Month: December 2010

Gingerbread versions of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater have been made before:

Image courtesy coleypauline under Creative Commons A-N-S 2.0 Generic license. Thank you!

…this was done for a competition this year.

Even Acura’s ad agency tried something similar this month:

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Of course, if you *really* like gingerbread and you have $15,000 to spend on it, there’s this from Neiman Marcus.

If you celebrate Christmas (or not: we just used one of our neighbors’ trees) and have been thinking about getting a bottle tree for your backyard, consider upcycling.

Wet the edge of half the circle with your finger.  This helps make the dough ‘stick’ together while cooking:

Take a fork and crimp the edges together, then immediately place into the hot oil:

Fry for a couple of minutes each side until golden brown and you can’t take it anymore:

These are literally so flaky and delicate that you must eat them on a plate with a fork.  Oh my stars.  Delicious.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to contribute one of my pics of William C. Rice’s Cross Garden in Prattville to a piece at the website for Art:21, a program that airs on public television.  Since 2001, “86 featured artists in the series demonstrate the breadth of artistic practice in the United States today. Each one-hour program is loosely organized around a theme helps audiences analyze, compare and juxtapose the artists profiled.”

They’ve done shows on everyone from Jeff Koons and Cindy Sherman to Ursula von Rydingsvard.

My local PBS station doesn’t carry the show (I am still trying to get over that they don’t carry Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood) but at least all the Art:21 episodes can be viewed in full online.  And their blog is great too.

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Tonight on Conan, a friend of a friend, Erika Nelson, will be on to talk about her *amazing* project that she’s been working on for years:

The World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things

While we were in Montgomery for our magnolia wreath, we had lunch at Odessa’s Blessings in this pretty home:

It was Saturday, and they’re actually only open on weekdays from what I understand, but they were hosting a luncheon for some college faculty (didn’t realize all this until we had come in the open door) and they offered to seat us.

In Montgomery, so many independent restaurants downtown (Isaiah’s, Martha’s Place, etc.) are only open on business days because so much of what gets done in town is government-related.  So when state government isn’t going on, the restaurants are closed.

While I have a soft-spot for Montgomery – it was the “big city” to go to while I was going to college at Troy – I’d rather do almost anything than eat at one of the chain places on East Boulevard.

The whole house at Odessa’s was decorated for Christmas.  This is the serving table that we had lunch from:

Now, it was really good, but this picture isn’t terribly attractive.  I think what’s missing is a beautiful green vegetable or two.  I could have gone for some collards or okra, but they must’ve already run out by the time we got there.  In any case, I was happy with my chicken & dressing, macaroni and cheese, squash casserole, and steamed cabbage.  So were the boys.

We made our annual let’s-get-a-wreath trip to Montgomery this past weekend.  The best, best, best place to go is the Curb Market which is only open Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

During other times of the year, we get all kinds of homemade jams and jellies, cakes, candies, fresh fruits and vegetables, and giant fall mums there.  It’s also where I got my huge cotton wreath.  These are a few pics from this latest trip, where as far as you could see it was all fresh greenery:

I came home with this fresh magnolia wreath for $30 which is $30 less than the exact same size one I saw at Whole Foods at my last visit.  And if you had to order them online, they get *really* expensive.

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If you get the Montgomery Advertiser, you might have seen my peppermint bark in Wednesday’s paper!