Deep Fried Kudzu

Grown Folks
Greenville MS, 2005.

The mom of of my best friends from college made the best iced tea. Okay, two people in my life have made the best iced tea, actually. The other was my aunt Helen — my grandfather’s sister — whose secret ingredient (remembering that she was a housewife in the ’60s after all) was TANG. And it was fabulous.

Anyway, I asked my friend’s mom for her wonderful tea recipe, and you know it’s gonna be sweet because she started her message back to me with “Hon”:

Love her. She won’t mind me sharing.

It’s two family-size bags of tea to a kettle of boiling water, add a heaping cup of sugar, take the kettle off the heat, and add water to the pitcher to taste. That turns out to be not some crazy secret recipe like I thought maybe. No doubt what made it so good was that SHE made it. And Shugie approves.

Now, Aunt Helen passed away in the late 90s so I never asked her what the recipe was for her Tang tea, and I’m not sure I have the hang of it, because whatever I do, it’s not as great as I remember hers tasting. I even tried it as some sort of takeoff on an Arnold Palmer, but…

If you know the secret to Tang tea, pass it on! Would love to hear how to do it the right way.

Now, two quick good natured things before we do the really terrific tea services:

Still life of Po Folks tea gallons, Manischewitz, and Kedem bottles at a luncheon in Florida from a few years ago,

and at Rojo in Birmingham, this is how they label their tea urns:

One of my besties treated me to Independent Presbyterian’s 73rd annual tour of homes and afternoon tea last month. We loved it! IPC’s sanctuary:

upstairs, the tea:

Served in beautiful silver

We really enjoyed our table guests too, and had a lovely time, and the treats were terrific

Destination Tea is the best tea room finder I came across when looking for establishments just now.

There are certainly teas going on at some higher-end hotels in Atlanta and New Orleans. Shugie’s favorite hotel in Atlanta, and maybe mine there too, is the St Regis and they have a tea at their Astor Court.

St. Regis, Buckhead

Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans

Windsor Court, New Orleans

Year round, there is a tea at Le Salon at Windsor Court in New Orleans, but I wind up going upstairs at their Grill Room which is a terrific meat & three at lunch.  Saturday afternoon tea is served at the Davenport Lounge at the RC.

When Sucre had its Salon in the Quarter, I did that once with a blooming marigold tea:

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The best, best, best has been the afternoon tea at the Mandarin Oriental in Las Vegas a few years ago. The hotel is now the Waldorf Astoria and still offers that service

If you know of a fab tea room or a fun tea experience, please share. xoxo!

Happy New Year!

We’re not doing the polar dip at the Flora-Bama this year (this was from 2007 when Av gave it a try), but did just get back from the beach, where it was gorgeous but the waves were too rough (and cold) to get in the water.

Hope you’re enjoying blackeyed peas, collards or another of the greens, cornbread, some yummy casseroles, and a terrific dessert or two with those you love.  I’m thinking besides all that, some cheese straws might a nice addition today.

PS: If you find a live Christmas tree on the curb and you’re into Southern folklore, remember that those will make great bottle trees for at least a few years. xoxo!

My first time to attend an Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame installation was in 2015, for Kathyrn Tucker Windham. It was at the lovely (closed last year) Judson College in Marion, Alabama. The school was established in 1838.

Lunch was served on this pretty Judson motif china

I am beyond thrilled to report that after months of work, I turned in the application nominating Alice Finch Lee back in August, and heard last month (it was embargoed ’til December 1) that she will be inducted in the 2023 AWHoF on March 1.

She was one of the first female lawyers in the state of Alabama, and when she retired at 100, was the oldest practicing attorney in the state. I sent just an incredible list of her merits in the application.

(Fun fact: she was Nelle Harper Lee’s older sister, and that’s the Old Courthouse Museum in Monroeville in the pic above, the model for the final scenes in TKAM)

So so so happy that Miss Alice will be inducted into the 2023 AWHoF. Yay!!

As always, all images unless otherwise noted copyright Deep Fried Kudzu. Like to use one elsewhere? Kindly contact me here.

Affiliate links are sometimes used. That means that if you purchase something via one of the links, it costs you nothing extra, but may generate a commission, offsetting the cost of DFK… e.g. as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Also: remember that Bookshop is fab because they’re giving orders to indie booksellers. Grateful for your support. xoxo!

Super short this week!

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Those Wrangler x Lucchese jeans are  $496.

Field trip to the Lucchese shop:

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Andy Warhol’s Dolly Parton, from a visit to Crystal Bridges in 2014

Even the Art Newspaper reported on Dolly Parton’s plans for a museum and more in Nashville

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Bitter Southerner calls this peach wrapping paper what it is but I’m thinking those Whelan Girls need to make it into wallpaper, and I’m not even a wallpaper person

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From a 2013 visit

Country Roads on the levee bonfires, lighting the way for Papa Noel along the Mississippi. Here’s what Blood, Sweat, and Bonfires is building.

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Highlands, 2017

Just ran across the ‘Best Classic Restaurants in Each State‘ at Food & Wine, and for Alabama, it was Highlands in Birmingham. I happened to have a pedicure next to someone who works for the group, and they’re still unsure if Highlands will open in weeks, months… Also getting a mention, Bright Star, Martin’s, Archibald’s, and Doc’s Seafood.

Georgia is Bacchanalia, The Colonnade, Busy Bee, Mrs Wilkes, and Weaver D’s.

For Louisiana, they mention Commander’s, Antoine’s, Arnaud’s, Galatoire’s, Dooky Chase, and Casamento’s.

In Mississippi, it’s Bully’s, Dinner Bell, Doe’s, Weidmann’s, and Mary Mahoney’s.

Tennessee = Bea’s, Arnold’s, Prince’s, the Rendezvous, Scott’s BBQ in Lexington, and the Old Mill in Pigeon Forge.

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Super random:

I love that Lane Cake is Alabama’s official dessert, but wowee: the baguette has been granted World Heritage status by UNESCO (and PS, there’s a baguette problem in rural areas of France). Others with the distinction here.

Ryden x Barbie

Robb Report on Elvis’ private jet coming up for auction, and the plush red velvet seats are EVERYthing

Alex Hitz will be signing his Occasions to Celebrate at Square Books on Jan 26

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Watched Descendant, the Clothilde / Africatown story on Netflix — excellent

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Gone but not Forgotten: Louisiana’s small cemeteries at risk in changing landscapes by Brian M. Davis at 64 Parishes

Across Bayou Lafourche, at the intersection of the Southwest Louisiana Canal, parts of the Lefort Cemetery remained above the water line until August 2021, when Hurricane Ida made landfall thirteen miles to the south. What remains of brick vaults are now underwater.

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Emeril’s, 2016

Emeril’s has changed (a LOT, it needed to) and here’s the latest

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The Broadway and off-Broadway productions of TKAM are still…dramatic. From the NYT:

Courtroom Drama: New Legal Battle Over ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Three years ago a new Broadway play based on the classic Harper Lee novel tried to prevent regional stagings of an earlier dramatization. Now, the roles are reversed.

In 2019, the producers of a Broadway adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” provoked outrage by seeking to prevent a group of small theaters around the country from staging an earlier dramatization of the novel.

Now the tables have turned: The publisher of the earlier adaptation is seeking to block the Broadway version from being staged at a wide variety of venues.

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Hope you’ve been having a fun week! Big news on Monday xoxo!

Visited the LaGrange Art Museum in LaGrange, Georgia last week. Their Eat. Sleep. Art. Repeat. exhibit is on through March 4.

Tom Patton, Olive Loaf (which reminded me of Jerry Siegel’s Carolina grocery store image)

Elsworth Kelly, Oranges

Rick Leech’s Dinner Table or Oversize Conversation Piece with the boar face jug and the poor bunny (?) all splayed

Alexia Markarian

Isabella Losskarn, Will You Cut that Up for Her

Two books, above, Salvadore Dali Les Diners de Gala and below, Andy Warhol and Suzy Frankfurt Wild Raspberries

Especially nice are the virtual exhibits that LaGrange keeps online, in particular Butch Anthony’s fabulous Art, Nature, and Intertwangleism. It is BEYOND.

There’s a bread recipe that I use many weeks of the year — one batch will make two or three days’ worth of bread. Many times, I’ll make it early in the week and there will be enough for me to make a small-ish challah on Friday. I use it to make rolls, loaf bread, and just whatever. Crazy easy and it keeps in the refrigerator.

Ingredients:
1/2 c warm water (apparently 95* is optimum, but don’t let it get warmer than 140* which is the point it kills yeast)
1 packet dry yeast (1/4 oz)
1 tsp sugar
5c all-purpose flour
3 tbsp sugar
5 tsp baking powder
3 tsp salt
1/2 c butter cut into small pieces
1/2 c butter-flavored Crisco (seriously, Crisco)
2 c buttermilk
additional butter for baking

1/ in a measuring cup, combine the warm water, yeast, and 1 tsp sugar. Let that work and bubble five minutes.
2/ in a large bowl (I use the Kitchenaid) combine the flour and other dry ingredients. Next, add the yeast mixture. Add the butter and Crisco last. Just stir this until everything comes together — not long.
3/ in the fridge, place the bowl with a dishtowel or saran on top. The dough will be ready to use after a couple of hours. Keep unused dough in the refrigerator.

To bake:
1/ preheat oven to 400*. Shape into whatever you like — rolls, loaf bread, challah…good for so many things. In general, smaller things will be ready at :20-:25, larger things may take up to :45. Add butter toward the end of the bake to get the crust more nice and brown.

I was contacted by E.T. Wickham’s great-granddaughter earlier this year about a project she’s working on, and have been watching this talk she gave on his sculptures

in part:
“E.T. Wickham: The Intersection of Family and Preservation” by Brittany Wickham Walker
In the back woods of Palmyra, Tennessee, a small community southwest of Clarksville, dozens of concrete statues line a road near the Cumberland River. Although many of these sculptures have been vandalized since their creation in the mid-1900s, they play an important role in the settlement and identity of the area. These sculptures were created by Enoch Tanner Wickham, a self-taught artist who created nearly forty concrete works during the last twenty years of his life, using only the materials around him. Although his period of artistic significance lasted less than twenty years, Wickham’s work had a notable impact on his community. His formal education ended in the sixth grade, but his knowledge of and interest in American history and politics inspired his work. His sculptures included politicians, religious figures, wildlife, American presidents, and soldiers. A descendent of one of the first families to settle in Montgomery County, Wickham was surprisingly liberal for his age and location, inspired by figures like John F. Kennedy. The artist had a reputation of being a mischief-maker, often playing practical jokes on his conservative (and not receptive) Palmyra neighbors.

I visited this environment a few years ago — here are some of the images

I finished reading Wayne Flynt’s new Afternoons with Harper Lee (here signed at Alabama Booksmith, here at Bookshop, here at Amazon) about a week ago; in it, she mentions Truman Capote, whom she played with as a child (he lived with his Faulk family in Monroeville in a house by the Lee home). The Faulk home is no longer, and on the site now, a dairy bar. A historic marker stands:

and reads in part: Capote himself lived in this home between 1927 and c. 1933, and for several years spent his summer vacations here. Two of the Faulk sisters operated a highly successful millinery shop located on the town square. The third sister, affectionately known as “Sook,” was the inspiration for characters in the Glass Harp, The Thanksgiving Visitor, and A Christmas Memory.

Nelle Lee mentions to the Flynts one day that Sook was her favorite of the Faulks, and made her out to be a poorly educated but faithful Baptist except when she would sample the moonshine whiskey used in her fruitcakes — and that those fruitcakes truly deserved all the praise heaped upon them.

The accents here are just not right, but I’ve clipped the scene in ACM where Sook brings her ingredient shopping list:

These cooler temps do indicate that it’s fruitcake time, because a proper fruitcake requires weeks of maturing…letting the alcohol mellow out some.

I make quickie fruitcakes — cupcakes! — the night before they’re enjoyed, and the alcohol has not mellowed out. It’s THERE. (Hi, if you’re one of those people who’s going for wine-level descriptors of the complex flavors that come with cakes that have set for weeks, that’s great too, but just get started early). And here’s the most important, important, important thing about fruitcakes no matter what you’re going for: only put in what tastes good that you’d eat on your own otherwise. Citron peel? No thanks. Make these like a crabcake: only enough filler to hold things together. A good fruitcake has all the yummy bits — pineapple, cherries, golden raisins all generously bathed in whiskey plus pecans, even chocolate chips if you like. It’s so customizable. Here’s my recipe.

My fave church sign ever
We Give Thanks for G-d and Chicken Dressing
Philadelphia Church
Guin AL, 2019.