Crown Brand Corned Beef, Australia
(that’s a great-looking can)
Hometown Supermarket
Homewood AL, 2017.
Welcome.
Roadside Bar-B-Que
Birmingham AL, 2017.
Atlanta Ritz-Carlton
I’m missing hotels.
How glorious to go somewhere and be completely taken care of while free to do whatever. I just want to shut my eyes and think about how perfect that would be for a while.
This morning, I’m thinking of one of Shug’s favorites, the Atlanta Ritz-Carlton (exactly why he especially loves it, at the very bottom of this post). They’re always just super kind to everyone.
What follows will be really, really random; I’m just pulling together some pics and thoughts from the last few visits:
A welcome plate in the room with macarons.
Total macaron sidenote: I think my favorites are from Macaroon Boutique in Charleston, and maybe Le Cirque. Do you have a great macaron place? Laduree in Paris on the Champs Elysees is just dreamy, but I didn’t go when we were there (look how gorgeous), and didn’t even realize there was one in DC for our visit last summer. There are eight in the US now. Please do message me if you’re also a macaron fan and have a special place.
The lobby is all dark and metallics
Haaa I remember about ten or twelve years ago, I had a momentary lapse of judgment and told Av that what we needed in the dining room was a balloon chair a la the ones above at each end of the dining room table. Keep in mind our dining room is MCM: it’s Robsjohn-Gibbings for Widdicomb. Nothing would have looked more ridiculous (I mean, was I thinking traditional, or full-on Ashley Longshore with sequins?). Who even knows. 😂
Even better: I was making breakfast this morning (Thurs 10/8) when like a flash it occurred to me that I originally wrote those were umbrella chairs in this post. I’ve apparently spent too much time in the sun on a flag football field this summer without an umbrella chair.
And further sidenote, these balloon chairs from our stay at the St Anthony in SA are maybe my faves.
When the boys were younger, they liked the RitzKids activities and some of the resorts have day- and partial-day activities to keep the kids busy with fun things while the grown-ups are out doing whatever.
The valet area water available upon coming and going
Ta-da! The Ritz-Carlton cake. Yum.
I said this was random, y’all. It’s just a stream of consciousness of Atlanta R-C wonderfulness today.
Here, the on-site restaurant, AG.
We really like having breakfast there. This is the H&F Jerusalem bagel:
Banana pudding french toast. Sigh.
Really like all the LeCreuset serving pieces. The next time there’s a bunch of people over, I’m pulling out all ten thousand pounds of my LeCreuset just to recreate this look.
For Shugie’s birthday last October, we made a special visit, and besides these cupcakes they brought to the room, they brought another surprise plate with two just for him that said “Happy birthday” and his name spelled out in chocolate. So nice!
In the concierge lounge, a caricature artist with Shug:
I can start feeling like we can skip going out altogether when we snack from the concierge lounge. We always make friends and it’s fun to hear why people are in town and what they’re planning. The RC is close to so many other hotels there in downtown, though, that you can walk a couple of blocks in any direction and have just a full range of options for eating or just whatever, too. We’ve walked to Trader Vic’s at the Hilton and taken Marta (to give the boys a different Atlanta experience than just our car or Uber) up to One Eared Stag and then the High and MODA.
From another visit, they had these chocolate cupcakes waiting for us in the room as a surprise,
…and the other big surprise was this gift of balloons for our summer birthday boy Falcons fan! They seriously think of everything.
It’s birthday month here — both Shugie and I are October babies. It’s going to be a home-based birthday this year, but we’ll be planning how we’re going to celebrate big when we can. ❤ Hope we’re all making beautiful plans now and doing wonderful things together again soon soon soon. xoxo!
Neon Parking.
Monteleone Parking Garage
New Orleans LA, 2017.
This Week’s Various
As always, all images unless otherwise noted copyright Deep Fried Kudzu. Like to use one elsewhere? Kindly contact me here.
Of Karen Freidt’s (Newport News, Virginia) gorgeous pies, via the Daily Press:
(Anna) Sui printed out pictures of the pie and tacked it on her inspiration board and developed a clothing line called “Heartland.” Sui tracked Freidt down and asked if she could use one of her desserts as part of her fashion show. On Sept. 15, Sui’s virtual New York Fashion Week debuted, and one of Freidt’s pies made a grand appearance within the opening seconds.
Karen’s website / her instagram
Poe’s room at the University of Virginia, taken 2019
One may access the contents of volumes of the Southern Literary Messenger via the University of Michigan (Poe was at one time an editor and contributor).
nostalgia this week, esp after they were made on the first Great British Baking Show of the new season
At Chowhound, an excerpt from Kelly Fields’ new The Good Book of Southern Cooking: A Revival of Biscuits, Cakes, and Cornbread, and her recipe for upside down cake
“Here’s the thing about upside-down cakes, y’all: there are no rules beyond caramel + fruit + cake batter = upside down cake. Experiment with the fruit you love that’s in season and think beyond pineapple (even though I do love pineapple)…I won’t tell you an exact amount of fruit to add because it depends on the actual fruit, the season, and your personal taste. The important part is to ensure the cake has a single, even layer of fruit.”
my Lisa Kesler letterpress poster, with a quote from TKAM
In Two Texans Were Critical to bringing us To Kill A Mockingbird at the Dallas Morning News:
Nelle Lee, as she was known then, had dropped out of the University of Alabama in order to pursue her writing career, but at 30, she didn’t have much to show for it, and she had to walk around the block a few times to get up the courage to go inside. Once there, she left a stack of pages with the receptionist, mentioning that she was a childhood friend of Truman Capote and that some mutual friends had told her to come by the agency, which had a reputation for being kind to literary southerners.
A glorious Elijah Pierce exhibit at the Barnes Foundation brings us temptation, salvation, grace at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Pierce was born on a farm near Baldwyn, Miss., in 1892, the son of a formerly enslaved father. As a boy he began carving pictures on trees, and later he learned to cut hair to support himself. He left the farm and spent several years moving from place to place before he ended up in 1923 in Columbus, Ohio, where he spent most of his career.
He worked in barbershops, toured as a preacher, and died in 1984 as one of the country’s most celebrated self-taught artists.
From WHYY’s piece on the exhibit:
“He’s a storyteller,” said Ireson. “Because he was a preacher he had a real sense of how to hold an audience, how to get people to listen. There’s a performative aspect to the pieces. He had a talent for getting the right story and communicating it in a way that hits a nerve.”
wish we’d been able to do our usual beach Rosh Hashanah, with supper at Jackson’s in Pensacola (this pic of Shug, starting the holiday with apples and honey, 2017)
Emma Specter at Vogue: My Jewish Holiday Plans this Year? Nora Ephron Movies and Smoked Fish, for One
A devoted You’ve Got Mail fan friend of mine pointed out that I had chosen “the most Christian movie in history” for my solitary Rosh Hashanah viewing party, and she wasn’t wrong—between the heavy Christmas theme and Meg Ryan’s perky blonde shag, the film certainly skews gentile. Nonetheless, I maintain that any film Nora Ephron wrote, directed, produced, or was in any way involved with is inherently a Jewish text on par with Chaim Potok.
True dat! The television in my office plays YGM at *least* a couple of times a week — I mean, what a perfect, perfect movie. Also: I have to mention Nora pre-planned her funeral to tha max, including the guest list, and having her recipes in the pamphlets. In the cookbook she had put together but never sold, the LA Times explains:
She insists that homemade pastry dough is a waste of time: “Don’t ever make piecrust. Just buy it.” Other recipes call for B&M canned beans, Heinz chili sauce and way too much mayonnaise.
Some introductions read like legal disclaimers, revealing the author’s ambitions (or lack thereof). For a complicated recipe for chocolate buttercream icing, Ephron writes: “I have never made it and I never will. But I have eaten it and it’s great.”
PS: the world needs more Meg Ryan + Tom Hanks movies.
the staircase at Square Books in Oxford, 2017
The NYT’s list of 17 New Books to Watch for in October include The Dead are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck, and Red Comet: the Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath. Those are Amazon links, but the nice people at Square Books in Oxford can get these to you too.
Blue Ridge Parkway with rainstorm in the distance, 2019
Under Appalachian Tree Canopy, Forest Farming Enjoys a Revival at Whetstone
Ernest Tubb Record Shop, Nashville, 2018
Harry Smith’s Musical Catalogue of Human Experience at the New Yorker:
Within those categories, Smith relished the juxtaposition of regional styles. A single LP might contain an Acadian one-step, a Delta blues, a lonesome Appalachian ballad, and a Sacred Harp hymn. Each of the three sleeves was printed in a different color and featured a drawing of a celestial monochord—a single-stringed dulcimer, tuned by the hand of God—taken from “De Musica Mundana,” a book by the Elizabethan alchemist Robert Fludd, from 1618.
Super random:
What if there were a Gehry x Hennessey collab? It would look like this. And Yayoi Kusama x Veuve Clicquot? This.
How I buy wine: “oh, that’s a pretty label! Come on home.” but here’s how to really read a label from the NYT.
At The Guardian: Are We Nearly There Yet? Take a 1980s Road Trip Down the A1 — in pictures
This: “I used to work at a shelter magazine dedicated to architect-designed homes for wealthy people. I’d estimate that half of the kitchens in those homes disguised Ikea cabinet boxes with custom door and drawer fronts.”
Thinking that the mix of architecture styles at ‘The Cottages at Symphony Grove’ — one of the WDW Resort planned communities is something like “let’s just do one of everything” hi, I mentioned this was the super random section
Willie Mae’s, 2012
Willie Mae’s Scotch House is making fried chicken sandwiches — and in a partnership, they’re on the menu at HiHo in LA.
The sandwich, served with housemade HiHo pickles on a brioche bun, features a deconstructed slaw that adds nice acidity while preserving the crunch of the batter. There’s also a hit of sweetness from organic honey. And while the chicken has a little kick from cayenne pepper, this is not a spicy sandwich.
and
“I’m just grateful for anybody that comes,” she continued. “Every guest, every order big or small, I love it all. As long as they want some Willie Mae’s and they miss us and are thinking about us, I’m happy. I feel like we have our brand and when things get back to normal, we’ll be OK. We’re OK now. We’ll be OK then.”
Very happy to find this little sunflower field going strong this past week in Baileyton, Alabama. xoxo, friends!
Stereo & VCR Repair
Electro Music
Greenville AL, 2017.
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