As a child in the eighties, the Shop Tart thought beets came in cans. And were soft. And yukky tasting. Turns out they are quite delicious, roasted, served freshly grated in a salad or even…wait for it…juiced with ginger and apples. She re-discovered them thanks to a vegetable co-op and Mr. Shop Tart’s unfailing love for them. (The French are like that. They’ll eat anything. In a good way.) Jenks’ column this month makes urban gardening just the way the Shop Tart likes it, nice and easy.

Beets Me

When I lived in dreary Seattle, all time was spent trying to get warm. In those dark, wet, winters right out of Jack the Ripper movies and in those chilly, windy summers. My house-mate made fun of me for laying in the sun in long johns, trying to catch a ray from sun the color of weak lemon-aid.

Here, home, humid, hot, I can garden in almost nothin’ and I do. Tomorrow, I’m planting palmettos all day with a bunch of volunteer firemen. Hot! (We’ll see, look for pics on Facebook.*)

But I know lots of people - and lots of veggies - just don’t produce in this heat. Some of y’all might treat these summer days like I treated those winter days, as something to avoid. No worries. Right now, there is work for gardeners who like to be out in the heat and work for you retreaters, too.

This Sunday, air still dripping wet from last night’s storm, I got ready for fall:

• 9 am:  Picked okra, peppers, beans and eggplant.
• 10 am:   Found a tiny little mini-bottle of rum and realized it was cluttering my life, keeping me from finding other things, so downed that.
• 11 am: Took my Momma and cousin on a tour of recent landscaping projects and drove them down dirt roads we hadn’t been on in years.
• Noon: Made a roasted beet and vanilla Isa-smoothie and scanned my stockpile of seeds. Decided to get beet seed ready to plant. Poured the beet seed into a cup of water.
• 5 pm: Another bothersome bit of rum to get rid of. Seeded my soaked beet seeds into the garden - still in white pants and my favorite new t-shirt by James Perse. [Ed. Note: Whoa. Jenks Farmer rocks James Perse. The Shop Tart loves James Perse. Best t-shirts ever. She buys hers at Coplon's.] Easy, no mess.

Beet seeds come up best if you soak them first for about eight hours in water.

If you like the heat, get your beds ready now. Chop down anything that looks terrible: corn, cukes, squash. Rake, add a little compost and your beds are ready. Seed in beets now. By the end of August, seed in carrots, parsnips and try some mustard. Lots will need to go in next month. “Remember,” says Dan Appell, the FAMU and Black Pudding Farms intern who’s looking over my shoulder. “You don’t need full sun for lots of these things - fall plants will thrive in yards with light shade.”

If you do not like being outside, you can still do garden stuff. Go Shopping! It’s time to order seeds for fall crops.   Favorite seed catalogues are:

• High Mowing Seeds
• Evergreen Asian Veggie Seeds
• And we’re selling some rare, cool seeds on www.jenksfarmer.com.

When those beets are ready, roast them, chop them and serve cold, with a bit of orange juice, olive oil, salt, walnuts and feta to make my favorite salad all year round. These beets are salted, lightly drizzled with oil and ready to roast.

The End

So…who wants borscht this winter?

Happy Gardening and don’t forget to tell them you read it on the Shop Tart!

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P.S. It’s Champagne Tuesday at Cellar on Greene, yo. Fun!

P.P.S. Pout has a great Back to School deal this week: Enjoy a free brow styling with any facial booked August 9th through the 12th. Call 254-5051 or email Shannon@shoppout.com. In case you didn’t know, Shannon is great at brows. She’ll make you look more awake and downright prettier! And she gives a heck of a facial!

* Rest assured, the Shop Tart will be looking for those photos. Firemen, just like Columbia, are famously hot.

It’s been a whole month - summer is flying - have you been gardening? The Shop Tart has managed to keep a few herb plants alive. She feels super chic throwing a few leaves into whatever she’s making, even if it is just a mojito. (True Story: You can’t kill mint. For real.) It sounds like master gardener Jenks Farmer knows how summer should be done.

Summer Vacation with Jenks

“I’ve had enough zucchini to feed Pharaoh’s Army!” said my friend and mentor Bennett Baxley. That’s the sort of thing he says. He’s erudite and romantic and tells the best stories, chock full of colorful words. A Southern Gentleman, long retired from Dufuskie Island School and ready to pass his gardening and cooking to those of us who want to be just like him.

I rarely film at his house, seems invasive. But last week, for y’all - who may also need, or know someone who needs, some gentle lessons in how to act* - I tried to capture his words and the glories of his country veggie garden. He’s captivating, so I couldn’t edit the vid, not even the part where I filmed our shoes. Nor the examination of soil-born wilt on his peppers.

But I struggled with how to relate this far-from-anywhere country garden in Hemingway to you urban tarts/farmers. Here’s what I came up with: You’re clever and you’ll enjoy him and learn something. Or you’re not and you won’t.

Tuesday evening I did what I’ve promised for 15 years: I went over to Hemingway for a hands-on lesson in biscuit making. He’d explained, “It’s just not cricket to ask for a family recipe. But come over one evening and I’ll show you how to make Doug’s biscuits. And I’ll tell you the story of an old lady cook named Doug.“

About 6:30, whip-poor-wills calling, we had a beer on the screen porch, followed by a walk through the veggie garden. Then came the lesson and stories, followed by supper of the tiny biscuits I love, with ham, tomatoes, figs, cold corn and cold green beans.

-Mr. Bennett Baxley pulling tiny biscuits from his oven.

We were both aware that this was an evening of ritual, of passing along information, history, gardening lessons and soul. Veggie gardening and cooking are great ways to do those things.

Now is a critical time for us, as country gardens and lifestyles fade away. Take pictures, take notes, take time, and most importantly, if you have them, take your children to places where they can connect with old gardeners, where they hang out some clothes, shuck some corn right of the stalk, play in a sprinkler and where they can sow old South Carolina in their souls.

Video of Mr. Baxley’s veggie garden from www.plantsfoodbody.com:

What to Plant In July

July is sort of like regenerating your virginity. Just pretend some of the veggie problems of the summer never happened. Pull up the sloppy squash borers ruins. Throw out the withered flat of eggplant you never planted. [Ed. Note: Apparently Jenks can see the Shop Tart's yard from his house.]

Lots of things should be cut down by the end of the month - cucumbers which usually finish producing, squash riddled with worms, butter-bean bush sprawled over the path.

-Fruits of summer in a country kitchen. Pick tomatoes a bit green and they’ll ripen in the window.

Clean Slate. Fresh Sand. Once on a Sandy Cot at Sullivan’s Doesn’t Count.

This is a great time to start seed - provided you can keep them moist. Peppers, wax bean, butter beans, peas, squash, basil, okra. (And I do lots of zinnia, gomphrena and marigolds and cosmos now.) They all love the heat and the hot soils and will give you a late summer crop.

Again it all depends on watering! If you are headed to the beach, seed under irrigation or don’t bother. But if you can swing it, use July to start a new cycle. While your picking the successes, get a few heat lovers growing!

And a restaurant tip from the PeeDee: If you go to the beach the old way (378), take in a bit of the country in Lake City, SC. There is a fantastic lunch place there, where you can also get local organic produce, great chicken salad, cold veggie plates and home-baked sweets to take for the weekend. It’s in, of all places, the Lake City Airport.

Honestly, it has to be the best airport food in the world - but unless you crop dust or have your own fun plane, you can’t really fly in there. It’s just off 378 at Hwy 52. Look for Foodscapes on Facebook.

The End

So…anyone up for a field trip to Lake City? And, boy, the Shop Tart bets a few of you are wiping your delicate brows with relief after hearing that “once on a sandy cot at Sullivan’s Island doesn’t count.” For dinner, the Shop Tart will be serving tiny biscuits with ham, tomatoes, figs, cold corn and cold green beans. If you need a biscuit recipe, check out this one that the Shop Tart cajoled out of her childhood best friend’s mother. (Thank you, Nilla and Betsy!) She was pregnant and needed that recipe real bad. And ate an entire tray of them in one afternoon with butter and local honey. Mmmm…

Happy July and don’t forget to tell them you read it on the Shop Tart!

* Yes, there are some of us who could use that. Please look for an upcoming post on “cussing in public,” or rather “not cussing in public.” Especially not in mixed company.

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P.S. Yesterday’s post was there, but Feedburner’s email subscription service must have been down. The Shop Tart apologizes for the inconvenience and hopes you’ll enjoy the post today!

P.P.S. So… last year’s vote of confidence was enough to leave the Shop Tart glowing for a while. (She still gets tickled thinking about it!) But she would love your vote again in Free Times “Best of Columbia” poll, if you are so inclined. She’s happy to see they’ve expanded the blogs and local websites section to include different categories. She supposes The Shop Tart falls under “Music and Entertainment,” rather than “Sports” or “News.” Whether or not you vote for her, she hopes you vote for all of your favorite locally owned spots in the poll!

First things first: Don’t forget to vote today! Not sure where or how? The South Carolina State Election Commission has you covered.

Please welcome back master gardener Jenks Farmer for his monthly effort to turn us all into urban farmers. You don’t need a field to grow a few things you can eat - and show off at your next dinner party. The Shop Tart is a little intimidated by gardening centers. She’s afraid someone will look at her and know: She kills things. As an avid consumer of food, she is right at home in a grocery store and was thrilled to learn she could shop for her garden there. For the record, she has always been able to grow small eggplants and bell peppers as Jenks recommends below, so hooray for that!

Gardening From the Grocery

When I travel in the less developed countries, I seek out food markets. They become my plant learning centers, also offering seed supplies and, of course, lunch.

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I found a killer market and ate winged beans. With the giant Petras Towers, a botanical garden and one of the most beautiful downtowns I’ve ever seen, this city seduced me. (We need a Porsche Design Store.)

I was traveling with adventurous Pat Butler. (He used to write “Talk About Town” for The State and he wrote that very controversial story, “Lesbian Wedding,” about 20 years ago. Remember when?) I found great plants for us on this trip, while Pat found a fantastic hookah bar and a bizzaro “traditional Malay Indian manhood massage.” Thanks, Pat. Can you write a guest column in the paper on that night? [Ed. note: The Shop Tart would be thrilled to post such an article. Pat?]

In Burma, I discovered marble-sized eggplant. You drop them in soups right near the end of cooking. From a Cambodian friend, I grow Soup Leaf Vine. And every time I make green papaya salad, I think of her. My papaya trees are now four feet tall. Time to grow your own papaya tree! Alright, we’ll do that next summer…

My papaya tree below - started from seed from a grocery store fruit in March - will produce green papayas in August. The men are the fellas from Black Pudding Farms in Lake City. (They are happy to provide delicious organic veggies to restaurants. Anyone?) They are located at Moore Farms.

Right now, let’s grow winged beans. I don’t expect this to actually produce beans, but the vines and young leaves are edible. (The New York Times published a great story on how this bean is better than soy and making a real impact on world hunger. There’s a link at the bottom of this page.)

With winged beans, you can cover a deck rail or wall and get some shade and salad at the same time. Find wing bean seeds on Ebay. For a local substitute vine, look for Madagascar Spinach seed. (I think I need a trip to check that one out.) This spinach vine is similar in that you can eat the glossy leaves and shoots. Both will make a cover by August and provide more salads that you’ll eat.

Two More Plants for Now:

Last Saturday, Tom, Momma and I dug a crate full of potatoes. The little gold fingerlings from Earthfare produced pounds, the purple ones rotted, and typical reds made bushels of food. We put about five pounds on the smoker Saturday night with some beets and carrots and I’ve eaten them all week.

After potato digging, you always have a big hole in the garden. We raked and mulched and planted tiny plants of eggplant and peppers. I mean TINY, no more than three inches tall, ’cause that’s what I had. Buy bigger and they’ll have fruit by mid-July.

Eggplant and peppers are both good looking plants with plenty of time left this summer to grow and fruit. Both do well in containers and come in lots of colors, sizes, shapes and textures. I tend to go for the long, skinny, purple eggplant and the bell-shaped, fat green peppers. [Ed. Note: Those long skinny eggplants, often labeled "Thai" or "Japanese" are great in a stir-fry, because they cook quickly.] These bio-dynamic peppers at Black Pudding Farms are ready now, but it’s not too late to start your plants for late summer fruit.

This reminds me - through a morning wine fog - of a funny conversation I had in someone’s closet last night, over too much wine. I was enthralled with the pattern of a particular skirt, totally absorbed in it and said, “I think it’s red peppers…” She said, “No, it’s Prada.”

Here are a few other items you can plant now from the local grocery:

• Elephant garlic
• Chocho Mexican squash
• Jicama
• From the health food section: Chia, a type of salvia that I eat in my shake every morning

You can also go on and buy your flax seed, but don’t put them out for another month or so. They produce beautiful blue flowers.

The End

And, for those of you who are into local, organic veggie porn - and the Shop Tart is - here’s one more photo from Black Pudding Farms, a fresh morning harvest.

Happy Gardening and don’t forget to tell them you read it on the Shop Tart!

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P.S. Want free hair advice from a pro? On Thursday, June 10th, a national Phyto educator will be at Austral salon with a scope to analyze your hair and scalp. You’ll get great advice and leave with free samples! Call 790-0770 for an appointment. Judging from recent reader comments, y’all love you some Phyto! (And what’s not to love? The stuff rocks.)

P.P.S. Did you hear? The Shop Tart was on the radio, talking about not wearing pants. Go here to listen to the segment, Chick Chat with Marti Bluestein. Speaking of segments, have you been missing Shop Tart Tuesday on Fox? Well, last week was a Memorial Day vacation and this week’s segment got - oops! - accidentally erased. It was filmed at Bohemian and the Shop Tart offered lots of tips for weekend casual dressing in the summer. It will be re-filmed and she’ll let you know when it airs! In the meantime, she’ll be happy to meet you at Bohemian with fashion tips - they have fab casual things, just right for summer days and nights.

Welcome back master gardener, Jenks Farmer. The Shop Tart is thrilled to be asked not to grow tomatoes, as she usually lets them languish on the vine until they are no longer delectable. Have you been farming in the city? How’s it going?

May Day

Finally, soil temps are moving up and we can really get summer stuff growing. Listen to me: Hold my hand, babe, and pass all those little tomato plants by. Let them grow wild in the fields where they can romp in sun and somebody else’s hands can pick them and put them in baskets. It is the order of the world.

Hear me out. Tomatoes make big, gangly plants that need lots of root space and sun. They just are not great for the likes of you and me. We 20-minutes a week, one-handed gardeners. We who garden with a coffee cup or wine glass (or protein shake) in one hand. Though I’m a professional horticulturist, this is exactly how I garden at home.

If you want to see a cool tomato planting, head up Farrow road, about a mile out, on the right. Look for 20 bales of hay in an empty lot with tomatoes planted right in them!

But let’s move on to other plants for our own little patch, beyond tomatoes. Lots of things look better overall, produce more, and work better in small urban gardens.

• Bell Peppers. Always a crowd pleaser on the grill, in a salad or on a hummus plate. Bell peppers grow on elegant, glossy leaved plants that look great anywhere. Fruiting is easy and heavy. You don’t have to worry about special soil or calcium or additives. Just plant and wait for heat. [Ed. note: Bell peppers are seriously easy. Even the Shop Tart has grown them successfully.]

• Zucchini or other little squash. Cheap seeds produce big, bold silver variegated leaves and locker room envy inspiring fruit. Don’t worry that in late June you’ll get squash-boring caterpillars; when that happens, just chunk the plants.

• Buy a pack of yellow wax bean seed. Soak them for eight hours in water, then stick them everywhere. Compact little bushes come up and produce tons of beautiful beans, held high and easy to pick for  salad or grazing.

For fun, I’m also growing Goji berry, otherwise known as wolfberry. Some of my local-only friends object to my drinking its juice, as it comes from China. Get over it. The stuff is a like natural Xanax. Amazing, mood regulating and jet lag preventing. Even my staff says how much better I deal with little problems and lazy people. So I do have a few Goji in my garden. I’m hoping  for golf ball sized, red fruits. Right by the yellow Four O’Clocks.

I know Four O’Clocks are old fashioned. I know they seed in. But as a boy, I loved collecting seeds of all the different colors. As a man, what better plant than one that tells you when its wine time? I might garden with two hands all day, but when the Four O’Clocks open, its left-handed gardening only. [Ed. note: Oh, my. The Shop Tart had no idea there were flowers that opened each day at happy hour four. Must plant near the front porch.] Thank goodness the dog understands that some days, we don’t catch any food. But all days, we plant some nutrition and sip some nutrition.

Garden Updates

New Potatoes! The potatoes we discussed in our first post should be ready to eat now.  These are new potatoes. You can wait as long as you like to dig - the longer you wait, the bigger the spuds! But now, just as you see some little white flowers, you should find a few for a treat. Just dig around the base of the plant. Don’t pull it up!

Parsley Tea! I’m eating a few cups of parsley a week from plants put in last fall. The plants we started a few months ago are just getting their roots systems ready - no worries, just wait!

Cucumber Sprout Salad! If you over planted, you can pick those hairy little sprouts for a trick - see if your so hip and chic, local-only friends will eat it.  Joking!

Finally, I figure if it has a tie to South Carolina - and it’s wine - we might as well call it local. At Hampton’s, a fantastic restaurant in Sumter, we recently had Outpost, a great cab from California, but the vintner is from South Carolina! [Ed. note: The vintner in question, Thomas Rivers Brown, is from Sumter and sounds pretty awesome. The Shop Tart would love to try the wine. Anyone in Columbia carry it?]

The End

Once you have completed your duties in the garden, the Shop Tart recommends a little shopping. VanJean has started the sale ball rolling with markdowns on spring and resort wear. They also have new jewelry by southern designer Rebecca Hook. Love these dogwood flowers for spring!

Coplon’s is having two trunk shows this week. Today and tomorrow, check out Shop Tart favorite Yigal Azrouël. Thursday through Saturday, view the Algo of Switzerland collection. Speaking of Yigal, Sherri Greenberg of Coplon’s was rocking an amazing dress by the designer at Coplon’s/Edventure’s Girls Night Out recently. She is on the right in the photo below, next to Leah Kososki. Unfortunately, you can’t see the bottom part of the dress, which came to her knees and was verrah flattering with lots of ruching. The photo below arrived in the Shop Tart’s email in box courtesy of Brad Allen of High Contrast Studios. (She appreciates his generosity as her little point-and-shoot just doesn’t cut it in these situations. Note to photographers: Want a free plug on the Shop Tart? Take pictures at a fab event and let the Shop Tart post your pictures for free. ‘Cause she’s no journalist, nor is she media-mogul enough to hire a photog.)

Brad also sent a slide show of the entire show, in case you missed it or just wanted another view. Coplon’s provided all the looks, modeled by local ladies, for the fashion show - and they are all available in the store. Girls Night Out was started by Coplon’s eight years ago to benefit Edventure and it’s always a great time!

Revente is also hosting a great event for a great cause. This evening from 5 to 7 pm, shop Revente and 20 percent of your purchase price goes directly to Sistercare, a great organization that’s been offering emergency services and much-needed help to women in Columbia since 1981. Rumor has it there may be snacks. Fact has it shoppers will be offered 20 percent off the price of a meal at Delaney’s with a receipt from the Revente sale. Revente is insanely well-stocked right now. The Shop Tart scored a new pair of Louboutins there the other day for…well, if she told you you might have to kill her out of jealousy. So just go shopping - for charity!

Happy Shopping and don’t forget to tell them you read it on the Shop Tart!

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P.S. If a magic fairy came down from the sky and told you you could eat out every day and night for a week, but you could only choose one restaurant, the Shop Tart would recommend Mr. Friendly’s this week. They are offering Nathan’s all-beef franks done Chicago-style as one of their Ballpark Specials during lunch, plus Northstar’s “Stella Maris” Washington Red Meritage by-the-glass, spider rolls from Chef Chris Turner and lots more. The Shop Tart is shivering with delight imagining spider rolls made with fresh soft shell crab… They also have soft shell crab po’ boys for lunch. Just saying.

Full disclosure: The Shop Tart had great intentions, she really did, but she planted her potatoes too late and they don’t seem to have sprouted. This month, the planting is so easy, she feels sure she can oblige. Besides, cucumbers and parsley are an essential part of her summer. Once again, master gardener Jenks Farmer helps us garden, right here in the city.

Columbia City Farmer, Part III

Did anyone actually plant potatoes when I suggested it - on Valentines Day? At least one person, my housemate Hunter, did and they are up and racing. Little sprouts about four inches tall and kind of hairy got a fertilizer mulch last week. Free fertilizer is almost always in the alleyway behind Starbucks - or ask and they’ll give you a tidy foil bag at the counter. Just spread grounds over the soil in your garden. It’s safe and doesn’t attract possums or rats or anything but big earthworms. (That’s a good thing.)

If this seems a bit too much of the dumpster-diving lifestyle, here’s the deal: My beau Tom will do it for you. He loves to get those grounds and mix them with donkey manure. (It’s getting worse isn’t it, Shop Tart?*) But it’s the best little top dress for those veggies!   It’s local and organic and our donkey is named Buck. Hence, our BuckStar(ter) Dark Blend. Tom’ll give a free baggie full if you’ll sit in on this event.

Since spring keeps me on the road, veggie gardening isn’t high priority in Melrose Heights these days. There are three easy, efficient things to do now. Efficiency in gardening is important to me, because I can’t stand any half-finished projects, like flopping tomatoes that never fruit or stunted corn. In garden terms: Nobody notices a mulched empty space; everybody notices a dying anything.

The first thing to do now is to fertilize. Veggies (and all plants) need a boost right now as they are putting on lots of growth. You can use an organic compost as above or buy something similar at a garden center. Okay, I also used a very light application of 10-10-10 with micro-nutrients, the same stuff people use on their lawns, maybe three pounds of it for my entire back yard. Don’t over-think and don’t use too much - everything in moderation.

The second and third things to do right now are to plant some quick-to-start and easy-to-care-for plants. But be aware, both of these will grow only into really hot weather, say mid-July.

The second gardening task is to get some cucumber seed in the ground. A few tips:

• Plant in lots of sun. They don’t have to bake all day; shade in the afternoon is okay.
• They will need something to climb. (A chain link fence is great.)
• The seeds take seven to ten days to sprout. Once sprouted, don’t mulch anymore, because you don’t want lots of stuff that holds moisture, which harbors insects around the stems.
• Plant at the edge of your irrigation system or near water. The plants don’t need to get sprayed, but the soil should stay evenly moist.

Wait and watch. If you plant the first week in April, you’ll have cukes in mid-May. We use them to make my favorite summer drink, cucumber water. By mid-July, the plants look ratty and stop producing much. Don’t fight it, just pull them up and plant something else.

If you have children to entertain and teach about food and stuff, cukes are fast and very productive. You can also buy these funny clear molds of Buddha, stars and hearts. When I was little, we did Jimmy Carter heads. [Ed. Note: The Shop Tart was unable to locate these anywhere online for less than $70 and most came from Asia. There must be something cheaper available locally and she wants them. Star-shaped cucumber slices as a garnish for cocktails would be totally awesome, like summer-alteringly awesome. First person to her email her with information on where to find them gets a Shop Tart sticker or three and her undying affection. Wonder if the Hyundai Market stocks them...]

The third third thing you should do this month is grow parsley. This is even easier than the cukes. Simply get some parsley plants, at least three. Put them in a pot with some BuckStar(ter). Parsley will grow about anywhere, sun to light shade. It makes tons of leaves until the days get really hot.

Packed full of minerals, enzymes and flavonoids, parsley is great for digestion. Flavonoids are great anti-oxidants, also found in citrus, green tea, wine and dark chocolate. Use your parsley to make my favorite easy salad: a handful of parsley, some spinach, sunflower seeds, a garlic clove and feta. Chop the ingredients up very fine, chill and add some lemon juice or vinegar.

As soon as it starts getting hot, parsley is going to bolt - that means flower - and die. Leave it standing, because the tiny yellow flowers attract interesting insects then make seed. You can grow parsley from seed; my Momma does it, saving her seed from year to year.

I’d stick with a reliable seed company like Greenwood, South Carolina’s Park Seed Company, though Momma insists Dollar General has great seed. For plants, go to Southern Vista behind Owen’s Field. They open at 8 am and early opening time often determines where I shop. I went out this morning for some gardening supplies and ended up at Southern Vista’s Garden Center where owner Mark Schimmoeller was unloading trucks with a handsome crew. Columbia’s only downtown garden center, Southern Vista has been open for about a year and can’t be beat for convenience and quality.

The End.

Nothing is more chic than growing your own and the Shop Tart can’t wait to drop a handful of star-shaped cucumber slices into a pitcher of Hendrick’s Howitzers. She’ll use the parsley for everything from cocktail garnish to summer meatballs. Summer meatballs, you ask? The Shop Tart is married to a man who is Serbian on his father’s side and French on his mother’s. This led to a lot of delicious fusion cuisine. The Shop Tart loves to make her own version of Serbian ćevapčići, blending copious amounts of parsley and other fresh herbs with ground beef or turkey and an egg to hold it all together, then sautéeing the patties or meatballs in a pan with olive oil or butter until they are cooked. She also learned a trick from her Italian friend’s mother; a jar of capers in the mix is a good thing. Adding a fresh, delicious filler to your meatballs saves money and your health. (And turns a heavy dish into something perfect for warmer weather.)

Happy Growing and don’t forget to mulch!

P.S. The patio at Terra officially opens on Thursday, April 1st. No fooling. The Shop Tart lurrrrves her some spring patio dining and will be there for sure. Enjoy special deals on bubbly from Spain, France and Italy to celebrate the beginning of spring. Glasses will start at $4. Hooray!

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P.P.S. Have you heard about Gervais and Vine’s new “Dinner and a Show” deal? They are working with local theaters and arts groups to offer you a lovely evening out at a discount. For one price, you can enjoy a three-course meal at Gervais and Vine and a great show. Right now, you can have dinner and see Trustus Theater’s The Last Five Years for $39. The play, starring award-winning actor Jonathan Whitton and directed by Chad Henderson, is a modern musical classic telling the tale of a couple from two different perspectives, his from the beginning and hers from the end. The stories converge in the middle at their wedding. The deal is good for Friday and Saturday shows and does not include alcohol, tax or gratuity. Call Trustus for reservations (254-9732).

* For the record, manure does not scare the Shop Tart. She has three sons and a husband and her mom is from Winnsboro. Manure, schmanure.

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