Thursday, January 31, 2013

A New Restaurant in Emory

Emory Point will be home to a brand new restaurant that is from the owners of West Egg Cafe.  A second West Egg Cafe will open at Emory Point, and this has the town talking about the new restaurants in the area.  Breakfast and lunch service have already started at the cafe, but dinner service will start this upcoming Monday.

The sound of a restaurant being born is a pleasant din — the collision of creative energy and power tools, as a mere idea transforms into the warm invitation of a real space. Ben Johnson, co-owner of General Muir. Photo by Kimber Williams.

Sitting amid the sleek new architecture of The General Muir, among a wave of restaurants and retail shops now opening at Emory Point, co-owner Ben Johnson appears content with the happy chaos — a serene captain of a ship about to set sail.

It's a bold move and unexpected direction for Johnson and his wife, Jennifer, who own and operate Atlanta's enormously popular West Egg Café, and their new partners, Chef Todd Ginsberg, recently of Bocado, and West Egg General Manager Shelley Sweet.

Story imageFor months, the soon-to-open venture has been ranked among Atlanta's top new restaurants to watch, kindling a buzz among foodies all over town: Could culinary lightning possibly strike twice?

Early in Emory Point's planning stages, Cousins Properties, Inc., the firm that built and operates the complex, had approached the Johnsons about opening a second West Egg Café to offer a breakfast option within the retail and residential development on Clifton Road.

That would have been the easy and practical choice — but frankly, not a terribly creative one, Johnson acknowledges.

"We wanted to go in a different direction," he recalls. "This was a chance to be creative again, to dream up something different and new."

And so they have. In many ways, the new restaurant/deli scheduled to open this month across from Jos. A. Banks is a sentimental nod to both family and community.

Inspired by New York City's traditional — and rapidly disappearing — Jewish delis, the restaurant is named after the World War II-era refugee transport ship that carried Jennifer Johnson's maternal grandparents, both Holocaust survivors, to New York in 1949.

But its location is also a meaningful choice for Johnson's side of the family.

His father, Ben F. Johnson III, is a 1965 Emory graduate and chair of Emory's Board of Trustees — in fact, he met his wife, Ann, on the Emory campus 50 years ago this year.

And the senior Johnson was an enthusiastic supporter of the Emory Point development long before his entrepreneurial son had chosen it as a home base for his latest business venture.

Adds the younger Johnson: "The more we kicked around (the idea of Emory Point), the more we thought this would be a great area. Emory draws students from around the country, many from the Northeast. The University, the CDC, Emory Hospital, residential areas around here — it's a magnet for people from all over."

Deli classics, with a twist

In the nostalgic design of the deli/restaurant, Johnson and his partners have sought to recreate a sense of time and place — a new culinary community with old-world ambiance.

Natural light pours through windows onto sleek subway tiles, yawning marble counter tops, an old-fashioned deli case and dark woodwork. The restaurant will offer a full coffee bar, deli/counter service and a full-service dining room.

For the Johnsons, who travel to New York often, the deli direction was a natural choice. "We've always lamented that you can't get a good New York deli experience down here," he recalls.

The menu — which covers breakfast, lunch and dinner —will serve both homemade deli classics, such as pastrami, corned beef, chopped liver, and hand-rolled, kettle-boiled bagels, and specials with an unexpected twist.

"Our idea is returning to the handcrafted roots of a lot of (deli) food — if we can do it and do it well, we're going to make our own, whether it's bagels or pastrami or whatever the case may be," Johnson says. "We're trying to bring that sensibility to the entire menu."

Johnson believes he has the team to make that happen. Ginsberg, who grew up in New Jersey and New York enjoying classic delis, is said to have yearned to open a deli for much of his career. Pastry chef Lauren Raymond will add to the mix, with cheesecake, black-and-white cookies, buttery rugelach, and bagels.

There have been some definite advantages to having culinary entrepreneurs in the family, says Ben F. Johnson III: "(My son) would ask us over for dinner to test out recipes, making pulled pork over grits and say 'What do you think?' and that would become the 'pig and grits' (entrée) on The West Egg menu."

"I've been very, very pleased with how happy they both seem to be, working together and in the restaurant business," he adds. "It's nice to see your children doing what they enjoy." As for his son's decision to open a new restaurant in the shadow of Johnson's alma mater?


"I've always viewed (Emory Point) as an exciting project," he says. "The truth is, the Emory community hasn't had much new retail development for decades. The notion of a mixed-use development with 450 residential units has great potential to be both a community and a destination."

The General Muir is scheduled to begin service in late January, among a series of retail shops and restaurants opening on a staggered schedule throughout this spring.

Openings continue at Emory Point

As businesses continue to open at Emory Point, celebrations and special events have been held along the way, such as Emory discount day at Marlow's Tavern or a benefit night to support Emory Friends of Music at Bonefish Grill. Emory students are finding employment at stores like Loft, and many retailers are offering discounts to lure shoppers.

Emory Point was developed by Cousins Properties, Inc., and Gables Residential in a long-term lease agreement with Emory University, which retains ownership of the property. Cousins manages the retail space, while Gables manages the residential component.

The mixed-use development offers about 80,000 square feet in retail space and more than 400 apartments.

For more information see Emory University.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Quick and Easy Healthy Meal

Check out this great healthy and quick recipe for dinner tonight.  This quick and easy salmon recipe will be ready in 25 minutes, and is great for you to eat.
 Looking for a quick tasty meal that will only take you 25 minutes? Look no further. This recipe is only 300 calories and is full of flavor. It’s the perfect ending to a long day.

 

Ingredients

 

    Picture of Salmon Wrapped in foil
  • 4 (5 ounces each) salmon fillets
  • 2 teaspoons olive oil plus 2 tablespoons
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 tomatoes, chopped, or 1 (14-ounce) can chopped tomatoes, drained
  • 2 chopped shallots
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme

 

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Sprinkle salmon with 2 teaspoons olive oil, salt, and pepper. Stir the tomatoes, shallots, 2 tablespoons of oil, lemon juice, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper in a medium bowl to blend.
Place a salmon fillet, oiled side down, atop a sheet of foil. Wrap the ends of the foil to form a spiral shape.
Spoon the tomato mixture over the salmon. Fold the sides of the foil over the fish and tomato mixture, covering completely; seal the packets closed. Place the foil packet on a heavy large baking sheet. Repeat until all of the salmon have been individually wrapped in foil and placed on the baking sheet. Bake until the salmon is just cooked through, about 25 minutes. Using a large metal spatula, transfer the foil packets to plates and serve.
SERVES 4
Calories: 300
Total Fat: 18 grams
Saturated Fat: 3 grams
Protein: 29 grams
Total carbohydrates: 5 grams
Sugar: 3 grams
Fiber: 1.5 grams
Cholesterol: 78 milligrams
Sodium: 213 milligrams
For more information visit FitFreshFun.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Organize By Your Learning Style

LearningStyle011312.jpgEveryone has different ways to learn.  Did you know that you can organize your apartment by your learning style?  This will help you be the most productive when you are studying.  Keep reading to learn some tips and tricks to help with this!

A couple of the January Cure assignments coming up involve organizing your media and papers. These seem like perfectly ordinary assignments, but what if you've never quite found an organizational system that works for you? Why not try a system based on your learning style?

Most of us have heard of the three main learning styles: visual, kinesthetic, and auditory. Visual learners rely heavily on their eyesight. Graphs, diagrams, images, and the written word are incredibly helpful tools for visual learners, and they often create mental images of texts or experiences in order to remember them. Kinesthetic learners are those who learn by doing. These are the people who dive right into assembling that IKEA furniture, and who remember information that they have gained through touch and movement. Auditory learners absorb information by listening. Seminars, reading aloud, listening to books on tape or lectures: all these methods are optimal for focusing an auditory learner's attention.

I was well aware of these learning styles, but I had never thought of them as a potential organizing tool until I read The Organized Student: Teaching Children the Skills for Success in School and Beyond, in which the author Donna Goldberg suggests tailoring an organizational system to your child's particular learning style. Borrowing this idea, I've come up with some organizational techniques that might help you tap into your personal strengths.

Visual learners will benefit from an organizational system that places emphasis on color and sequence. Color-coded libraries are a bit of a contentious issue, I know, but if you are a visual learner, this might actually be an easier system to follow. You might have an easier time envisioning the cover or spine of a DVD than its title. In terms of paper organization, this might mean that you would benefit from a filing system that involves color-coded folders or different colored labels. Charts, spreadsheets, or diagrams of your collections might also help, or you might benefit from a sequentially ordered system, laid out in chart form, like this one. Additionally, it might be worthwhile to think about organizing extensive collections with tools like Delicious Library, virtual wardrobe applications, or some of these visually oriented organization applications.

Kinesthetic learners need a really hands-on process for organizing. An organizational system that involves assembly or very physical processes might work best. When setting up a new organizational system, consider a process that requires touching all of the items in question. For instance, rehousing your DVDs and putting them in binders might help solidify the memory of what order they're going in in a way that simply putting them on a shelf might not. Prolonged physical interaction with the organizational method might improve one's memory of it. Additionally, it is often easier for kinesthetic learners to remember things by association with whatever action they were performing at the time, so a filing system oriented around particular actions might work. For instance, put books or papers near the places where they will be used. Books for cooking should be near the kitchen, where the action is performed. If you only read comic books in the bathroom, then place them nearby. If you only watch DVDs in the bedroom, put them there. Associating your items' placement with the types of actions that you perform with them rather than with some place that you feel you "should" put them might help you locate them more easily.

Auditory learners could really benefit, on a basic level, from recording notes to themselves and then listening back to them. Hearing information can make it easier to retain, and as a day-to-day practice, this could help organize your to-do list. Relatedly, when you are trying out a new filing system or organizational method, it might help to talk about it with someone, to get their feedback, and to verbalize your intent with the system and your method for implementing it. Putting it into words and having an audible conversation about it might help the central tenets of the system stick. Finally, some auditory learners find it difficult to retain or process information if there is no sound in the background. Listening to music or having some form of background noise might help auditory learners concentrate while tackling their organizational tasks.

Obviously, some people have tendencies that cross these three borders, and with certain things, like bill filing, it might be much more difficult to create an auditory regime than a visual one, but if you have a difficult time with organization, some of these methods might be worth considering or testing out.


For more information see Apartment Therapy.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Humans and Songbirds Both Have A Voice

Songbirds have a beautiful voice that always stays on pitch and has a beautiful tone.  Songbirds learn to sing just like humans learn to speak.  Baby birds listen to their parents and vocalize through repetition just like humans.  Keep reading to learn about the similarities between humans and songbirds.
Story image

Scientists studying how songbirds stay on key have developed a statistical explanation for why some things are harder for the brain to learn than others.

"We've built the first mathematical model that uses a bird's previous sensorimotor experience to predict its ability to learn," says Emory biologist Samuel Sober. "We hope it will help us understand the math of learning in other species, including humans."

Sober conducted the research with physiologist Michael Brainard of the University of California, San Francisco.

Their results, showing that adult birds correct small errors in their songs more rapidly and robustly than large errors, were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Sober's lab uses Bengalese finches as a model for researching the mechanisms of how the brain learns to correct vocal mistakes.

Just like humans, baby birds learn to vocalize by listening to adults. Days after hatching, Bengalese finches start imitating the sounds of adults. "At first, their song is extremely variable and disorganized," Sober says. "It's baby talk, basically."


For more information see Emory University.
Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More