Pics of the boys at 33 and 17 months:
…and 34 and 18 months:
Boys
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.
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