The
Merry Weather Garden Club met at the home of Carla Snider on Thursday 18th
July, 2013. Cohosting with Carla were Erma Jean Brown and Mary Beth Tsoukalas
with assistance from Phyllis Daniel.
Tsoukalas,
of Irish-Polish descent, met her Greek husband on a cruise to South America and
jokingly said she would learn to cook Greek if he learned to speak English. The
garden club was amazed at her dishes that were unusual, delicious, and
thoroughly Greek. The goat cheese torte really allowed the pesto and sun dried
tomatoes taste to shine through. The tzatziki was a lovely light cucumber and
garlic dip. The pink taramasalata dip was a type of caviar or roe blended and
salty. All the appetizers were served
with freshly made pita chips, Calamata olives, and peppers.
The
entrées which many club members enjoyed on Carla’s back porch overlooking her
new garden area included dolmathes, a rice and beef combination stuffed into
grape leaves and served with a tangy lemon sauce; kefthedes or Greek meatballs
served alongside souvlakia or meat and onions on a skewer or kabobs. Spanakopita
was a delicious spinach and feta cheese pastry. Tiropitakia was a phyllo cheese
triangles served with tomato and feta salad.
For
dessert, Tsoukalas served Jordan almonds, baklava made of phyllo pastry,
walnuts, and honey, plus Kurambiethes, or a delicate light butter cookie. The
delicious meal made everyone feel transported to another hemisphere and
country.
Carla
began the program by explaining the work she had done on her garden since she last
hosted the meeting during which members helped her design and offered
suggestions for her outdoor spaces. The
newest acquisition was the outdoor fireplace built by her neighbor Ryan
Mattocks. The garden was lovely; her new sod is being helped by the frequent
summer rains, and the Sniders had finished the outdoor construction of the pool
cabana.
Snider
introduced the program, artist Kathy Walton of Marietta. Walton uses recycled
steel to make her garden art and she has added ceramic sculpture to her work.
Walton is a humorous speaker and told of her beginnings in central Illinois
where the roads are laid out by engineers (four right turns and you were home)
versus moving to Georgia where roads began as animal trails. Her work in
Chicago and Long Island where winter temperatures were six degrees made it easy
to say yes to Rich’s when she got the job in the jewelry department in Atlanta.
Now
retired, Walton and her husband do construction jobs on high end hotels needing
renovation. The construction workers working for them often borrowed money and
would pay them back in equipment. Because she acquired a welding outfit, she learned
to weld. Walton liked the fact that welded art held together better than a glue
gun, and she began studying enhanced line drawing and experimented with flat
patterns. She welds old filing cabinets into cowboy hats for outdoor display,
musical instruments like guitars that use bicycle sprockets for adornments. Her
garden animals are whimsical, sophisticated, fun and will make you smile which
is Walton’s goal. She gives her work catchy names too like Zippy Mosquitoes and
Psycho Sunflowers. Her largest piece is a full sized horse made of tire rims
and curved pipe from a bowling alley for the neck. Making the eyes for the
horse takes her about four hours.
Walton
has recently added ceramics to her list of talents and she studied raku or the
Japanese technique which includes fire and flame to make the pieces. Her tables
and statuary were most impressive and sophisticated, useful pieces.
The
next meeting of the garden club will be the second Thursday in August and will
be hosted by Patti Acheson and Ellen McEwen.
