Twenty-plus years of documenting the South's vernacular art, visionary environments and traditions….plus modern art exhibits, Faulkner and Eudora, and This Week's Various. Welcome.
This week there was a post at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution site about Georgia lawmakers considering a proposal to drop down to accepting $100 per day (!) in gifts from lobbyists. One example given was that a legislator could have a meal at Rathbun’s, clocking in at just under the limit, which the author mentioned was not exactly meat-and-three.
…and if I were looking for something exactly at $100, I’d be in Nashville rather than Atlanta, sitting at The Catbird Seat where there’s no menu and what’s served is whatever the chef found most fresh and most inspiring that day.
The last time we had meat-and-three in Georgia — we do this at least weekly at home in Alabama — was a few months ago in Dalton when we were making a trip from the aquarium in Chattanooga to (mainly) IKEA in Atlanta and the boys were hungry for lunch. We looked downtown for something non-chain and found this classic with a neon sign…
Oakwood Cafe. Then even better, it was a nice meat-and-three with plenty of choices, the offerings fairly shouting at us in all-caps. ‘Take ME!’ said the crowder peas and deviled eggs. ‘Here I AM!’ from the blackeyed peas and greens.
Chicken livers, greens, and corn casserole, with a little cornbread too. The fruit salad is elsewhere. Excellent.
Outside the South, meat-and-threes are not as well-known, but at Tart in Los Angeles, they explain: The name derives from an offering of any meat and three vegetable side dishes for a set price. In the Southern United States, it often comes with a bread roll or cornbread in lieu of a vegetable; elsewhere potato is the main starch. Often, the menu is set, typically at a fixed price. Except…I don’t think that’s really accurate, as breads are included, but not in lieu of a vegetable. I know of plenty of places that you can substitute a cobbler or banana pudding for a vegetable, but not a bread. Bread you just get anyway.
Tart does get extra points, though, for including a recipe for watermelon rind pickles (although you really can cut off all the pink). My faves! And extra-extra points for offering bottomless mimosas. Nice.
Since a serpent handling preacher — Mack Wolford — from West Virginia passed away from a strike a couple of weeks ago (and the pastor’s father had passed away the same way), there’s been a lot of interest and news stories about the practice. One of the best was in the Tennessean.
This church I found in Macedonia, Alabama a few years ago has been mentioned in a couple of books as following ‘signs’ (from the Christian Bible, Mark 16: 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. 17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. 19 So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. 20 And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.) — it’s Old Rock House Holiness. One of my friends in college was once invited to a similar church, and she politely turned down the offer. I, on the other hand, would love to go.
— Fred Webster, who created the serpent handlers pictured at the top of this post, is included in the ‘Faith and Form’ exhibit going on now thru September 1 at the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette. Full press release here.
The Chicago Tribune approves of the ‘Heaven + Hell’ exhibit at the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA), going on now thru June 30. Among the artists included: Minnie Evans, Howard Finster, William Edmondson, and Sister Gertrude Morgan.
I didn’t take pics of the Frank Gehry – designed house in the Make It Right neighborhood in the Lower 9th (this one’s on Tennessee St) the last time I drove by, but today Doug MacCash has put four pics of it up: here, here, here, and here. Time for sod, as he said. And I can’t wait to see inside it, either! Nice.
John Currence made his own menu while chef for the weekend at City Grit in NYC, ‘featured Mississippi vegetables (“these were all in the ground two days ago”) and Gulf Coast seafood. He characterizes the meal as nothing more than “three guys cooking in the Southern vernacular.”‘
— On one of the Minneapolis 2012 Antiques Roadshow episodes that ran last month, a letter dated June 4, 1863 from U.S. Grant was featured, because it was written to protect Mary B. Vick’s Vicksburg plantation. She had crossed the Union blockade and met with Grant herself in order to guarantee her property. The gentleman who owned it was advised to insure it for $10k.
— Rouse’s downtown (in New Orleans) is doing aeroponics — growing their own herbs for sale on the rooftop using these towers.
Would love to see this, from Fondation Cartier in Paris: “On view from May 15 to October 21, 2012, the exhibition Histoires de voir: Show and Tell presents the works and narratives of over 40 painters, sculptors and filmmakers from around the world. They are Brazilian, Indian, Congolese, as well as Haitian, Mexican, Danish, Japanese and American. They hail from the urban centers of Paris and Port-au-Prince, or the rural communities of the Amazon and Madya Pradesh. They emerged as artists and developed their talents in uncommon circumstances; they have often been considered as naïve artists and have rarely been invited to exhibit their works in contemporary art institutions.”
— Maybe you’ve heard about Trader Joe’s chocolate chips being designated as dairy by OK now; if you know how hard it is to find a good pareve chocolate chip, then this makes sense, from the WSJ: Others have been racing from store to store hoping to score a bag. Leo Brafman, who lives in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, first went to the one Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn last week and scooped up the last seven bags. He then dashed to a store in Rego Park, Queens, and bought its last 38 bags. Rumors of an extra shipment sent him back to Brooklyn, but the news was half-baked.
“All the packets were [dairy] already,” Mr. Brafman said. “And my wife was devastated.”
— The Tuscaloosa News writes: “If a concept being promoted by the Southeastern Literary Tourism Initiative takes hold, fiction readers using Kindles, iPads, iPhones or laptops can take their own journeys with just a click on hotlinks that might lead to more real-life journeys.
SELTI recently named Kathryn C. Lang’s short story, “Digging Up Bones,” about a murder investigation at Moundville Archaeological Park, the winner of its first writing competition to link fiction works with real-life sites. The online version of the story takes you to history, photos and more about Moundville, which was North America’s second-largest city several hundred years ago.”
— Sean Brock talks with Evan Kleiman about sorghum on Good Food. Not sure where Sean sources his, but there’s a Mennonite community in Muddy Pond, Tennessee who grows it — the miller is here.
Yay Billy Reid, for winning the CFDA Award for Menswear Designer of the Year!! Billy won Best New Menswear Designer in 2001, and it is *so* good to see him recognized by CFDA again. I just ran by this week again when we were in Florence to his flagship shop:
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