Deep Fried Kudzu

Creation Story: Gee's Bend Quilts and the Art of Thornton Dial and Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts will be on view at the Frist Center in Nashville from May 25-September 23, 2012.

---
Addie Griffin Arthur, who owned the Dixie Pig in Virginia, has passed away.

---
A certain type of sedge was the first found in North America by MSU researchers in Rose Hill Cemetery, in Meridian, where the royal Roma family is buried.  Interesting because they wonder if the seeds were unintentionally brought by visitors to Queen Kelly's funeral, and that the plant was also later found at what was a campground in the early 1900s.

---
The opening reception for 'Reflections of Food in Alabama Art' at the ArtFolk Gallery in the Young and Vann Building, B'ham, is April 6.  It is going to be good.

---
Martha's Place restaurant is open again in Montgomery, although it is no longer in the home on Sayre Street.

---
Can't believe!  The Magnolia Pearl Ranch is for sale!  Fellow Pinterest lovers, the pics are on slideshow so you can't pin them but print-screen to your Picasa for inspiration.  BTW, she has her own pinboard.  Robin/Pearl, I hope you are selling for the best desires of your heart and for no other reason.  You are wonderful!

Prepare to swoon over the fashion show she put together this year:


---
We had lunch at Saw's Soul Kitchen in B'ham (review in the News) today.


Barbecue over greens over grits = good.  Very good.

---
Here in Alabama, people attempt to steal 1400 lb pieces of iron slag to bring home for yard art. Except you can get arrested for that.

---
I want this house in Hattiesburg. Look at those gorgeous details! Can you *believe* this house for $235k!?

---
Architectural Digest picks a dozen don't-miss museum exhibits right now, and one of them is at the Birmingham Museum of Art (I've been to the exhibit; they give you an iPad for guidance).

---
On Tumblr: the last works of great artists.

---
Gallup releases results of study that shows Mississippi as the state with the highest percentage of people who identify as very religious, next is Utah, then back to the South with Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, then Georgia.  Gallup: It appears there is something about the culture and normative structure of a state, no doubt based partly on that state's history, that affects its residents' propensity to attend religious services and to declare that religion is important in their daily lives.

---
The Vieners are closing their Outsider Folk Art Gallery in Pennsylvania. They're selling things off via 1stdibs.

---
Antiques Roadshow appraiser puts a 1935 oil painting of nasturtiums by Zelda Sayre at $10-20k.

---
Quentin Tarantino is filming his newest, 'Django Unchained', at Evergreen Plantation right now.

---
In Alabama:
The Doo-Nanny in Seale is this weekend, as is Eufaula Pilgrimage and the Front Porch Festival in Gadsden.

---
In Mississippi:
Pilgrimage in Natchez, Gulf Coast Pilgrimage, Columbus Pilgrimage, Aberdeen Pilgrimage, Renaissance Fine Arts Festival in Ridgeland, Art in the Pass, Stella's Blues and BBQ in Bay St. Louis

---
In Louisiana:
In New Orleans tonight, Taste of the Town.  Tomorrow, Fete Francaise. Also tomorrow: the PRC Shotgun House tour.

I was sorry to have missed Tat Bailey's birthday party a little while ago (I think he turned 99!).  I had something that weekend and couldn't get away but will make every effort to come see him again soon and for his next birthday especially.

While I've photographed sweet Tat and his home -- and all the stone works he's done around his home -- there are some of his works that he's done in the community, like this monument at Corinth Baptist in Joppa for family:

...and he did this sign:


I took all these pictures a few months ago; Tat encouraged me to go see what he had made here.  He's told me much about his own crypt which he built years ago:






He's also make this piece across the little drive, and some benches too:

Pics from one of my visits to Tat's home are here.  Tat is among the most talented, one-of-a-kind people I know.  He built his own covered bridge, even:



  Happy birthday to sweet Tat!

Hurtsboro, Alabama is an interesting place (it gets better and better...).  Here's the library, housed in a former bank with a vault:


A rare surviving example of signage for Jefferson Island Salt from Louisiana (which is now oddly known about for the 1980 Texaco disaster, which involved a whirlpool, geysers, and a 6' deep lake becoming 1300' deep).


Beautiful:


This Pat Perry Hardware store has the sign for the...


...Museum of Ordinary People -- it was featured in the book 'Little Museums' this way:
"One day there will be a place where art, junk, memorabilia, and a living artist will combine to make up a truly ordinary place to visit."  Fluxus artist Mike Howard has long envisioned a place where you can see art "the way it's supposed to be seen -- in the environment of junk, bad lighting, and screaming kids."...


What I really wanted to see was Mike's construction of this 'Unabomber Cabin Replica' in his yard:

Yep.

Earlier this month, the AP ran an article: Dooky Chase Gumbo Fueled Civil Rights Movement.

At the famed Dooky Chase Restaurant, where veterans of the civil rights movement still recall making plans to change the world over bowls of gumbo, black and white foodies now line up for Leah Chase's Creole cooking. Back before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, however, some customers had to enter discreetly and meet secretly. In the 1950s and '60s, as the movement gained steam, many of its leaders dined at the restaurant, then used a back room for meetings.


It was here that plans were drawn up to help the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stage sit-ins and to shelter others trying to further the cause of racial equality.


Now, Dooky Chase Restaurant, run by Leah Chase and her husband, Edgar "Dooky" Chase Jr., is among a dwindling number of civil rights landmarks remaining in New Orleans.
"I feel like in this restaurant we changed the course of the world over bowls of gumbo," said Leah Chase. "That's how we always did the planning -- over gumbo."


---
"I've seen a great change," Chase said. "People tell me, well it's still a long way from perfect, but I say, 'Of course it is, this isn't heaven it's earth, and nothing is perfect here.'"


Not a restaurant, but in Montgomery, Georgia Gilmore was famous for feeding others from her home...and the proceeds going to fuel the movement:

The sign reads:

Georgia Gilmore
February 5, 1920 - March 3, 1990
Georgia Gilmore, cited as a "solid, energetic boycott participant and supporter" lived in this house during the days of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Once arrested on a bus, Gilmore was ardent in her efforts to raise funds for the Movement and organized "Club From Nowhere" whose members baked pies and cakes for sale to both black and white customers. Opening her home to all, she tirelessly cooked meals for participants including such leaders as Dr. Martin Luther King and Dr. Ralph Abernathy. Her culinary skills continued to aid the cause of justice as she actively worked to encourage civil rights for the remainder of her life.

We got to see the Mardi Gras Indians on Super Sunday while we were in New Orleans, too.

We were in New Orleans for St. Patrick's Day and went to the Uptown and Metairie parades.



At both, they threw cabbages, potatoes, onions...and tons of throws (beads, tchotchkes, etc) of course. At the one in Metairie, Shugie caught a big teddy bear and Shug got another giant -- bigger than him almost -- stuffed animal.  We brought bags for all the throws and filled them all!


Afterwards, the boys wanted to know why we don't have parades for every single other holiday.

We should!  Since our next big holiday is Passover, can you imagine the great float themes we could come up with?!  I think we will get out the shoeboxes and make our own mini-parade here at home...

I've been waiting to visit the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi for a long time -- both because I'm a fan of George Ohr's pottery, and Frank Gehry's architecture.  This is a pic I took of the damage done to Gehry's work-in-progress in 2005, just after Katrina:



I finally got to see it all (much of it is still in construction):


A view from the top floor of the main building:


Beside the building in which visitors enter, there are a couple more buildings with their own theme:


I had a wonderful talk with a docent in the other space about Newcomb Pottery, then we talked about Gehry and his spaces.  She's also a fan, but the acoustics in that particular gallery were just awful.  We had to stand close together in order to be able to hear one another -- although we were the only two people in a gallery that wasn't particularly large, we couldn't carry on a conversation at what should have been a perfectly fine distance in most other spaces.

Among the Gehry quirks and preferences she told me about, she said that he didn't like the walls to be littered with caption cards on the walls for each work of art, as it is in most every other museum.

The main building had these models of the architecture on display:


Some of Ohr's 'burned babies' on exhibit:


I also toured the Pleasant Reed Interpretive Center, but thought it an odd addition to the campus.  In 2013, the John S. and James L. Knight gallery (the 'pods') will open, dedicated to exhibit of Ohr's pottery.

What else was really great was the gift shop, with fabulous pieces of Mississippi pottery in particular:


I got to bring home this (it was my Valentine's Day present!), by Yvonne Brown of Gulfport:

It's Spring Break week here in Alabama, so we've been on vacation (so many wonderful things!) so regular postings will return on Sunday -- but I'm back in time to put together this:

As always, unless otherwise noted, all pics here copyright Deep Fried Kudzu. Ask me before using in any fashion. Thank you.

---

Ohmygosh all the wonderfulness that will be in the new building at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans!  We haven't been since John Besh opened the Soda Shop there.

---
It sounds as though the Alabama Music Hall of Fame will stay closed another few months and that its building and property may be sold to afford it the opportunity to move into what will hopefully be a better location/facility.

---
Leonard Piha's show at The Arts Company in Nashville, through April 21.

---

This weekend: New Orleans Roadfood Festival.  Tennessee Williams / New Orleans Literary Festival, and the Louisiana Crawfish Festival in Chalmette.  Hogs for the Cause in New Orleans.  This coming week: the Southern Literary Festival in Nashville.

---
Must see: Reading Between the Lines, Gijs Van Vaerenbergh's transparent church.

---
Dark Rye: Whole Foods' online magazine, "brings together pioneers of unconventional ideas to explore the edges of the creative life."

---
Bill Traylor artworks at the American Folk Art Museum in NYC: "Bill Traylor was a master of composition. He used simple forms and shapes in often marvelously complex figurations. Traylor called his narrative works “exciting events,” and they reveal the artist as a gifted storyteller."

---
What an odd letter from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Scottie.

---
In the WSJ: As American as Fajita Pie.  Many of us know that Ninfa's in Houston popularized fajitas, but there's lots more...

---
The boll weevil has been eradicated in Louisiana.

---
The National Endowment for the Humanities has funded "From the Piedmont to the Swamplands: Preserving Southern Traditional Music" by the Southern Folklife Collection at UNC. "The project will preserve and make accessible online up to 3,019 hours of sound recordings and 4,500 related photographs dating from the 1920s to 1980s, documenting the traditional music and musicians of the southeastern United States."

Hotels we've stayed at in the last couple or three months:

Hilton Hotel, Lafayette LA


Hyatt Place Hotel, Memphis TN


Hampton Inn, Tupelo MS


Hyatt Regency Hotel, New Orleans LA


Shug in particular loved being able to see the Superdome from here so well, in fact, we walked down to it and Champions Square:


Both boys were mystified by the elevator systems here that had no buttons to push; they swiped our room key and it guided us to which car to take, which was usually ready for us almost instantly:

Doubletree Hotel, Kenner LA -- Av had business in Metairie so we decided to save money and stay at this airport hotel rather than stay in the CBD another evening and pay for parking again, and the boys thought it was a great idea once they split a Doubletree chocolate chip cookie:


Fairfield Inn, Lafayette LA -- eh.

Drury Inn, Jackson MS

Winfred Rembert, who grew up in Cuthbert GA and spent time in a prison chain gang, is today a well-respected memory artist with a solo show at the Adelson Gallery in NYC; look at him now All Me:


---
Architectural Record writes about Auburn's Rural Studio Lions Park project in Greensboro.

---
The International Biscuit Festival is May 19 this year in Knoxville; winning recipes from the last two years' bakeoffs are here.

---
Cast iron skillets in the shape of each state, made by a studio in Wisconsin. Texas is $2000, Louisiana is $350.

---
Selma Pilgrimage, this weekend, and not to be missed.  More at the M'ry Advertiser.

---
Of course Shopsin's had interesting thing going on with his Frito Chili Pie: mac and chipotle, chorizo chili, curry potato and chickpea...the list goes on.

---
New from LSU Press: Louisiana Saturday Night: Looking for a Good Time in South Louisana's Juke Joints... by Alex V. Cook; Alex tells me his next book, due out 2014-ish is going to be an "anecdotal guide to the authentic informal South Louisiana dining experience."

---
Almost two minutes of Leonard Knight of Salvation Mountain talking about his belief in the Universal G-d.

---
The Tuscaloosa News reports that Demopolis native Jim Rogers, investment writer and commentator, gave a speech at Bama in which he "encouraged students...to travel and learn about other cultures to better understand the world and their own country.


When Zhang asked the last question during the question-and-answer period that followed, she prefaced her query by telling Rogers he was well-known in her native China.


Rogers commended her for studying at UA, saying her education went beyond the classroom and included experiencing such things as Tuscaloosa and Dreamland.


When Zhang told him she didn't know what Dreamland was, Rogers reached for his wallet, called her to the stage and gave her $50 and directions to go eat at his favorite barbecue restaurant.


“I would take you there for lunch myself, but I have to leave for Birmingham,” said Rogers, who noted that after he completed his first trip around the world, he went to Dreamland before going home to Demopolis to see his mother.

---
Mary Plantation sold last weekend for $770k.

---
Tennessee Truffles


---
...and Georgia Olive Oil.

---
Voters picked Lafayette (yay!) to win Southern Living's 'The South's Tastiest Town' -- it'll be in the upcoming April issue, out March 23.

---
The Globe and Mail posits: Is Hugh Acheson the Jamie Oliver of Southern Cooking?.

---
The LA Times writes about the 50-year, $50 billion Louisiana master plan that "envisions sluices in the Mississippi River's levees to allow sediment to flow into the delta again and restore land. It calls for the large-scale restoration of wetlands and erecting levees from Lake Charles in the west to New Orleans in the east."

---
How Gerhard Richter paints:


---
Over a dozen regional Louisiana museums may be recommended to close, due to state budget concerns.

---
Biscuit Love food truck, debuting next month in Nashville.

---
The Southern Poverty Law Center released Teaching the Movement: The State Standards We Deserve and they find that "The 51-state report card told a disturbing story.  Across the country, state history standards—the expectations about what students learn and teachers teach—routinely ignored or over-simplified the struggle for African American civil rights that took place in the 1950s and 1960s. The farther away from the South—and the smaller the African-American population—the lower the expectations for significant coverage. 

Too often, we found, the movement, when it is given classroom time, is reduced to lessons about two heroic figures—Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks—and the four words, “I have a dream.”


The guidelines mention Alabama, Florida and New York standards as a starting point.

---
The Washington Post just ran an AP piece for Passover with recipes for matzo brei shepherd’s pie, and Passover sliders with caramelized onions.  I like the sound of this three-hour pre-Pesach walking tour in the "Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, including a stop at a shmura matzo factory, an Israeli sorbet shop, an Uzbek bakery, a Yemeni market and a kugel shop." It's a Noshwalk, and there are something like 35 different ones with all kinds of different cuisines.

---
The NYT has an article about the Civil Rights Institute in B'ham.


---
The Ai Weiwei exhibit at Hermann Park in Houston, now through June 3.