The first sign of fall isn't football practice or back-to-school shopping -- it's the "seasonal" aisle at CVS changing from sunscreen and beach toys to pumpkins and scarecrows ... in the first week of August.
Fall
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Category Archives: Alabama
Food
A couple weeks ago my friend Polly offered to teach a 
bunch of us how to make herb vinegars — using fresh herbs right out of her garden. I had never been to her house, and when she said we could hang out in the “shack” behind her house, I pictured … well, some sort of little lean-to propped up next to her garage or something. Uh, no. Polly’s Herb Shack is the sort of place I’d pay good money to go stay in. It’s so calm and peaceful and 
cute. Couldn’t you just while away a whole afternoon on that porch swing? Inside, 
Polly’s decorated in a retro style with sweet touches such as red gingham on a vintage white kitchen table, antique photos, old lamps and a typewriter that looks exactly like one my grandmother had. And then, after Polly gave us a quick lesson on herb vinegars, she turned us loose in her herb garden and let us cut all we wanted. We brought jars and vinegar (and food and wine, of course, for sustenance 
while we worked — being creative and culinary is exhausting!). You can heat the vinegar and measure things out and be all methodical and scientific about it, but basically we just stuffed jars full of herb and spice combinations — with other goodies such as lemon peels and garlic cloves — and poured vinegar over our concoctions and took them home to hope for the best. We’re going to let them steep for several weeks (if you heat the vinegar in the first place it doesn’t take as long), then strain and decant into pretty bottles and impress everybody with our homemade gourmet know-how. I’m anxious to see how the herb mixtures turn out. While we were creating in The Shack, we were saying things like “Does coriander go with basil?” and “How do you think lavender and oregano would be together?” Who knows??? My jars are 1) lemon and lime thyme with cloves and cracked whole nutmeg and apple-cider vinegar; 2) orange and chocolate mint with cardamon and white-wine vinegar and 3) chives, garlic chives and garlic cloves in red-wine vinegar. I also added some lemon peel to a couple of the jars but I can’t remember which ones now. What do you think — did I make some good picks?
Music
Oh my goodness. In my town of Florence, Alabama, the 
annual W.C. Handy Music Festival is the party of all parties. It’s a full week of music and dancing and getting out and being friendly with folks you may only see during Handy Week. You probably 
associate Handy with Memphis or St. Louis, but the Father of the Blues was born in Florence in 1873. In 1982 some local folks 
formed the Music Preservation Society to remember and honor the favorite musical son. The first Handy Festival was a weekend of music featuring Dizzy Gillespie. Now, it’s a week-long celebration of jazz, blues, gospel, country, rock-‘n’-roll and things I don’t even really understand but enjoy anyway. Music is everywhere during Handy Week — or just “Handy,” as the locals say. You can hear performances at restaurants, in parks, in stores, on sidewalks — anywhere a musician can set up. Most of Handy is free, although a few concerts have admission. Handy Week wraps up on a Saturday with a New Orleans-style street strut through downtown. Folks deck out themselves and their parasols — many marching for a cause such as breast cancer awareness — and strut their best stuff. So much fun! The two things I like best about Handy Week are 1) You can park yourself somewhere and sit and enjoy free live music for hours and 2) Everybody — and I mean everybody — gets out and has a good time. Tentative dates for 2010 are July 17-26. Put that on your calendar and check the W.C. Handy Music Festival site, http://www.wchandymusicfestival.org, for info and the TimesDaily site, http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20090725/VIDEO/907252012# for a video of the strut.
Gardens
My friend Polly has one of the most beautiful home gardens I’ve ever seen. She’s a retired teacher, and most of the work she’s done in these photos has been in the past three years. Can we say “incredible energy?” She and her husband travel around the world, but I think I would just park myself in the backyard if mine looked like this. I especially love her 
zen approach to gardening: It’s organized, but not formal or structured — the plants, flowers, herbs and vegetables just sort of spill out in exuberant joy. And she’s got such whimsical touches 
everywhere: Birdhouses, sculptures, yard art, chairs, gates, fences, stepping stones, arches. It’s a treasure everywhere you look. Polly and her husband live within the city limits of Florence, Alabama, but with the deer grazing in the front yard and the creek dancing over on the side and the abundant shade trees cooling everything off, you feel as if you’re at a wonderfully isolated woman-made Eden — yet bustling civilization is just at the end of the driveway. To my mother’s eternal frustration, I remain ignorant of all 
things gardening. I mean, I can tell a rose from a daisy (that’s the yellow and white one, right?) but that’s about it. Yet even a non-garden person like me can recognize and appreciate a green paradise such as Polly’s garden. I’m just glad there are folks like her in the world who know what they’re doing with seeds and dirt so folks like me can enjoy.
Alabama
One more reason why I love living in Alabama!
Wallpaper
Today, for the first time probably in years, I actually did an honest day’s hard labor. This morning when I offered to help out the folks who’d come to do painting/remodeling work in the house (remember the loose-wallpaper incident?), I had no idea they’d actually take me up on it. But the head-man-in-charge was not impressed with my earlier effort at wallpaper removal in the bathrooms and said it would free up another worker to get started on painting if I tackled the wallpaper leftovers and really prepped the walls properly. I had a free morning, I shrugged, so why not? How hard could it be? Seven hours later, these are the things I have learned:
1) Never ever offer to help painting/wallpapering/remodeling people unless you are prepared to actually help. This is the not the time to be meaninglessly polite.
2) Little stripped-off wet wallpaper pieces stick to everything: Shoes, feet, floors, cats …
3) Even if you like Rascal Flatts and think Keith Urban is hot, seven hours of country-music on the industrial-strength radio turned up to an industrial-strength volume is plenty, thank you very much.
4) Patience and relaxation are the keys. “You’ve got to get the wallpaper wet and then let it relax,” Boss Guy said as he, patiently, showed me how to take off wallpaper the Right Way. “Patience, patience, patience. If you’re patient enough, it will slide right off.” He was right. Who knew?
5) And the final thing I learned after a day of pumping a spray bottle and scraping and scrubbing walls to a shiny smoothness? I’m glad I don’t have to do it tomorrow.
Yard Sales
We had our first yard sale this past weekend. The verdict? Success! And here’s the key: Have lots of help and have lots of fun. That’s my advice — even though I’ve only had one yard sale. I dithered back and forth about doing it but when my two daughters said they’d help when I offered them a a 50/50 split of the profits — anything to get their junk out of the house! — we were on. And I’m here to tell you that you cannot do yard sales alone. Do not even try it. Everybody — children, in-laws, parents, friends — lent advice and (literally) helping hands. Plus, we all had fun. Made it a party, even. Might as well. Read more in my past two weekly newspaper columns for the TimesDaily: http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20090710/ARTICLES/907105000 and http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20090717/ARTICLES/907175001
Food
Some friends and I recently took a Greek cooking class. One group included my friend Sarah, a food-perfectionist and former caterer who used to work with the original Southern-food cook, Nathalie Dupree. I was in the other group. Can you guess which group produced which pan of baklava?
Summer Fun
Now, this is the way to enjoy a summer afternoon! Our grandson, 15-month-old Capt. Adorable, cools off at the splash pad at the Hunstville (Alabama) Museum of Art.
Fashion
This is my beautiful older daughter, Liz. We were at a family get-together this weekend and I thought she looked absolutely adorable. Now, you have to know that she is mom to my 15-month-old grandson, Capt. Adorable; a dance teacher; a staffer at her local Little Gym and to top it all off, the most frugal and budget-conscious person I know — a trait she obviously did not get from me, to my husband’s eternal consternation. You usually can find Liz in yoga pants or a Little Gym T-shirt or whatever she found on the floor in her closet from three years ago that is clean fits. Clothes just aren’t her top priority day-to-day. But when she wants to, she can put together a chic and affordable look that’s so cute and definitely says “cool young mom.” From the gladiator sandals to the statement necklace, nothing here probably cost more than $35-$50. I love that she took basic shorts and jazzed them up with an eye-catching yet simple and comfortable top that will withstand anything Capt. Adorable dishes out — literally. Plus, the flat sandals were perfect for tramping around on the grass — it always makes me feel slightly superior tickles me when I see unsuspecting and image-conscious women wear heels to outdoor events — what are you thinking??? I am thinking that Liz has this whole mom-style thing figured out — and I shudder to remember our 1980s young-mom uniform. Stirrup pants and bedazzled sweatshirts, anyone?
Coffee with Cathy 