Deep Fried Kudzu

So...it really is true that when you have children, going out alone with your husband feels like a date! A couple of weeks ago, Av took me to The View, which is at one of the clubs we belong to.

I think we have been influenced by 'Mad Men' on AMC because Don Draper's favorite drink is an Old Fashioned and the last two "dates" we've been on - at The Veranda (Chef Tom Robey is terrific) and now at The View - Av has been ordering them. That's an O/F there on the left. All I was in the mood for was a sweet tea along with my water, and they very nicely brought simple syrup (that's in the little...I think that's a cordial glass...to sweeten the tea) for it. I love the simple syrup idea - they do that at Chez FonFon too - because then you don't have to bother with packets and wondering when the sugar will dissolve.

This is the dining room there:

...and this was our view - they put is right by the window. So pretty.

Supper was nice, but I have to admit: dessert was the best course. Av had some kind of chocolate pie and I had a grape cobbler.

Afterwards, it was really great outside so we walked over to the WBRC sign in front of the television station - there's kudzu growing all the way up!

We had a wonderful time.

We're continuing with our "Alabama Sideways" - trying to visit all the different wineries in the state. This is White Oak Vineyards in Anniston:

Inside:

What a nice setting:

Av came out smelling like a giant grape - I don't know what it was, maybe because they had the vats of wine there in the tasting room, but it was really strong. They had red, white, and blue muscadine wines and peach and blueberry fruit wines. There was also a muscadine champagne (which...I know...if it's outside that region in France it's not technically 'champagne' but...) - that sounds like fun!

Today and tomorrow is the Greek Food Festival downtown Birmingham at the Holy Trinity - Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral. This is one of those must-do food festivals because it is just the very, very best...you guessed it...Greek food.

We'll be going later to get souvlakia (lamb kebabs), pasticho / pastichio, and homemade baklava. Every bit of it is homemade - nothing brought in - and they even sell big pans of pasticho you can bring home for the freezer that will feed 9-12 people.

This is my pasticho at last year's festival:

They have their cathedral open for people to view also - just beautiful.

The Samford University Art Gallery exhibit (in Swearingen Hall), "1000 Pounds of Alabama Clay" ends tomorrow! I have been meaning to get to it since it opened late last month and wanted to make it a little get-together with a friend, but this afternoon I realized it was now or never...and it was almost never because I got there around 4:30p figuring that the gallery didn't close until 5p, but guess what!?

Margaret Barber, Montgomery AL:

Tony Wright, Mobile AL:

Steve Loucks, Wellington AL:

All the clay used for the pieces in the exhibit came from Miller's Pottery in Brent, Alabama. That family has been making pottery since 1865. If you know Allen Ham and have some of his pottery, he is a cousin of the Millers and is a partner of theirs.

The exhibit was sponsored by the Alabama Craft Council and has appeared at the Alabama Artists Gallery in Montgomery and the Kentuck Museum in Northport. It's a two-year traveling exhibit. When I find out where it will show next, I'll update this.

Guess what!? The press release for the new Gee's Bend quilters' partnership with Baum Textiles / Windham Fabrics was sent to me yesterday - with pics! Starting this November, four quilt kits (shown below) and 19 different solid fabrics will begin shipping to quilt shops.

The Strips and Strings quilt kit is based on Mary Lee Bendolph’s design of that name. The manufacturer’s style is # 30552 and the final quilt measures 75” x 50”. Mrs. Bendolph (b. 1935), the 7th of 17 children, descends from generations of accomplished quilt makers. She learned to quilt from her mother, Aolar Mosely and a network of aunts and female in-laws. She worked in the Alabama fields and attended school intermittently until she was 14, when she began her own family. Bendolph was one of many Gee’s Benders who accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. in his march at Camden, AL in 1965. Her quilt making style marries a flair for improvisation to traditional construction techniques that emphasize rectangles and squares. Her minimalist patches, small compositions of cloth, build to create intricate overall compositions that contain humorous touches and autobiographical references.

Housetop 4-Block Variation is 57” x 65” and styled after the work by the same name by Mary L. Bennett – manufacturers style # 30550. Mrs. Bennett (b. 1942), granddaughter of Delia Bennett (1892-1976) ancestor of many quilt makers in Gee’s Bend. Mary L. Bennett pieces primarily “Housetop” and “Bricklayer” compositions and imaginative variations on them. “I was born down here in Brown Quarters and got raised by my grandmother. I started out working in the fields for my uncle Stalling Bennett. I didn’t get no schooling – every now and then a day here and there. Didn’t nobody teach me to make quilts. I just learned it by myself, about 12 or 13. I was seeing my grandmamma piecing it up, and then I start. I just taken me some pieces and put it together, piece them up till they look like I want them to look. That’s all," states Mary L. Bennett.

Lazy Gal Variation, based on the design of the same name by Qunnie Pettway measures 52" x 62” – manufacturers style # 30549. Mrs. Pettway (b. 1943) is the great-granddaughter of Dinah Miller who is said to have arrived in the United States aboard a slave ship from Africa -- the Clotilde that docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama prior to the Civil War. Qunnie learned to quilt House Tops under the tutelage of her mother, Candis Pettway. In 1960 after she married, she found her unique artistic voice and began making patterned quilts including Wedding Ring - which she learned from her sister - Chestnut Bud, Bear Paw and Crazy Z. Qunnie's daughter, Loretta P. Bennett is one of the youngest quilters actively creating extraordinary quilts today.

One of the other really nice things is that a percentage of the royalty that each of the four quilters receives is in written contracts to be routed into The Gee's Bend Quilters Collective and The Gee's Bend Foundation.

---

One shop is already taking pre-orders because of the anticipated order volume.

One of the things we've been trying to do is to visit all the different wineries in Alabama while we're out. A couple of weekends ago we were close to Talladega so we stopped in at Bryant Vineyards:

I think they also let people come and pick their own muscadines because they had a scale outside and while the boys and I were outside, a small group came up with their own sacks full to weigh.

They make different varieties, and for some of the varieties they bring in grapes from other parts of the country. Since we're really only interested in wines made with Alabama fruit, Av got these two:

Muscadine, and blueberry. Sounds good!

Across from the Refuge Baptist Church in Lincoln, Alabama is Halls Cemetery. Inside is this monument for Pleasant R. Crump, who lived to the age of 104...

Robert Smith was 16 years old when he got off that slave ship. What was life like for a free man of color here in New Orleans then? That’s a question I have for city historian professor Rafael Cassameer, whose family has lived here for more than 200 years. Why would a free person of color have moved from Baltimore to New Orleans back in the 1820S?

---
Rafael: No segregation by race, no segregation by class...

---

(he set up a grocery business)

Judith: We have the year, 1837. We have the other person involved in the deal. And we have page numbers, so that we can now go to the original document. This is an act of sale from Robert D. Smith, free man of color, to Edward Barnett. He is selling a house, Orange and Camp Street in the American sector, Lower Garden District is what they call it now.

Tukufu: Okay.

Judith: He’s selling it for $4,000. That’s a lot of money.

---

Tukufu: And like a true entrepreneur, Robert Smith knew how to make a profit.
Judith: He bought it for $650, so he’s buying bare property.

---

Judith: Yeah. Well, let’s see what else we’ve got here. He’s selling a house. He is selling a mortgage. He’s making another mortgage. He’s selling two slaves to two different people.

---

Judith: This is a power of attorney to a man in Cincinnati, Ohio, for the purpose of “manumitting, emancipating, and granting freedom to his female slave named Ann McCauley together with her four children, for the express purpose of freeing them.”

Tukufu: Wow! So Robert Smith emancipated Ann McCauley. But why? And what happened to her? It looks like she couldn’t stay in Louisiana. In 1830, Louisiana passed a law that made it impossible for a freed slave to remain in the state. Louisiana slave owners were afraid that freed slaves like Ann would be the wrong example for those still in captivity. So after she was freed, she would have been forced to leave New Orleans. All of this is happening in the space of six weeks. Which is suggestive that he’s not staying in town. He’s selling everything off. He’s leaving town. Why would Smith sell off all his property and leave the city that had brought him success? Natchez is right across the state border, up the Mississippi River from New Orleans. I’m going to check the public records to see when he’s first mentioned.

“You are hereby authorized to celebrate the rights of matrimony between Robert D. Smith,” -- our guy -- “and Ann McCauley” this is the woman that he purchased in New Orleans. He’s marrying her, here in Natchez, Mississippi. In the 1840S, half of Mississippi’s Free Blacks lived in Natchez. This would have been a place where Smith could marry and live with his wife free. So Robert Smith did travel a slave ship, but not as a slave. He was a free person of color. In New Orleans, he was a successful businessman, but was forced to leave to have freedom for the woman he would marry. And he settled in Natchez, where he prospered in a taxi business, built a house and called it home. My journey ends here, back in the Coys’ house in Natchez.

---

Tukufu: And so they ultimately ended up here in Natchez, Mississippi, in this beautiful home.

Coys: This is a love story.

Tukufu: It is a love story. It’s about love and it’s about freedom. In part, he had to escape from Louisiana to find freedom to marry his wife in Natchez, Mississippi. Certainly helps us to understand Robert Smith and his family and why he came to Natchez.

This past weekend was Rosh Hashanah - I put up the banner from last year, some wooden numbers that were spraypainted silver, and a couple of pomegranates on little stands:

One traditional food for the holiday is honey cake, and that's because honey symbolizes something sweet - a sweet new year. This recipe (like all my recipes) is my own, but I want to give credit where credit is due. My recipe is based loosely on a recipe in this cookbook:

"What's Cooking With The Millstein's" (excuse the misplaced apostrophe, I know.) and it was published in 1960 with recipes from the Millstein family and other Jewish families - and non-Jewish families - in Natchez, Mississippi. Anyway, I based my recipe very loosely on the one in this cookbook that's on page 23, called "Tante's Honey Cake" ("Tante" is Yiddish for "Aunt").

Okay! Where do we start...

Seriously. Start with a bottle of whiskey because you're going to need a 1/2 cup of it for the cake.

Combine the honey and sugar in the Kitchenaid. Add the eggs one at a time, then the pineapple juice:

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, then add to the Kitchenaid. Add oil. If you are adding the whiskey, do that now. Add pecans. Check the batter consistency. If it needs a bit more flour, add that. If it needs to be less thick, add a bit more pineapple juice.

Pour it into pan(s), place in the oven. Start peeking at about 35 minutes - mine took right at 45.

All done:

You can drizzle a tiny bit of honey over the slice if you like, too.

Happy New Year!

I like to make these little tomatoes for a summertime appetizer or sometimes lunch with little salads.

On a foil-lined tray, spoon the cheese/mayonnaise mixture onto each tomato slice:

Broil for 3-4 minutes (after the first couple of minutes, watch very closely for it to just brown and begin bubbling around the edges). Plate and top with basil:

These are wonderful!

These structures are all in Mason's Bend, Alabama.

This is the "Butterfly House" and almost half of this house consists of the front porch because the Harris family, who at first were reluctant to accept the new home, basically lived on their front porch (I just have to say here that a lot of this information comes from the very good books Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency and Proceed and Be Bold: Rural Studio After Samuel Mockbee). The roof's main purpose is for channeling breezes, and some of the heart pine came from a 105-year-old church that was being torn down.

This is Lucy's House - also known as the carpet house. It was built in 2002 and contains a family room that doubles as a tornado shelter. The walls are made out of 72,000 Flor carpet tiles.

This is the "Hay Bale House" which is also known as the Bryant house. It was finished in 1994 and was the first building completed by the Rural Studio. Before that, the Bryants were living in a shack without heat or plumbing and this house was built next door. The 80-pound hay bales were wrapped in polyurethane, placed in stacks, secured, and coated with stucco. After the house was finished, a student designed and built the smokehouse (out in front) from concrete rubble and discarded road signs.

...from this angle you can see the roadsigns in the ceiling and the bottles embedded in the walls to allow more sunlight in: