takes so many people to create that experience. Like Michael Schenk from the Tarnop truck, an Atlanta-based delivery service which makes it possible for area restaurants to offer locally grown ingredients on their menus. First up, Johnston Family Farms in Newborn, Georgia. Which provides much of the all natural dairy used at Woodfire Grill.

There's a fairly small company that does milk locally, which is something that often times is overlooked. People will buy local vegetables and then buy milk from Pennsylvania or New York or somewhere else. But the milk from Johnston Family Farms travels a mere 70 feet from the cow to the bottle before making the quick 65-minute trip to Woodfire Grill. And just down the road from the dairy farm, there's Crystal Organic Farm, which has among other vegetables the in-die that we'll later appear on today's menu. This is going to Woodfire, actually, yeah, yes, Kevin, you know, Kevin, OK, I will, I definitely will. Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, the kitchen is buzzing as preparations for dinner are underway. A fresh burkshire pig from nearby Gum Creek Farms is broken down. The evening's desserts are started. And chef to cuisine, E.J. Hodgkinson works with the just-delivered in-die of the dairy before heading up for the day's menu meeting.

It's incredibly important that we write the menus the day up. So every day, we spend time looking at what's coming in from the farm, and then we create the dishes from that. Second courses. Woodgirls house-made plan sausage, black lentils, sweet potato, marinated currants, and local pea shoots. When you work like that, it makes things come out a lot more genuine and of the moment. That's fun. Take care of our people. And the people is what it's all about because at 5 p.m. sharp, the day's menu is posted, and the woodfire grill gets fired up. Kevin takes the helm at the grill. E.J. is at the pass, and nearly 20 others work the front of the house. In fact, five nights a week, patrons will always be welcomed by the same familiar faces. We wanted to have the same staff five days a week. Family-like quality is what gives us such a personal touch when people come in for dinner. And woodfire grills use of locally sourced meat and produce doesn't go unnoticed either.

The patients, first of all, are going to be able to acknowledge the taste difference. The farmers put a lot into it, you know, so you get a lot back out. No doubt about it, and it's especially nice with the locally sourced brussel sprouts. When they're eating something that's grown locally, they're obviously eating with the season. And woodfire grills seasonal approach not only applies to their food, but to their cocktails as well, like one of their signature drinks, the farmer's daughter. Jority of that is local ingredients. The cucumber, or we use, all come from the turn up truck. Then there's the bitter end, a sophisticated cocktail featuring fresh lemon juice and locally sourced ginger. How hard are those things to make? Not hard at all. You want to jump back here and give it a try? Well, you know what? I think I will. I'm going to do it. You come with me. OK, that you con Cornelius. Isn't that the guy from Rudolph the Red Nose Brandears? It is. My bones look a lot like your con Cornelius, or so his face. But rather than sporting a red beard, Yukon Cornelius, the drink features, a local raw egg,

along with a measured blend of tulicurers, cream from nearby Johnston family farms, and a drizzle of bitters. Yukon Cornelius, try it. Mmm. That's great. Food is something that brings people of all different circumstances and life together, and to be the one who can provide an experience that sort of transcends those moments that can take someone's ordinary and make it extraordinary, that's what means the most. So the next time you're at Atlanta, be sure to stop by, with Fire Grill. We're now off to Dublin to a St. Patrick's Day extravaganza so big it actually brings the Irish to Georgia.

For nearly half a century in March, the town of Dublin, Georgia, explodes into a St. Patrick's Day Spectacular. Big time for AIDS. Rides for the whole family, and the third Saturday of March is always the big day, a day known in Dublin as Super Saturday. I hear it's called Super Saturday for a reason. We started our day with the Leprechaun Road Race, we had the 1k, the 5k, the 10k. You can get out, get your blood pump in, take a nice leisurely stroll or you can get out and run. From there, people come out to the park and start setting up, start getting out and seeing what's out here in the park at 1130, the parade starts. We had 115 entries for our parade this year, which is wonderful. All the schools were represented with fans. After the parade, everybody comes back down to the park for lunch, to ride rides for the kid, to enjoy entertainment.

We have live entertainment all day long, different singers and bands coming in. And I hear there's a lot of good food, you know, food kind of goes hand in hand with festivals. Tell me about some of the unique, to Saint Patrick's Day things that people can eat. We have green fritz, we do green pancakes. I saw a green funnel cake. Green funnel cake for every season, I want a green one. All right, yes, I had a funnel cake. Green funnel cake, green cotton candy, hey cotton candy, it's up and there it's here. The corn beef and cabbage dinner is on Saturday afternoon, and it is a fabulous dinner and it's just an Irish favorite corn beef and cabbage. Corn beef and cabbage that had to be the smell that was hovering around the Dublin atmosphere. My first year here, I picked up the corn beef and cabbage, and I've been doing it for the past eight years. I detect a hint of an accent, is that near Dublin, Ireland? You could say that.

Okay. It's a relation of corn beef and cabbage to Saint Patrick's Day. It is interesting because corn beef is an American event. Ireland does not have corn beef. What we have in Ireland is bacon. You get a square of Irish bacon and you boil it and you add the cabbage and you add the potatoes so everything gets seasoned together. Here they have developed a corned material that's injected into the beef that gives it the same flavor as the bacon back home. I have to say that they have come very, very close. So it's kind of here in America we have fake bacon and cabbage. That's correct. Well, it just doesn't have the same ring as corn beef and cabbage. Right. So besides the delicious American-style bacon and cabbage, Irish influences can be found throughout the festival grounds. In fact, joining community leaders in high school bands in the parade were students who were actually from Ireland. It keeps getting bigger every year, absolutely.

This year, as you can see, looking around, I think everybody in Dublin and every surrounding area is here today. Everyone here participates in our festival is volunteer. All of the planning is done by volunteer civic organizations and groups. Everyone comes out, everyone gets in their green and just celebrate St. Patrick's and we actually celebrate it the entire month. It's a double and Georgia spectacular happening once a year, but the genuine Irish spirit of the town stays all year round. Well, that's it for this episode of Georgia Traveler. We hope you join us next time, until then, Pleasant Journeys. Georgia Traveler is produced in partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

This is a GPB original production.