Month: January 2009

Last week, the January/February issue of Mississippi Magazine came in the mail. And that means one thing:

Wedding Register 2009!!!

Now, most of them (I think there are about 350 different wedding announcements) are garden variety – who was there and what they wore, where they were, the flowers, the honeymoon location, and where they live now.

The ones that are wonderful are the ones where the couple did something totally different – something totally *them* – and those are the ones I and everybody else love.

Here are some of the best excerpts:

Following the ceremony, the wedding party rode Oxford’s double-decker bus to the reception…
…Favorite special dishes were 208 South Lamar crab cakes and wontons and Taylor Grocery fried catfish and hushpuppies. The late night “chicken-on-a-stick” from McPhail’s Chevron topped off the evening.

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The two-tiered chocolate fudge groom’s cake was filled with a peanut butter mousse, surrounded by Reese’s peanut butter cups, and decorated with fondant reeds and a fondant mallard.

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The groom’s cake…was a superb replica of the Lyceum, the historic administrative building at the University of Mississippi.

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The groom’s three-tiered chocolate cake featured a hunting theme with edible turkey feathers and shot gun shells…and was placed on a camouflage overlay. (This was Brodie Croyle’s wedding)

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…the bride donned a pair of blue suede shoes only reminiscent of an Elvis fan and Tupelo bride for her “something blue”. The priests and all of the wedding party joined in on the fun at the end of the ceremony by being “All Shook Up” in their traditional Elvis glasses.

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Colonel Reb made a special appearance, arranged by the bride, a former Ole Miss Homecoming Queen, in honor of her groom, a former quarterback at Mississippi State.

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The groom’s cake was a wild hog displayed in a wetland of beige tulle, fresh wildflowers, and cypress knees retrieved by the bride’s father and grandparents.

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And:

And what, after all, could be more grand than resounding brass, the throbbing beat snare drums and ‘From Dixie With Love’ rising to an upbeat crescendo?

That’s right. The Ole Miss Pride of the South band was hired to to come to the wedding:

If you have ever been to an Ole Miss game, the band plays this right after the Rebel Walk and just before kickoff.

Why did I not think of this? We could have had the Million Dollar Band show up and play Stars Fell on Alabama! Although…gosh there’s a part of me that wonders just how much that must have cost.

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The post about last year’s issue is here.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I even knew what brussels sprouts looked like – I mean, how they grew:

They’re available at some grocery stores this way: you just buy the entire stalk. So I did.

It’s so easy! All you do is take a knife and (carefully!) remove the little ‘buds’. Wash them, put them in a ziploc with a little olive oil to coat, salt, and pepper, and shake-shake-shake:

On a baking pan, and into a 400* oven

I started checking them at about 25 minutes and they were ready right at 30 minutes.

Here’s how they looked – oh they were so good! I liked that some of the sprouts were smaller and some larger, so some turned out a little softer and some more firm – not all the same, which was nice.

They may need a bit more salt or pepper once they come out of the oven, but they turned out so nice. One of the things I like best about cooking in the winter is that roasted vegetables – from carrots to potatoes – seems so right.

Pearl Fryar is…well, I’ve read this about him before, but it’s true…a real-life Edward Scissorhands.

He can take just about any plant – in fact, he got started with nursery shop cast-offs – and turn them into healthy, beautiful works of topiary art.

The DVD for “A Man Named Pearl” came out back in November, but I just got it on Netflix last week and it was really-really good (although maybe a little bit long). It was all about how Mr. Fryar got started in 1984 when he decided he wanted to win his town of Bishopville, South Carolina ‘yard of the month’ award. This wasn’t just nice landscaping.

Here is some more footage from ETV:

…and over 100 pics on Flickr.

On his original website (note that this link has been updated to the Garden Conservancy’s, as his is no longer in service), Mr. Fryar even invites everyone to his home at 145 Broad Acres Road and says:

All are welcome and if you find me at home, I’ll stop whatever I am doing to visit with you and tell you about my work and why I create topiary sculpture.

Oh, and he didn’t learn from any books, or take any courses – he’s self-taught, which is probably a good thing, because most everyone in the documentary, including experts in the field, can’t believe what he’s been able to accomplish.

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This reminds me of a show I saw once about the late Axel Erlandson, who did ornamental tree grafting like no one else. He wasn’t like Mr. Fryar in that he didn’t explain his methods, so how he did many of his designs are still a mystery.

Mr. Erlandson transplanted some of his trees to a spot in California that he called the “Tree Circus” back in the 1940s, which he intended to make money with by charging people an admission fee. Over the years, it changed hands until finally today the trees have been moved to a non-profit family theme park called Gilroy Gardens in Gilroy, California.

I heard a terrible rumor last week.

It was that Hotel Talisi in Tallassee, Alabama had closed their restaurant. So I emailed them – it’s true.

Hotel Talisi is one of the last small-town downtown hotels around. And while the hotel is still functioning, it was such a treat to walk into the lobby (which is not your usual hotel lobby, and used to have a grand piano in the middle of it, where people would sometimes play) and really have the run of the hotel – even the opportunity to go upstairs and see the…well, I’m not sure ‘ornate’ is the right word for the hallway in an eccentric-grandmother-kind-of-way, but…oh! and it even had a phone booth up there, because there are no phones in the rooms. Each room is different, and the unoccupied rooms have their doors left open so you can peek inside to decide which one you want to stay in next time. Each room has its own *real* key – no key-cards. There’s supposedly a ghost up there too. Oh, but that’s all about how the hotel is different and in its way, wonderful.

What’s missing now is the restaurant. It was a big deal to have Sunday dinner there, and we were always tickled to be in that part of the state and sit down for fried chicken, which Av puts in his top 5. Their buffet was also mentioned as one of the original “100 dishes to eat in Alabama before you die“. Here’s our “last supper” there: broccoli casserole, blackeyed peas, squash casserole, dressing…and fried chicken: