May 2006 – Page 2 – Deep Fried Kudzu

May 14, 2006January 7, 2020

Blue Willow Inn, Social Circle GA

Av and I finally got over to the Blue Willow Inn in Social Circle, Georgia. It was soooo very nice.

This was our dining room (below). When we arrived, we were asked if we had reservations (I for some reason didn’t even *think* about reservations) but we only had to wait about ten minutes to be seated. I think the idea is that entire rooms of the home get seated at about the same time (but I might be wrong about this) because when we were called, so were people for every other table in the same dining room. We all had the same waitress, who was wonderful and really was sort-of a fan herself for the place and what to have…sooo nice.

These are the Blue Willow dishes:

The serving room:

Here’s my plate – some dressing, sweet potatoes, collards, biscuit, and chicken livers. All of it was *delicious*! For dessert, I had peach cobbler (one of my favorites) and it was really terrific, too. Av had the fried chicken which he really enjoyed (plus dressing and potatoes), and for dessert had pecan pie, which he says was really, really good.

May 14, 2006January 7, 2020

The Varsity, Atlanta GA

Since Av and I were already in Atlanta, there was no way we could go and not run over to the Varsity. We always try to get over there if we have any time – even just for a sweet tea.

Whenever you walk in, you’ll hear the people taking orders saying, “whaddya have, whaddya have” – so be sure to have your order figured out before you step up to the counter.

Av had a couple of hotdogs – they’re beef, but I don’t know what brand – and some fries. I had a sandwich (they have yummy egg salad, and pimento cheese!) and a fried peach pie.

Here’s the peach fried pie. Yum!

May 11, 2006April 30, 2025

Boiled Peanut Butter Cookies

I was looking at my ‘The Gift of Southern Cooking’ cookbook by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock when I saw a recipe for boiled peanut butter cookies. I used to make these in high school! They were one of my favorites, but for some reason, I don’t think I’ve made them since.

Recipe:
1/2 c. crunchy peanut butter (although I’ve used creamy before and I think I like it that way even better)
3 c. quick-cooking oats (I used Quaker brand)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 c. butter
1/2 cup sweet milk — to make them extra rich, use heavy cream
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
Also: wax paper laid out to spoon the cookies onto

Instructions:

(above:) Here are all the ingredients. In one bowl, mix together the peanut butter, oatmeal, and vanilla. In another, mix together the sugar, salt, and cocoa until there aren’t any lumps.

First, heat the butter and milk in a saucepan until the butter is melted.
Next, add the sugar/salt/cocoa to the pan, and bring it to a boil. Stir with a wooden spoon so it doesn’t burn.

Let the mixture boil for 90 seconds.

Once 90 seconds has gone by, add the peanut butter/butter/oatmeal mixture and cook all that together for another 60 seconds. Be sure to keep stirring!

Now, just spoon the cookies onto the wax paper. This recipe made about 30 or so cookies. They should be set in less than an hour, but if it’s a cloudy or rainy day, just let them rest and try not to worry about them…they will come together!

These are *delicious*!

May 9, 2006January 7, 2020

Rock Eagle Mound

While we were in Atlanta, we drove over to Putnam County, Georgia to see Rock Eagle Mound, which is a stone effigy that was probably built by the Woodland Indians sometime between 1000 BCE and 1000 CE.

Isn’t it great?

This is the inside of the observation tower where we climbed four or five stories to be able to see the eagle really well:

May 7, 2006January 7, 2020

Wingate Inn, Atlanta (Buckhead)

Our trip to Atlanta was with a group of other people, and so all our reservations were made for the Wingate Inn in Buckhead. I don’t think we’ve ever stayed at a Wingate before.

It wasn’t bad. In fact, the room was pretty large, and I liked the floors especially. The bed was very comfortable.

The hotel is right on Piedmont Road, so the location is good. It wouldn’t be my pick for another stay in Atlanta because there are some really great hotels there (we stayed at the Westin Buckhead a couple of years ago that was nice…and I really want to try the R-C and the Four Seasons there), but it wasn’t bad at all.

May 5, 2006January 7, 2020

Georgia Aquarium

This past week, Av and I spent a couple of days in Atlanta. We hadn’t been to the Georgia Aquarium yet, so we spent about an hour or so there (I thought it would take much longer to go through, but we both really enjoyed it).

There were several places where the guests could pet animals – from shrimp to starfish to these stingrays and sharks below. Fun!

All the displays were really nice.

These beluga wales were so fun to watch:

We were there on Monday, and while it was busy, it didn’t seem too crowded. When the aquarium first opened, they scheduled times on tickets for people to be admitted so there would be some crowd control, but we walked up to buy our tickets and they let us right in. It was great!

May 4, 2006May 17, 2017

Easy Felt Balls

I’ve tried to make felt balls before but I really didn’t like the process – gather felt, roll into ball, dip into hot and sudsy water *over and over* until the shape holds and is hard – which for me, at a little over 10 minutes/ball, wasn’t really fun. Last week, I heard from a friend that there’s a super-simple way to do them, it takes no time at all, and they come out needing only a tiny bit of neatening.

…here’s how:

Materials:
Wool for felting (sometimes called wool roving or wool tops)
Pair of pantyhose you don’t mind giving up for this process
Felting needle, for the final neatening
Washing Machine, Dryer (dryer is optional)
Scissors

(above:) gather your felting wool, and gently tear off very small amounts of felt. If it’s very important to you that all the balls be the exact same size, you can use a kitchen scale to make certain with their weight. Since this was my first time using this method and I was just making these for fun, I did somewhat different sizes, but they’ll still look pretty in a little bowl (or maybe I’ll let Tchotchke, our cat, have a couple to play with).

(above:) I took a little felt and laid it out right-left and the next layer up-down to help start the basic felting process. I picked up the felt in one hand, and rolled it around from palm to palm just to make a simple circle shape.

(above:) here’s the very basic circle shape I made with the felt.

(above:) I took one leg of the pantyhose and made a knot at the toe. I placed the first ball down to the knot, and made a tight knot just above it.

(above:) Here’s my first group – I made eight balls. Now, take the pantyhose and put them in the washing machine with a little detergent. Just program the washer for a quick wash (30 minutes or so) using hot water and the fastest spin. Once my set came out of the washer, I put them in the dryer for about ten minutes.

(above:) Here they are, just out of the dryer. Take scissors and cut the knots to release each of the felt balls.

(above:)Here’s my felting needle (I tried to do a close-up shot to show the little ‘barbs’ at the bottom of a felting needle – these barbs are what catches the fibers and causes them to mesh, or felt). My friend was right – the felt balls were completely felted when I cut them out of the pantyhose, and they just needed a little touchup with a felting needle to make them completely, perfectly round.

Here’s the first one! This method was great – so easy. Next time, I’m going to do even more of them per batch, and try making a couple of necklaces (just poke a hole through the ball before it’s completely hardened to make space to string it through).

There’s also a nice tutorial from Martha Stewart Kids on how to make felt balls here.

May 1, 2006November 26, 2017

Front Porch Gliders

The April issue of Coastal Living has a small article about Nicki Huggins, who remembered sitting on her grandmother’s steel glider in Ozark, Alabama, and decorated her own home with antique outdoor furniture in California. A few years ago, she started her own company, Retropatio.com, by taking old gliders and chairs, refinishing them, and selling them to people who either love the design or just want one for nostalgic reasons.

Restoration Hardware is selling retro-style outdoor gliders and chairs, too – theirs are new, not refinished antiques.

I remember these old steel gliders…I think that both my MawMaws had them (I remember one especially that was a buttercream yellow color), and I also remember sitting in the chairs that bounced a little when you sat in them. I liked them both, but my favorite thing to do on the porch was sit with my Nanny on our front porch swing.

Nanny had one friend that we would visit very often in the evenings…and we would always sit outside on her front porch swing, with one exception – if an Atlanta Braves game was on – then, we’d all sit together inside, watching baseball.

Today, Av and I have a swing on our front porch, and every time I sit in it, I think of those days with my sweet Nanny, z”l. I plan to spend more time this year than ever, cross-legged outside in the swing, just enjoying the night air. That’s good living.