Deep Fried Kudzu

Here, a visit we made to Newbern, Alabama, and of course we photographed the green warehouse William Christenberry made famous.

This is how it looked when he captured it in 1978 and here, the painting he made of it in 2008 in the permanent collection of LACMA.

June 21, 2016

Revolving Tables, Still Revolving, And Peggy’s Is Back

I read somewhere recently, and can’t remember what article it was, that The Dinner Bell is the last revolving table restaurant in Mississippi. But that’s not accurate, as Walnut Hills in Vicksburg is still spinning (in fact, the other day they listed on FB they were serving “Fried Chicken, Roast Beef, Shrimp Etoufee, Rice & Gravy, Butter Peas, Green Beans, Purple Hull Peas, Candied Sweet Potatoes, Mustard Greens, Smothered Squash, Coleslaw, Marinated Beets, Apple Cobbler, Mississippi Mud Cake”). On this visit, we were in McComb, and happily sat down to this table at the Dinner Bell, which was completely filled with other diners (I took this pic once everyone else had left)
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Besides the food, I love meeting the other diners, as most often we’re all strangers to one another, and enjoy the dance of the table as people are so incredibly polite about taking dishes down from the lazy susan and putting them back, when to spin, and looking out for errant spoons looking to tip frosty glasses of sweet tea.

Here: (I guess the fried eggplant hadn’t yet made it around) peas, beans, sweet potatoes, greens, a dumplin, cornbread, and a fried chicken thigh

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All delicious.

Shugie = huge fan.

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Best Mississippi restaurant news I’ve heard this month: Peggy’s in Philadelphia (Neshoba County) is open again. That’s another ‘home’ restaurant in which the honor system is in place: one pays cash in a basket upon leaving.
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Can’t wait to eat from these sweet plates again later this summer

June 20, 2016

Ziplining, And Zip Coaster?

We hosted some guests from Israel this summer, and one of the activities we did was take them ziplining at Red Mountain Park in Birmingham. *So fun!*

The first thing we came up on was the new Schaeffer Eye Center ‘Schaeffer Spectacles‘ sculpture — they’re a little hard to see at this time of day but so neat:
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(and lots of love to Schaeffer, as that’s where I had my LASIK (best thing ever), they do so much for our community, and we know them — they’re just a great family.)

There are different things to do at the park: hike, a new Segway tour, and they also have an hour-long ziplining tour with seven different ziplines — that’s what we did.

The last time I ziplined was across the lake at Camp Mac with my adventure group. Ashley took this slow-mo vid of me going across! Hilarious!
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This gave me a bit of a pause. I seriously didn’t think at first my legs were long enough so I could make it from board to board on that wobbly bridge

Ziplining at Red Mountain Park, Birmingham

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Did it. Heh. No makeup and not my greatest pic (so relieved I’m almost cross-eyed!!) but gosh am I so happy to have made it across!
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So much crazy fun. Shug likes to do the zipline at the Birmingham Zoo. I think later this year we may take everybody to Georgia where they have the world’s largest zipline tour.

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I just read that at the new Margaritaville Resort in Biloxi, they have a cloud coaster which is some kind of zipline ride — not sure, but maybe something like this?
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Roller Coaster Zipline from Taylor-Rae Kotschenreuther on Vimeo.

June 17, 2016

Blue

We always see this pretty blue church in Houston, near Ninfa’s on Navigation.
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If you look at the sign super-closely, in those mailbox sticker letters (the kind you can get at Home Depot or Lowe’s) they list their clergy using three different Hebrew names for the Almighty.

June 15, 2016

Holler, Real, Really Good, And Symbols

There are two restaurants that opened this spring in Homewood — one is Holler and Dash, which is Cracker Barrell’s first try at fast-casual, with an emphasis on all things biscuit.

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It’s corporate but cute, and one gets the sense the designers spent a lot of time on Pinterest.

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The star? The biscuit. In fact, there are 11 variations on the biscuit on the menu (you can get a yogurt parfait or even a salad, but it feels as though coming here and ordering something other than a biscuit would be like going to a steakhouse and getting the fish).

Among the offerings: Chicken Holler (hot chicken, cheddar, pickles in medium, hot, or “make ’em holler”), Andoille Hustle (andoille and cheddar over sausage gravy), Kickback Chicken (fried chicken, goat cheese, green onion, sweet pepper jelly), Hollerback Club (bacon, guacamole, fried green tomato, ‘hollerback sauce’)…here, plain ol’ biscuit
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Leslie and I had the flying frittata (roasted vegetable egg white frittata, kale, herbed Greek yogurt, dash of hot sauce). Good.
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We were invited to the soft opening of Real and Rosemary, which is also in Homewood, close to Holler and Dash. It’s decorated simply and sweetly
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We got to meet the owner and saw a few media friends; the food was served family style for this event so we could have a taste of everything. Here, the collard green pesto, and a dab of honey ricotta dip
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Southwest salad with apples, tomatoes, chicken, pepperjack, beans, avocado and tortillo strips, with a chipotle lime dressing
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beet, fig, and goat cheese sandwich on cranberry walnut bread
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bacon, lettuce, and fried green tomato sandwich
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I noticed one of the desserts mentions Pastry Arts, which is just up the street from Real and Rosemary. If you haven’t been to Pastry Arts, go ahead and fix that as soon as you can. Their baby bites (like cake balls, but they’re flat and un-iced on the bottom) are incredible.
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yasssss.

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Do you think in a couple of years we’ll be able to look back at the last decade in restaurant history as the ampersand years? In 2014, Eater ran What’s in a Name? The Year of the Ampersand. Last year the Washingtonian had Why do so many Hot New Restaurants Have Names that Sound the Same?:
As my colleagues Anna Spiegel and Ann Limpert pointed out recently, Ampersands are as common right now in area restaurants as dishtowel napkins and dainty grandma plates…

June 14, 2016