Hunger is the mother of all invention.

Last night, a cucumber gazpacho at The National revealed my culinary destiny to me. I guzzled it like a thirsty off-road vehicle at the foot of a muddy hill, hungry for grit in its grille. This summer soup must be the reason I’d received a blender for my birthday last year!

The waitress, framed in red hair and red glasses, had lilted out the names of the local farms where each ingredient originated. The Athens area is rich with many local farms, so many fresh ingredients; this must have been why the culinary gods helped me relocate to Athens.

After two months on a demanding client project, I have some time to cook again. My culinary destiny is ripe, and Athens is good for the picking. I’ll keep you posted on my Classic City gazpacho adventures as they come this summer.

No kidding

The Onion wins a Peabody. Even on April Fools Day, this seems somewhat unbelievable. The full list of Peabody Award winners from UGA's Grady College can be found here. For those who are unaware, the Peabody Awards are a gem of a program that is the "Oscar" of the media industry. One of UGA's most prominent national outreach efforts.

Congrats to Hugh Acheson

Hugh Acheson, the shining star of the Athens culinary scene, is a finalist for the James Beard Foundation's Best Chef Award (southeastern region). The Beard Award is one of the food industry's most prestigious awards.

Locally, you can sample Acheson's cuisine at Five & 10 and The National. The food is always good, and unlike many Athens establishments, the service is consistently top notch as well.

The Classic Twitty

As a recent Facebook convert, I've extended the boundaries of my social media sphere by starting a Twitter account. If you're not familiar with Twitter, it's also been called microblogging and gives users 140 characters to answer the question "What are you doing?" Inboxer Brian blogged about the growing popularity of the application back in January.

Among those I follow on Twitter are friends, co-workers, PR gurus and media outlets. Being relatively new to Twitter, I sometimes find the conversations hard to follow and never know whether anyone could actually be interested in the fact that I'm writing a press release at the moment. But there are those who've gotten the hang of it. In fact, Twitter Grader has a list of the Twitter Elite in Athens. Among them are UGA professor and social media maven Karen Russell and former Jackson Spalding interns Katherine Strate and Lizzie Azzolino. If you want to be tweeting with the who's who in Athens, check out the list and follow their lead.

Getting Creative

I love it when an uber-traditional brand gets outside the box. While consumer brands have gotten somewhat comfortable with this, real estate and resort destinations have been less inclined to take marketing risks.

That could be changing. One of the most hallowed destinations of the South, the Grove Park Inn, has apparently decided to step beyond classical music, slow panning video, old-couples-smiling-at-each-other-in-pool-pictures and obligatory sunset shots. I say good for Grove Park. While I'm not sure this approach totally fits with their brand (try reconciling the corporate site here with the microsite listed below, for example), it is sure to get attention and drive page views in an era of stodgy resort advertising. Throw in the neat story and microsite, and it is sure to get a little new- and old-media attention as well.

Winterville Native Up for German Ambassadorship?

According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Winterville native Tom Harrold is being considered by the Obama administration for the ambassadorship to Germany.

Harrold, a quarterback for Athens High School in his youth and an Athens Y Camp alumnus, is known as one of the state's top international and economic development attorneys. He began his career at Fortston, Bentley & Griffin before moving to Atlanta (there he practices with Miller & Martin) and has been politically active for years.

Harrold, who characterized his candidacy as a "long shot" in an interview with the Chronicle, would join Mercer Reynolds and UGA Law Professor Don Johnson as the only individuals with strong local ties in recent years to serve as ambassadors that the Inbox is aware of.

Could Local Cable Get Worse?

Apparently, in the wake of confusing my Tivo and ruining my plans to see the entire Duke-UNC game last night, Charter has decided to file bankruptcy. Obviously forcing thousands of Charter subscribers to watch the game on Raycom rather than ESPN was the straw that broke the camel's back. I wonder if they will give the judge a five hour window of time when they may or may not appear to actually file.

In all seriousness, Charter is the cable provider in Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties, so it will be interesting to see if their operations are impacted, or if other cable companies will try to grab a piece of that monopoly. The company also provides high speed internet services to a number of households in the region.