Month: April 2011

Gip’s Place in Bessemer (a juke joint — the owner is “a gravedigger by day and a musician at night. For more than 50 years some of the best blues musicians have been performing in Gip’s backyard. There is no exact schedule, only most Saturday nights, which is part of the charm of this juke joint.”)  They’ve had Bobby Rush and T-Model Ford — two of my favorites in the last year.

The Garage in Birmingham (“named by GQ magazine as one of the “World’s Best Places To Fly To,” The Garage has a delightful split personality. By day, its lush, enchanting courtyard brimming with eclectic antique decorations for sale is a prime spot for antiquing. At night, a friendly neighborhood pub comes to life, often with live music.”).  I’ve only been there for lunch but the courtyard can not be beat.

Rattlesnake Saloon in Colbert County (“built in the shadows of a cave just past the Seven Springs Lodge”) ooooh this looks so great!  Open for lunch and supper…this pic in the paper is great.

Sous-La-Terre in Montgomery — I think they only start at midnight…this is supposed to be one of the coolest old-school places anywhere.

Flora-Bama in Orange Beach — it’s right on the AL-FL state line…it’s where they have the mullet toss, and the Polar Bear Dip on New Year Day (Av’s done that – fun!!!).

Glittered deer head, upclose:

The men’s room was “Ike” and the women’s, “Tina”:

When we gave our order, the guy called me “doll” and Av “devil”.  The hipster meter jumped.

Av got a club sandwich and I got an appetizer — the ‘bread & spread’ plate with green apple walnut pesto, pimento cheese, and jalapeño-cilantro hummus.  Pretty good but I needed three other people to share it:

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The LA Times had an article about a week ago about MS juke joints.  

The Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale is April 16 (it’s great).

First there was this home of the bean pie…

…but the bean pie has another home not too far away from the first, also in downtown B’ham:

We have a George Jones Jr. broom here in our home.  Now, George makes brooms to be used, and brooms to be displayed.  Seeing as our house is populated by three Roombas (one for each floor and a dedicated one for kitchen duty each evening as we sleep.  I’m a fan.) a Dyson, and a steam mop, I just don’t feel like using my George Jones artsy broom.

I think George comes each year to Kentuck — this is a shot from his tent one year — and we must’ve gotten ours from him eight or nine years ago.

George isn’t the first person in his family to make brooms — his great-grandfather started a broom operation at the tenant farm in Lauderdale County he managed during the Depression.  It’s just gone from generation to generation.  George has been named a Master Craftsman and a Craft Fellow by the Alabama State Council on the Arts.  My favorite of his brooms is here.

Last week I heard about broom makers in North Carolina — Marlow and Ralph Gates (article about them in the Asheville paper here).  There’s a tutorial on how to make a cobweb broom here on their website.

I’ve heard of ‘jumping the broom’ but wow these wedding brooms he makes — and these too…