Category Archives: friends

Food

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Herb shackA couple weeks ago my friend Polly offered to teach a Vintage decoratingbunch 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 Retro home decorcute. Couldn’t you just while away a whole afternoon on that porch swing? Inside, Herb vinegarPolly’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 Herb gardenwhile 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

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Handy Week Oh my goodness. In my town of Florence, Alabama, the W.C. Handy Festivalannual 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 Handy Festivalassociate Handy with Memphis or St. Louis, but the Father of the Blues was born in Florence in 1873. In 1982 some local folks Microwave Dave (right) and Phil Weaver, guitaristsformed 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

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GardensHerb vinegarMy 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 Yard artzen 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 Gardeningeverywhere: 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 Wheelbarrowsthings 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.

Food

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Baklava -- Greek cooking class

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?

TV

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Kate Gosselin Dear Kate Gosselin,

Listen, girlfriend, I know we cannot get enough of you lately, but, seriously, you are taking up way too prime celebrity space and I would like you to stop it. Please? Like, immediately? I cannot pick up any gossip magazine without you being on it and frankly it’s starting to bug me. I mean, I’m spending good money because I want to read about Jennifer’s attempts to get Brad back or Angelina’s attempts to get Brad back or how Elizabeth Banks really is not very nice or how Sandra Bullock really is. I don’t want to read about you. And let’s be clear: I’m not being critical of you. In fact, I’m sort of envious. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a famous multi-millionaire with nannies, bodyguards and Emeril  as a personal chef? Sign me up, and I’ll take the hair stylist, personal trainer and free tummy tuck, too. I do not begrudge you fame and fortune. I say good for you. It shows initiative and determination on your part and really, if I’d known having eight children was a key to success I’d have rethought stopping at two. The thing is, however, you are not a celebrity. You are just a regular person who yells at her husband and yells at her kids and makes bad choices. You are, sad to say, just like us. We don’t want our celebrities to be just like us. Oh, it’s true we want our celebrities to pretend they’re just like us. We want to see them buying toliet paper at Costco and slurping down frapps at Starbucks and playing with their kids at the park, but we know and they know and they know we know that they aren’t like us at all. You, however, are just like us but you don’t know it. You are — and I say this with all due respect — sort of boring. We don’t care about your free trips and your free vacations and the TV “stars” who keep popping up in your driveway to install solar panels or take you on motorcycle rides. It’s just … oh, I don’t know … uninteresting. And this whole marriage breakup thing? Please! I can get five women together at a moment’s notice who have marriage-breakup stories that would curl … uh, straighten … your hair. I’m sorry you have problems, but put your big-girl panties on and deal with it. In private, please. I look forward to the day when — just like the rest of us — the only connection you have to gossip magazines is picking one up at the grocery and reading it in the express lane while the person in front of you has 37 items and doesn’t know how to use the debit-card machine. Thank you.

Crafts

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Baby shower ideasBaby-shower ideasI think this is the best baby-shower idea ever: Hand-painting onesies. I helped co-host a baby shower with friends this past weekend and early in the planning stages a couple of the gals said, “We have something you’ve never seen before and everybody is going to love it” — and they were right. At the shower, we set Painting craftsup a couple tables and offered the guests plain newborn white Baby showeronesies with a variety of paints, markers, brushes and stencils. At first there was palpable art anxiety as women who declared they had no talent or skill whatsoever were a bit apprehensive about producing a work of art, but soon everybody was designing and creating like pros. It was a great icebreaker and mixer — and of course the mom-to-be ended up with some adorable clothes and great memories. You also could turn the onesies into a baby quilt or frame the painted sections for unique and personalized wall decor. It so reminded me of birthday parties when my now-20-something-daughters were young and we’d turn them loose outside with paints and T-shirts — remember making stamps out of sponges? The baby shower, however, was a little more restrained. But no less fun.

Memorial Day

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Memorial Day and family birthdays

Capt. Adorable's other grandparents, Sharlie and Buddy Behel, of Tuscumbia, Alabama. See? I can share!!!

Hawk Pride Mountain

The back porch of the Behels' log cabin

Were you lucky like me and got some good family time this Memorial Day? I count myself lucky — and blessed — because my daughter’s in-laws consider my husband and me bona-fide family and invite us to every holiday gathering. And that’s a good thing because I would hate to miss out on all the food and fun that results whenever two or more Behels gather together. Sharlie and Buddy Behel, my daughter’s in-laws, are some of the most generous and hospitable people I know. Their home is always open to family and friends — nobody’s a stranger. They sort of adopted me when my daughter first started dating their son — I was a single mom then without family nearby and with characteristic kindness they took me in right from the start. And since I’m only a year or so older than their oldest son (my son-in-law was their surprise third baby), Sharlie and I feel more like sisters than in-laws once removed. You can see from the picture how much I care about them — I don’t share Capt. Adorable with just anybody!

Food

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Ziploc OmeletteOkay, has anybody out there tried the Ziploc Omelet? A friend e-mailed the recipe to me and I’d never heard of it but an Internet search pulled up lots of references. As usual, I’m probably the last one to hear about this! Here’s the recipe, from the e-mail:

This works great and is good for when all your family is together. The best part is that no one has to wait for their special omelet.
1) Have guests write their name on a quart-size Ziploc freezer bag with permanent marker.

2) Crack two eggs (large or extra-large) into the bag (not more than two) and shake to combine them.
3) Put out a variety of ingredients such as cheeses, ham, onion, green pepper, tomato, hash browns, salsa, etc.
4) Each person adds prepared ingredients of choice to their individual bag and shakes. Make sure to get the air out of the bag and zip it up.
5) Place the bags into rolling, boiling water for exactly 13-15 minutes. You can usually cook 6-8 omelets in a large pot. For more, make another pot of boiling water.
6) Open the bags and the omelet will roll out easily. Be prepared for everyone to be amazed.
Nice to serve with fresh fruit and coffee cake; everyone gets involved in the process and it’s a great conversation piece.

What do you all think? I could see where if you’ve got a crowd in the kitchen and everybody’s hungry it’s a great way to feed lots of folks in a short amount of time. On the other hand, I’m not sure about basically eating boiled scrambled eggs. One of the best parts about cooking and eating omelets is the brown crunchy bits on the bottom mixed with the melted cheese and of course with this you don’t get that yummy flavor experience. But there’s definitely a fun factor here and I can see where it would be  entertaining. I may just experiment on myself with this first — but keep a skillet handy just in case.

Shoes

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Shoes Oh, baby — come to mama! I am so in love with these shoes that I Chique in Oxford, Mississippigot this past week at Chique, an unbelievably cute boutique on the square in Oxford, Mississippi. Tucked in the back of a dress shop on South Lamar Street, Chique is the sort of place that your girly sexy soul sort of sighs in contentment whenever you Chiquewalk in. Chique came about after owner Angel Overstreet had gone on several mission trips to Brazil and decided to “help the Brazilian Shoespeople by sharing our favorite souvenir,” according to the Chique Web site — and she started with her hometown of Oxford. It’s quite obvious that these shoes aren’t from around here, as we say. Every pair was sultry and playful and sophisticated and comfortable and affordable — and talking directly to me. I finally narrowed my choices down to two pairs and had to call in reinforcements and drag my friends from their own shopping adventures to help me decide. I love these because they’re a bit more versatile — the other pair was definitely dressy but this pair can go with anything and even on into fall. For less than $100, too. Jackpot! And, to my dear husband who I know is reading this: I only bought these shoes for the purposes of journalistic investigation. And I don’t think I got the whole story, so I’m thinking a followup visit is necessary. Who’s with me? Check out the Web site at http://www.chiqueinoxford.com

Restaurants in Oxford, Mississippi

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City Grocery in Oxford, MississippiOh my goodness, y’all. Run, don’t walk, to City Grocery in Oxford, MississippiOxford, Mississippi and eat at City Grocery on the square. Or drive. However you can get there, just go.  I was in Oxford this past week with friends for a day of shopping and eating and sightseeing, although we all agreed that the eating part was the best. My husband John Pitts even took a long lunch break from newspaper-sports editing in nearby Tupelo City Grocery in Oxford, Mississippito join us  — nobody passes up a chance to go to City Grocery. Owned by New Orleans-native chef John Currence, City Grocery embodies the best of Oxford: Fun, funky, imaginative, leaning toward upscale but never ostentatious and always honoring fresh, local and authentic. Every dish our group ordered, from the roasted garlic and lentil soup to the smoked crawfish salad to the day’s special of pork tenderloin with roasted okra — my new favorite vegetable — was delicious. Plus, the wait staff was the perfect blend of friendly and professional and put up with our somewhat rowdy table. (Hey, we were just excited to have a day off.)  My husband even spotted a celebrity on the way out and shook his hand — TV journalist and author Bob Schieffer was in town to give the Ole Miss commencement speech and of course he went to City Grocery for lunch. You have to, too. Check it out at http://www.citygroceryonline.com and put it on your must-go-soon list.