About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 30, 2022)
Wednesday, November 30,2022 dawsonnews.com I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I 3B Best appetizers for the holidays A longing for Julia Reed My favorite type of parties to have are appetizer parties. So many apps can be made ahead of time, so as the host or hostess, you can actually enjoy your own party. Not only that, when every body can stand around and graze, while chit chatting and enjoying an adult bever age, it is so much more casual and personable than a formal, sit-down dinner. I recommend making a charcuterie platter since that is an appetizer you mostly arrange and don’t cook. A beautiful dish really shows off the food. One of my good friends gave me a rustic, round wooden board that has iron handles and turns around, so guests can easily choose what they want. It is one of my favorite serving pieces. The key to a beautiful char cuterie board is a variety of textures and colors. Several types of cheese, different sala- mis and/or specialty deli meats, dried and fresh fruit, littie jars of jam, olives of all sorts, nuts, and some fresh herb sprigs for a natural gar nish. Provide a variety of crackers, toasted baguette slic es, pretzels, pita chips, bread sticks, cheese straws, etc. Get creative! Another easy and always welcome appetizer is cocktail shrimp. The bigger the shrimp, the better. You can buy them frozen and already cooked, or make them your self. Just make sure you have a big bowl of ice water to shock them in once they are done. These cook quickly— probably in 1 ¥i minutes, so don’t overcook the shrimp. I like to serve them alongside regular cocktail sauce, as well as a spicy remoulade sauce for dipping. Don’t forget to pro vide a bowl for the shrimp tails. Most dips can be made ahead of time—some even a few days ahead of time. Just let them sit out for an hour or so to let them soften. Here are some simple, yet delicious appetizers to get your Christmas season off to a yummy start! Blue cheese and port are a natural pairing. You can make this dip/spread a few days ahead of time—just wait to stir in the walnuts right before serving. Blue Cheese Port Spread • 8 ounces mild blue cheese • 6 table spoons butter, at room temperature • 14 cup Port • Pinch of cayenne • % cup chopped walnuts Combine all ingredients except walnuts in food proces sor. Process until very smooth. Spoon into a bowl, cover and refrigerate for at least a few hours or for a few days. When ready to serve, let sit out at room temperature for an hour. Stir in walnuts before serving. HotVidalia Onion Souffle • 2 Vidalia (or other sweet onion) onion • 24 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature • !/2 cup mayonnaise • 8 ounces Swiss cheese, grated Dice onions finely. Beat cream cheese and mayonnaise with electric mixer. Add onions and grated cheese and beat again. Pour into a 9x13 casserole dish. Cover and refrigerate up to a day ahead of time. Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Bake uncovered for 15 minutes, until hot and bubbly. Serve with crackers or com chips. I love endive! They are the perfect vessel for a myriad of “stuffings.” And they look so pretty on a platter. Their crunch provides such a fresh ness—here are a few yummy things you can add to your endive leaves. Waldorf Salad • 2 tablespoons mayon naise • 2 tablespoons Greek yogurt • 1 tablespoon lemon juice • 1 cup halved red, seedless grapes • 1 cup chopped apple, such as Gala or Honeycrisp • 1 cup sliced celery • 'A cup parsley, minced • Pinch of salt and pepper • 1 cup toasted walnuts, chopped • Endive leaves for serving Whisk together mayon naise, Greek yogurt, and lemon juice. In a bowl, com bine grapes, apple, celery, parsley, salt and pepper. Add mayonnaise dressing and stir to combine. Spoon into endive leaves and top with toasted walnuts. Shrimp Salad • 1 pound shrimp, cooked and coarsely chopped • 14 cup mayonnaise • 1 teaspoon Old Bay or other creole seasoning, plus more for serving • 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar • 14 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce • 14 cup finely diced celery • 2 tablespoons green onion • Endive leaves for serving Whisk together mayon naise, Old Bay seasoning, white wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, celery and green onion. Add cooked, chopped shrimp, stirring to combine. Cover and refrigera tor for several hours. When ready to serve, spoon shrimp salad into endive leaves and sprinkle with a little bit of Old Bay seasoning. Spicy Remoulade Sauce for Cocktail Shrimp • 1 cup mayonnaise • 2 tablespoons Dijon mus tard • 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish • 1 tablespoon lemon juice • 14 cup finely chopped cel ery • 14 cup finely minced green onion • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne (more to taste) • 1 tablespoon paprika • 1 clove garlic, finely minced Combine all ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving. ADLEN ROBINSON Columnist Dawson Duals presented Tigers challenges, positive moments By Rio White riowhite@dawsonnews.com The Dawson County varsi ty wrestling team hosted the Dawson Duals event on Tuesday, Nov. 22, giving the Tigers a chance to test their skills against a large group of schools. A total of eight teams con vened at the Ford Phillips Center for an all-day event that would measure the endurance of each wrestler. Due to a number of for feits, the Tigers finished last in total points. For Dawson, a day full of ups and downs was high lighted by wins by seven wrestlers, including multiple from Landon Glander, Luke Lowe, Colton Schuette and Alex Stewart. The Tigers started the day against Chestatee, with Schuette going up first and winning to get Dawson ahead early. But the host team strug gled from then on and were unable to score against Chestatee again until the final match, when Stewart picked up a win. Next up was White County, against whom the Tigers had more success. The opening few matches saw Dawson stay competi tive and close, with Glander earning a win in his match. After a pair of tough per formances by Mason Rosenburg and Jesus Arroyo in defeat, Lowe would get the Tigers back on track with a win. While senior Noah Roberson came close to grabbing a win but fell short, Stewart picked up his second win of the day later on. The third opponent for Dawson was Ridgeland. After Glander’s second win of the day, Arroyo would get the win he had been fighting for all morning. Lowe would win again before the Tigers picked up two additional wins on forfeits. The final match of the day for Dawson was against Coahulla Creek. Lowe won his third match of the day before Lonnie Barrett picked up his first vic tory of the Dawson Duals. Later on, Schuette and Rosenberg won to round out the afternoon for the Tigers. FROM 1B Influence Valor,” Sonnichsen said. “We would do extra work after practices and he would always end this segment with a motivational speech and a [Bible] verse. Meeting with the coach practice after prac tice, I had come to the real ization that I wanted to be more like him.” In addition to increasing his work ethic through Kijanko, Sonnichsen also used his influence to chart his own collegiate path. After initial uncertainty, he took the chance to continue both his football career and spiritual journey at Taylor University — a program Kijanko coached at for many years and where the family has a scholarship in their name. That decision to embark on a path far away from home served as a template for Dameron. Both have credited Kijanko as being a positive influence. “He has a strong character that has always pushed and motivated me to be who I am today,” Sonnichsen said. “I will always be so apprecia tive for the things he has done for me.” “He’s made me a better football player but more importantly he’s made me a better man,” Dameron said. “Something that will forever stick with me is when he spoke about being a man of honor — to take 100% accountability for your actions and to lead by exam ple. Probably the greatest lesson I have ever learned in my life.” On the other end, Kijanko expressed admiration at both players for their efforts on the field and growth as men. “Their work ethic is what really got them where they are right now,” Kijanko said. “They want more than just the physical, football experi ence. They are looking for more as far as developing into a whole person.” Through their hard work, Dameron and Sonnichsen have both earned playing time on their respective teams as freshmen and have positive structures around them as they transition into adulthood. It is no longer clear to me as to when I read first the words of Julia Reed. But it is quite vivid as to when I moved from being a reader of hers to being a fan. For years, I had devoured her articles in New York fashion and Washington news magazines. It was, however, the several pages that Vogue dedicat ed to her wedding - she married late in life but did it grandly in her Mississippi hometown of Greenville — that captured my loyalty. Until then, I had no idea that she was one of us. A Southerner as pure as the glimmering cotton bolls that dot the fields of her beloved Delta. I could never get enough of Julia Reed’s stories. She became “my Southern writer” because Southern writers always have at least one to whom we look for entertained inspi ration. Julia’s South was vastly different from my South. She was the proge ny of old Nashville money, wedded to Delta prominence, influence and wealth. My South is a gathering together of pole beans, moonshine and river baptisms. Hers was composed of perfectly- aged whiskey, expensive crystal, sil ver and a decades-old family retreat on the Gulf Coast. While my childhood was spent on a creek bank with a heartful of day dreams and an armful of books, Julia often visited her maternal grand mother in Nashville’s exclusive Belle Meade where she and her cousin, Frances, would play in a room reserved specifically for Louis Vuitton luggage. I never knew anyone who traveled with a complete set of Vuitton lug gage from Paris. I still don’t. When Frances died too young and Julia poured her grief into a story for Garden and Gun magazine, I cried with her. My favorite Julia book was The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story. In it, she detailed the stately old house that she set about to restore while running head-on into the thieves, liars and lazy folks we all encounter when taking on too much of a project. My South I knew intimately. The simplicity. The purity. The tattered Bibles. The set of white Corning Ware dishes trimmed in blue that Mama proudly used for supper every night. Julia’s South was one I knew not at all. And I loved learning everything about it. Once, I was on a Mississippi Riverboat cruise - the American Queen - which stopped in Greenville for a day of literary visits. It was thrilling, of course, to see the town that Hodding Carter, William Alexander Percy, his nephew, Walker Percy, and Shelby Foote had decorated with fame. “Are we going to see where Julia Reed was raised?” I asked the tour guide, hopeful and excited. She replied that the family preferred pri vacy. I was disappointed but I under stood. Once, I wrote Julia a letter and included a copy of my first book about Southern women. She replied with several handwritten pages on engraved, heavy stock stationery. I still count that letter among my trea sures. Two years ago, Jon Alverson, the proud Publisher of Greenville’s Delta Democrat-Times, texted me about 9 p.m. one Friday night. The succinct message hit my heart. “Julia Reed died. On my way to the newspaper to work the story.” She had publicly announced a diagnosis of cancer but anyone who was familiar with her and the way she irreverently thumbed her nose at anything she did not like — such as death — believed she would live to write myriad books and hundreds more essays. It was sorrow in many ways - the thought of her parents ’grief, how her beloved beagle, Henry, would mourn and my own selfishness at my entertainment that had disap peared like a vapor. I’m grateful to still have my South with its delicious characters, abun dance of life stories and oddities. By my oh, my, how I miss hearing about Julia Reed’s storied South. Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of What Southern Women Know (That Every Woman Should). Visit www. rondarich.com to sign upforherfree weekly newsletter. RONDA RICH Columnist FROM 1B Basketball tougher test in Model before playing against an even tougher East Forsyth team the next night. Jaci Wilson led the girls team with a 14-point performance, using her accu racy in the paint to finish off the quick-passing motions of the Lady Tigers offense. She also used her height to have a strong defensive per formance. Abby Samples-Slaton continued her hot scoring start to the season with 13 points while Kirklyn Porter con tributed 10. Every active player on the roster scored for the Lady Tigers against Towers. “We have a lot of kids who can score,” head coach Will Anglin said. “We try to play fast and we can score inside and score outside. I thought the kids handled business, moved it around and took what the defense gave them.” Head coach Todd Cottrell and the boys team faced a Model side with a significant height advantage that proved to be a challenge early on. While the Tigers scored most of their first-half points from distance, the collective defensive effort gradual ly wore the visitors down. This allowed the Dawson offense take chances on the inside, with sever al players finding success right under the rim. Juniors Trey Harvey and Caden Reed led the charge with 21 points each while Ethan Parker scored 12 points after a big second half. “The biggest thing I wanted to see from our guys is to continue to play with confidence, poise and compo sure,” Cottrell said. “If we compete, we have a chance to be decent.” The Tigers would need that compo sure early on, facing a towering center on Model who stood at 6-foot-9. While that center had early success, Dawson’s consistent defensive pres sure on him and the rest of Model’s team eventually forced the visitors to mix up their gameplan. Between the defensive effort and timely jump shots from Harvey, Reed and Joshua Priest, the Tigers took a 35-33 lead into halftime. The third quarter proved to be deci sive in the outcome of the game, with Dawson’s defense forcing mistakes out of Model, allowing the Tigers offense more time on the ball. This resulted in Dawson outsourc ing Model 20-8 in the third quarter to lead 55-45 heading into the fourth quarter. The Tigers would continue to find offensive success, hanging on to win 71-65. “We knew once we had the lead that we had to protect it,” Reed said. “After we had that spark in the third quarter it was time to hold onto that lead.” The boys team would lose the fol lowing night to East Forsyth 87-64 in a game played at the University of North Georgia. The DCHS varsity teams will pick back up on Friday, Dec. 2, with a non region visit to East Jackson before hosting their region opening games against West Hall on Tuesday, Dec. 6. FROM 1B Sweany that moment.” Sweany also built a strong work ing relationship with the football staff over the years, helping capture moments that went beyond the action on the field — most notably those involving the late coach George Moser during the 2021 sea son. Though Sweany originally meant to step down after her daughter’s graduation in 2022, her friend and DCHS Director of Football Terry Haymond helped convince Sweany to stay on this past season. “I have the utmost respect for coach Maxwell and his staff,” Sweany said. “I think the world of him and I love our boys.” During her years with the football team, Sweany also became recog nized throughout the community for her Sole Photography studio, which works with families and businesses all around Dawson County. Two years into her time with DCHS football, Sweany decided to take the full leap into photography as her occupation and left her long time job at Sawnee EMC. While her days on the football field may be over, she is more than eager to continue her work with the people of Dawson County. “I’m not going anywhere,” Sweany said. “It’s cool to be a part of so many different parts of the community. I’m honored to be a part of so many peoples’ lives.”
