Month: January 2012

 

“Instead of a traditional cake, the groom chose his favorite Southern desserts, pecan pie and bite-size pecan tassies.”

“…a four-tiered wedding cake for the bride…the top and bottom tiers were red velvet cake, the bride’s favorite, while the remaining two layers were Italian cream and traditional wedding cake.  The groom provided a dessert table featuring lemon tarts, pecan pie tarts, and his favorite, sweet potato casserole tarts.”

One wedding was a military wedding and included a ‘missing chair ceremony honoring Prisoners of War and those Missing in Action.’  “During the ceremony, an honor guard presented the wheel hats of each branch of the military at a vacant place setting.  A single candle decorated the table, representing the prisoner alone.  The plates were served with a lemon to signify that the POW and MIA were unable to participate in the toasts during the celebration.”  Very nice.

“The groom’s cake was fashioned as a black labrador, wearing an Auburn University collar, in honor of the groom’s alma mater.  In the lab’s mouth was a duck, wearing the National Champions’ opponents’ (Oregon) colors.”


“An armadillo red velvet cake, as a tribute to the couple’s Southern roots and one of the bride’s favorite movies…”


“The groom’s cake, a gingerbread house created to look like the couple’s new home…”


“The focal point was a chocolate chip cake filled with caramel, iced in buttercream, and designed as a red snapper.”


“The groom’s four-tiered cake, covered in camouflage fondant, sat on a stump which the groom cut.  It was topped with “his and her” deer heads.”

I try to visit Wade Wharton every five or six weeks but I think it had been since November since my last visit, and after last week’s Huntsville Times feature, we were really trying to find a good time to get together.  I think Wade has done some of his best work the last quarter of 2011 and currently:

(new) Caterpillar:

(new) Thin Buddha (remember when Buddha fasted to achieve clarity, although his clarity came after the fast was over?):

I think this is one of his greatest pieces ever.

(old) Dragonfly, from behind.

It was hard to photograph this one well (and I still don’t have a good shot) — this is the new mosquito – see his red nose cone? He was just hit with a swatter (see also next pic) which explains his legs up:

This praying mantis is another of my long-time favorites:

This is a story of Creation — the devil as a demon, and Adam — upset over the trickery with Eve — as cowboy (even with spurs!)…there’s also a strategically-placed maple leaf:

Inside, Wade has this piece he’s done, of the Last Supper:

Sounds like a couple of new exhibits may be coming his way soon…

Wade loves visitors to his art environment; email me if you’d like to see him!

KPBS: Can Salvation Mountain be Saved? “It took artist Leonard Knight almost 30 years to build a colorful mountain out of adobe and paint in the middle of the Imperial Valley desert. It’s called Salvation Mountain and it draws thousands of tourists to the area. KPBS arts reporter Angela Carone finds out why a monument to religious salvation, now needs its own savior.”

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The NYT on the 20th anniversary of the Outsider Art Fair.  MAKE skateboards is selling Royal Robertson decks?!

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One of my very good friends’ husband has just written a book that was reviewed by the AP and ran in the Washington Post, Quest for Justice: Defending the Damned.  You can preorder at Amazon now (it’s out on Jan 31).  He’s a defense lawyer well-known for his high-profile cases, particularly those involving people on death row.  The last paragraph of the article: “In every case, my fervent stance against the death penalty precludes a person or the government from taking any life, for any reason,” he writes. “Only the G-d I believe in should do that, without human intervention.”


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The T-P goes to Haydel’s for a king cake tasting to determine who has the best, they write, “A waiter in a tuxedo served us judges a Haydel’s traditional cake, a cream-cheese-filled king cake, and the newest flavor, the chocolate-chip-brownie filled king cake. It has a strip of brownie dough baked onto the top.”

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From the press release: Lauren Rogers Museum of Art presents Eudora Welty’s Garden: Photographs by Langdon Clay on display in the Stairwell Gallery February 9 through April 1. The public is invited to attend a Gallery Talk by Clay Feb. 9 at 6 p.m. with a reception and book-signing to follow.  ((If you’re thinking Langdon Clay’s name sounds familiar, his wife is Maude Schuyler Clay.))

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(this is not the sign for the show, but it reminded me of this place in Florence I took a pic of in 2006)

Playwright Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder (who wrote the play ‘Gee’s Bend’) will debut ‘Chat and Chew Supper Club‘ (tickets here) March 1-4 and March 8-11 at All Saints Episcopal Church in Mobile.  After a year of being at home with her baby, she said, “I knew it was time to put away the purple velour track suit I had lived in for the past year and reclaim my life. I enrolled my daughter in daycare part time, bought myself a pair of sassy boots, and started cooking and writing again.


“I still craved adult conversation and a place to wear my sassy boots. That’s when the ‘Chat and Chew Supper Club’ was born. Part essay, part performance, part dinner with friends, ‘Chat and Chew Supper Club’ is a thoughtful and humorous monologue about food (there is chocolate involved), friendship (everyone needs a friend willing to help them hide a body) and the best advice ever given (requires nudity).


“So grab a bottle of wine and join me in the kitchen, where you’ll hear me talk about all the things we hunger for while I cook you supper,” Wilder says. “Then hang out with me and a table full of strangers for conversation and a home-cooked meal.”

A source of her funding is RocketHub (think Kickstarter) — and she’s almost 50% of the way there.

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The FLW Heller home in Hyde Park (Chicago) is on the market for $2.5MM.

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The 27th Alabama Clay Conference will be in Birmingham from February 16-19.  There will be a trade show, an exhibit, a clay market, and other ceramic exhibits going on in town.


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The Blond Giraffe Key Lime Pie Factory — who won ‘best key lime pie in Florida’ by Florida Monthly eight consecutive years — has moved (!!) from Key West to Pigeon Forge (!!!).  And to help fit in, they’ve started making candy flavored with Jack Daniels.

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Jesmyn Ward from DeLisle, Mississippi, who wrote Salvage the Bones, won the 2011 National Book Award for fiction.  From the NBA site: A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch’s father is growing concerned. A hard drinker largely absent, he doesn’t show interest in much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn’t much to save. Lately, Esch can’t keep down what food she gets; she’s fifteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pit bull’s new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child’s play and short on parenting.


As the twelve days that make up the novel’s framework yield to a dramatic conclusion, the unforgettable family at the novel’s core—motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce—pulls itself up to face another day.

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I was going to tell my friend Joey Brackner, who is executive director of the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture about the JB Skinner jug (est. $2500-3500) that was featured on an episode of Antiques Roadshow this month, but when I looked it up, I found that he had already been consulted about it; the article is at PBS here.

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I don’t even like wallpaper, but this is the best wallpaper everrrr.

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Friday’s NYT op-ed by Randy Fertel (Ruth’s son) on Mississippi River Delta erosion, and what needs to happen now to help turn things around — starting with BP penalty money being turned over to Gulf states.  Note, the Times had to rewrite the piece as they originally ran it on Friday as the Mississippi Delta (think Clarksdale, Greenwood, Belzoni, etc) rather than the Mississippi River Delta, which is where Randy is talking about.  I made the link to their corrected piece.

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Very nice: Tupelo Honey in Asheville is shipping 30 brown butter pecan pies to our troops in Afghanistan for Valentine’s Day.  Seen their newish cookbook?  And they’re expanding into Knoxville now.

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The AP reports on Yiddish being taught at college, including Emory.  yay!  And the NYT reports on ‘A Jewish Museum Shifts Identity‘.

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(a not-great pic I took of his work at Kentuck a few years ago)

On view through April 8, Jimmy Descant: The Shape of Louisiana Commenting on the Shape of Louisiana at the Ogden.

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There is a ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ iPhone case.  And Universal Orlando will start a nightly water show this spring that includes clips from TKaM and other movies, all voiced over by (you guessed this already) Morgan Freeman.

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“Let Saigons be Saigons Lemongrass Mint Julep with Lychee” with recipe, from nola.com.

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(this pic from a lunch we had there a couple of years ago)

Meat and Three Swett’s, in Nashville, is now serving barbecue that they make in a pit ‘fired by hickory wood alone — no gas’. “Gas and wood, it’s not the same flavor,” Swett said, contending that gas can give meat sulfurous taste.” Amen!

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Reuters reports from Sundance:
Julie Dash, who directed the television movie “The Rosa Parks Story,” is in final negotiations to direct Angel Entertainment’s feature “Tupelo 77,” Angel’s Bob Crowe said Sunday.

The movie is set in a small town in Mississippi in the summer of 1977. It tells the story of a group of women of various ages and races who are regulars at a roadside diner. The summer of 1977 — the year Elvis Presley died — is the hottest on record in Mississippi.

Earlier this month when we were in Port Gibson, MS we went through downtown and found Yo Majesty’s Beauty Salon Etc. (look at what one of the stylists there can do!):

Mimi’s birthday is in January, and her favorite bakery is Savage’s in Homewood.  As we went to pick up her birthday cake during lunch, we went ahead and ordered a couple of sandwiches — this was one of the loosest pimento cheeses I’ve ever had, but on their sun-dried tomato bread, it was pretty good…

Alabama became a state in 1819; before that, the first town incorporated by the Territorial Legislature was Mooresville — and it doesn’t look as though too much has changed in the last 150 years or so.

The white 1854 Church of Christ, bottom-right, is where James Garfield preached while he was camped during the War, before he became president:

The church in the middle, above, is the 1839 Old Brick Church.  It reminds me of First Presbyterian in Port Gibson, MS since they both have hands pointing up from the steeple:

My favorite building of all, though, is the 1840 post office (the oldest in the state):

…and look how pretty inside.  The mail slots date to before the War, too.  When I went in to buy some stamps, I spoke with the clerk who said that they get more business than the much more modern post office nearby, because in part they get so much wedding invitation business (people want Mooresville on their envelopes, and this post office still hand-cancels the stamps so they stay pretty).

Some of those boxes there have been in the same family for generations!

On the way to Starkville last year, we found this marker (below, left) for an Indian mound close by the Tibbee Creek.  My WPA book says that the site is where ‘Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes once fought a great battle…and that after the battle, each buried its dead in a separate mound’ — the state historic marker very near there reads, ‘Prehistoric Indian Burial Mound, Constructed ca. 100BC-AD400 for the burial of high-status members of an unknown local tribal group.  An associated village site lies across the highway to the southwest.’

The Chickasaw mound is visible in the pic below-right, behind the marker:

Next, in Brooksville we found this abandoned school — the curved lines in the front along with the glass bricks suggest it may have been built in the ’30s:

These pretty churches were also in Brooksville:

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Flickr has lots of great abandoned building groups; I really like the European ones — especially this one, with pics like this.

We’ve all seen images of 16th Street Baptist Church in daylight, but I really like the way it looks at twilight, when the neon sign comes on.  I took these pics in September:

The Huntsville Times ran an article on my friend Wade Wharton in today’s edition, entitled Artist Wade Wharton, Considered by some a Huntsville Icon, Creates Tree of Wisdom and Learning, Aspires for Spot in a Museum (long title!).

I wish the tone of the article had been more positive, but am thankful for the publicity; Mr. Wharton certainly deserves praise and recognition for his work.  I’ll be in Huntsville this coming week to visit him and will post more pictures then of his latest creations.  Love him.

Bon Appetit’s February issue is devoted to the South.

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Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s is still not available as an eBook.  LA Times has an article about it (and a related BaT book) just last week.

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Red velvet cake martini?

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Sentenced: Robert Lucky Jr. of New Orleans, sentenced earlier this month for 25 months in federal prison for his part in selling paintings that were wrongly attributed to Clementine Hunter.

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You can raise chickens in Nashville now!  Yay!  And in other ordinance news, Shreveport may ban pajamas in public.

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(above: a slice of king cake we had last year)
Rouses is making what they are calling ‘gourmet’ king cakes: red velvet cream cheese, German chocolate, triple chocolate fudge, and black forest.

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In her NYT article late last month, Roberta Smith began, “By just about any measure, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which opened last month in this small town in northwest Arkansas, is off to a running start.” but also pointed out, “There is one huge blind spot in the collection up to 1900, and it is a very serious one in my book: the almost complete lack of paintings by largely self-taught or folk artists. This country’s folk art is as great and as original as any other art it has produced; its uncanny fusion of abstraction and representation, and of primitive and modern makes it the American equivalent of Sienese painting in the early Italian Renaissance. Leaving it out is like looking at the story of American art with only one eye.”

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Andrew Rice writes article, “Romney’s Mustard Base: A Guide to South Carolina Barbecue and the Republican Primary“

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Fred Scruton’s portraits of artists — wonderful.

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Looking *so* forward to seeing George Lucas’ Red Tails, about the Tuskegee Airmen, out this weekend.

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The Grammy Awards are telecast February 12th this year, with several fewer categories, including five fewer in the American Roots category.  Many changes.  The NYT: “The most controversial cuts took place in the field known as American roots. Traditional blues and contemporary blues were put together, as were traditional and contemporary folk music. The awards for best album in Hawaiian, American Indian, and zydeco or Cajun music were thrown together in a single category called “regional roots music.””  


The Beaumont Enterprise writes about Grammy nominee C.J. Chenier as the prince of Zydeco, here.

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So cute: our 3-year-old Shugie happened to have lunch with Mike Slive (SEC Commissioner) today and when he was asked to tell Mike ‘what does an elephant say?’ Shugie told him ‘Roll Tide!!’.

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Last week, Dr. Pepper pulled the plug on Dr. Pepper at Dublin Dr. Pepper (est. 1891 in Dublin, Texas), the world’s oldest Dr. Pepper bottler, and the only one to have always made it with real sugar (Imperial Sugar!) instead of changing the recipe to nasty HFCS (corn syrup).

Dr. Pepper/Snapple sued Dublin this summer.

That’s it for us buying Dr. Pepper.  We used to have Dublin Dr. Pepper ship to us for Passover (one of our six-packs, pictured above, more below.) since corn is forbidden during the observance and since Dublin made it with sugar, it was fine…  It was so fantastic to drink it out of those fantastic glass bottles too.

According to Reuters:
After more than 100 years, Dr Pepper Bottling Co. in Dublin, Texas stopped making its signature beverage last week as part of an agreement reached after Dr Pepper Snapple Group sued the 40-person bottling company over trademark and territory issues.


Nancy Wooldridge, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said the town of 4,000 suffered a “heart attack” as production stopped and workers removed signs reading “Dublin Dr Pepper” from the bottling plant.


The secret to Dublin Dr Pepper’s success was that the bottler made it using Imperial pure cane sugar. Dr Pepper made with the sugar — as opposed to corn syrup — will still be available, but Dublin-labeled bottles are no more, and Dr Pepper will not be bottled at that plant.


That has left many in this small town two hours west of Dallas — which designates itself “Dr Pepper, Texas” for an annual festival each year — bitter and disappointed.

     …..
But thousands of Dublin Dr Pepper supporters have signed online petitions or indicated support for a boycott of Dr Pepper Snapple Group. A petition at change.org had 14,517 signers by Friday afternoon, and 18,253 supporters “liked” the “I Support Dublin Dr Pepper” Facebook page.


Dubliners and other Texans have rallied around the beverages still to be produced there, including Triple XXX Root Beer.


Chef Jon Bonnell, owner of Bonnell’s Fine Texas Cuisine in Fort Worth, is eliminating a signature dessert at his restaurant — the Dublin Dr Pepper Float — and replacing it with a Triple XXX Root Beer float.


“I’m always proud to support the little guys over there,” Bonnell told Reuters. “When I saw what Dr Pepper as a company did to the little guy, I said, ‘You know, life’s too short.’ “


     …..
The plant will stay open, although 14 of the 40 employees were laid off. Three have been hired by the group, and others are being interviewed, Barnes said.


Article from the Dallas Observer here.


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Virginia Willis cooks with Frank Stitt at Bottega in Birmingham this coming Thursday 1/26; limited to 40 guests.  Menu:

Sounds like date-night with Av!

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The Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans has just announced its purchase of a building to house its culinary library.

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The NYT writes, ‘Two Fairs, Not Homogenized‘ about the New York Ceramics Fair and the Metro Show. Bloomberg reports that the American Folk Art Museum is now ‘reasonably secure’.

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(and of all things, she likes the chips at Central in Memphis — my pic from our lunch there, above:)

This week on NPR – All Things Considered: ‘4258 Miles of Meat: Chef, Dad on a Quest for BBQ‘: “Until this fall, chef Molly Baz was working at an upscale Michelin-starred restaurant in New York City. But she decided to give that up to go on a road trip.

Molly wanted to learn everything she could about variations in American barbecue, so she planned a tour of the country’s most renowned barbecue regions and invited her father, photographer Doug Baz, along for the ride. The pair documented their travels on their blog, Adventures in BBQ.”

and


“”I think that we pretty much hit the jackpot in Texas,” Molly says. “Truly, Texas blew our minds. I’ve never tasted a more delicious piece of unadulterated meat in my life.””

…and from their Tumblr: Things We’ll Miss: -the Southern Hospitality attitude: nowhere have I encountered such friendly, open and generous people. We’ve gotten more free food, desserts, barbecue sauces and snacks for the road than we deserved. The abundance of biscuits: I told you and I’ll say it again, no one makes biscuits this well up north…


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On Kickstarter: Lucky Town Brewing Company in Mississippi.

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Will Holman has a nice editorial at Design Observer that includes his time at the Rural Studio, Lessons from the Front Lines of Social Design.