Category Archives: friends

Fire and Ice

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Fire and Ice is a new restaurant in Birmingham, Ala., and some friends and I checked it out a couple nights ago. It’s in Five Points in the building where a Gap was several years ago — and it sure doesn’t look like the place where we used to buy blue jeans. Fire and Ice is a sort of do-it-yourself stir fry/grill restaurant. You don’t cook it yourself, but you create your own bowl of ingredients from a well-stocked buffet and then take it to a huge round grill where cooks sizzle your creation to perfection. That’s the “Fire” part. The “Ice” part is the bar, which is decorated in cool shades of blue to contrast with the red decor of the food part. Here’s how it works: When the waitress seats you, you get a complimentary bowl of chips and salsa and you order drinks while she explains the process and even takes you on a tour. The buffet has a salad bar with the usual items and then a section with ingredients for your entree, although you can mix and match. The entree bar has a wider variety of vegetables such as bok choy and sweet potatoes — some cooked and some not cooked — along with uncooked meats such as scallops, salmon, shrimp, BBQ chicken and tenderloin plus tofu. You can do your salad first and then go back for your entree, which you build in a bowl as high as you wish. Of course, we five experienced moms sort of cringed at the thought of adding raw meat to a pile of vegetables and letting it set for a few minutes, but our waitress assured us it would be OK, and of course it was. The really fun part, though, is figuring our your sauce. There are about 1o or 12 to choose from, with flavors such as Cajun, Asian and Southwestern. I really liked the Roasted Garlic with Honey and then a pineapple-ginger one. You can stick with one or mix some together. So you put your sauce in little cups and take your bowl of ingredients plus your sauce over to the grill, where the cooks deftly arrange your ingredients in a line, do their magic, add your sauce and in a few minutes you’ve got a hot and yummy personalized stir fry. You can take your drinks to the grill while you watch and go back as often as you like. It was lots of fun, but it can be a little intimidating if you feel pressured by the thought that a good meal is up to your own skill at combining ingredients. After all, relying on somebody else’s expertise is one of the reasons we go out to eat. But there are no bad choices, and the sauce redeems all. If you’re uneasy at first, start out small with only a few ingredients — although if it’s crowded and there’s a line at the grill, this approach might slow down your evening. And if you don’t want a stir fry at all, do a hamburger or veggie burger at the grill and get a big basket of fries to go with. Yum! The salad/entree bar is $15.95 for dinner and $9.9 for lunch. There are also appetizers and a dessert, including a fondue for more do-it-yourself eating, but these are extra. As long as you’ve got folks along who are willing to try something new, this is a great place. It’s also good for families like mine, where everybody likes different things. According to the Web site, http://www.fire-ice.com/, Fire and Ice is a chain that started in 1997 in Cambridge, Mass., and now is all over the world. It’s fun and different, so try it.

Are You a Red Warty Thing?

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You know all those magazine and online quizzes that help you identify what your personality is? Well, rather than defining yourself through your favorite color or by which “Sex and the City” character you most resemble, what about  your choice of pumpkins? For example, are you a Cinderella or a Red Warty Thing? Baby Boo or Fairytale? Or perhaps you’re a Prizewinner or maybe a One Too Many. See for yourself where your pumpkin tendencies lie at Jack O’Lantern Farms, on Garage Road on the TVA reservation in Muscle Shoals, Ala. Hydroponic farmers Steve and Connie Carpenter have the most extensive selection of pumpkins around, including some weird and wonderful ones you won’t see anywhere else. They’re open 4-7 p.m. Thursdays and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. Check them out at www.jackolanternfarm.com

Fall Food, Southern Style

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One of my favorite fall traditions has started: Betty Sims’ Scrumptious Culinary School in Decatur, Ala. A former restaurant-owner and caterer and the author of two cookbooks, Betty teaches eight classes or so in her home every fall. The classes, which focus on simple yet elegant menus for parties and entertaining, are so popular they sell out almost immediately. And no wonder! Betty is a delight — so warm and gracious and the very epitome of Southern hospitality. In each class, about 40 people gather in the basement of her elegant home, which she’s converted into a teaching kitchen. While we sample appetizers and sip wine, Betty demonstrates the recipes, answers questions and shares from her extensive cooking experience. Then the best part happens: We get to eat! This is such a fun evening that’s good for groups of girlfriends together or for going by yourself. A couple classes — a Spanish menu and cooking with wild game — still have openings, so check out the schedule at http://scrumptiousinc.com/

Box Supper

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This was the yummy picnic we concert-goers got Thursday night at the outdoor performance Sounds at Sundown in Florence, Ala. Ensembles from the Shoals Symphony at UNA (University of North Alabama) performed in the backyard of the Rosenbaum House, the only structure in the state designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. And as good as the music was, you know food always gets my full attention. This tasted as good as it looked, and it’s exactly the way I like to eat: small bites of lots of different things. Here’s what was packed so elegantly into our beribboned boxes: Pasta and vegetable salad, crackers, fresh grapes and a lovely strawberry, stuffed olive (olives in a cheese-straw-like dough), two miniature round crustless sandwiches (with maybe

My friends Henry and Sarah Gaede enjoy music, food and good company at Sounds at Sundown.

My friends Henry and Sarah Gaede enjoy music, food and good company at Sounds at Sundown.

chicken and some other salad?), two small meat-and-cheese wraps, a petit four and a cheese trio of pecan-crusted cheese ball, cheese-stuffed grape tomato and a bite of spicy and peppery jack cheese. Lovely! I’m always happy at any event when the food is from Rhoda P’s Catering Service in Florence — she always, without fail, does a stellar job. We also got bottled water and you could buy glasses of wine.

If you haven’t been to the Rosenbaum house, go. Now. This treasure has been lovingly restored and is fascinating. I know very little about Frank Lloyd Wright and even less about architecture, but I’m amazed at Wright’s talent and vision every time I visit. Every inch of every space is functional and organic and so stylish is an elegantly spare way. Visit http://www.wrightinalabama.com/ to learn more.

History and Yard Sales

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You know how you always tell your parents, “You really should write those stories down.”? Well, my friend’s dad has done that, and the stories in  “Before and After” are fascinating. Woody Stanley, 93, was born in rural Colbert County, Alabama. He owned and operated several businesses and restaurants in the area and still lives there, where he’s just closing his latest venture — a restaurant-supply store. In his lifetime, as the book says, he’s gone from kerosene lamps and candlelight to TVA electricity, from mules and Model Ts to the space shuttle. Reading his book is like sitting down and talking to him and learning about the ways things used to be. Folks in this part of Alabama know him from the famous Woodymac Drive-In restaurants he owned from 1947 to 1968. Everybody went there for burgers and shakes. Even Elvis Presley ate there after his history-making concerts at the nearby Sheffield Community Center. You’ve got to read the book to find out what Elvis always ordered — and why! You need to read it, too, to see how Woody defused a potential racial conflict on a bus he was driving during World War II — before Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. Woody also witnessed Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s visit to the Shoals to announce the beginning of TVA. My friend, Susan, said her dad wrote the book in about a year on a yellow pad with a pen at the dining room table. “He was inspired to write it because of the history and changes he’s witnessed and because he wanted to share things that ‘people in the last 30-40 years wouldn’t know about’,” Susan said. The book is $24, including shipping. Email jcant1@hughes.net to place an order or to pay by credit card with Paypal. Or mail a check to 1101 Brookford Place, Muscle Shoals, AL 3566. Or stop by Commercial Equipment Supply, 2613 North Jackson Hwy., Sheffield, this week to meet Woody as the store clearns out inventory with a yard sale, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday-Saturday. There are all sorts of great kitchen and restaurant items left – and Woody might even autograph a book for you!

So Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding

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We 50-something-year-old women are supposed to eat a good healthy breakfast for the sake of our bones, hearts, arteries, brains, waistlines and whatever else needs help. But when a friend (thank you, Susan!) shares with you some fresh homemade fig preserves, deliciousness trumps nutrition and there’s nothing to do but dig in and enjoy and be grateful for talented and generous friends. And really, is there anything much better than the sweet taste of summer lathered over a slice of toasted sourdough bread? No, there is not. And that sounds pretty healthy to me.

Seen and Heard

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Near downtown Florence, Ala., this morning — I saw newly reelected incumbent mayor Bobby Irons walking along a busy city street, in full business attire, picking up his own campaign signs. It sort of made me wish I lived in his town so I could have voted for him.

At the car dealership in Florence yesterday — I was waiting for my car to be given the OK after its oil change and other scheduled maintenance when three older (70s? 80s?) women in perfectly coifed hair and perfectly pressed pantsuits joined me in the waiting area. Apparently they were lifelong Florence residents and lifelong friends. One was the driver and the other two had come along for the car repair. Anyway, of course we all got to talking, although I mainly eavesdropped … I mean, listened. One topic of conversation was the “hobos” who would stop by their houses when they were little and ask for food. “Times were hard then, but my mama always cooked extra for the hobos,” one woman said. “She’d put extra sweet potatoes and cornbread in the stove pipe to stay warm and then when one would stop by, she’d put him at the table, get out a plate and feed him with the food she’d saved.” Another of the trio nodded in agreement. “Yes,” she said, “those stovepipes were the original microwaves!”

Recently in Birmingham, Alabama — My college-student daughter said that during conversation with a counselor who was an older woman (60s?), my daughter had to adjust her skirt as she stood up because her slip was showing. The woman asked her, “Are you wearing a slip? Nobody wears a slip anymore. I don’t even have a slip! Why are you wearing a slip?” And of course my daughter answered, “Because my mother makes me.” The more my daughter thought about this, though, the more she wondered if she was perhaps behind the times. So a day or so later she was with a couple of friends she’d grown up with who’d come to Birmingham to have lunch with her. She asked them, “Do y’all still wear slips?” The consensus: “Of course!” The reason why: “Because our mothers make us!” I am vindicated.