Great big, huge post tomorrow about all kinds of things – but today I just had to show the beautiful homes we found in Bridgeport, Alabama. It’s like the Queen Anne capital of Alabama.
Rock Zoo, Near Hollywood AL
One day when we were coming back home from NE Alabama, we stopped by the Rock Zoo for the boys to play. It’s ‘constructed’ by a farmer here for everyone to enjoy:
We’ve been here in the summer when the anteater really did have something to snack on:
Pics from our last visit, and directions, here.
Boys
Pics of the boys at 33 and 17 months:
…and 34 and 18 months:
GumTree Festival, Tupelo MS
This weekend we went to the GumTree Festival in Tupelo, which was around the downtown square.
Joe Dumas (Yellow Dog) brought a bottle tree and more of his rock and iron furniture:
Roger Styers (Delta Ornamental Glass) has come up with this terrific sculpture that he calls a ‘cotton bottle tree’. He says that each of the cotton bolls is made from a single piece of glass:
Alexander Brown was there from Bentonia with his alligator table:
We had a good time – several other artists we know were there, including Lowry Wilson (Old South Images).
The boys met some dogs that were up for adoption, and we of course took pics of them in front of Tupelo Hardware, where Gladys bought Elvis his first guitar (if either of the boys ever want a guitar, we’re on our way to Tupelo…).
A couple of other artists I forgot to get pics of that were nice: Sarah Kaufman and Tracey Lewis.
*Lots* of really great festivals this weekend – I’ll post some of those later this week.
Houston Art Car Parade 2010
The Houston Art Car Parade was this weekend.
Sock monkey van, tennis ball truck, um…VW UFO thing…, crochet car:
Images above and below used courtesy Chris Denbow under Creative Commons 2.0 Generic. Thank you! All Chris’ pics from the parade can be viewed here.
Birdie Cakes
Shug loves birds and gets such a kick out of the ones that come visit our backyard where he plays every day.
Since so much is blooming right now, the bird feeder isn’t as in demand as it was during the cooler months, but there are certain birds that love suet cakes. I used to get them at the hardware store until I read in the UK Version of Country Living a couple of months ago that you can make them at home using just a 1:1 ratio of birdseed to lard (and you can get as elaborate with your recipe as you like also, adding nuts or berries).
Because the lard of course melts when it’s hot outside, these are really best suited for cooler weather – but the birds eat these so quickly when I cut them into soap – sized pieces (think of a bar of Ivory) that a slice I put out in the morning is completely eaten by nightfall with no icky drippy lard. Of course, it’s not August and 100+* yet…
Here’s how to do it:
Prepare two empty, clean milk cartons by cutting them in half horizontally, place them on a cookie sheet that will later go into the refrigerator.
Melt the lard (we got a 16oz pkg). Let it cool so it isn’t lava-like but still clear, and pour half into each carton.
Add an equal amount of birdseed to each carton. Stir really well.
Place the cooling cartons of birdseed and lard in the refrigerator, visiting every 15 minutes or so to give another really good stir. This keeps all the birdseed from settling on the bottom.
After an hour or two, the mixture will solidify enough to cut into slices. I store these slices in the freezer and bring one out each day for the birds.
Bluejays, woodpeckers, and chickadees love these little birdie cakes and they spend a good amount of time enjoying them so the boys can get a good look. It tickles me that when a bird finally flies off after munching at the seed feeder or a birdie cake, or just hopping around our yard, Shug says, “uh-oh, went to the store!”.
Random Things
The Georgia Center for the Book released their 2010 list of ‘Books Every Georgian Should Read‘
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I was asked to keep this a secret before the auction, but can tell the world now: it was the Kohler Foundation who came through with the money to make possible the purchase of about 30 of the Ralph Lanning sculptures that will now be displayed at Missouri State. Thank you Kohler!
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has links to the Coconut Cake recipe from the old Rich’s department store bakeshop, and tells how sweet Mary Mac’s makes their tea.
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Immaculate Baking Company is using the artwork of people including R.A. Miller, Bernice Sims, Earl Simmons, Mose T, and Jimmy Lee Sudduth on their packaging.
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My friend Dori DeCamillis featured the (amazing, of course) artwork she made after visiting Tom Hendrix and his wall on her blog recently. More of her *fantastic* work here.
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“Art Escapes Museum, Seeks New Home In YOUR Neighborhood” is the idea behind Folk Art Everywhere in Los Angeles. It’s by the Craft and Folk Art Museum and the idea is have artwork in “spaces of everyday life, such as schools, libraries, coffee shops, markets, theaters, and worker centers – places people gather on a regular basis. This way, people who don’t frequent museums can see art objects in environments familiar to them. Los Angeles is a place of great cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity. Yet, many residents have little contact with neighboring communities, settling into culturally and economically homogeneous enclaves. Los Angeles’s far-flung urban form and its notorious traffic congestion exacerbate this isolation.”
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I meant to mention this before, but Thomas Keller had lunch at Prince’s Hot Chicken in Nashville a couple of months ago (he liked it) and gave The Tennessean his recipe for fried chicken.
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Peter Chang, the Szechuanese chef who had won national cooking competitions in China and had been chef at the Chinese Embassy, was written up in a Calvin Trillin article for the New Yorker. It was all about how Chef Chang has absolutely fervent followers and how he skips from restaurant to restaurant, town to town and how he’s now at Taste of China in Charlottesville. We tried to find him earlier at Tasty China in Marietta but he was already gone (but the food there is still amazing).
Well, after all that (plus an article that came out at almost exactly the same time in the Oxford American) Peter Chang left the restaurant in Charlottesville.
Now skip back to Marietta where Chang says he will be *back* in a year to open “Peter Chang’s Tasty China”.
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Jimmy Hedges, who owns Rising Fawn Folk Art sent me (thank you!) a fantastic cookbook called “Panky’s Pantry Secrets” that features ‘100 years of cherished Southern family recipes seasoned with culinary folk lore to help stir the pot’ – inside are not only recipes for things like corn pones, aspic, but even knishbroit (knishbrot since it’s bread?) by Malcah Zeldis – and the book includes images of artwork by Clementine Hunter and others.
Jimmy’s gallery (Sultan Rogers, Georgia Blizzard, Mose T, Jerry Brown, Purvis Young…) has an outdoor folk art sculpture garden, and he sells the gallery’s works online here.
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…not too-too much going on the next couple of days festival-wise since it’s Mother’s Day weekend but there are two really great ones:
GumTree Festival, Tupelo and TACA Spring Craft Fair, Nashville (w. opportunities to donate for flood recovery). Really thinking about going to the TACA show…
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Have a wonderful Mother’s Day!
Weidmann’s
Weidmann’s in Meridian has closed.
I have to admit that there is a part of me that isn’t surprised because of what the new ownership (well, I say “new” but that team had been in place since 2001 or so – but for a restaurant that’s been open 140 years…) had done to what used to be an establishment just **exuding** character. It had been a destination for so long.
And the kind of character the ‘old’ Weidmann’s had – hundreds of framed autographed photographs of celebrities (plenty of local football players, twirlers, and musicians plus Bear Bryant, Dizzy Dean, Ted Williams…), the looong lunch counter, the tables and booths which also probably dated back to the ’40s, the neon script sign out front, the servers who had been there forever…
There was a bank of photographs of Meridian’s soldiers who had died for their country.
The Front room. The Plate room. The 1870 room.
The new Weidmann’s had nothing on it. The new version was the same brick-walled, trying-to-be-upscale restaurant that’s in every mildly successful strip mall in America.
Back in 2003, the Mississippi Business Journal wrote about the new styling:
The changes begin at the entrance – moved from the southwest corner to the northwest comer. A maitre d’ greets customers alongside a temperature controlled wine cellar. There’s an exposed modern kitchen with the latest equipment including rotisserie ovens. The dining room seating has banquettes (McGehee calls that “A fancy name for benches”) in addition to the normal table seating. Shining crystal glasses are placed meticulously at each setting.
The imposing 11-inch by 17-inch, two-tone menu is printed daily on quality tan paper marked by the restaurant’s new logo. The food items are on one side and the wine and champagne list is on the other. And, yes, for the big spenders, there’s a $300 bottle of Brut champagne – the rest of the bottles go for normal price expectations. Note: There’s also a Weidmann’s card that mentions “Hedonistic Desserts” and “Martinis, Martinis, Martinis.”
Gracious.
Well, anyway.
We have this crock we bought there back in the late ’90s, when every table had one of these with peanut butter and crackers.
There are some great pics of the old Weidmann’s with a nice commentary here. eBay usually has some old postcards of it too.
May Weidmann’s return soon, in whatever form. But I sure do hope it’s someone who has a love and reverence for that first 130 years.
I’ll make their famous black bottom pie tonight and we’ll make a toast to its future.
Hippodrome, And Saving The Gulf. With Hair.
Last week I mentioned that Hipstamatic app for the iPhone – loving it:
Here are some pics of the same place – Vincent Oliver’s Hippodrome Barber Shop in Woodlawn, Alabama – with my regular Sony Cybershot:
Bottles. Lunchboxes. Figurines. License plates. Movie posters.
I would like to meet Vincent Oliver one day.
Av takes Shug to a different barber shop – the same one that Shug’s great-grandfather Frank z”l went to, where Shug’s Papa goes to, where Av goes. It’s not too-too barbershoppy in the way that everyone leaves with a buzz cut or something else super short. The barber – Buddy – knows to cut my baby’s hair a wee bit long and make him still look like he’s two. There’s a real red, white, and blue barber’s pole outside also. Nice.
Shugie – our little one – is almost ready for his first haircut, and that’s one that I will do myself. Just a teensy snip off the back. I’ve been waiting so his hair will thicken up all over, but it’s time for the back to be straightened up for the first time. See that sweet wisp in this pic?
Now! This is what I want to share: a tiny bit of it I will keep as a sweet little memento, but the rest of it which of course is going to be not much at all but is one of those ‘principle of the things’ is that I’m going to send it to the Matter of Trust organization. They’re the people who are organizing all the hair booms to help soak up the oil spill in the Gulf.
If this is the first time you’ve heard of human hair used to soak up oil, I know it sounds weird and possibly just not…right. But it is. There’s an article here in USA Today about the Boom-B-Qs going on right now to assemble oil absorbing booms for use in the Gulf. I asked a friend of mine who works at a salon and already knew about it, and they are sending in all their clippings.
Part of the article reads:
Matter of Trust, a San Francisco environmental non-profit that has used these absorbent booms to clean up oil spills since 1998, says it’s received donations from all U.S. states and several countries that amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds of hair. It also accepts washed nylon pantyhose, even with small runs or tears.
In Gulf Coast cities, the group says volunteers are hosting Bar B Q parties, which they call “Boom B Q’s,” to assemble booms in their backyards. It says other “hair-raising” events include “Cut-a-thons” and “Shave-a-thons” to collect donations.
“For past spills such as the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, these simple booms have been highly effective and efficient at cleaning up oil,” says Lisa Craig Gautier, Matter of Trust’s co-founder. She says a pound of hair can absorb one quart of oil in one minute, and hair mats can be wrung out and reused up to 100 times.
She says her group is coordinating thousands of volunteers and directing donations to temporary warehouse space along the Gulf Coast. Hair booms reflect the largely low-tech measures that are still being used to clean up oil spills.
Many more articles about it here.
You have to think to yourself there has to be a 21st-century way of going about this but, well, we’re desperate and this works and they’re being used right now, and it’s a way that just about everyone can participate. I can’t do it because I just sent a ponytail-worth of mine to Pantene Beautiful Lengths a week or two ago. Shugie’s sweet first trim will help the Gulf a tee-tiny bit now. That makes me feel good.
Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta GA
This past weekend, we were in Atlanta for a little while – the weather was so nice and we were really in the mood to get out and walk for a while. Many people in the city go to Oakland Cemetery because it’s a huge greenspace with lovely monuments and landscaping, and a great place to picnic – lots of people there with coolers and even saw one of those big drum grills.
Oakland is so big and historic that they have multiple walking tours each weekend (lots of overview tours plus some Victorian symbolism tours, Women of Oakland tours…) and this past weekend was their first annual Descendant’s Day. There’s even a gift shop at the visitors’ center.
Here are a few of the more interesting things we saw…
This is the monument for Jasper Newton Smith. The story is that he paid a sculptor to make this life-size statue of him, and the artist portrayed him wearing a necktie, which he never wore because of some bad experience he had as a child. Mr. Smith supposedly refused to pay the sculptor until the necktie was chiseled off:
People leave tees and golf balls at Bobby Jones’ monument:
…and others leave coins and other mementos at Margaret Mitchell’s monument:
The home where she wrote GWTW is open as a museum.
Part of the Confederate section – about 6900 soldiers are buried at Oakland and a little fewer than half are unknown:
Monument to “Unknown Confederate Dead” by T.M. Brady – it’s known as the ‘Lion of the Confederacy’, or the ‘Lion of Atlanta’. At the time it was the largest single piece of marble quarried in the US – the same quarry (in Tate, Georgia) supplied the marble for Lincoln’s statue at the Lincoln Memorial.
This is so very close in design to the Lion of Lucerne in Switzerland.
Beautiful mausoleums:
Oh…and among all the events there, close to Halloween each year they host a, ahem, “Run Like Hell” 5k as a fundraiser.
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