Month: October 2009

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Wills Creek Vineyards, Duck Springs AL

We’re still doing our ‘Alabama Sideways’ tour of wineries here, and this time we went to Wills Creek Vineyards outside Attalla.

They grow their own muscadines, so that wine is local; but they bring in grapes from elsewhere to make the other varieties. Av went in to taste:

Tigers for Tomorrow – the rescue shelter for exotic animals that we went to last year – is not far from the winery, and they have teamed up with Wills Creek, who donates a percentage of certain wine sales to the park. There are three varieties of wine now that have TfT labels. Av bought one of those, called ‘Tigerlily,’ and a Scupperdyme wine:

These are both made with fruit that the winery grows.

Our next place to go is a pick-your-own muscadine farm!
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Alabama Caviar

Alabama Caviar

Have you ever gone to a party or reception where the host serves Texas caviar? Or Georgia caviar? Or Tennessee caviar? Or pick-your-Southern-state caviar? It’s all based around black-eyed peas, but what you add to it is what makes it different.

Texas’ has the jalapeños and cilantro, which makes sense. Tennessee’s – according to Southern Living – has corn and picante sauce (which isn’t what I think of when it comes to TN). Georgia’s has Italian dressing (huh?). Mississippi’s includes black beans. A little curious.

So.
I decided to make Alabama caviar, with the things I think of for Alabama. Well, things that would make sense. You know…tomatoes, okra, mayonnaise rather than dressing…
Ingredients:
2 cups black eyed peas, cooked and cooled (or you can cheat – me too! – and use canned)
2 tomatoes that have been cored and seeded – dice those
1 medium-size onion (Vidalia is best), chopped
8 pods pickled okra, chopped
1/4 cup mayonnaise
salt and pepper
Directions:
Combine all ingredients, but add s&p and mayonnaise (you will probably use the whole 1/4 cup but start with about half that and add to your liking) last. The great thing is that it’s a little better the next day, after being in the refrigerator all night. Yum.
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Safari!

We had *the* most fun this weekend – at a place I’d never heard of before this past week: Harmony Park Safari in Huntsville.

I can’t even find a website for them, but they’re at 431 Clouds Cove Road – which I think is technically still in H’ville but pretty far from downtown – and their # is 877.726.4625. Admission was $6/adult. Food for the animals was either $1 cups or a $5 bucket. All the animals roaming loose eat this mix:

It’s a two-mile long path. You must stay in your car at all times, and not let the window down more than 8″ (so you throw the food from your car through the opening in the window). Actually we didn’t mind not having the windows all the way down because some of the animals would have been interested in coming in for a closer visit. We were also told that some of the animals were either ‘in season’ or almost there so you can imagine they were a little more rambunctious than usual.

There were lots of sweet animals that you just wanted to hug:

…and then…see this goat or…is that an Awassi ram…coming up?

Yes. Him:

He rammed our car. Like…head-butted us! Av’s GMC must be ram tough (har) because he didn’t do any damage but if we had been in my BMW…um…this would not have been so funny! He didn’t do any damage at all – it really wasn’t that hard – but it was a little unexpected.

Anyway, the speed limit is 2 mph and the trail is two miles so you can expect to be there about an hour, plus you can go through it as many times as you like. Both the boys *loved* it. The sweet animals would put their faces right up to their windows. There was a llama and an alpaca especially that Shug really liked.

The baby liked the cows and buffaloes I think, because they were taller and easier to see.

Pretty sure the next hundred times we go to Huntsville there will be a request to go to the safari again!

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Castle + Grocery + Sculpture Garden + Mountain + Another Castle = Documentary On Visionary Architects

There’s a new documentary out by producer/director Zack Godshall and adjunct professor Emilie Taylor of the Tulane School of Architecture that’s touring right now. Zack told me that they expect the dvd later this fall (I’ll post when it arrives and how to get it). This is from the press release:

“God’s Architects” tells the stories of five visionary builders and their enigmatic creations. With neither funding nor blueprints, these builders, unbeknownst to one another, dedicate their entire lives to creating architectural worlds and realms that for most of us exist only in the wilds of the imagination. In the fall of 2005, filmmaker Zack Godshall set out with a camera, tripod and microphone to interview and document the work of Floyd Banks, Jr., a divinely inspired castle-builder living in the east Tennessee hill country. Four years later, Godshall completed a feature-length film that both examines and celebrates the work of Banks along with four other solitary builders who have constructed similar monuments. Beyond the builders and their work, the film indirectly functions as a personal essay that explores the nature of inspiration and one’s dedication to a creative project, no matter how absurd or mysterious the circumstances may seem. “God’s Architects” features builders from Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.


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Upcoming viewing dates are:
New Orleans Film Festival, New Orleans Louisiana – Oct 8-15
Indie Memphis Film Festival, Memphis Tennessee – Oct 8-15
Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, March 2010

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Film trailer:
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6475035&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

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Here are links to my own and others’ visits to the five environments in the documentary:

Floyd Banks, Jr., Reverend H.D. Dennis Kenny Hill Leonard Knight Shelby Ravellette

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In case you’re thinking about going, Miss Margaret Dennis’ (she’s H.D. Dennis’ wife…Margaret’s Grocery that’s in the documentary…) funeral is at 2p on Saturday at Cool Springs Missionary Baptist Church, Vicksburg. Burial will be at Cedar Hill Cemetery.

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Alabama Heritage, Wild & Rural

Through October 17th, the 3rd Annual Alabama Heritage, Wild & Rural show is on at Red Dot Gallery (1001 Stuart St, 205/870.7608) in the Homewood neighborhood of B’ham. The gallery also does drawing, painting, and pottery classes.

This is ‘Scavenged Heart’ by Randy Gachet:

See what the crow is made out of?

In his artist statement, he says:

My work involves reclamation and transformation. In late the 1990s I found myself compelled to collect jettisoned tire remnants and detritus found accumulating on urban and suburban highways. The crow, a supreme scavenger, figures prominently in this environ and subsequently in my work, simultaneously as a symbol of renewal and of fate. The crow’s ability to find sustenance in decay provides a cyclical metaphor my work revolves around. Early on, I fashioned small scale sculptures and assemblages featuring crow forms made from strips of tire evoking eeriness found in Southern narratives.

He will be at Kentuck again this year.
Selection of pottery by Doris Blum from Tuscaloosa:

There were a couple of tables by Hillwood Farm Rustic Furniture in Attalla:

The tag on this table read, “‘Reflections of a Starry Night’ table constructed old cedar wood found in an Etowah County barn – side and back trim of mountain laurel collected from an area being cleared in NC. Front trim – cedar driftwood and the inspiration for the name.“

Basketry by Marilyn Huey of Springville:

‘End of the Day’ by Eric Johnson:

‘Head Waters’ by Scott Bennett:

There are works of at least twelve other artists as part of the exhibit (nice!) including Bethanne Hill.

What really caught my attention was the work of Dori DeCamillis, who owns the gallery along with her husband, Scott Bennett. This is Dori’s ‘Bounty: Jones Valley Farm’ :

It’s not only a painting (oil on wood), but it has ceramic tiles – all the vegetables. Dori explains:
“This painting is a tribute to all Alabama small, sustainable farms…

(on how the painting developed…) I began with botanicals and emerged with a rather kitchen-like appearance, appropriate because my connection with farms and food is most often celebrated in the kitchen…

The background of the center piece uses imagery that reminds me of an opulent palace – a version of abundance – where tiny fruit, veggies, and flowers are displayed on pedestals…

The tiles are made from molds of vegetables from my own garden, Jones Valley Urban Farm, and other small local farms…

What’s really to see is Dori’s series of ‘Paintings of Alabama Places‘ – the entire set is here and my favorite of course is the one she did of Tom Hendrix’s wall in NE Alabama. The funny part was that when I walked in, she said something like “Ginger, DeepFriedKudzu?” and it turned out that Tom had told her about me (latest post about him here). So nice!
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The Mobile Museum of Art will be doing an exhibit with Dori’s ‘Paintings of Alabama Places’ in spring 2011, and that show will later tour the southeast.

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This Weekend

There is a *lot* going on this weekend in AL:

Sausage Festival in Evergreen on Saturday
Tale Tellin’ Festival in Selma with Kathryn Tucker-Windham
Berman Museum in Anniston has a special exhibit of Gee’s Bend quilts now through January 3, 2010 (it just opened October 3rd)
Saturday is the last day of Oktoberfest in Cullman (Cullman is dry, so Oktoberfest = no beer! I grew up in Cullman so that seems totally normal…)

The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art in Auburn is celebrating its sixth anniversary this weekend with an Elvis theme, and the really special part of that is the exhibit they have through January 9, 2010 of Joni Mabe’s Elvis art. You *have* to know Joni Mabe. She is the Queen of the King.

Saturday 9a – 5p and Sunday 1p – 5p is Pilgrimage in Eutaw, Alabama.
Alabama National Fair in Montgomery – I’m not a fair rides person at all, but this has the biggest selection of individual entries for crafts, baked goods, etc. from people all over the state.

Exhibit through October 24 at Bare Hands Gallery in B’ham of Pat Snow’s artwork, “Would You Like Me Better If I Made You A Pretty Picture?”:

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