Deep Fried Kudzu

It's been a while since we had been to Rodney, Mississippi -- and not since the boys were born -- so I wanted to show them especially the Rodney Presbyterian Church, which had been shelled in the War (from the water which at that time was about 300 yards away according to the HABS, by a Federal gunboat called the Rattler):



...you can still plainly see this one:

Since the river has changed course, it's probably at least three miles away now.  Some books call Rodney a 'ghost town' but people still live here and it's home to several hunt camps.  You almost can't drive out here and not see several deer.

The church was begun in 1828 with a charter from the state when Rodney was known as Petit Gulf, and the church structure was built in 1830-31, and dedicated on January 1, 1832 (the congregation met in the meantime in a barroom).  It's on the National Register.  The interior -- so pretty:


I love how these pews have 'doors' and know it's an old custom, but wonder why people ever put doors on pews to begin with.  Anyone know?


The view from the pulpit, with the slave balcony:


Legend is that 1000 silver coins went into making the church bell, and this picture, my favorite of the set, shows the rope to ring it:

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

On June 8-9, Creole Sweet: The Praline and Its World will be presented with a reception and forum, which will explore "their cultural and historical significance and will feature a keynote speech" by a culinary historian and chefs. Sponsored by the Historic New Orleans Collection and Dillard University's Ray Charles Program and Institute for the Study of Culinary Cultures, more information is here.

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Alabama Heritage ran an article of historic structures and districts damaged in last year's tornadoes.

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I met the woman behind Sweater Therapy on Etsy at the Magic City Art Connection -- she takes 'orphaned' sweaters and turns them into jackets and other accessories.

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Atlanta has a brand-new food truck park.


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The app I use several times a week, with great success: Paper Karma (free).  You take a pic of your junk mail, they send a request to the sender to take you off their mailing list.  It works.  No more 12-lb Uline catalogs!


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*Esp Important*
Have you watched the documentary, Art of the Steal, about the Barnes Foundation and its legendary collection (est to be valued between $25-$30B by the Pew Charitable Trust)? It is a must-watch, also available on Netflix instant -- and the Barnes in Philadelphia, which just sounds wrong to even say, is opening on May 12.

This story between Fisk University's O'Keefe collection and Crystal Bridges sounds very, very, very familiar:

Fisk University in Nashville may soon be able to generate cash from its 101-piece art collection donated by the late painter Georgia O’Keeffe.

***The Tennessee Supreme Court announced last week that Fisk can complete the $30MM deal with Crystal Bridges to sell a 50% stake in its Georgia O'Keeffe collection -- even though the 97 pieces (Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne, Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, and others) were under stipulation that they never be sold or broken up.***


Fisk says they can't afford the $131k/year cost to display the art.  Hire thee a competent fundraiser who knows how to court the private sector, Fisk.  Come on.

O'Keeffe apparently gave the collection to Fisk because it is a historically black college in what was at her time the segregated South (see part 3 of pg 8 of this document).  See also pgs 11, 12, and 13 as to how she felt about it being cared for.

Barnes likewise listed Lincoln University, a HBCU, as a successor in his will.  Another similarity.

It has been the state of Tennessee's position that the Tennessee Arts Commission take temporary custody of the art, and "Under the attorney general's proposal, the state would contract with Nashville’s Frist Center for the Visual Arts to maintain and display the collection. Fisk University would be relieved of all costs associated with maintaining and exhibiting the collection and would not be charged for any work needed to preserve and display the art.


“This is only a temporary arrangement,” said Cooper. “The collection should return to the Fisk campus when the University is once again financially able to display and maintain the art.”

Oh, but no.  Now that the TN Supreme Court has weighed in...

There are so many similarities between this case and what happened with the Barnes, it's incredible.  Same song, second verse.  Wow.

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Harold's Barbecue in Atlanta, which has been in business for 65 years, is closing.

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Although the Birmingham Design Review Committee approved this week that this mural downtown be painted over, the mural will now remain, probably in very large part due to the public outpouring of support to keep it from being destroyed.

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The Busy Bee in Cullman, destroyed last April, opened today on the one-year anniversary of the tornadoes.

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This summer's Smithsonian Folklife Festival will feature accomplishments of land-grant schools, including Mississippi State, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas A&M.  MSU's website for the Folklife Festival is good.

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Richmond vs. Baltimore as home of Poe.

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Wendy's is serving poutine (which I kind-of love) at its locations across Canada, and they're trying to have it declared Canada's national dish.  The piece is pretty great, too:



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Alice Waters, Scott Peacock (who made smartly ham and biscuits), and six other chefs prepared a meal for 250 Monticello donors and supporters, using Mr. Jefferson's wood-fired stove and ingredients from his garden as well as other local ingredients. The WSJ reports that Alice called it "the most important dinner we've ever cooked" -- a slideshow here.

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To make candied pecans, just whisk an egg white until frothy (but nowhere close to coming together), add a couple handfuls of pecans, then remove from the egg whites to a bowl with half white sugar and half brown sugar, to coat.  Separate the pecans and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, in a 325* oven for about 25 minutes.  Then, separate the pecans again while the sugar is still not yet set.  Give the pecans a rest until the sugar has dried (candied) on them.  Now they're ready to use.


Inspired by the pimento cheese at Butcher and Bee in Charleston, I made pimento cheese this week with the additional ingredients they use -- candied pecans and pickled okra.  It was nice for a change, but not something I would do every time.

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This past week, the Washington Post reported on "new hybrid cuisine that pairs slow-smoked meat — the foundation of barbecue — with unlikely flavors."

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Jellyfish at Anthro. In the magazine, the recipe for watermelon margarita.

For the gazillion times we've been in Oxford (and this weekend is a great reason to go back, as it's Double Decker Arts Festival which we try to go to every year and is *so* fantastic) this was the first time we've gone out to St. Peter's cemetery and taken pics.  This large monument is the Falkner family plot -- it was William who put the 'u' in his surname with the whole Royal Air Force affair.

Lots of his family is in this particular plot...

...including his dear, dear, dear brother Dean, whose death by plane crash William blamed on himself.

William had already lost his baby daughter, named 'Alabama', born two months prematurely and who lived only eleven days.  Dean's death was awful on him, and he took care of Dean's pregnant wife who gave birth to a daughter who just happened to pass away last year, Dean Faulkner Wells.  She wrote 'Every Day by the Sun' in which she talks about how William, her Uncle, looked after her, and she called him 'Pappy'.

And so if you ever have a moment in which you think to yourself, 'well, my family certainly has tsuris, my family is composed of a serious collection of, ahem, characters,' remind yourself that the Falkner/Faulkner family had its own bits.  DFW wrote:

"It has taken me 70 plus years to develop the discipline and courage to write this book. My relatives were private people, building walls, not only in themselves from outsiders, but from one another. This vaulted Faulkner crippling privacy, which has been interpreted as anything from crippling shyness to arrogance to paranoia, may have evolved as a safety hatch in light of our eccentric and sometimes outrageous behavior. Over the years, years my family can claim nearly every psychological aberration, narcissism, nymphomania, alcoholism, anorexia, agoraphobia, manic depression, paranoid schizophrenia. There have been thieves, adulterers, sociopaths, killers, racists, liars and folks suffering from panic attacks, that's me, and real bad tempers."




Faulkner as author was one thing; but Faulkner as 'worker' -- another.  When he got fired as Postmaster, he was relieved and said, "thank G-d I'll never be at the beck and call of every son-of-a... who's got two cents to buy a stamp".  He also worked at the Ole Miss power plant (where he wrote 'As I Lay Dying') as night supervisor.  There's a move afoot right now to save the power plant -- the right one, or another? -- from destruction because of Faulkner's connection to it.

Recently the MLA (Modern Languages Association) released its list of the top 25 American writers 'as determined by the amount of scholarship on each'. Faulkner is #2 on the list.

...and here we have Faulkner's monument:


In honor of Faulkner's 50th yahrzeit, the Faulkner & Yoknapatawpha Conference in Oxford will reflect on his writing with the theme, 'Fifty Years After Faulkner' with side trips to Faulkner-related destinations as well.  More on the conference here.

The other altar we visited on St. Joseph's Day (we're Jewish so St. Joseph's Day altars are not something we do, but was a great experience) was at St. Cletus in Gretna.  This one wasn't quite as large overall, but was *so* fantastic -- there were more memorial cakes here, and more local symbols included.

Oh, and yesterday I mentioned the story about stealing lemons -- there was actually a couple at this church holding an infant wearing a onesie that said "Lemon Baby"!

The artistry these congregants make with dough:


Eggs tucked in:


Local symbols, like these oysters (complete with pearls):






Twelve fish for the twelve Apostles -- there were other signs about, describing the meaning of the symbols and dishes; one was that toasted breadcrumbs are used on top of pasta to represent carpenter's sawdust:


The altar at St Joseph had a chocolate gator; here is one of bread:


The Stations of the Cross:








The clock, middle left is at 3:00, the time people traditionally believe Jesus died on the cross:




This altar was just amazing, amazing.

We had lunch here, too, with spaghetti, stuffed artichoke...delicious.  Bag of cookies for the boys, too-- very nice.

We were in New Orleans for St. Joseph's Day this year, and I've *always* wanted to see the altars that some of the churches (and restaurants and other businesses, esp those with strong Sicilian ties) make for the holiday.  The first one we went to was the largest and most magnificent -- St. Joseph Catholic Church in Gretna:



The church describes the tradition this way:
St. Joseph's Day altars began as a custom brought to New Orleans by Sicilian immigrants. The tradition of building the altar to St. Joseph began as far back as the Middle Ages in gratitude to St. Joseph for answering prayers for deliverance from famine. The families of farmers and fisherman built altars in their homes to share their good fortune with others in need. The tradition grew to a more public event on St. Joseph's Feast Day on March 19. Today the individuals who work on the altars are fulfilling their own promises to St. Joseph "to share their blessings with those in need."


One tradition entails begging for the supplies to build the altar. The altar must not incur "any expense nor any personal financial gain." As an act of devotion to St. Joseph, supplicants would promise to build an altar should their sons return home from war safely.


Although there are perishable foods on the altars, a large portion of the breads, cookies and cakes are wrapped so that they may be given to charities after the altar is broken. The altar is broken after a ceremony which reenacts the Holy Family seeking shelter. The ceremony is called Tupa Tupa "which in Italian means Knock Knock." Children dressed in costume "knock at three doors asking for food and shelter. At the first two they are refused. At the third door, the host of the Altar greets them and welcomes them to refresh themselves."




The lemon is a symbol for luck.  If you 'steal' a lemon, you'll marry your spouse this year.  The man in front of me asked if I was going to steal a lemon -- because if you do, you'll get pregnant during the year.  That's the idea, as was confirmed by everyone around us.  They're expected to be 'stolen'.

Yes I did.

Many of the breads are made out in symbols characteristic of the Holy Family and Joseph especially.  There's a crown of thorns here, the saw as a carpenter's tool, painted silver and adorned with flowers (bottom left), and sandals:


To the left of the wine, shoes made from dough:




These fava beans are for luck.  As you're leaving, you make a donation to the church and bring home a little bag with a St. Joseph card, several cookies (lots of anise flavor, I think), and a lucky bean.


How fantastic is this!?

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

The NYT states that "The friendship of Ralph Lemon and Walter Carter must surely be counted as one of the great artistic collaborations of the early 21st century." and that "Anyone who has encountered one of Mr. Lemon’s layered artistic projects — choreographic, visual or written — is likely to be familiar with Mr. Carter (1907-2010), the Mississippi native who began showing up in Mr. Lemon’s work in 2002 doing all sorts of strange, task-based activities (sometimes with his wife, Edna, and other relatives and neighbors). He was like a kind of marvelously inscrutable found object, one with as many schemes and designs in his head as Mr. Lemon had in his."  Now through May 27, the Studio Museum in Harlem is doing a solo show with Ralph Lemon's "1856 Cessna Road" which explores the eight-year relationship in video and drawings.

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The woman that lives in the American Gothic house is apparently a pie baker extraordinaire, on book tour.

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Rural Studio worked with Hatch Show Print (who did Shugie's baby announcements, there's nothing they can't do!) for this:

Why do the stereotypes persist?


Because they're constantly in play, Davis says. "We have one [group] that is imagining the South as an alternative space within the United States -- less modernized, less educated, more racist. It's America's Jekyll to its own Hyde," he says. On the other side, he says, there are Southerners who take pride in everything they consider disparaged, from the Confederate flag to country music.


Davis, a native of Butler, Georgia (population 2,000), observes the word "Southern" has come to be associated with opposition to the American norm. He teaches Southern studies, so students often ask him, "What is Northern studies?"


" 'Northern studies' is American studies. 'Southern' is the opposition to that," he says.


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A brief overview of Ann Treitsman's book, Who Put the Devil in Deviled Eggs?.  On her list of American foods: macaroni and cheese, french fries, Caesar salad, Cobb salad, deviled eggs, chocolate chip cookies, ice cream sundae, cupcake, hamburger, baked Alaska, lobster roll, corn dog, clams casino, popcorn, blueberry muffin, corn-on-the-cob, mashed potatoes, Jell-O, apple pie, steak, potato salad, pumpkin pie, peanut butter, key lime pie, soft pretzels, brownies, doughnuts, cereal, bagel, iced tea, pancakes, chicken-fried steak, gumbo, meatloaf, Reuben sandwich, mayonnaise, fried chicken, biscuits, cheesecake, waffle, pizza, maple syrup, cotton candy, Twinkie and bubble gum.

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To celebrate Athens, Alabama's namesake of Athens, Greece, there's going to be an 'Athens Grease Festival' this coming fall.  The logo states that it will be a 'celebration of all things fried' -- which...not sure about the good timing of celebrating fried food (although if you saw this study that was reported this week maybe not quite as bad...).

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The WSJ has a feature on visiting Rural Studio architecture.

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The Commercial Appeal has an article about the National Ornamental Metal Museum near downtown Memphis.

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'Tis the season for tea sandwiches (well, I think it's always the season, but now that it's hot, especially) and the Savannah paper runs a piece about them, with recipes.

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Ron Rash was on Here and Now this week on NPR.  Excellent.

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Jerry Bleem, O.F.M., priest and artist who teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, wrote on Heaven and Hell, the exhibit of visionary art between Loyola and Intuit.

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In Atlanta, there's Miller Union's beautiful cast iron skillet wall (as is everything else they have/do).  And see if this pic doesn't make you think summer should come on now.

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Should've showed this earlier -- Av's birthday thankfully came before Passover, so he got to have a *real* cake -- and the boys wanted six or seven sentences on it, but we settled on 'Happy birthday, we love you Daddy, Who Dat'.  They got to put all the candles on, too.

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In the upcoming week's postings -- pics from St. Joseph's Day altars that are *amazing*.

Jasmine Hill Gardens in Wetumpka was *fantastic* -- it's the first time we have been here -- and one of the things I kept thinking over & over was what a great wedding venue this is:

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The Atlanta Botanical Garden just released the performers for this year's summer concert series.