Deep Fried Kudzu

Av, Shug, and I are *so* happy to let everyone know that we are going to have a new member of our family in November – a baby boy!

YAY!

(a ***huge*** happy surprise!!)

Shug turned 11 months old this week! He has just the happiest, most fun little personality. We are so in love with him!

The Huntsville Times did a story this morning about Mr. Wharton (post 1, 2, 3, 4) and his art environment.

Portions of it:

Wade Wharton knows where he’ll be on July 23. That’s the day the artist will return to city court to show the progress that’s been made cleaning up his Nassau Drive yard.

Wharton appeared in Municipal Court Wednesday, after five months of inspections by the City of Huntsville’s Department of Community Development, citations for “junk” and an outpouring of support from people helping him clean up.

He was joined in court by Bill Haynes, Anna Blair, Dale Rhoades, Lynn Jones and others, who have seen his yard and want to make sure his art stays put.

For more than seven years, Wharton, 70, has been transforming discarded materials into pieces of art and displaying them in his yard.

In January, Community Development cited Wharton for what it called “junk.” Wharton received a summons to appear in court for “unlawful storage of junk.”

Jerry Galloway, Community Development director, has insisted that Wharton has never been cited for the art. Wharton disputes that claim.

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“I think we’ll be able to work things through,” Callaway told Wharton. “I would anticipate this (case) would be dismissed. Hopefully, we’ll be able to reach an agreement with Community Development.”

Callaway told Wharton he will have to clean up the “raw materials” such as scrap metal. But, Callaway said, the “creative work” can stay, adding it could become a “constitutional issue” if Wharton is forced to get rid of his art.

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Jean Mann from New Hope also left a really great comment yesterday on the H’ville Times breaking news piece that they did after the court appearance. It is here.

On our way home from Cuba, we drove into Gainesville, Alabama which is home to only a few more than 200 people. There are several antebellum homes and buildings.

This is the coffin shop, est. 1830:

An old Coca-Cola mural:

This is the Presbyterian Church est. 1837 that has a slave gallery that runs along three of the walls, and has six lamps hanging from the ceiling that once burned whale oil:

Mr. Wharton (post 1, 2, 3) appeared in court today about his art environment. The Huntsville Times reported in a ‘breaking news’ piece online that:

Wade Wharton, the southwest Huntsville man who transformed discarded materials into art, has received 60 more days to clean up his property.

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For more than seven years, Wharton has been displaying his art on his property. Back in January, the City of Huntsville’s Department of Community Development cited Wharton for “junk.”

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After a story about Wharton appeared in The Times on April 13, several people volunteered to help Wharton clean his property.

Wharton’s case is postponed until July 23.

Last week the Huntsville Times did a story about all the scrap material that Mr. Wharton was getting rid of. Mr. Wharton conceded that the city was right that he didn’t need as much as he had.

All kinds of things were listed as being thrown out. It’s easy to read about crutches and window frames being thrown out and wondering “what exactly was he going to do with that?” — but then remember, gosh, all the *junk* that Brother Zoettl used (bathroom floats, empty cosmetics jars, etc etc etc) in making Ave Maria Grotto:

…and Lonnie Holley who has been in exhibited in museums all over the country:

(This is called “The Pointer Pointing The Way Of Life On Earth”)

I guess the city would have cited Lonnie for a lawn jockey, chain, scrap wood, and various other ‘junk’. Until he put it together and it became a museum piece.

Or came up with something totally different and had it sell in a gallery for thousands of dollars.

Mr. Wharton’s problem is that his materials aren’t all in covered sheds so that they can’t be seen. Of course, if he thinks he has too much, it’s been a good exercise to pare down the excess. I’ve been thinking about how good it is that the city has been moving away from making comments about his art (remember the whole thing about how if Wharton’s junk is art then the landfill is a museum?) and instead focusing on a scrap material issue.

Although…in the article from last week, the Times writes:

At some point, Galloway said his department may have to go out to Wharton’s property and say what can stay (the art) and what must go (the piles of scrap metal).

Galloway said his department is going to be “very liberal” about what’s art.

But when will Wharton know if he’s in the clear with the Department of Community Development?

“We’ll tell him,” Galloway said.

 

The Department of Community Development is deciding that they are going to be “very liberal” about what is art. Maybe someone from the museum can go along and make sure.

I’ve been talking with Mr. Wharton’s very nice sister over the last few weeks, and there have been a couple of developments recently. Mr. Wharton’s court date is this coming Wednesday, May 21st, and he has a lawyer who has agreed to represent him free of charge.

Also, the city of Huntsville dropped off a couple of dumpster/receptacles a few days ago and promised that they would send out some convicts to take direction from Mr. Wharton as to what to throw out. Mr. Wharton concedes that some of the material (not art, but scraps and accumulated ‘stuff’) can go, so this will be a good thing.

It sure does seem that the city of Huntsville has started to come around.

It started out with an old city official saying something along the lines of “if Wharton’s yard is art, then the landfill is a museum”, which was quoted in the Huntsville Times, and that the bottle trees had to go because “bottles are for inside use, not for outside” to them seemingly making some steps toward improvement.

One of my friends who wrote the Huntsville Times in support of Mr. Wharton got a rather terse email back from Bill Kling (who she copied on the letter so he would have it for his files), the councilman who represents Mr. Wharton’s area. As the first article the Times wrote – that I linked to in my first post – Bill Kling was complimentary of Mr. Wharton’s art, and has come out to help tidy the yard. He seemed terribly sensitive about the idea of Mr. Wharton’s art being removed.

I’m looking forward to seeing how everything goes on May 21st (a little nervously, but hoping for the best). The public outcry about all this has undoubtedly helped the city evolve from equating Mr. Wharton’s art to landfill contents, to now helping him tidy up, to what they will hopefully be doing very soon: directing fellow residents and visitors to see how creative, individualistic members of the city of Huntsville make joyful art.

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(post #1 here, post #2 here)

Earlier this year, the Goodman Theatre in Chicago asked me if they could use my picture of the Bryant Store in Money, Mississippi in their OnStage Magazine. It’s the publication they do for shows, and they’re performing The Ballad of Emmett Till this year.

I told the Goodman that since they were a non-profit that I would let them use this photograph at no charge if they would donate four tickets to a show to Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Chicago (Av and I did BB/BS for several years and it was a really wonderful experience). This week, I got a package from the Goodman in the mail with a couple of copies of OnStage along with a copy of the letter they sent their local BB/BS with tickets. Nice!

Last month, the Kitchen Sisters, who have their own show on NPR, did a segment on the Angola Rodeo called ‘Broncos and Boudin‘. Besides mentioning the rodeo itself, they discussed the food prepared and served for the guests: cracklins, pig tails, boiled peanuts, boudin balls, etouffee…

Part of the story mentioned a previous episode they had done about Robert “King” Wilkerson, who, after 29 years in solitary at Angola, was freed upon appeal in 2001. The Kitchen Sisters told about how Mr. Wilkerson made pralines in his cell, using tin cans for a stove, with ingredients he gathered from elsewhere. Now that he has been exonerated, Mr. Wilkerson sells his pralines, which he now calls “Freelines”.

The Kitchen Sisters say, “Wilkerson had made pralines two days before Hurricane Katrina hit, and gave all the candy away to the rescue workers helping trapped city residents evacuate in boats. When we met him, he just did not have the heart to make candy. But a few days before he left the Bay Area to return home to New Orleans, he made us a big batch of beautiful ‘freelines’.”

The recipe for Freelines is also on the Kitchen Sisters’ website, here.

Well, I just had to order some (the Freelines website is here). Av loves pralines and of course I do too. About a week and a half ago, I placed my order and they came in today, along with a personalized note from Mr. Wilkerson apologizing for them taking so long and letting me know that he included an extra bag for my patience (even though I never asked him about the order or anything!)

These are *huge* pralines…and delicious! Av and I shared one when he came in for lunch today. My recipe makes our favorite pralines, but really, these are the best ones I have ever had from anywhere else.

Tammy in Cuba, Alabama and I have been talking about Koolickles.

I had my first one at a Double Quick in Clarksdale, Mississippi back in November of 2006. It’s somehow become one of the most popular pics in my Flickr photostream (it’s #4 with 5000+ views, behind this wedding cake with 8000+, a Katrina sign with 6500+, and the Bryant store).

They’ve been written about in the NY Times and USA Today, but I had never made a batch, and once Tammy and I started talking about them, I figured it was time to finally make some.

I wanted to make them the traditional way (with regular dill pickles) and I also came up with an idea to try to make them completely different – using bread and butter pickles. My thinking was that since bread & butters are already sweet, the addition of Kool-Aid would only make them sweeter and maybe even yummier. Well…

I used the same method for both batches. I drained off the pickle juice into a colander, threw away any of the big spices or garlic pieces that got caught in the colander, then added sugar and Kool-Aid to the pickle juice.

The regular dills had about 2 cups of juice inside, so I used two Kool-Aid packets of cherry flavor and added the sugar for those batches. The bread and butter pickles had only about 1 cup of pickle juice, so to that I added one packet of cherry K-A and one packet’s amount of sugar that’s suggested.

Is it sounding yucky yet? Pickle juice and Kool-Aid is probably not something you automatically think of tasting good together.

Each day for the past week, I’ve taken one pickle out and tested it for taste and color, etc. I think that they are ready right at one week. A strange thing happens – after about the third or fourth day, the pickles start to look like they are shrinking. The Kool-Aid color starts getting further and further into the ‘meat’ of the pickle, too. At one week, you can really taste the Kool-Aid flavor and it’s a Koolickle:

Now, they’re really not for everybody. Some people *really* like them and there are a lot of people who really-really do not. I can go either way. I think I’m just as happy with a regular pickle (Av is a pickle snob and will only eat Claussen or Wickles, but I’m not and think best ones are served at high school football games – taken out of those huge jars with a pair of tongs and put in a pocket of foil). But anyway…

…those bread and butter pickles turned out great! They’re sweet and cherry-flavored and actually very nice! The only thing is, what’s the best way to serve them? They’ll need to be drained pretty well because cherry Kool-Aid will stain just about anything.

Would deviled eggs with tiny cubed pieces of b&b Koolikle (like relish) taste good or not? Not sure. But just straight out of the jar – one or two of them – yum.

The Wickles pickles that I mentioned above – they were created by a couple of brothers in Dadeville, Alabama that we visited with once (they’re super-nice). They started a line of pickles that are sweet and hot…sooooo good.

The other day when we were in West Blocton, we went to one of the places that’s been listed on the Alabama Places in Peril list…the Italian – Catholic cemetery.

What makes it so interesting is that the monuments are inscribed in Italian, and some of them have stories. This first one is of Nargiso Nucci:

It very roughly translated reads: “On the land of the extinct — the mortal remains of Nargiso Nucci of 52 years who died in Blocton, Alabama on July 7, 1908 after having suffered for 12 consecutive years on the altar of a painful disease. Death took him from those suffering, and the affection known for its kind quality leaves already his wife Adrietta and his seven children his enduring memory. Pray for his tomb.”

This one is for Elizabeth Castelli:

It translated reads something like this: “Here lie the ashes of poor deceased Elizabetha Castelli born in 1864 murdered at the young age of 36 years, robbed and killed by a murderer of the black race at 8am on December 15, 1902 leaving behind her husband and son, weeping and sobbing”.

This area of Alabama has coal mines all around, and this monument has the miner’s tools sculpted into it:

We subscribe to Alabama Heritage magazine, and in the last issue they asked for readers to send in pics of “story” monuments, so I sent the top two in. The editor wrote me that they’re putting together a web page for all of the ones they’ve received, so it should be interesting to see all the others!