It’s peak season for zucchini, which means that summer gardeners are likely overwhelmed with the stuff. We’d like to know your best ideas and recipes for zucchini. (While we’re always up for a good zucchini bread recipe, we’d like ideas for something different to do with the prolific green summer squash.)
Send ideas and recipes to Features Editor Lisa Davis, “Zucchini Contest,” Anniston Star, P.O. Box 189, Anniston AL 36202, or email ldavis@annistonstar.com (please put “Zucchini Contest” in the subject line.
We’ll select three winners at random to receive a copy of the cookbook Seasons & Celebrations: A Market-Fresh Cookbook for All Occasions, featuring recipes from Relish food magazine.
New look for Jax Walmart
The Jacksonville Walmart, 1625 Pelham Road S., has been revamped and remodeled over the last three months, and will have a grand re-opening celebration on Friday. Walmart is calling this “the next generation of store design and customer experience.” That translates to a new layout, lower shelves, brighter colors, brighter lighting and new signage.
There will be a ribbon-cutting at 9 a.m. Friday, and the store will present $2,000 in grants to Jacksonville organizations.
Friends Natural Market to close
Friends Natural Market in Oxford is closing after 14 years. For most of that time, Friends was the place to get organic foods, gluten-free products and bulk spices (without having to drive an hour to Whole Foods in Birmingham).
But now organic foods have gone mainstream. “Larger grocery chains are now offering many of these items, which is a good thing for broader availability, but there is just not enough business to sustain a small market like Friends,” said owner Dave Garfrerick.
As Friends Natural Market has been steadily shrinking, Garfrerick’s other enterprise — Garfrerick’s Café — has been growing by leaps and bounds. Garfrerick’s, where Dave is the chef, serves up local, organic foods, all creatively prepared. Garfrerick also makes sure to have plenty of gluten-free dishes available, to serve his gluten-free customers.
Closing day for Friends Natural Market is July 22. Garfrerick’s Café is next door, at 655 Creekside Drive, Oxford, 256-624-9008.
Peach milkshake in season
The seasons have changed at Chick-Fil-A. The restaurant has retired its spring milkshake (banana pudding) and has rolled out the ever-popular peach milkshake for summer. Yum.
New cookbook: Guy food
Guy Fieri is the ultimate food dude — host of the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Guy’s Big Bite and of NBC’s Minute to Win It.
The spiky-haired personality from Santa Rosa, Calif., is out with Guy Fieri Food (William Morrow, $29.99), a cookbook that’s as wacky as Fieri, who’s known for his catchy phrases, tattoos, bling and fast-talking commentary (often with a mouthful of food).
The 400-page cookbook has more than 150 recipes intertwined with whimsical biographical bits.
There’s a list of what’s in his pantry, including nine pepper grinders, and a peek at his fabulous kitchen and enormous outdoor pizza oven, plus many how-to photos. It’s surrounded by graphics and illustrations by Fieri’s tattoo artist, Joe Leonard.
— Compiled from staff and wire reports by Lisa Davis, 256-235-3555, ldavis@annistonstar.com
