Deep Fried Kudzu

As always, all images unless otherwise noted copyright Deep Fried Kudzu. Like to use one elsewhere? Kindly contact me here.

Affiliate links are sometimes used. That means that if you purchase something via one of the links, it costs you nothing extra, but may generate a commission, offsetting the cost of DFK… e.g. as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Also: remember that Bookshop is fab because they’re giving orders to indie booksellers. Grateful for your support. xoxo!

Super short this week!

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Those Wrangler x Lucchese jeans are  $496.

Field trip to the Lucchese shop:

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Andy Warhol’s Dolly Parton, from a visit to Crystal Bridges in 2014

Even the Art Newspaper reported on Dolly Parton’s plans for a museum and more in Nashville

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Bitter Southerner calls this peach wrapping paper what it is but I’m thinking those Whelan Girls need to make it into wallpaper, and I’m not even a wallpaper person

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From a 2013 visit

Country Roads on the levee bonfires, lighting the way for Papa Noel along the Mississippi. Here’s what Blood, Sweat, and Bonfires is building.

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Highlands, 2017

Just ran across the ‘Best Classic Restaurants in Each State‘ at Food & Wine, and for Alabama, it was Highlands in Birmingham. I happened to have a pedicure next to someone who works for the group, and they’re still unsure if Highlands will open in weeks, months… Also getting a mention, Bright Star, Martin’s, Archibald’s, and Doc’s Seafood.

Georgia is Bacchanalia, The Colonnade, Busy Bee, Mrs Wilkes, and Weaver D’s.

For Louisiana, they mention Commander’s, Antoine’s, Arnaud’s, Galatoire’s, Dooky Chase, and Casamento’s.

In Mississippi, it’s Bully’s, Dinner Bell, Doe’s, Weidmann’s, and Mary Mahoney’s.

Tennessee = Bea’s, Arnold’s, Prince’s, the Rendezvous, Scott’s BBQ in Lexington, and the Old Mill in Pigeon Forge.

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Super random:

I love that Lane Cake is Alabama’s official dessert, but wowee: the baguette has been granted World Heritage status by UNESCO (and PS, there’s a baguette problem in rural areas of France). Others with the distinction here.

Ryden x Barbie

Robb Report on Elvis’ private jet coming up for auction, and the plush red velvet seats are EVERYthing

Alex Hitz will be signing his Occasions to Celebrate at Square Books on Jan 26

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Watched Descendant, the Clothilde / Africatown story on Netflix — excellent

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Gone but not Forgotten: Louisiana’s small cemeteries at risk in changing landscapes by Brian M. Davis at 64 Parishes

Across Bayou Lafourche, at the intersection of the Southwest Louisiana Canal, parts of the Lefort Cemetery remained above the water line until August 2021, when Hurricane Ida made landfall thirteen miles to the south. What remains of brick vaults are now underwater.

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Emeril’s, 2016

Emeril’s has changed (a LOT, it needed to) and here’s the latest

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The Broadway and off-Broadway productions of TKAM are still…dramatic. From the NYT:

Courtroom Drama: New Legal Battle Over ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Three years ago a new Broadway play based on the classic Harper Lee novel tried to prevent regional stagings of an earlier dramatization. Now, the roles are reversed.

In 2019, the producers of a Broadway adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” provoked outrage by seeking to prevent a group of small theaters around the country from staging an earlier dramatization of the novel.

Now the tables have turned: The publisher of the earlier adaptation is seeking to block the Broadway version from being staged at a wide variety of venues.

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Hope you’ve been having a fun week! Big news on Monday xoxo!

Visited the LaGrange Art Museum in LaGrange, Georgia last week. Their Eat. Sleep. Art. Repeat. exhibit is on through March 4.

Tom Patton, Olive Loaf (which reminded me of Jerry Siegel’s Carolina grocery store image)

Elsworth Kelly, Oranges

Rick Leech’s Dinner Table or Oversize Conversation Piece with the boar face jug and the poor bunny (?) all splayed

Alexia Markarian

Isabella Losskarn, Will You Cut that Up for Her

Two books, above, Salvadore Dali Les Diners de Gala and below, Andy Warhol and Suzy Frankfurt Wild Raspberries

Especially nice are the virtual exhibits that LaGrange keeps online, in particular Butch Anthony’s fabulous Art, Nature, and Intertwangleism. It is BEYOND.

This graveshelter is at Old Union Baptist in Alabama’s Talladega National Forest. It’s a very isolated area…no signal getting up here.

There are four monuments under the roof. The two to the right are illegible; these two are for members of the Raglin family. I believe this couple had at least eleven children, so the two to the right *may* be their children who died at a young age.

I’ve documented over 60 cemeteries in Alabama with graveshelters; if you know of one, I’d love to do a site visit. Kindly email me with any information. Thank you!

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BTW, the 1853 Airmount Graveshelter (it’s on the Register) in Clarke County, Alabama has recently been restored after damage from Hurricane Zeta.

There’s a bread recipe that I use many weeks of the year — one batch will make two or three days’ worth of bread. Many times, I’ll make it early in the week and there will be enough for me to make a small-ish challah on Friday. I use it to make rolls, loaf bread, and just whatever. Crazy easy and it keeps in the refrigerator.

Ingredients:
1/2 c warm water (apparently 95* is optimum, but don’t let it get warmer than 140* which is the point it kills yeast)
1 packet dry yeast (1/4 oz)
1 tsp sugar
5c all-purpose flour
3 tbsp sugar
5 tsp baking powder
3 tsp salt
1/2 c butter cut into small pieces
1/2 c butter-flavored Crisco (seriously, Crisco)
2 c buttermilk
additional butter for baking

1/ in a measuring cup, combine the warm water, yeast, and 1 tsp sugar. Let that work and bubble five minutes.
2/ in a large bowl (I use the Kitchenaid) combine the flour and other dry ingredients. Next, add the yeast mixture. Add the butter and Crisco last. Just stir this until everything comes together — not long.
3/ in the fridge, place the bowl with a dishtowel or saran on top. The dough will be ready to use after a couple of hours. Keep unused dough in the refrigerator.

To bake:
1/ preheat oven to 400*. Shape into whatever you like — rolls, loaf bread, challah…good for so many things. In general, smaller things will be ready at :20-:25, larger things may take up to :45. Add butter toward the end of the bake to get the crust more nice and brown.

I was contacted by E.T. Wickham’s great-granddaughter earlier this year about a project she’s working on, and have been watching this talk she gave on his sculptures

in part:
“E.T. Wickham: The Intersection of Family and Preservation” by Brittany Wickham Walker
In the back woods of Palmyra, Tennessee, a small community southwest of Clarksville, dozens of concrete statues line a road near the Cumberland River. Although many of these sculptures have been vandalized since their creation in the mid-1900s, they play an important role in the settlement and identity of the area. These sculptures were created by Enoch Tanner Wickham, a self-taught artist who created nearly forty concrete works during the last twenty years of his life, using only the materials around him. Although his period of artistic significance lasted less than twenty years, Wickham’s work had a notable impact on his community. His formal education ended in the sixth grade, but his knowledge of and interest in American history and politics inspired his work. His sculptures included politicians, religious figures, wildlife, American presidents, and soldiers. A descendent of one of the first families to settle in Montgomery County, Wickham was surprisingly liberal for his age and location, inspired by figures like John F. Kennedy. The artist had a reputation of being a mischief-maker, often playing practical jokes on his conservative (and not receptive) Palmyra neighbors.

I visited this environment a few years ago — here are some of the images

I finished reading Wayne Flynt’s new Afternoons with Harper Lee (here signed at Alabama Booksmith, here at Bookshop, here at Amazon) about a week ago; in it, she mentions Truman Capote, whom she played with as a child (he lived with his Faulk family in Monroeville in a house by the Lee home). The Faulk home is no longer, and on the site now, a dairy bar. A historic marker stands:

and reads in part: Capote himself lived in this home between 1927 and c. 1933, and for several years spent his summer vacations here. Two of the Faulk sisters operated a highly successful millinery shop located on the town square. The third sister, affectionately known as “Sook,” was the inspiration for characters in the Glass Harp, The Thanksgiving Visitor, and A Christmas Memory.

Nelle Lee mentions to the Flynts one day that Sook was her favorite of the Faulks, and made her out to be a poorly educated but faithful Baptist except when she would sample the moonshine whiskey used in her fruitcakes — and that those fruitcakes truly deserved all the praise heaped upon them.

The accents here are just not right, but I’ve clipped the scene in ACM where Sook brings her ingredient shopping list:

These cooler temps do indicate that it’s fruitcake time, because a proper fruitcake requires weeks of maturing…letting the alcohol mellow out some.

I make quickie fruitcakes — cupcakes! — the night before they’re enjoyed, and the alcohol has not mellowed out. It’s THERE. (Hi, if you’re one of those people who’s going for wine-level descriptors of the complex flavors that come with cakes that have set for weeks, that’s great too, but just get started early). And here’s the most important, important, important thing about fruitcakes no matter what you’re going for: only put in what tastes good that you’d eat on your own otherwise. Citron peel? No thanks. Make these like a crabcake: only enough filler to hold things together. A good fruitcake has all the yummy bits — pineapple, cherries, golden raisins all generously bathed in whiskey plus pecans, even chocolate chips if you like. It’s so customizable. Here’s my recipe.

My fave church sign ever
We Give Thanks for G-d and Chicken Dressing
Philadelphia Church
Guin AL, 2019.

L-rd Give Us Grace Arrow Sign
Ozark AL, 2022.

A super-short This Week’s Various.

As always, all images unless otherwise noted copyright Deep Fried Kudzu. Like to use one elsewhere? Kindly contact me here.

Affiliate links are sometimes used. That means that if you purchase something via one of the links, it costs you nothing extra, but may generate a commission, offsetting the cost of DFK… e.g. as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Also: remember that Bookshop is fab because they’re giving orders to indie booksellers. Grateful for your support. xoxo!

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Purchased Wayne Flynt’s new book, Afternoons with Harper Lee, this week at Alabama Booksmith which has a stunning attribute: every book there is signed by the author and sold at the regular publisher’s price. And they’ll ship. Before it was this way, I got an amazing collection of (unsigned) Eugene Walter books that were almost impossible to get anywhere else.

BTW, Mobile is spending 2022 celebrating its late renaissance man, Eugene Walter (and namesake of my cat — I’ve waited since the ’90s to have a boy cat to name Eugene). They included this quote:

“I know when they took him to the hospital, when he was dying and they were carrying him into the hospital and on the way in, one of the nurses asked him if he was allergic to anything and he said ‘only one thing…Fob James,’” said Haines with a chuckle at the joke at the expense of Alabama’s former Governor.

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In Arkansas: Rural Teacher Prep Program Delivers ‘Job-Embedded’ Degrees — For $75 a Month, at Daily Yonder

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The Scottsboro Boys Museum reopened this week and I attended the dedication and ribbon cutting. Will make a post later this week (and the exhibits are new and fabulous).

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At the NYT: How Did a Minister Come to Own Hundreds of Edward Hoppers? An exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art exploring Hopper’s vision of New York has also rekindled questions about how a Baptist minister came to own so much of his art.

Saw this Edward Hopper, his 1962 ‘New York Office’, at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts last year. Part of the permanent collection there since 1989.

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Spotted around UAB last week:

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Finally got to the Carnegie Visual Arts Center in Decatur, Alabama to view the Daisie Hoitsma + Jason Tanner Young: reach exhibit, which was on through November 5 — nice, nice, nice. Really looking forward to the Sophie McVicar Symbols of Transformation exhibit that opens Nov 15 and goes through Jan 15.

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In Helvetia, West Virginia, from the Johnson City Press:
The fresh flowers that grace each table at The Hűtte, the collection of black-iron skillets purchased over the years at estate sales, and the meticulously waxed floors are all testament to the enduring lessons and influence of Eleanor, who insisted on being called “Műtter,” to honor her father’s family heritage and her adopted hometown’s reason for being.

…Although the population of Helvetia has remained below 100 people for years, Eleanor felt it was the center of the universe. “Thank G-d, it’s not easy to get here. It’s just wonderful,” she said.

Some 85 people live there today, and they celebrate their life together often, bringing home-baked cakes to the annual community ramp dinner in the spring and roasting a whole pig in a pit in the fall.

Several of the recipes used at The Hűtte came from families in the community. From the umlaut in the name of the business to the sauerkraut served with a dill pickle slice on top, the menu strongly reflects the Swiss-German heritage of Helvetia.

The aroma of frying potatoes is ever present in The Hűtte’s kitchen as cooks prepare order after order of rosti, a Swiss potato dish fried in butter in one of those black-iron skillets.

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At the National Gallery of Art in DC, through March 26, 2023, Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South. The 40 works include those by Gees Bend Quilters, Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, Joe Minter, Joe Light, Ronald Lockett, Purvis Young, Nellie Mae Rowe, and Georgia and Henry Speller.

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Super random.

Reebok x Eames

Just a reminder that McMansion Hell is still fire

Speaking of, one printing of Farenheit 451 came in asbestos binding

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Forgot to mention we had supper at Mary Ruth’s in Georgiana, Alabama — this is the town where Hank Williams Sr grew up.

we knew we were in for some good food when they put the pepper sauce in Crown Royal bottles

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A visit to Juniper in Birmingham a few days ago

big remembrances of the Caribbean Room at the Pontchartrain in New Orleans (Jack Rose is in that space now)

with this Ashley Longshore

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At West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia: This week, we travel to Charleston, West Virginia, to learn about the importance of funeral singers to Black communities (& more)

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David Zwirner Gallery in NY has an exhibit of (mostly) never-before-seen images by William Eggleston, William Eggleston: The Outlands, on view through December 17.

From the press release:
A photograph of a glass of iced tea resting on a table in a diner seems to almost self-consciously reference Eggleston’s now iconic image of a drink resting on an airplane tray table, also taken during this period. A photograph of a blue 1956 Dodge station wagon appears to have been captured on the same street and from the same low vantage point as Eggleston’s well-known image of a tricycle, which donned the cover of William Eggleston’s Guide.2 A view of the corner of a graffitied interior, drenched in a deep pinkish-red hue, brings to mind another of the artist’s best-known images, depicting a lightbulb projecting from a bloodred ceiling. Familiar yet startlingly fresh, these images conjure a sense of déjà vu–like reverie, reflecting the poignancy of Eggleston’s artistry.

Here, a few Egglestons from an exhibit at the Ogden in 2017

and here, from the Memphis Brooks, also from a 2017 visit

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Great time last weekend horseback riding with an adventure group I lead. Recommend Rusted Roof Barn at Oak Mountain State Park. Had TWO huge wins last week. Such really terrific things, both of them, and each are embargoed for a few days but will absolutely show up here when they can be announced. Everyone’s doing great and enjoying autumn. Hope you are too. xoxo!

B’ham Dia de los Muertos #20 at Sloss Furnaces was beyond!