March 2010 – Page 4 – Deep Fried Kudzu

March 11, 2010May 17, 2017

I Heart Tamales

In January, the B’ham News had a 4-star review of D’s Tamales in Hueytown. It’s in the building where my favorite, best-ever name of a barbecue restaurant was.

“Let’s Eat Smoked Meat”.

Yes. Ah.

So! We went to D’s and they were pretty good:

– not my favorite, and not particularly photogenic, but my favorites are at Hick’s in Clarksdale MS. That’s a bit of a drive.

Oh, I have to show Hick’s now:

Hick's World Famous Hot Tamales, Clarksdale MS

*That* is a tamale.

If you’re “into” tamales too, take a look at the SFA’s Tamale Trail:

The furthest east the Tamale Trail goes is to Corinth MS. The last time we were there, we tried Dilworth’s, which is a drive-thru place:

(above:) “Want mild? Say *mild* *when* *ordering*.”

These Corinth tamales are different – long and skinny. They were okay, but they didn’t have much meat in the middle. Still missing Hick’s.

Okay, while we’re having a tamale-fest, I have to show this pic too. It’s the pic I took of tamales at Doe’s Eat Place in Greenville, and this is the one that Gourmet paid me to use.

Hot Tamales at Doe's Eat Place, Greenville MS

Nice. Oh, Doe’s, I heart you too.

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If you got the latest issue of Oxford American, there’s an article about Yancey’s Red Hots (tamales in Shelby, MS) and illustrating the piece is artwork by my friend Amy Evans.

Other things to love in the OA: the article about Peter Chang, geophagy, Nashville chocolate, and chicken-on-a-stick. More about all of that soon.

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Oh one more thing! Another of our tamale places, Solly’s in Vicksburg, was written about last month at Slashfood.

in part:

More than five dozen Mississippi hot tamales have been secreted away in the snows of northwest Alaska.

The tamales from Solly’s, a Vicksburg institution, were recently shipped to musher Mike Suprenant, who plans to participate in next week’s 1,150-mile Iditarod race. Since it’s impossible for a team of 16 huskies to efficiently drag the 2,000 pounds of food needed to keep them and their driver fed, organizers require racers to stow their supplies at food drops, reachable only by helicopters and sleds.

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McCain isn’t sure how Suprenant acquired his taste for Solly’s tamales, although she concedes, “We have people from practically all over the world.” His order was conveyed by a Vicksburg resident and longtime Iditarod volunteer.

“I took care of it, and I actually added a few,” McCain says.

March 10, 2010

Shoe Tree

When we were driving on Hwy 72 in Cherokee, Alabama, we found this – right on the side of the road:

On the GPS, it’s at 34 45.728 -88 02.384

The next time we go that way, I’ll have to find a pair to fling! Wonder how this started…!?

March 10, 2010May 17, 2017

In Flight

On March 26th at the Archives building in Montgomery, there is going to be a symposium entitled, “Celebrating a Century of Flight: the Wright Brothers and Aviation in Alabama”.

The Wright brothers’ connection to Alabama is that they came to Montgomery in 1910 to start a flying school in the middle of what was a cotton plantation – it was the first one in the country to train civilians, although it only lasted a few months. Today the airstrip is Maxwell Field (Maxwell Air Force Base). And on March 27 & 28, they’re going to have an air show with the Thunderbirds to honor 100 years of flight in Alabama. There’s more about it here.

The airshow’s press release reads in part:

Of the Wright brothers’ five students, one went on to take a president of the United States aloft for the first time; another became the Wrights’ first flight instructor; and a third became the man who taught then-lieutenant Henry ‘Hap’ Arnold how to fly, Mr. Cully said.

In fact, a flying replica of the Wrights’ aircraft is slated to perform a short demonstration flight, according to Colonel Mahan.

…but many people here in Alabama think that the Wright brothers weren’t the first in flight – that it was really Dr. Lewis Archer Boswell. In 1874 he wrote to the Patent Office for his ‘Improvement in Aerial Propeller-Wheels’, and they granted him a patent that same year.

In 1900 he wrote the Secretary of War asking for a loan of $1000 to put a three cylinder gasoline engine on his “kite” – that the government needed a ‘flying machine’. He got a letter back saying that someone at the Smithsonian was working on air navigation and until he was done they had no interest in anything else. Dr. Boswell kept working on his invention.

(this is in the free domain)

In 1901 he applied for a patent for his ‘Steering Mechanism for Dirigible Air-Ships’ and received it from the Patent Office in 1903. His application went in a year and a half before the Wrights sent for theirs. In the end, though, he was unable to secure the financial backing he needed to do the kind of building and testing he needed to (unlike the Wrights, who were well-backed by investors including Vanderbilt and were able to amass one million in capital by 1909). There’s much more about this in the book Old Free State.

Oh – and the flying machine that Dr. Boswell appeared with for exhibition was called ‘The Missionary‘.

The last time we were in Talladega, we found the historic marker for him in the Confederate section of the cemetery there:

Dr. L. A. Boswell, Inventor of Flying Machine in 1890s

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Oh, and since I’m all trivia-girl today, Delta Airline got started in the 1920s – in the Delta (of course) here in the South – by crop dusting for boll weevils.

March 9, 2010

World’s Largest

Amy Elliott, one of the producers of ‘World’s Largest,’ emailed to let me know that the documentary will have its premiere at SXSW in Austin this month.

Which…in film, you *dream* to be screened at SXSW. *Huge*.

And on the front SXSW page right now, they’re featuring an interview with Amy and her friend Elizabeth Donius, who together made the movie. Here’s a little bit:

When Amy Elliott and Elizabeth Donius set out to make World’s Largest, a captivating and very funny documentary about small towns across America that claim to have the world’s largest item (like the world’s largest pecan, for example, in Missouri), they were driven to make the film because of their mutual love for kitschy roadside attractions.

Usually displayed on the sides of major highways, “world’s largest” structures proudly tout a town’s claim to fame – World’s Largest features footage of the world’s largest African killer bee, lemon and buffalo statues, just to name a few. But as the filmmakers, who have been friends since middle school, started interviewing small-town mayors and proud Chamber of Commerce members, they realized a common thread among small towns across America: the nagging sense that small-town life is vanishing and that the idyllic life most small towns used to be able to brag about is eroding.

As they crisscrossed America, off and on, for six years, they came across Soap Lake, Washington, where one unrelenting resident decided the town should host the world’s largest lava lamp in downtown Soap Lake; the filmmakers managed to capture that alternately delightful and frustrating process as the town struggles with its identity and whether the world’s largest lava lamp is something anyone would ever travel to Soap Lake to see.

SXSW: The movie is really funny, but the point you’re making is pretty serious, that America’s small towns are in trouble and vanishing. How did you get interested in that topic?

Elliott: That evolved over the course of the shoot. People were all saying the same things about their peril and their fears of the future and it really happened for us going there. It was not what we started with.

Here in Alabama, they included the peach water tower in Clanton and the boll weevil statue in Enterprise – this is my pic of it, below:

Boll Weevil Monument, Enterprise, Alabama

I couldn’t be prouder of Amy and can’t wait to see where the film will be screened next. If you’re going to be at SXSW, the schedule for it and all the other films is here. The World’s Largest trailer can be viewed here.

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Another film with Alabama ties is going to be at SXSW – Citizen Architect. I’ll post about it later this week.

March 9, 2010

Wonder What Kind Of Business These People Were In…

We found this in the Guin City Cemetery:

Okay, that’s different!

March 8, 2010

Jerry Brown Arts Festival

We had a great time at the Jerry Brown Arts Festival this weekend.

Tom Henry was there from Philadelphia MS with his whirligigs:

Charlie Lucas was the guest artist – going on about how big the baby is getting (we haven’t seen him since Kentuck):

He was set up right in front as you enter, and brought assemblages that he is known for as the ‘Tin Man’, as well as several paintings:

It was *huge* that the festival was able to bring in Charlie Lucas (Charlie Lucas!) as its guest artist.

My new friend Lowry Wilson, Old South Images, won the show’s first place in 2D art. He won first place for color photography at the People’s Choice Competition in the Meridian Museum of Art in 2008 and second place last year. Next year, they are honoring him with a solo gallery show (nice!).

His next festival is in May at the Cellular South / GumTree Festival.

Jerry Brown was there setting up to do a demonstration:

…the best face jugs.

His wife Sandra was going on about how big the baby is getting, too!

Av brought home this Jerry Brown face jug:

We’re Saints season ticket holders so with Alabama winning the National Championship and the Saints winning the Super Bowl, you can imagine how happy he is, especially with a face jug that has ‘Who Dat’ on it!

There were many other really great artists there – Marilyn Huey with her baskets, Tim Pace with bottle trees and other metal art (which…we bought one thing that I will have to show in another post!), the Crossroads Art Alliance with art including Kathy Fetters and Glenn House Sr., Robert Taylor’s metalwork, James Brassfield’s handmade knives and turkey calls, I somehow missed George Jones and his brooms, and Missy Miles with her fantastic painted and carved gourds.

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This is a spot that Luckie did for the tourism office’s Year of Alabama Art featuring Charlie Lucas: