Lunch

Holiday menu (chef's choice at each school)

A horse grazes in a field covered with tiny, yellow wildflowers last week near Schollsville Road.

The Community Arts Center will kick off its first installment of their new monthly "Lunch with the Arts" series, Wednesday. The lunch-hour event will feature Raleigh Dailey, an internationally-acclaimed jazz pianist, composer and scholar whose performances have been featured throughout the United States, South America, Europe and Asia. He also appears regularly with Miles Osland, with whom he completed a performing tour in Ecuador, South America. The Lunch with the Arts series idea was introduced by Joan Stansbury, who moved to Danville less than two years ago. "As a retired music teacher, I started looking for activities where I could meet people with similar interests," Stansbury said.

Several members of the Kiddville Homemakers Club held a Christmas luncheon Dec. 13 at Boone Tavern in Berea, where the tavern is known for its spoon bread. The event was highlighted with a tour of the tavern, including the second floor, where the group waited in a sitting room before a roaring fire until lunch was ready. Attending the luncheon were Marcia Damron, Barbara Wicker, Marian Sublette, Mavis Shearer, Helen Kitchen, Frances Long, Iva Frodge and Betty Wilmore. Taste of China on the Bypass was the scene of the Nov. 8 meeting of the Kiddville Homemakers Club with Mavis Shearer as hostess.

The comics, the funny papers, the cartoons - whatever you call them, you have to admit they are a feature of the paper that always draws your eye. Some make you laugh, others make you cringe, but there is always at least one that will make you stop and think.  This is the goal of editorial cartoonist Joel Pett, who will lead a talk Wednesday about his particular brand of outspoken art.   About the artist  Pett got bitten by...

The Community Art Center continues its monthly “Lunch with the Arts” series Wednesday as it welcomes Lydia DiMartino-Ellis for a special performance, ”Lady Plays the Blues.” DiMartino-Ellis will be playing favorite blues and jazz standards such as “St. Louis Blues,” “Blue Bossa,” “Autumn Leaves,” and more. DiMartino-Ellis recently was named conductor of Danville’s Advocate Brass Band, which will be performing at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in October.

The Joy XYZ Club had an outing Tuesday. The group traveled to Mount Sterling for lunch at Aromas Koffee Kottage with Country Home De'Cor, 3315 Camargo Road. The group rode in the First United Methodist Church bus, driven by Vernon Shearer. Lunch was served by Aroma's owners, Diane Morgan, Lisa Hayes and Tammy Tapp. The table blessing was said by Bibby Anderson. Those in attendance were: Vernon and Karen Shearer, Bibby Anderson, Ann Collins, Marion and John Sublette, coordinator Boo Baldwin, Lynn Harmon, Ethel Vance, Louise Hall, Edith Myles, Alice Tucker and Bernice Roberts.

Chapter 1828 of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association met at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, July 22 at the Taste of China. Robert D. Campbell, a retired Clark County educator, was the guest speaker for the meeting. He spoke about the Orphan Brigade, a brigade made up of soldiers from Kentucky who fought for the Confederacy. Campbell said the brigade did not fight in Kentucky, but it did fight in many of the other southeastern states. Present at the meeting were Gayle Rees, Charlotte Rees, Clement Miner, Floyd Gibbs, Pat Gibbs, Robert D. Campbell, Donald S. Henry, Elbert Powell, Evelyn Powell, Bob Larkey, Jane Larkey, Garrett Brown, Serena Brown, Jean Brandenburg, Billie Scrivner, Elizabeth Bunch, Betty Hollon, Lucille B. Creech, Mildred Gallaher, Audrey King, Janice Taulbee, R.B. Omuhundro, Lila Omuhundro, Ruby Lenox, Geneva Lenox, Stoner H. Parsons, Helen Parsons, Philip Jackson, Dolores Tabor, Jim Fehr, George Chalfant, Elizabeth Chalfant, Otella Witt, Larry Bosco, Steve Lech and Ruth Lech.

During the past week, I found that several of you do read my column and I sincerely appreciate it. Also by several of you I was reminded that I had forgotten a few things about early Winchester. One was the ice house, another was the incinerator that left a low, stinky, smoky look over our town. Yes, I remember those things well. I never did tour the ice house but I remember my family getting ice from a horse-drawn wagon. We had a big, red square piece of cardboard that we put in the window, with the sign turned to the requested size of ice ... 25, 50, 75 or 100 pounds of ice. The ice man would chisel off the size ice that we wanted, making the chips fly where they may. As I got older I thought that he really chipped a little faster than needed, but it gave the kids on the block the opportunity to pick up ice chips.

Visitors to the Community Arts Center can take a trip to Indonesia and Asia without ever leaving their seats, thanks to Kuo-Huang Han, a recently-retired professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Kentucky. Indonesian music and culture has held a fascination for Han ever since his days as a student at Northwestern University, where he took a course on 20th century music. “I learned that Claude Debussy was influenced by Indonesian gamelan music, but I didn't know what that was,” Han explained.

Members of the Jessamine County Chamber of Commerce learned a little more about how high-schoolers are preparing for life after graduation nowadays during a chamber luncheon at Jessamine Career and Technology Center on Tuesday. Principal Dexter Knight shared a little bit about the school's basics; JCTC serves as a hub for career and technical education in the county and includes students from East Jessamine, West Jessamine and The Providence School. But the bulk of the presentation came from Vanessa Ruda, who directs the school's center for college and career readiness.

Appalachia figures prominently in Kentucky culture, history, and politics and serves as the centerpiece of George Ella Lyon's Lunch with the Arts presentation this Wednesday at the Boyle County Public Library. George Ella's connection to Appalachia runs strong and deep; as she explains, “I grew up in the mountains of Harlan County, Kentucky. All four of my grandparents were in Harlan, so I heard a lot of stories from them that reflected Appalachian culture.” The connection to writing and creative expression runs just as deep for Lyon.

My daughter Phoebe just called. She lives two hours north of us and, so far, they have waist-high deep snow accumulated overnight with that much more expected by tonight. She had just come in from rounding up their horses that had left their stalls and couldn't get back to them. She said their winter coats had ice hanging on them. Phoebe is happiest out of doors in the elements. It bothers her not one bit to trudge through waist-high wet snow and I admire her spirit. Sometimes I think she was born in the wrong era and would have been a great pioneer woman.

Wednesday, the Boyle County Public Library's Friends of the Library and the Community Arts Center will co-host this month's Lunch with the Arts guest, Liz Orndorff. The program is set for 4 p.m. in the library. The local playwright traveled to Danville's sister city of Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, as part of an artist exchange facilitated by the Danville Sister Cities Commission. Orndorff explains the purpose of her trip was “to experience the life of the people of Carrickfergus and to exchange ideas and activities with artists and schoolchildren of Northern Ireland.” This exchange involved visits with local school groups who participated in drama workshops and visits to Maghaberry Prison to work with inmates.

Cafeteria plates in Jessamine County schools are a little more full after the removal of some federal guidelines that sent many students home hungry. Regulations from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act ironically were leaving bellies empty in lunch rooms thanks to caps on the amount of protein and grains that could be served to a student in a given week, said Karen Barden, Jessamine County's food-service director. “We had new guidance from the USDA for our school meals under the new school initiative,” she said.

Music is nearly synonymous with the holidays - whether it is a traditional Christmas carol, classic jazz or country standard, or modern pop cover, everyone has a favorite Christmas carol or holiday song. The Community Arts Center's monthly Lunch with the Arts series is celebrating the connection between the holidays and music, thanks to Centre College choir director and Stodghill Professor of Music Barbara Hall. “For anybody involved with choral music, it is the high point of the year,” says Hall.

At lunch this Friday, emptying your bowl means filling one for someone else. It means helping Clark County Community Services continue working in the community, and lending a helping hand during the holiday season. The Clark County Empty Bowls project will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church on Windridge Drive. For $15, participants get a handmade bowl and lunch, with all proceeds going to Community Services. “I think it's run pretty smoothly, and I¿think the church there has been a good venue for that.

The Jessamine County Ministerial Association will meet Dec. 11, 2012 at  noon at Nicholasville Christian Church located at 104 S 2 nd   St, Nicholasville. Anita Gibson of Grace Happens, a ministry to aid women in alcohol and drug addiction recovery, will be there to share their mission and how churches and the community can participate in reaching out to those in recovery.  You can learn more about them at www.gracehappensky.com. Jessamine County pastors, ministers and chaplains are invited to attend this meeting.   Lunch will be provided lunch for those in attendance.

Never take “common knowledge” for granted. I learned that, again, the other day when one of our best and most frequent patrons, Randall Milburn, came in to ask me to order a book that he wanted to donate to the collection. After I expressed our gratitude for the donation, Randall also mentioned that he was about to get a new laptop or tablet and he wanted to know what the charge was for accessing the library's Wi-Fi (wireless) internet access. I thought everybody knew that Wi-Fi access at the library is free.