FOR THE LOVE OF SOUL FOOD

I've spent the day processing some oral history interviews and came upon these photographs that I took at Wilson's Soul Food in Athens, GA. Goodness, what a lunch that was. If only this picture were the real thing--or at least scratch-and-sniff.
And the pie! Oh, the pie. That's a slice of sweet potato up front, with a peek at a slice of cherry in the back. Deliciousness.

STUDIO UPDATE: DOORS & WINDOWS!

After using the unfinished studio as a woodshop to build some friends some shelves (that are awesome, by the way), Kurt's back on the job. He has installed and painted the windows, and just the other day he put in these amazing French doors. Doors! This place is really starting to come together.
Just a few more little jobs inside, and then it's move-in time! I feel like I keep saying that but, really, things are happening around here again! There will be an easel in that corner, paint on my palette and a brush in my hand very, very soon.

SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS

My friend Rob Walker, along with Joshua Glenn, has launched a project that invites writers to create stories about thrift-store objects. It's called Significant Objects. From their website:

A talented, creative writer invents a story about an object. Invested with new significance by this fiction, the object should — according to our hypothesis — acquire not merely subjective but objective value. How to test our theory? Via eBay!

I love this idea. A lot. I'm curious to know, though, if purchases will be made based on the objects or the stories that accompany them. Or both.

I do like this toy toaster....

A PASSEL OF FIREWORKS, $200

The look on a grown man's face when the sun goes down, priceless.

THE FAMOUS KURT BURGER

Kurt takes his burgers as seriously as his carpentry projects. This giant burger, made complete with yummy sides provided by our friend Laurie, was the perfect way to ring in the 4th. Until the sun went down, that is.

But before the sun went down, there was dessert: a peach-blackberry pie, as well as a mixed-berry cobbler, both with Blue Bell homemade vanilla. I over-delivered a bit, but who doesn't like leftover pie for breakfast?

THE HOLIDAY THAT INSPIRED A PIECE OF FURNITURE

Sometime last week, knowing we'd be hosting six people at our house for the 4th of July, I made some rumblings about putting a table in the yard--a simple lean-to affair made from a couple of saw horses and an old door. But Kurt, never one to do something halfway, decided to build an actual table.
Kurt spent an entire afternoon molding recycled six-by-six posts and a bunch of cypress siding leftover from the studio project into the gorgeous bit of carpentry you see above. And thank goodness he did. He's made my wildest outdoor-dining dreams come true.

FOR THE LOVE OF BACON FAT! (AND CORNBREAD)

Getting back to my big weekend in Bristol, Tennessee, I have to show off this glorious bit of iron-skillet cooking that was conducted by my friend and colleague Sheri Castle of Chapel Hill, NC. The girl knows how to use some bacon fat! Those shiny white globs in the photo above are giant dollops of bacon fat--Allan Benton bacon fat, otherwise known as the nectar of the bacon gods--spooned into her grandmother's cast iron skillets and later melted in the oven before being christened with cornbread batter.

Sheri did a cooking class on pickle beans for our group, and she rounded out her presentation with what amounted to lunch: pickle beans served with mashed potato casserole, skillet cornbread, sorghum-laced butter, and bread & milk (cornbread crumbled in a glass and covered with buttermilk)--all of this just before a giant lunch of vegetables and three kinds of cobbler at an organic farm!

I love you, Sheri Castle.

TURKEYS, TURKEYS EVERYWHERE!

Last night, as we were leaving for a friend's birthday potluck, we opened the front door to find twenty--TWENTY--wild turkeys scurrying across our lawn. They were moving pretty fast, but we think we counted eighteen baby turkeys with two mama turkeys. It was an awesome and hilarious sight to behold, as was Kurt's reaction to the scene.

Did you know that female turkeys lay ten to twelve eggs? I sure didn't. Want to know more about the breeding habits of wild turkeys? Well, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, "the male Wild Turkey provides no parental care. When the eggs hatch, the chicks follow the female. She feeds them for a few days, but they quickly learn to feed themselves. Several hens and their broods may join up into bands of more than 30 birds. Winter groups have been seen to exceed 200."

That's a lot of turkeys.

HAVE SWEET TOOTH, WILL TRAVEL

So the SFA weekend in and around Bristol included one breakfast of dried apple stack cake, another breakfast of coconut and butterscotch meringue pie, a trio of fresh berry cobblers with lunch, and Sean Brock's wild and wacky version of banana pudding for dessert one night. And that's really just the tip of the sugar iceberg.

As my friend and colleague Melissa Hall and I ran an errand to pick up some supplies for the weekend, we happened upon Babycakes Cupcakery in Abingdon, VA. And, wouldn't you know it, we were forced to purchase half a dozen: two wedding cake cupcakes, a mint chocolate chip, a chocolate peanut butter and--the cupcake that really put us over the edge--the Elvis, a banana cupcake with peanut butter frosting. Needless to say, they did not last long. We did share them, though. Really.

BRISTOL WAS A GAS!

I just returned from Bristol, TN, where I spent the last handful of days celebrating the Mountain South with my SFA friends and colleagues. Our big weekend started at the Bristol Motor Speedway, where we were all given the opportunity to take a spin around the track as a passenger in a regulation race car or the driver of our own. Given my current condition, I declined to participate, knowing that I was passing up the opportunity of a lifetime. Still, it was quite a thrill to watch from the pits. Seeing folks speed past at 100+ MPH made my heart jump--and the baby's, too.