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.
—
Natasha Trethewey from Gulfport has been chosen to be the nation’s 19th Poet Laureate. Today when I was driving to a lunch date with some girlfriends, I heard Fresh Air on NPR rebroadcast a 2007 interview with her, after she had won the Pulitzer for ‘Native Guard’.
—
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.”
—
Rocky & Carlo’s in Chalmette has reopened.
—
Tsuris at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans. This place has such a great mission I hope it all gets figured out.
—
33rd Annual Mississippi Picnic in NYC this weekend. Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, too.
—
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.”
—
The NYT: One Week on a Mississippi Steamboat Cruise.
—
Coming in July: deepsouth, a documentary about HIV in the South.
—
Antebellum Flint River Place plantation home in north Alabama, on the Register, was damaged by fire earlier this week.
—
Biscuit love at the Georgia Museum of Art.
—
PBS Digital Studios autotunes Mr. Rogers:
Immediately made me think of this Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking autotune.
—
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.
—
Bailey’s Woods, which Faulkner played in as a child and later purchased, has been designated — its path between Rowan Oak and the Ole Miss Museum (which right now is showing ‘How We Worked, Played, and Prayed: An Exhibition of Southern Folk Art‘ thru July 13) — as a National Recreation Trail.
—
Sheep are eating the kudzu at Chastain in Atlanta.
—
Doug MacCash writes in the T-P about three Louisiana ecologically-focused exhibits will show at the Ogden this summer.
—
Oh, and I tried the new Cathead Vodka honeysuckle flavor this week. Very nice.