Author: ginger

Apple picking at Steele Orchard in Cullman, Alabama — started with apple cider slushee and an apple fried pie

It’s actually so easy — a gentle tug with the long-handled basket on the apple you like, and they drop in

Getting ready for Rosh Hashanah! Here are some little projects from previous years that went really well. This year a new try for me is making apple butter with the apples picked this past weekend at Steele Orchard in Cullman, Alabama.

Round challah (my favorite do-anything-with bread recipe is this one)

Here’s how to make these great pomegranate rolls

Sculpey apple magnets

L’Shanah Tovah banner

Other ideas I’ve done:

Decorated caramel apples (just follow most any recipe for caramel apples, and decoate as you like as a group activity — sweet to write the new year date in chocolate)

A birthday cake for the world (did this when the boys were little and was super sweet)

If you celebrate, sending you sweetest wishes. If this isn’t your holiday, it’s still a great time to look up recipes for honey cake, apple desserts, and lots more fun. xoxo!

I’ve been thinking about literary home museums lately: I’ve had the chance to visit several from this list of Southern states/authors (which isn’t at all meant to be complete, only a good sampling) just over the past couple of years. One early experience that I’m grateful for was a middle school trip to Ivy Green, Helen Keller’s home, as it gave me an appreciation for the everyday lives and environments that shaped the authors we read.

Faulkner’s Rowan Oak, from a visit last year

Alabama

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum – Montgomery, AL

Helen Keller Birthplace, Ivy Green – Tuscumbia, AL

Mississippi

Rowan Oak, William Faulkner Home – Oxford, MS

Eudora Welty House and Garden – Jackson, MS

Tennessee Williams Home and Welcome Center – Columbus, MS

Tennessee

Alex Haley Museum and Interpretive Center – Henning, TN

Georgia

Margaret Mitchell House – Atlanta, GA

Flannery O’Connor, Andalusia Farm – Milledgeville, GA

North Carolina

Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site – Flat Rock, NC

Thomas Wolfe Memorial, Old Kentucky Home – Asheville, NC

Florida

Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum – Key West, FL

Louisiana

The Tennessee Williams House – New Orleans, LA

Texas

O. Henry House Museum – Austin, TX

What’s been your favorite exhibit so far this year? For me, it has to be the Chris Antemann: An Occasional Craving show at the Dixon in Memphis.

From the website:

In 2011, American ceramic artist Chris Antemann formed what would become a fruitful partnership with the centuries-old Meissen porcelain manufactory that continues today. With a profound respect for the innovation and artistry of Meissen porcelain, Antemann re-envisions the concept of porcelain figural groupings with a wink of her twenty-first-century eye. Chris’ colorful, imaginative, and often cheeky ceramic sculptures parody the dynamics between men and women, much as they did in the eighteenth century. And while viewers of rococo porcelain figural groupings would have been cognizant of the coded innuendos that abound in the art of that era, Antemann is much more explicit in her representations (and parodies) of human sexuality.

Chris Antemann: An Occasional Craving presents a variety of Antemann’s works, from her early MEISSEN collaborations to more complex dramatic table-top centerpieces produced in her studio in Joseph, OR. Inspired by the Dixon’s own Warda Stevens Stout Collection of Eighteenth-Century German Porcelain, by the vitality of our beautiful gardens, and by the Berthe Morisot painting in our collection, Peasant Girl among Tulips, Antemann is creating a pair of tulipieres specifically for the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. Visitors to the exhibition will be charmed by her sculptures, which walk a fine line between lighthearted and profound, and come away with a deeper understanding of the nuances of historic German porcelain.

Learn more about Chris Antemann at chrisantemann.com and ferrincontemporary.com.

In April, the strawberries were ripe for picking so we went to Brown’s Farm in New Market, Alabama and picked a bucketful.

These were quite ripe so I knew I had to work with them quickly — turned some of the berries into a frozen pie (sub strawberry for lemon in this recipe and add a few strawberry pieces), and the rest into strawberry jam:

I’ll use that strawberry jam for many things including sweet little surprise gifts, and one way I’m sure I’ll use them this summer is with these little mini croissant sandwiches which always go over great: split a croissant in half, spread with strawberry jam, top with a slice of very good roast beef and arugula. Skewer. Et voila!

Alana Dao wrote had an article at Bitter Southerner last year, An Ode to Luby’s & The Southern Cafeteria: If you’ve ever walked a tray along a rail — looking for green Jell-O salad, hot buttered rolls or mile-high strawberry shortcake — you know the assembly line that is a Southern cafeteria.

In Alabama, it wasn’t Luby’s, it was Morrison’s (and while Picadilly owns all the Morrison’s in existence now, one of those retains its name under agreement, the one in Mobile).

Morrison’s Cafeteria was the default for my Nanny and PawPaw going to eat at the Gadsden Mall: it was always a sure bet to please everyone, not that it was completely delicious, but it was good enough and plenty of choices. I loved the turkey and dressing, the pear salad (so grown up!),  the bejeweled cubes of jello with the whipped cream and maraschino cherry segment atop for dessert. Extra hungry? Rather than jello, the apple dumpling — so fancy with its pastry casing, the one dessert alone with the hot food options.

I loved when the woman at the register at the end of the line would ring the doorbell signaling for someone to come help little, young me take my platter.

Here, a cafeteria mix-tape — not all the ones I have pictures from, just the ones that come to mind first:

Niki’s West, Birmingham AL

Now shuttered, The Smokehouse in Birmingham AL — feeling a little fancy? Sit in the back:

a little less so? More homey here:

Also shuttered, Maggie’s in Tuscaloosa:

Swett’s, Nashville:

Sarris Restaurant, Birmingham:

Mary’s Southern Cooking, Mobile:

Arnold’s Country Kitchen in Nashville:

Shuttered, Niki’s Downtown (not Niki’s West) in Birmingham, which blessedly had pastitsio:

Mrs B’s Home Cooking, Montgomery:

Uncle Mick’s Cajun Cafe, Prattville AL:

The Four Way in Memphis:

Betty Mae’s in Huntsville AL:

Minnie’s Uptown in Columbus GA:

The White House in Warrior AL:

The Colonnade in Atlanta:

Victoria’s Cafe, Jasper AL:

Long gone, never forgotten Belle Meade Cafeteria in Nashville:

Shapiro’s in Indianapolis:

Interesting how they do their deviled eggs:

I saw an old Pioneer Cafeteria tray at a kitchen I once picked up at for United Way’s Meals on Wheels when I volunteered:

Eagle’s in Birmingham:

Sisters of the New South in Savannah:

The wild yellow chicken and dressing at the Cedar House Cafeteria in Tarrant AL:

Magnolia Room Cafeteria in Tucker GA:

The Irondale Cafe in Irondale AL:

Honey from the Rock Cafe, Augusta GA:

S&S Cafeteria, Knoxville TN:

Weaver D’s in Athens GA:

Veranda had an article a few years ago about literary hotels — this isn’t all of them, but the list included, and yes of course I’m going to lean heavily on the ones with Southern ties:

Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in the Antibes where F. Scott Fitzgerald used as the setting for Tender is the Night.

Raffles Singapore is known for Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, W. Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, and Alfred Hitchcock.

Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans hosted William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, John Grisham, Anne Rice, and Stephen Ambrose. The Monteleone along with the Plaza and the Algonquin are the only other hotels make official literary landmarks by the Friends of the Library Association. The Plaza and The Algonquin

Intercontinental The Willard in Washington D.C. is famous for Nathaniel Hawthorne, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, and Charles Dickens. It was here that MLK Jr wrote his “I Have a Dream” speech. Not mentioned by Veranda, but Julia Ward Howe also stayed here.

The Plaza Hotel is the setting for Eloise and is also known for authors F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Truman Capote, who hosted his Black and White Ball there.
Hotel Website: fairmont the plaza hotel

From a 2020 stay at the Pontchartrain

Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire from The Pontchartrain Hotel in New Orleans.

New York’s The Algonquin Hotel is known for Dorothy Parker, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Maya Angelou (and others of The Round Table).

The Historic Hotels of America listed their Top 25 Most Literary Hotels for 2024 and those included several from the list above (like the Willard, the Omni Parker House) plus also notably:

The Strater Hotel  https://strater.com/ — Louis L’Amour

The Menger Hotel  https://www.mengerhotel.com/ — Oscar Wilde, William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), Sidney Lanier, Theodore Roosevelt

Green Park Inn  http://greenparkinn.com/ — Margaret Mitchell

The Broadmoor  https://www.broadmoor.com/ — Truman Capote, Nelle Harper Lee

Brent treated the boys to a trip to Atlanta last month to celebrate Shug’s graduation. We stayed at the Ritz-Carlton.

It was right around Easter so part of the lobby was themed along with foods in the concierge lounge, and even our turndown service treat was a chocolate bunny

Oh! Two of the more random things I really liked:

This honey server in the concierge lounge at breakfast

…and this RC didn’t have the usual Asprey products, but the Diptyque, which I like so much better

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We also went to Little 5 Points to take the boys record shopping — they liked Criminal Records

and Wax n Facts

this Misguided Spirits Piggly Wiggly sign

…and a little stop to IKEA for magically almost nothing and Buford Highway Farmers Market which is always fun

Shug makes our third family member in the Indian Springs alumni association! He will be a counselor at his camp most of the summer and then go to Bama in the fall. I’ve always said that I gave birth to an engineer and he will make an incredible one, but he also has such a gift for finance — so we’ll see how that turns out!

Shugie will be in 11th grade this coming school year, and in the meantime he is taking courses at Bama and then heading up to New England to be on-campus at another university for more classes in a few weeks (can I turn this into a Nantucket and/or MV trip? We shall see!). He’s racking up those hours!

Super proud of the boys!

Last weekend, Brent and I went on a foraging hike with a group and the Land Trust of North Alabama at Harvest Square in Harvest, Alabama. We learned about (and snacked some) sumac, cattail, Virginia pepperberry, Queen Anne’s lace (be sure not to get that one wrong), and some other things.

Land Trust of N AL does a good number of these hikes and other activities, and we’re planning on a mushroom hike our guide told us about for later this year.