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.
Two things to be thinking of right now:
If you celebrate Christmas and use a live tree, before putting it on the curb, if you’ve considered making your own bottle tree, you’re ready to go.
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Ornaments are easy to find now for at least 50% off — look for regular unadorned round globes in two or three different sizes, in green, purple, and gold. Here are the instructions — it’s easy to make and even though this one was made in 2008, it still looks perfect!
We found a place we love in Tupelo. Neon Pig.
It even beat out ~30 other places, including Company Burger, Hog and Hominy, and in the finals, a place in San Francisco (though doesn’t it make you wonder how this turns out fairly since so many places are in high-density areas thus would seemingly have a larger voter pool, and how many people have had each?). Still, I imagine that the voters got it right.
Before we get too far, the Neon Pig is situated in a small space in just a regular, nothing-special shopping center. But that really has nothing to do with anything. This is what awaits inside.
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Not just cowboy cut, but a Benton’s bacon-cured cowboy cut.
Black grouper, red snapper…
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Among the cheeses, those from Many Fold Farm (Serenbe) — and at top, kimchi-marinated pork belly.
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along with sage advice
Help yourself to a can or bottle of…and some fresh produce (and Sugaree’s) for home
The boys wanted grilled cheese, and I decided to have the salad: tomatoes, corn, Benton’s, arugula, pickled onions, dressed with a combination of ‘white gold’ and harisa. Terrific. Sweet, sour, savory with pops of corn, meatiness of tomato. Will order this every time.
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This is a deconstructed Smash burger — the one they are well-known for. Av’s a purist, so he orders just meat and bread. But this pie plate shows the accessories — Benton’s, cheddar, quick pickles, pickled onion, hoisin, and comeback:
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Loved the burger. It’s a combination of aged filet, sirloin, ribeye, new york, and Benton’s. The way it’s cooked has a real backyard grill quality in taste. Perfect. Av thinks it’s right up there with Chez FonFon in Birmingham.
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Go early or go late, because the word is out on how great this place is, and the seating capacity is crazy-small.
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The bracket that Neon Pig won for best burger: here on Thrillist.
Next time in Tupelo, we’re trying their sister restaurant, Kermit’s Outlaw Kitchen.
It’s warm here. The boys wore shorts and tees to school last week and I’ve been in sandals. Still, though, it’s December and the leaves have fallen, so in principle it should be cool. But I’d rather think about spring, and this week I was thinking about earlier this year at Longue Vue in New Orleans.
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It was the home of Edith and Edgar Stern — Edith’s father was Julius Rosenthal, president of Sears and huge philanthropist (if you’ve ever heard of Rosenwald Schools…). The philanthropy continued with the Sterns. and the Times-Pic even did an article which started with calling them the ‘first couple of New Orleans philanthropy.’
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I’d love to show pics of the inside, but interior images are not permitted. What made an impression was that the furnishings’ form and material were so traditional that they still looked tasteful and attractive all these years later. One of the back rooms of the home is made into a small gallery (I remember an Agam). And the Sterns were into technology — it was the first home in the area with central air…and built-in scales in the bathrooms.
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While the home tour is done with a host, the garden tour of eight acres is self-guided:
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Even in winter, the garden will be full of blooming camellias
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stone effect, laid on their edge so as to stand up:
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Last month, Longue Vue House and Gardens: The Architecture, Interiors, and Gardens of New Orleans’ Most Celebrated Estate was published. It includes home and garden plans, even with listings of what plants are utilized in each specific area. Got it. Beautiful.
At the Pinnacle in downtown Jackson, Rod Moorhead‘s sculptures of Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, and William Faulkner
from HottyToddy.com:
“…it was about Richard Wright for me,” he said. “Native Son is a killer story, a real Greek tragedy. You have to do Faulkner and in Jackson you have to do Welty, but I was doing Richard Wright.”
Channeling Tom Wesselmann’s Mouth #15 at the High in Atlanta.
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Looking for perfectly straight teeth again.
Not sure what happened, because my teeth were straight all through high school and college
But a few years ago, I noticed my teeth were getting more crowded. Not crazy, they just weren’t as straight as they used to be. My dentist said it’s something that just happens sometimes. So before it gets out of hand, I asked for an Invisalign consultation.
Here you can see they are getting a little crowded right in front:
Also: I remember growing up hearing how expensive my friends’ regular metal braces were and how long they had to wear them — Av was in orthodontia for years — that I was mentally preparing myself for thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars and…I don’t know…at least 18 months in braces.
We sent our wishlist to Invisalign, and they come back with little movies of how everything is going to get moved around:
Wow.
Another consultation was done right after these movies came in and we went back to Invisalign asking for a little more adjustment for a wider smile (I didn’t record the movies of those).
I’ll be in my braces for 10 months total, getting new trays every two weeks, so a total of 20 sets of trays.
Today I went in and got my first set of trays. I have several tooth-colored bumpers now placed on my teeth that help get everything into position, so if you look super-close you can see those, but otherwise, they aren’t too bad.
When Av was about eight years old, he was swimming in the Gulf of Mexico on a trip with both sets of grandparents. He saw what looked like a baseball floating in the water and reached out to grab it.
Jellyfish.
Huge mistake.
Av’s dad took a trip to Palau this year and I was expecting another batch of ‘wow’ photographs:
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The boys think it is so neat to have an adventurous Papa:
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…but like so many of his scuba trips he’s taken (a la, not sure exactly where Truk Lagoon, Micronesia is without Google) I hadn’t realized where exactly he was going. Palau is home to ‘Jellyfish Lake’ which I’ve seen on National Geographic — the saltwater lake in which jellyfish have lost their sting. Could not believe he was in one of my dream places!
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https://player.vimeo.com/video/23079092
JELLYFISH LAKE from Sarosh Jacob on Vimeo.
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A JL Nipper porcupine at Main Street Gallery in Clayton, Georgia (we have one of JL’s armadillos, but love what he did with this!)
Every visit to camp in north Georgia, we try to visit Main Street Gallery in Clayton.
Purvis Young
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Missionary Mary Proctor
Dorethey Gorham
Dennis Banks
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They’ve also had pieces by Richard Burnside, Lonnie Holley, Chris Clark, Cornbread, Woodie Long, Peter Loose, R.A. Miller, Annie T, and many, many others. Always love the pieces they have by OL Samuels and Don Bundrick. Nice inventory.
Now through December 8, they have an exhibit from artists featured in the new ‘When the Spirit Speaks: Self-Taught Art of the South‘ book by Margaret Day Allen.
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