Author Archives: Coffee with Cathy

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About Coffee with Cathy

I'm a media coordinator, freelance writer & adjunct journalism instructor who blogs about style, history, food & arts--and other stuff!--in Alabama, Mississippi & Tennessee. My husband is a newspaper sports editor, and he and I are from middle Tennessee. Older Daughter and her husband, an artist and high-school art teacher, live nearby with our three grandsons. Younger Daughter works in grants proposals & also lives near us.

Eating in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

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You know how you’ll go by the same restaurant every so often and it seems really intriguing and you think, “We really should eat there some day.”? After the twenty-third time or so that my husband and I were in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and walked by the Maple Street Grill, downtown on the square, we finally decided to go in  and, you know, eat. Turns out that Maple Street is a popular local gathering spot for lunch and dinner as well as drinks and tapas at night in the upstairs bar, Maple Street Uncorked. And no wonder. The interior space has that urban-cool feel of downtown renewal without being pretentious about it — it’s cozy, comfortable and Southern elegant all at the same time.  The lunch menu was enticing — a grilled portabella sandwich, pan-seared tuna, fish taco and turkey and apple sandwich all sounded yummy. (Not to mention the Fried Hershey Bar. Since I’ve been banned from deep-frying sugary objects at home since our leftover Valentine’s candy debacle, I have to take advantage of anytime I can snag a warm & melty fried delight.) Dinner featured steak, chicken and pasta entrees, while the Uncorked menu included tapas choices such as a hummus flight and a cheese board along with I-really-want-to-try-that drinks — Cucumber Rain, made of Rain Organic Cucumber Lime Vodka with sweet-and-sour mix and ginger ale, seemed especially to be calling my name. Extra points to Maple Street, too, for online ordering and a smart-phone app. We’ll be back.

The Bathroom Test

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Let’s face it — bathrooms are important, especially when you’re out & about and away from home. That’s when the state of a bathroom particularly is vital. It’s safe to say that we women appreciate a nice restroom with elegant touches and luxurious style. And it’s no secret that we tend to judge a restaurant or an office or a public building — or wherever we happen to be — by its bathroom. It’s a sort of test: Is the restroom clean? Is it comfortable? Are there plenty of supplies? Is the style of the restroom in keeping with the style of the overall location — does it convey the same decor message of funky or chic or classic or retro? If the bathroom passes these tests, we’ll give the “okay” our girlfriends who are waiting at the table while we check it out. But sometimes we enter an alternate restroom universe and it seems as if  the bathroom is testing us. As in, “If you’re smart enough to figure out how the faucet works, Ms. FancyPants, then, welcome. You belong here.  If not, there’s a McDonald’s down the street.” Such was my experience recently with this gorgeous and sparkling-clean women’s room at The Club in Birmingham, Ala. The furnishings, the art work, the details all were so compelling that it took me a minute to realize I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the faucet. I mean, it looks as if you’d maybe slide those rectangles back and forth or perhaps push them on the edges or maybe there’s a motion sensor somewhere. But, no. You turned these on by a coordinated action of sliding and pushing — and it only took me two visits and some friendly advice from an employee to get it right. “Don’t worry.  Nobody can figure it out,” she said, smiling at my ineptitude. I could hear the bathroom chuckling in triumph as I made my way out. But before we were ready to leave, I couldn’t resist one last visit, just to show that I could. “You do it this way,” I said helpfully to a frustrated woman standing at the sinks. “But don’t worry.  Nobody can figure it out.”

And the Band Played On

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I know I don’t look like it now — sitting here on the couch in my PJs at 7:30 p.m. with a glass of wine in my hand and basketball on TV — but back only a few years ago I was a hard-working & dedicated how-many-bottles-of-water-do-we-need-for-the-concession-stand type of Band Parent. I mean, I was fierce.  I cleaned & cooked & chaperoned. I rode buses and made calls and sewed hems and tracked down lost gloves and errant plumes. Sound familiar? You, too? After our final band-geek-chick left the nest, it took forever to retrain myself — I didn’t have to hang around the school cafeteria scooping out ice anymore or keep handy at all times a bag of emergency bobby pins, safety pins, hairbobs, HotHands and Kleenex. So I was sort of surprised when I went to a recent reception for our retiring high-school director and realized that the band had carried on without me. And not only carried on but managed to pull off a great full-scale party without my help. Amazing. And gratifying. Because it’s somebody else’s turn now. We Old Band Parents have earned our retirement. After all, we’ve got wine to drink and basketball to watch. But I’m sharing the cute & clever ideas the New Band Parents came up with for this reception — we OBPs are proud of you, NBPs. Good job. Carry on.

Because It Was There

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"Oh, hi, Mommy! I didn't see you standing there. Tree? What tree? Oh, you mean THIS tree that you happened to have found me in the middle of. Uh ... I guess I ... uh ... I thought maybe Baby Brother was up here and I'd better check to make sure he's okay. Yeah, yeah, that's it."

Bowling for Fashion

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We’re making our way through college football’s bowl season leading up to Monday’s Bowl Championship Series once-in-a-century twice-in-a-century showdown between SEC West powerhouses LSU and Alabama. And the most pressing question is not “What? Them again?? When is ‘Dancing with the Stars’ coming back on???” but rather “How can I look stylish and exhibit team spirit while squashed between screaming drunk people while it’s 35 degrees outside?” At the recent Music City Bowl, Mississippi State fans pretty much took over the downtown area of host city Nashville, Tenn., and swamped the LP Stadium at game time with maroon and white. But opponent and eventual loser Wake Forest showed up with a few fans who braved the freezing temps in black and gold.

 

What Kind of Plates Do Reindeer Eat From?

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One of the hottest after-Christmas-sale items is Pottery Barn’s Reindeer Dinnerware, which already is pretty much sold out on Pottery Barn’s website — and everywhere else.  And you can see why with this gorgeously festive table at our friends’ house in Murfreesboro, Tenn. It’s a family project, with everybody in the house snapping up pieces when they find sales. And, come to think of it, frugal shopping is a valuable family holiday activity. As is sharing laughs and stories with good friends over deliciously yummy food. And adorable reindeer-decorated tableware. Which you kind of hate to pack away at the beginning of January. Do reindeer and Valentine’s Day mix?

 

So Long, 2011 — Or, What Happened to All That Money We Had Laying Around?

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Happy New Year! Even though the Tournament of Roses parade (and I guess a football game?)  isn’t on until tomorrow  so it really doesn’t feel like New Year’s morning, this is the first day of 2012. So far I’ve celebrated by (thinking about) a healthy breakfast and (thinking about) doing an exercise DVD, so I count that as a successful year so far.  And since we”d already enjoyed the big-city lights of Nashville, Tennessee, this weekend, husband JP and I stayed home for the New Year’s Eve countdown. We chased some screw-top bubbly wine we’d unaccounatably found in the back of the fridge with some yummy Christmas chocolates, threw glitter out on the front porch and alternated being horrified by the (literal) spectre of a propped-up spray-tanned Dick Clark and being sympathetic with the Mobile, Alabama, TV hosts trying to make the anti-climatic Moon Pie drop and the lackluster crowd seem somehow festive. It’s a tough job. Bye-bye, 2011. You brought us adventures, opportunities, a boy grandbaby and much love and joy. However, you also brought us a few tears, fears and heart-stopping moments. Overall, though, you were pretty balanced. Here’s to 2012 — and we’re eating as many black-eyed peas as we can today.

Christmas Entertaining … and Entertaining Christmas Stories

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Oh, I love the holidays — the visiting, the parties, the chance to get a closeup view of other people’s decorations. Luckily, folks don’t seem to mind when I whip out my camera, even though my husband warns the hosts, “You’d better be careful because this will turn up on her blog.” But the homeowners here had a couple of nights previously opened their doors to an annual fund-raising holiday home tour, so I figured they’d be okay with a little publicity. The thing is, this family has spent years — YEARS — renovating and restoring this wonderful cottage in Tupelo, Mississippi. Soon I want to show you some of their non-holiday work, but since Christmas is … wait, wait, don’t tell me … four days away, we’ll stick with the festive touches now. I love the  fresh greenery and whimsical details mixed in with vintage pieces, such as these post-office boxes the husband bought from a going-out-of-business post office. He cleaned and shined them and built the wooden case for them with access to the backs as well as the fronts for one incredible storage unit. Amazing! And made festive with a Santa collection resting on the top. Everything in this house was bright and cheerful, the food was good, the company was fun, the wine never stopped and I even heard firsthand the story about a dad who delivered his baby in the car at the hospital because his wife unknowingly has a condition called precipitous labor, which means she gives birth within three hours of the first contraction. In this case, it was 20 minutes.  I repeat, this brave woman who is my new hero gave birth in the front seat of her car in the hospital’s driveway a mere TWENTY MINUTES after she felt a contraction. That calls for another Christmas cookie — and sort of makes me glad I’m out of the birthing-babies business.

When I Grow Up …

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When I grow up, I want to be just like Felice Green, this wonderful woman here. Felice is a local retired educator, and I imagine that if you had her for a teacher, your life was changed forever. For one thing, she has a gorgeous voice. It’s rich and gracious and she enunciates every syllable so distinctly that you’re like, “Oh, so that’s how that word is supposed to sound.” Also, Felice does not put up with foolishness. Of any kind. She just looks at you and you know that by the sheer force of her will, she simply Is Not Stand For It, thank you very much, so you’d Better Straighten Up and Fly Right. (I still call her “ma’am” when I talk to her.  I can’t help it.) And then there is Felice’s style. Like her tutorial counterpart Mary Poppins, Felice is practically perfect in every way. She is impeccably groomed and immaculately dressed and I only wish I could rock this over-sized man’s suit jacket hand-painted with a Santa Claus and other symbols of  holiday cheer that she found in a vintage boutique. But instead of looking  chic and stylish and even sort of royal as Felice does, I think I’d simply end up looking foolish — a word that’s probably not even in her vocabulary. I first met Felice when I was a staff writer for the local newspaper and she helped with her sorority’s annual hosting of the Ebony (magazine) Fashion Fair, the world’s largest traveling fashion show. Fashion Fair brought high-end designs and runway productions to the normal everyday small-town Sears-clearance-rack-wearing folks like me, and I loved every minute of it. I’ve tried to talk Felice into organizing our own version of Fashion Fair, but she’s too busy hanging out with her grandchildren and doing good works. And looking fabulous, as always.

Occupy Chattanooga — and Julie Darling Donuts

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Normally I don’t get in on nationally historical & happening-right-now political events — I’m generally more of the heard-it-on-NPR type — but earlier this week I got a close-up look at the headline-making Occupy (Fill-in-the-Blank) movement while I was in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Occupy Chattanooga folks have set up their tents on the lawn of the Hamilton County courthouse, and Younger Daughter and I, being the nosy & curious journalistically inquiring people that we are, headed over to get the full story.  And the full story, as far as I can tell, is that we should eat locally and not step on the pansies bravely trying to brighten the sparse wintry landscaping. I didn’t pick up much political angst — it seemed more like a friendly campout where you borrow your neighbors’ chocolate bars to make s’mores — but I wasn’t surprised at that. See, the thing about Chattanooga is that it’s a pretty cool & laidback town where Patagonia, stand-up paddleboarding and organic coffee shops trump pearls, pantyhose and pumps.  So it’s entirely fitting that Chattanooga’s version of Occupy (Fill-in-the-Blank) is low-key. But, of course, it was difficult to get the full story since it was a weekday and the site was fairly empty because the protesters were at 1) work, 2) school or 3) back home taking showers, leaving Occupy Chattanooga in the hands of an address-less man who tends the fire and watches over the tents while everybody’s gone. He happily filled Younger Daughter and I in on why the government was out to get us, augmented by comments from another talkative man on a bicycle who offered opinions as he cycled around the tents and whom we later saw riding around town, still commenting loudly to everybody and nobody. But I liked the whole Occupy Chattanooga vibe. I mean, when Imyself Occupy Chattanooga, I tend more toward Julie Darling Donuts and Good Dog  beer & fries, but I’m glad there are other folks out there who are making me think about other things and reminding me that not everyone is so lucky — and not to step on the flowers.