Deep Fried Kudzu

Here are some pics from the new baby's bris! Now that he's had his bris, he has his "real" name and his Hebrew name now. Here on DFK I'm going to do the same thing as I did with Shug and just call him by his nickname. It's..."Shugie". I know!! But we just started calling him that right after we found out I was pregnant and it just stuck. Plus, it worked whether we were having a girl or a boy. So here, he'll be Shugie.

Anyway, he did really great at the bris. We had it right after morning minyan at Temple. The great thing about doing it at Temple rather than at home is that you never know exactly how many people (20 or 40 or more?) are going to attend (you don't send invitations out for a bris), you have it catered so you don't have to worry about food, and the other thing is, after the bris is over and everyone has eaten, you can just leave and go back to the peace and quiet of home!

Here we are:

At the breakfast we served afterwards, and I'm feeding Shug:
We had a Jewish-Southern breakfast. Pimento cheese triangles on rye cut without the crust, cheese grits, lox and cream cheese with bagels, a fruit bowl, all kinds of pastries, peanut butter/chocolate buckeyes, praline cheesecake, ((it was all *wonderful* - thank you Fred!!)) and along with orange juice and other regular drinks we had Southern beers: Lazy Magnolia and Dixie, and Jewish beer: He'brew! Hahaha!

We tried to have fun with it! In fact, being the proud Papa, Av handed out cigars...Kinky Friedman Texas Jewboys!! And for the centerpieces on each table, I made cotton boll arrangements tied in blue patterned ribbon, in Mason jars with dried blackeyed peas as the filler.

We're all at home! Thanks again for all the sweet calls and emails!

---I knew I wouldn't be able to put any new posts up with the new baby home, so I did a few before the new baby came, using Blogger's feature to publish posts automatically for a date in the future. ((Like the one earlier this week about the new quilts picture book. Just so you aren't wondering how I am able to do this with a newborn!))---

The NY Times Magazine Food Issue came out a couple of weeks ago and one of the features was about catfish. Here in the US, the industry is based mostly in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In the Black Belt area of Alabama, there are man-made catfish farms all over - mostly they look like big rectangles of water, just one after another:

Well, actually the article wasn't just about how the industry was doing (which is: not great considering about 1/3rd have quit due to how high feed and fuel costs are right now plus overseas competition - there was even did a separate article about how bad it was in the July 18th NY Times) but also how soon U.S. farm-raised, Grade-A catfish won't be called catfish anymore.

It will be called "Delacata" - a name which the president of the Catfish Institute said was market-tested.

I...don't know..."Delacata"? Really?

The whole reason behind this new name for catfish here in the US is, it seems, to further differentiate what is grown here from catfish overseas (Pangasius/Tra/Basa). A few years back, Congress even passed a measure so that these Asian fish can't be called "catfish" here. There's more about that here from Harvard. But I guess that wasn't enough - I mean, because of labeling laws it's pretty clear at the grocery store what you're buying, but if you go to a restaurant and order catfish, how do you know for certain that what they're going to bring out is from the Southern US and not Vietnam or China?

Even more, the Catfish Institute has even uploaded a couple of videos on YouTube about how nasty they say overseas catfish is. The NY Times Magazine article states: "They accused (justifiably, it turned out) Vietnamese growers of using carcinogenic fungicides and antibiotics banned in the United States to get higher yields from their ponds."

Um, yuck.

The article ends this way:

But it is the new name Delacata that many hope will end the time of catfish troubles. Delacata is, like Pangasius, a name with no pejorative associations. And now, after eight years of catfish wars, disassociation is obligatory. As Jon Stamell, a marketing consultant who was contracted briefly by the Vietnamese government to rebrand Pangasius, said, “All of this fighting and disagreeing over a product puts out a negative message to the consumer, and this has a way of doubling back on you.” When I asked Stamell what he thought of the name Delacata, he paused. “Hmm,” he said, “sounds like a car.”

American catfish advocates, meanwhile, are driving forward. “I hear Delacata’s really taking off,” the celebrity chef Cat Cora told me recently, not long after renewing her endorsement contract with the Catfish Institute. “I’d like to see it as a secret ingredient on ‘Iron Chef.’ ”

Wonder when the Catfish Cabin restaurants around here will change their name?

(Gosh I love Photoshop sometimes.)

Wow I am sooooo....just....overwhelmed and overjoyed by all the sweet calls and emails we've gotten since the new baby has gotten here! Later I'll respond - just as soon as I can figure out how to get both boys to nap at the same time better - but for now here are a couple of new pictures!

Here's the new little one! He is doing so well. Just happy as a little clam! And last night he slept for a little over four hours at a time (whereas it has only been about half that). He must know it's my birthday today!

Shug is just in love with him. Every time he sees us in the nursery rocking chair, he wants to come in, adjust the lighting, turn on the ceiling fan, and turn on the crib mobile. He is just so tickled to have a brother!

---I knew I wouldn't be able to put any new posts up with the new baby home, so I did a few before the new baby came, using Blogger's feature to publish posts automatically for a date in the future. ((Just so you aren't wondering how I am able to do this with a newborn!))---

Today is the release date of Stitchin' and Pullin': A Gee's Bend Quilt by Patricia C. McKissack and illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera.

In an interview on the Random House website, the author says:

It is said the Impressionists artists gathered in Provence in southern France because of the vibrant colors. I can imagine that if the Impressionist had visited Gee’s Bend, they would have chosen it as an artist’s haven as well. The sky seems bluer, the foliage seems greener, the Alabama River seems muddier, the sun brighter . . . and the mosquitoes bite harder! It is just a place where everything is alive, including the people–they laugh like no other people, they throw back their heads and sing praise songs. Life has not always been kind to these women, but they are warm and friendly and inclusive.

---

When I was in Gee’s Bend, I met so many people, and I knew it would be difficult to write a book that included all their stories. So, I decided to create a character that represented the reader, a young person, learning a craft and thus earning her place among the community of women. In this way, I could honor all the women, their genius and their craftsmanship. Each one of the vignettes is like a patch. Cozbi, the illustrator, visually put them together to form a quilt.

Random House sent me an advance copy and I have to say (I would tell if this wasn't right) that it is a beautiful book, both in story and visually. The introduction is written by Matt Arnett (Tinwood founder) who re-discovered the quilters and got the world to take notice:

Originally, quilting was the evening activity or chore of the women, which, in addition to creating covers for warmth, also gave them a platform for storytelling, communicating, and singing the songs their mothers sang. Quilting reinforced the ties between generations - from mother to daughter and beyond. Children sat beneath the quilt helping their mothers. They learned basic skills by taking the thread out of old quilts so they could be recycled for new quilts. As girls got older, they were invited to join their elders at the quilting table, where they pieced simple quilts.

Small excerpts from the book - it is written in the voice of "Baby Girl" who waits her turn to grow up and find her place at the quilting frame:

I listened and learned
the recipes for eleven kinds of jelly,
what to do for teething toddlers,
how to get rid of mold
and the words to a hundred
hymns and gospel songs.
All the while
waiting for my turn.

---
Mama told me
"Cloth has a memory."

I hope
the black corduroy remembers that it was once the pants...
my uncle wore to go vote for the first time.
all clean and new.

I hope
the pink and green flowered tablecloth remembers
the peach cobbler
I spilled on it at the Fourth of July picnic...

---

And as Baby Girl does grow, get her chance, and makes her own quilt, she says she has "hundreds of ideas in my head. Quilts that are about me, the place where I live and the people who have been here for generations."

Beautiful-beautiful-beautiful.

There's a new little one at our house!

*Just* after he was delivered:

He is 20" long and weighs 8lbs, 5oz.!




We are all crazy-in-love with him and Shug thinks he is hilarious!

The 11th annual Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium at the Ole Miss is going on right now, and this year it's titled "The Liquid South: From Well Water to Sparkling Muscadine".

On the schedule over the weekend are things like an absinthe tasting (it's no longer banned as of...I think 2006 or 2007), sitting in on the Thacker Mountain Radio show, a "salute to encased meats and craft bears" (incl. Mississippi Pigs in Italian Blankets, L&M’s Kitchen and Salumeria; Chaurice with Grits, Vaucresson’s Sausage, New Orleans, Louisiana; Venison Sausage and P.C. Plate, Jim ’N Nick’s, B'ham, Alabama; plus craft beers from the Deep South), a ride in the Double Decker bus out to Taylor Grocery where they have that great sign for a "Front Porch Degustation", a 'Hot Cracklin’ Cornbread and Cold Buttermilk Breakfast', & more & more & more. A complete schedule is here as a PDF.

Well, we can't go this year but what I would be most excited about (from their press release):

This year, a new SFA-produced film will be screened, underwritten by the Fertel Foundation and directed by Joe York, director/producer at UM's Center for Documentary Projects. The subject is Cheri Cruze, a Tennessee dairywoman who, along with her husband Earl, churns old-style buttermilk.

Real, old-style buttermilk. My favorite drink in the whole world.

Cheri Cruze and her husband run Cruze Farm and have a blog, here. This is from an interview the SFA did with them:

...So, finally after a few people kept nagging me for buttermilk, I said, "Put your money where your mouth is and sign this piece of paper. Give me your address, your phone number. And, when I make buttermilk, if I make buttermilk, I'll call you and you'll be my customer." Once we had a hundred names of people willing to say, "I'll be your customer," I told Earl, "I think we have a demand here that needs to be met. These are people who want real churned buttermilk." So, we tried it and we've been making buttermilk ever since. And really the demand is greater than we've ever been able to supply. People will drive–when they know about our buttermilk–will drive from out of state. They'll drive for miles with coolers and stock up. People give it as birthday presents to people who turn 90 years old and have everything they've ever wanted but want to remember their childhood or their young years. Buttermilk is a memory food and it really makes people happy to drink a glass of buttermilk. It reminds them of when they were younger or of someone who made buttermilk or of somebody that has passed on. It's a great–it's a great gift in a way besides being a great food.

The Cruzes are bringing buttermilk with them to Oxford.

Alan: since you're going (jealous!!!) can you bring me back a quart? Just kidding. Sort-of...

The AP and the Tuscaloosa News reported last week that the University of Alabama was chosen as the recipient of the $4.8 million Paul R. Jones art collection. And it isn't just any collection - it's one of the largest collections of black art in America - over 1700 pieces.

Mr. Jones grew up in Bessemer and even though he lives in Atlanta now, he decided that Alabama was home and where his collection should be.

The AP article reads in part:

"This is my way of coming back home in wanting to give a gift to the state of my birth,'' he said. "This is a gift to Alabama and Alabamians.''

Jones, 80, grew up in the mining town of Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co. and went to Alabama State University, where he played football. He finished his college education at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and was then denied admission into UA's School of Law in 1949 after it was discovered he was black.

---

He then embarked on a 15-year career with the federal government. He worked with the departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development before becoming deputy director of the Peace Corps based in Thailand.

---

Included are photographs and paintings of all sizes, materials and form. The only rule for Jones was that the pieces be created by black Americans, and often the works come from young or struggling artists...

I found an article from the NAACP Crisis magazine where he was quoted - and this is my favorite:

"I could have sold this collection and got me a maid, a butler, a nurse, a cook and a chauffeur and traveled the world twice a year," Jones says. "But I've led a good life and had the pleasure of living with art and using it as an instrument for change."

Beautiful.

This story about Paul R. Jones reminded me of a monument that Av and I saw when we were at the Jewish cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. It had this sculpture on it:

Well I knew when I got back home that I had to look up and see who Sydney Lewis was - how many people have a sculpture like that for their monument? It turns out that he founded a company called 'Best Products' in 1958 and although it is out of business now, at one time it had 200 showrooms in 27 states with sales of $2 billion. Now in the AP article about Paul R. Jones they made a point out of saying that Mr. Jones was a great investor in art but wasn't what people would consider terribly wealthy. But what I thought was interesting about both men - although I guess one was incredibly well-off and the other more modest was that they made it a point to help artists who hadn't yet "made it".

A portion of the NY Times article about Mr. Lewis and his wife reads:

But the couple found their true calling in the early 1960's, when Mr. Lewis's doctor told him that he was working too hard and needed a diversion. Acting on a lifelong common interest in the arts, the Lewises turned to collecting contemporary art, concentrating at first on Pop Art and Photo Realism.

Over the next 20 years they amassed an enormous collection and became close friends with many artists. They frequently acquired art through trades of Best Products goods, enabling many struggling artists to furnish their lofts with appliances and televisions and to live in relative comfort, sometimes before they were selling much work.

Well, the Lewises went on to donate more than 1500 pieces of art to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and donated money for the museum's West Wing, plus the NY Times article read that:

Mr. Lewis was also a board member of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington. He served on the trustees' committee for architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he and his wife established a fund that enabled the Modern to acquire several architectural models, including that of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. The Lewises' philanthropies included $1.5 million to help establish Eastern Virginia Medical School; $2 million for a business school at Virginia Union University, where Mr. Lewis was a trustee, and $9 million to Washington and Lee for a law school building and the development of a legal studies center.

Now my favorite story about the Lewises - from when they were just starting their art collection - is from the Richmond paper. Can you just imagine this:

In the mid-'60s, Richmonder Sydney Lewis was reading the free New York weekly The Village Voice. He saw an ad that basically said, "I will trade my art for anything." He called the number.

Pop artist icon Andy Warhol answered the phone. He told Sydney and his wife, Frances, to meet him at a photo booth and to "bring lots of quarters."

They did.

And the rest is art history. Seriously.

---

When the Lewises met Warhol at the photo booth, they brought their roll of quarters. Frances hopped in the booth, smiled for the camera and presto!, Warhol created "Sydney's Harem". Classic Warhol, "Sydney's Harem" is created from 12 photos of Frances and features Warhol's fascination with repetition and seemingly identical images.

It's fitting that "Sydney's Harem" is the first painting in the exhibition -- it's also the first work of art that sparked the Lewises' lifelong fascination with collecting contemporary art.

"They enjoyed that experience [with Warhol] so much that they decided to collect more art ... and to become friends with the artists they collected," John Ravenal, curator of the exhibition, says.

Can you believe?!

Love it.

(this sign was on one of the art cars in the parking lot at Kentuck)


Just like last week, two days this week are non-working holidays so I'll be posting next on Thursday. See you then!

Lowe's has a little magazine called "Creative Ideas" that they mail out a few times each year - it can be subscribed to here. Inside one of the latest issues was this project for wall art:

I thought that with the wooden pieces at the top and bottom that it looked like the rollers, or handles, on a Torah scroll (the Torah is the first five books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy - you can see one here), and I thought it would be a great craft for Simchat Torah ("sim-kaht tore-uh"). That's the holiday that celebrates the end of the annual reading cycle. For instance, since the congregation begins at Genesis and ends at Deuteronomy each year, when you get to the end and start over, you celebrate! This is what Simchat Torah is all about...plus dancing, drinking, celebrating...

Anyway, Simchat Torah is a huge holiday for children. I guess the most common craft is to make flags for them to hold and wave. I try to decorate our home for just about every big holiday so this year Leslie and I got together and rather than make flags, we made a banner like the one in the Lowe's magazine.

---And the thing about this craft, like just about all the others I've made for Jewish holidays, translate so well to other traditions...like I could totally see someone doing dowels in pastel colors and decoupaging on a bunch of vintage bunny images for a 'Happy Easter' banner...or doing the same thing with deeper colors and Autumn leaves for a Fall banner...or, well, you know. There are a zillion possibilities with this.---

Supplies:
* Wooden curtain rod, sawed in half (so you can use a short one for hanging this on the front door or a longer rod for hanging elsewhere in your home on the wall)
* Four curtain finials
* Wood stain, plus varnish if you like
* Foam brush for applying wood stain plus protective gloves
* Acrylic paint plus brushes
* Stencil letters and stencil brush if you want to do lettering that way
* Either butcher paper, drop cloth, or something else strong to paint on
* Glue gun, glue to attach the painted piece to the rods
* Yarn, string, or jute to tie to the ends of the top rod for hanging

Av and I went to the home improvement shop and bought one curtain rod (when sawed in half, it made the two we needed plus it was the right width for hanging on the front door) plus four finials. He sawed the curtain rod, screwed on the finials, and stained everything:

Leslie and I got out a bunch of acrylic paints and brushes and decided to use butcher paper to paint on. Cut the butcher paper longer than you expect you want the banner to hang because you will want to wrap the top and bottom of the paper around the dowels a couple of times so it's strong:

Leslie painted the top half and I painted the bottom part. We just tried to go with something abstract, and the nice thing about it is that if you look at it like this, it looks like the sky and the earth and the opposite way it looks like the earth and the sea. In an abstract way, I mean...:

I used my stencils and some gold paint to spell out "Simchat Torah":

After everything dried, the paper was turned over, centered on the dowels, and hot glued around them a couple of times:

This shows the top and bottom glued on:

I'm planning on using some strong yarn and hanging the banner that way (like in the magazine pic) but just for this pic I cheated and used the hook on my wreath hanger!

The most beautiful tent at Kentuck this year had to be John Petrey's, from Chattanooga. I told him that I had really fallen in love with his card dress and these others are just as amazing:

These were by Ned Berry of Cataula, Georgia. He was just wonderful to visit with, and to learn more about his process and his art. This is Elvis:

I think this one was called "Corporate Ladder":

Johnny Cash:

These next two are by Steve Terlizzese of Chattanooga - "Bambo":

...and this is "What Makes Her Tick":

Bernice Sims from Brewton, Alabama:

We had a sleepy little boy on the way home:

I talked for a while with Bettye Kimbrell, who won one of the 11 NEA National Heritage Fellowship awards this year. This is one of the quilts she brought as a demonstrator this year at Kentuck:

I asked her if she had any idea she might win this year, and she said that she knew she had gotten nominated four years ago, but the call was a complete surprise - plus she was up against something like over 200 different artists - so it was *such* an honor. She didn't bring any quilts for sale this year; I asked her if she was taking commissions, that I would love to talk with her about making a baby blanket, but she said that she wasn't taking any commissions at all and was just quilting for the fun of it. Although I'd love to have a quilt of hers...good for her for just doing what's fun!

These next three are by Jim Shores of Rome, Georgia:


The angel wings are keys strung together:

Charlie Lucas, the Tin Man:

Art from Annie T, Mose T's daughter:

Quilts by Yvonne Wells:

...and an alligator made up of bottlecaps, by Dr. Bob (who's best known for his "Be Nice or Leave" signs):

I've got so many pics from Kentuck I'm making it into four different posts - here's the first:

This is Sam McMillan, also known as "Sam the Dot Man" from Winston-Salem, North Carolina - there's a website with more about him here.

Ruby C. Williams from Plant City, Florida - she started out making signs for her roadside produce stand and got encouraged to do more painting, so...

Missionary Mary Proctor:

This is one of her more common designs: "The Story of My Grandma Blue Willow Plates":
"Oh how I remember when I was a child, I broke my Grandma old Blue Willow plates. I thought she would whip me, instead she held my hands and said I forgive you because just yesterday G-d forgave me. He said one must forgive to be forgiven."

There was a *lot* of political art there this weekend. This was by Mike Hanning of Jacksonville Florida:

...who did face jugs of both Obama and McCain too:

Ab the Flagman (btw his website has music):

Metalwork, including a bottle tree arch from Mike Esslinger of Clarkesville, Georgia:

Randy Gachet of B'ham - those are tire sculptures.

Here we are! Oh - when we were driving up, Av told them how many weeks pregnant I was and asked if we could get a good park "just in case" - y'all, they put us right at the front gate!! How nice is that!?