BBQ, SCARLETT AND HEMINGWAY

        JULY MEMORIES, SUMMER ROADTRIPS

By Doc Lawrence

July is the unofficial beginning of barbecue season, the most American of feasts. Meet some backyard grillers and competitive teams and get introduced to mom and pop places where you can enjoy barbecue. Share opinions about good barbecue beverages: beer, iced tea, and wine, even cocktails. It’s all fun and tasty.

The road leads to Monticello and Madison, Florida, visits to watermelon and tomato farms, an organic vineyard and winery, a historic country store near Tallahassee where football legend Bobby Bowden shops for homemade country sausage and a visit to Tallahassee’s Mission San Luis, a stunningly magnificent restoration that was once a major outpost in New Spain.

Remembering Ernest Hemingway. July marks the 50^th anniversary of his death and we’ll walk through his homes in Key West and Havana and talk about his love of adventure, food, wine and cocktails.

This is the 75^th anniversary of “Gone With The Wind,” and we'll have a review of the play about author Margaret Mitchell at Atlanta’s heralded Ansley Park Playhouse. July is primed to enjoy the Scarlett O’Hara cocktail, an American original making a comeback.

The Civil War Sesquicentennial is an opportunity to travel to great cities in Georgia like Dalton, Chickamauga, Cartersville, Marietta, Madison and Milledgeville with a day at the Atlanta History Center. The March to the Sea actually began in Stone Mountain and the great park here has a full schedule of events for family and fun lovers.

The first of my annual series of barbecue stories appears now  in the wonderful publication, By The Sea Future headquartered in South Florida’s lovely city of Lauderdale-By-The Sea.

http://www.bytheseafuture.org/southwind/2011-06.html .