Month: May 2012

As always, unless otherwise noted, all pics here copyright Deep Fried Kudzu. Ask me before using in any fashion. Thank you.

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The T-P reports on best food at Jazz Fest.  Crawfish Monica of course!

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Love these beeswax candles — you’ll see why.

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Yessssss — Downton Abbey paper dolls!

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Munch’s ‘The Scream’ sells for $119.9MM this week at Sotheby’s.

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(line at the 2010 Hot Chicken Festival we went to)

The new Bolton’s Spicy Chicken and Fish that was open in Nashville (the O’Bolton’s) has closed but the original remains.

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Tupelo Honey in Asheville has a new Pimento Cheese of the Month Club — well, actually every-other-month. A year is $199 with free shipping if it’s ordered before 5/13.

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The Commercial Appeal writes about a philosophy teacher at Rhodes College in Memphis s who iis doing a project called ‘American Values’ in which she asked people to send her photographs of themselves holding handwritten signs of what’s important to them:
At this point, she has more than 400 portraits of people from nearly every state — one of the rules of the project is that participants must be American or living in America — holding up signs that read everything from “Trust” to “Freedom” to “Coffee.”

 ‘Family’ is 5x more popular than anything else. On exhibit at Marshall Arts Gallery in Memphis.

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Last Friday, the South Alabama Writers’ Symposium was giving Fannie Flagg its Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year — and who else rolls in? That’s right.

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There’s a show on NatGeo called ‘Rocket City Rednecks‘ but seriously someone shooting a rifle today from a moving car at the Saturn V rocket in Huntsville…

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The AJC writes about the ‘Resurrection of Finster’s Paradise Garden‘ — and Finster Fest is this weekend.  Creative Loafing chimes in too.

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The NYT reviews “Ghost Brothers of Darkland County” in Atlanta, the Southern gothic musical by Stephen King and John Mellencamp.  “…a tense sibling rivalry between a novelist with a dark streak and a blue-jeans-wearing crooner. Frank (Lucas Kavner) and Drake McCandless (Justin Guarini) are surely meant to evoke younger versions of the famous team that created them.”  The reviewer didn’t absolutely hate it, but wasn’t a fan, either.

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Harold’s Barbecue is staying open after all.  After being in business for decades, the outpouring of support and business after last week’s story of their closing has the owners reconsidering.

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Winning recipes from the National Cornbread Festival here.

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The LA Times does Salvation Mountain: Then and Now.

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We lost sweet Georgine Clarke, the mother of Kentuck (and leader of so much other good) this week.

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The American Queen is again river boating on the Mississippi after four years of being away (including a stint in a federal repo compound).

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The James Beard Awards are in, and Hugh Atcheson won in the ‘American Cooking’ award for his cookbook, A New Turn in the South.

One of the wonderful things about seeing my friend Wade Wharton at his reception by the Huntsville Art League for his ‘Metamorphosis’ show back in March was spending time with him and his family, the unexpected but simply *wonderful* treat of bumping into friends Joyce and Rand, getting together with my friend, the landscape painting artist Conor O’Brien, and then being invited by John Farrer for us all to visit his studio afterwards (last visit here).

This was a fabulous, fabulous evening.

What John’s working on now for an installation in B’ham:

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful — can’t wait to see this when it’s completed and in the space.

I’ve seen the drawings and it is going to be magnificent.  More of John’s projects at his site here.

Found this in Clarksdale:

After alllll that has been written about Southern food in NYC the last…five years especially…I thought it would be interesting to take a minute to see how some of the restaurants define themselves and what they offer that makes them stand out.

Seersucker: the NYT said, “It’s urbane, soft spoken and modern, the kind of place where actual residents of Chapel Hill, Nashville or Birmingham might go on a Saturday night.”

Most Interesting: not sure, but this sounds good: black pepper ricotta dumplings — Ozark country ham, market nettles, Georgia olive oil, NY ramps.  Oh, and apparently GQ wrote that Seersucker is “the perfect place for your NASCAR appetite to meet your NPR lifestyle.”

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SoCo, which describes itself as “Southern Fusion, a new cuisine yet to make its mark on the New York dining scene. The group describes southern fusion as a mixture of cajun/creole, barbecue and soul food dreamt up with everything else you can imagine.”

Most interesting: organic buttermilk fried chicken over *red velvet waffles*

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The Redhead: they quote NYM’s Adam Platt, “. . .southern-fried cooking, in its greasy, queasy glory, is all the rage…where former New Orleans chef Meg Grace has concocted a recession-friendly menu…”  Greasy and queasy, though, Adam?  That doesn’t sound especially good.

Most interesting: bacon peanut brittle that can be shipped to your home. Also, they do crawfish boils and have the good sense to offer Abita.

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Peaches HotHouse: “the HotHouse features great Southern regional classics such as Shrimp and Grits, Oyster Po’ Boys, Gumbo and Black Eyed Peas with Country Ham. The main event will be Nashville Style Hot Chicken!”

Most interesting: they put a piece of extra spicy fried chicken on top of a hamburger and call it “The Booker T.”. Really.

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Bobwhite Lunch and Supper Counter: “as bobwhites began to disappear, sadly so did some of the flavors that made the South special. But with the renewed interest in local, seasonal and sustainable food we can hope to bring back some of those special flavors…”

Most interesting: serving their grandmother’s tomato pudding, recipe here.

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Lowcountry: “comfort food inspired from the lowcountry region of the American South, in particular, the coastal regions of the Carolinas and Georgia”

Most interesting: their ‘Breakfast in a Jar’ which is Stone Ground Grits, Goat Cheese, Soft Poached Egg, Candied Bacon

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Hill Country Chicken: “inspired by its founder’s childhood memories and his passion for the Texas-style home cooking of his mother and grandmothers, Betty and Momma Els”

Most interesting: No big surprises…other than that you can order a box of wine (“…and let’s have a $14 box of Bandit, please.” The ‘house’ box of wine is $24) to go with your supper.

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Southern Hospitality BBQ: “The phrase “Southern Hospitality” has always had the idea that people of the South are particularly warm and welcoming and use proper local etiquette – calling one “Sir” or “Ma’am,” opening doors for ladies, inviting one to their home, and the like. At our restaurant “Southern Hospitality” takes on that philosophy and more…”

Most interesting: nothing really, other than that a half-rack of ribs and two sides are $22.95.

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Tipsy Parson: “lemon-cornmeal pancakes…Fudge Farm’s country ham with biscuits & gravy…poached eggs atop a crock of creamy, stone-ground grits from South Carolina. We promise you won’t go home hungry.”

Most interesting: they’ve got the deviled eggs and fried pickles and fried green tomatoes, and who among us wouldn’t be happy to serve their spread trio: pimento cheese, deviled tasso, and black-eyed pea salad with housemade herb crackers?

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The Commodore fits in here somehow, and so does Char No. 4, with its “over 150 American whiskeys and…a menu of American fare with a focus on smoked meat.”


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And let us not forget in a discussion of Southern food up north, Sylvia’s, Amy Ruth’s (which has a dish named after the President and another after Afrika Bambaataa), and Billie’s Black (site plays music).

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Southern food in NY is a conversation that can go on a long time, although the idea of meat and threes, not so much.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to enjoy sopping my cornbread in potlikker pretty much any time I like; here, from lunch at the Davis Cafe in Montgomery:

Aaaaaahhhhhh.  Yes.