Month: February 2013

William ‘Bill’ Dunlap is the first artist-in-residence at Mississippi State for the spring 2013 semester; there will be a reception for his “William Dunlap: Look At It — Think About It” exhibit on Feb. 21 in the Cullis Wade Depot gallery at MSU.

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These are some of the Valentines I made for Av this year (remember these are Valentines, so a certain degree of goofy/corny is acceptable)!

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Lilly Ledbetter’s story will be made into a movie.  She sued Goodyear in Gadsden for paying her less than her male counterparts, and won a lawsuit for $3.8MM (which was later overturned because she waited too long to file her lawsuit). There’s a Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act that’s been signed into law as of 2009.

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I took a pic of this wonderful Frank Fleming piece, entitled ‘Dogman, Rabbitman, and Soup Tureen’ dated 1988, on a visit I made to the Southern Living offices in 2009 when working on a project.  That campus is *amazing*. 

The Meredith – Time Warner deal sounds like it may very well happen. This means…if so…Southern Living, Coastal Living, etc will be part of the company in Iowa that owns Family Circle and LHJ. And what happens then??  Ouch.

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A statue of Rosa Parks will be dedicated on February 27, at the National Statuary Hall at the US Capitol.

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I’ve had kosher for Passover vodka, but now there’s a kosher for Passover gin.

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Saks has chocolate-covered jalapenos.

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 I have a genius friend from the Nashville area, Dan Furman, who graduated from Oberlin; just last year he earned financial sponsorship from the New York Foundation for the Arts for his musical, ‘Rip! A Story of Love, Revolution, and What is Possible‘, a variation on the Rip Van Winkle story — and is working on a new musical called ‘The Proust Virus‘.  If you are ever in NYC and enjoy jazz piano, you have to see one of his shows.

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What I’m reading (just in case any of these sound good to you too — and if you know of something you’d think I’d like, contact me! thanks!):
A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty
Zelda Fitzgerald: the Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age’s High Priestess
Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker: A Novel
The Art of Fermentation

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Is what we call ‘Hummingbird Cake‘ really based on the recipe for ‘Dr. Bird Cake‘ in Jamaica? Looks verrrry similar, except we put yummy cream cheese icing all over.  I just found something about this — Helen Moore, a writer for the Charlotte Observer, wrote on November 23, 1986 in an article entitled Hummingbird Cake from Jamaica Remains Popular: “When it comes to cake, the Dr. Bird or Hummingbird Cake recipe has been one of the most popular through the years. Originally the recipe came to me during the late `60`s, as I recall, from the Jamaican airlines…Ruth Threat of Matthews even sent a picture of a Dr. Bird, a national symbol of Jamaica”

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Twitter feed of the week: Literally Dying.

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The New Yorker has an article (by Susan Orlean, so you know it’s going to be good) about Brendan O’Connell, who paints scenes from WalMart. He grew up in Tucker, Georgia and ‘had an epiphany’ one day at Winn-Dixie.

Walmart series here.

He’s doing a Kickstarter right now for his national art event for children called ‘EveryArtist.Me‘ and will be on Colbert on March 5 to discuss it.

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One of my Tivos is set to always record Independent Lens on PBS; I was so tickled to see that it picked up ‘Beauty is Embarrassing‘, the doc about wonderful-wonderful artist Wayne White (who grew up on Sand Mountain / Chattanooga).  Here’s the trailer:
http://dgjigvacl6ipj.cloudfront.net/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf

This is crazy, but every time I think of Valentine’s Day, I think of this Fant’s ad back from 2006 in the Advertiser-Gleam that I just had to take a picture of. See that, top-right?

“You Just Think She Wants Jewelry! 9-1/2″ Iron Skillet $4.98 each”

I hope you get everything you want this Valentine’s Day!  xoxo!

Found this in December, while in Bainbridge, Georgia…

Varsity fried pies — how can you argue with their sweet envelopes:

…so while feeling a little nostalgic for Hubig’s pies, and having kept a couple sleeves of the Mardi Gras design, I decided to give them all their due:

Simple white Ikea frames = perfect:

Without Hubig’s pies this season, this makes us all happy:

Are you on Vine? Look me up (deepfriedkudzu, of course) — tickled to be the first person to put ‘What’llYaHave’ from the Varsity on!

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Thacker Mountain Radio is back.

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King cake tasting party!

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I ran across this by Kurt Vonnegut this week, from Timequake: “Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.”

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Information on the Scottsboro Boys Act that was introduced in Montgomery. Here, from the AP.

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USA Today runs an excerpt of the upcoming Z: A Novel by Zelda Fitzgerald.  Not so sure about this one.

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The LA Times has a feature, ‘155 Recipes for your favorite Restaurant Dishes‘ including one for ‘cornish scones‘ from the Savoy, and surprisingly — lamb shanks from Amtrak that are supposed to be delicious — and they were actually from chef/author Tom Douglas and Amtrak’s executive chef, who sous-vides them at 160* for 20 hours…

Valentine’s Day banner:

Sweet little ribbon wreath:

Retro card wreath:

Thinking about Valentine’s Day coming up…

Once when I was little, I asked my Nanny z”l and PawPaw z”l where they first met, and I remember PawPaw answering while sort-of laughing — so I’m not sure if he was completely serious — but the story goes that he was with some friends at the post office, and my Nanny came in, and he said purposefully loud enough for her to hear, ‘that’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen’.

He was right. She was gorgeous.

He was back from the war, and they surely knew each other from before since they were so close in age and lived in the same small town. I think he meant it was the first time he realized they were meant to be together.

Last year on the way to Guntersville, I stopped in the building and found this magnificent interior with *all that marble*, the tile-work, heavy wood doors, and those gorgeous old banks of mailboxes. It makes me like that story even more if that’s possible, to know it was in this setting.

Av and I met through a mutual friend, an older gentleman who I did business with through the company I was with. Our first date was at a restaurant known as being ‘the most romantic restaurant’ in the city, something they advertised. It must’ve worked; coincidentally also having supper there that night (another friend of Av’s) was the girl who would shortly thereafter become my best friend all this time. Sweet.

I had a friend in college whose mother cooked elaborate suppers for the family every night.  She was in the kitchen all day, from breakfast to supper, hours and hours making these fabulous meals. It was…who she was — if you asked her what she liked to do, it was cook, and she never tired of it.

Maybe the easiest thing she ever, ever made was this (probably from the ’50s) dessert she called ‘pineapple delight’ and it was my favorite. I like to make it and put it in pretty jelly jars for individual servings, but you can make it in a big 9×13 pan as she did. Either way, yum.

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If you know me in ‘real life’ then you may have heard last week about the excitement with a house fire in a different neighborhood from where we live — we saw it when driving to Home Depot — and everything that went on.  It turned out fine, but a miracle! I was so appreciative of the fire department that came to the rescue. They first checked on those of us who had gone inside, and saved the house secondly. In appreciation, I made this dessert and brought it to them at their station. Now they are enjoying the retro yum too.

Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
3/4 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 large or extra large egg
1/2 cup melted, cooled butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 pint whipping cream
1 regular-size can crushed pineapple (I think that’s something like 10 or 12 oz)

Directions:
Mix together the graham cracker crumbs with the melted butter, and spread into an even layer of the pan or jars — I think this makes about 12 jars’ worth — whichever you’re using.

Beat together the confectioner’s sugar, the melted and cooled butter, egg, and vanilla. Pour that on top of the crumbs.

Note: think about saving just a little bit of the pineapple to dot the top of the dessert with, and if you like that idea, then hold back some (as in the pic above).

Top the yellow layer of the sugar/egg/butter/vanilla with the mixture of whipping cream plus the crushed pineapple that has been drained.

Chill two hours at least.