Fashion

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Alabama ChaninI always forget that I know an honest-to-goodness bona fide famous fashion designer. Actually, I know two. These are normal-looking regular people whom you can see any day walking around my small Alabama town, yet they’ve got fashion awards and magazine and newspaper spreads from around the world. And they know the Vogue folks by first names. Cool! I usually just think of these two as extra-nice people who are so sweet to always say “hello,” but when New York’s Fashion Week rolls around, I remember how special they really are.

The first is Natalie Chanin. She’s the owner and designer of Alabama Chanin, a company in Florence, Alabama that creates handmade one-of-a-kind clothing and home decor. Under Natalie’s direction, local artisans — many of them former textile workers who lost their jobs as the mills closed — use recycled and organic as well as new materials to make these breathtakingly whimsical works of fiber art. Natalie has the soul of an artist combined with the practical good sense of a business owner. And she’s not greedy — she shares! She’s written a lovely and inspiring book with instructions for several of her signature projects (“Alabama Stitch Book”) and regularly holds hands-on workshops where she passes on her secrets. She’s a vibrant part of the community and throws an everybody’s-invited picnic and open house every year. Go to her Web site, http://ad.dev.alabamachanin.com, where you can see more photos from her latest collection, learn more of her story and even order your own Alabama Chanin original.

Tomorrow: Who’s the other famous fashion designer living in Florence, Alabama? Come back and find out!

Vegetables

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Vegetables and dipWho doesn’t know by now that we’re supposed to eat more vegetables? But you can fix steamed broccoli only so many times before your family stages a revolt. At a recent cooking class at the Shoals Commercial Culinary Center in Florence, Alabama — a kitchen incubator for small food businesses that’s part of the Shoals Entrepreneurial Center — we learned some delicious new ways to serve vegetables. My friend Sherry Campbell is the culinary center director and she’s a great cook and teacher. Here are her recipes for Creamy Red Pepper-Basil sauce that’s wonderful as a dip for fresh veggies and easy make-ahead Broccoli with Lemon-Herb Sauce that’s a perfect portable dish. Learn more about the center at http://www.shoalsec.com/facilities/SCC_index.html 

Creamy Red Pepper-Basil Sauce

With the processor running, drop 3 garlic cloves through the food chute and process unti minced. Add 1 cup loosely packed fresh basil and process 5 seconds until chopped. Add 1 12-ounce drained jar roasted red peppers, 1 8-ounce package cream cheese, 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and freshly ground pepper. Process until smooth. Serve at room temperature. Makes 2 1/2 cups.

Broccoli with Lemon-Herb Sauce

Cook 1 1/2 pounds broccoli in 3 cups vegetable broth until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Remove broccoli with Broccolitongs and chill in ice water. Reserve 1 cup broth and chill. Dry broccoli and chill. Heat 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil in medium skillet over medium heat. Add 1 cup chopped green onions, 1/3 cup minced shallots and 1 teaspoon sugar. Saute until tender, about 5 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon minced garlic, saute 2 minutes. Stir in reserved broth, 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 1/2 tablespoon Dijon mustard, 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, 1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme and 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest. Simmer until slightly thickened and liquid is reduced to about  1 1/4 cups. Season with salt and pepper. Cool to room temperature. Put broccoli in serving bowl and spoon sauce over. Spring with 1/4 cup chopped green onion and 1/2 cup diced seeded red bell pepper. Serves 8.

Love Songs

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My wonderfully dear husband made a CD love-song mix for my Valentine’s Day present. It was one of his best mixes ever — and he’s known for coming up with some great ones. I posted about it earlier and had several requests for his playlist. So here it is, with a couple notes:

 

I Want to Hold Your Hand – T.V. Carpio (Across the Universe soundtrack)

Ain’t No Cure for Love – Jennifer Warnes (Famous Blue Raincoat)

I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever) – Art Garfunkel (Breakaway)

Let My Love Open the Door – Pete Townsend (Empty Glass)

Message of Love – The Pretenders (The Singles)

This and That – Michael Penn (March)

A Girl Like You – The Smithreens (11)

Gimme Little Sign – Don Dixon w/Marti Jones (E E E)

Real Love – Regina Spektor (Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Darfur Album)

Big Love – Fleetwood Mac (Greatest Hits)

Until the End of the World – U2 (Achtung baby)

Linger – The Cranberries (Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?)*

Love is the Seventh Wave – Sting (The Dream of the Blue Turtles)

My Doorbell – The White Stripes (Get Behind Me Satan)

Genius Of Love – The Tom Tom Club (eponymous album)

She’s Changing Me – Fleetwood Mac (Bob Welch vocal) – Heroes Are Hard to Find

Warm Love – Van Morrison (Best of)

This is Us – Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris (All The Roadrunning)

I’ll Work for Your Love – Bruce Springsteen (Magic)

Mayor of Simpleton – XTC (Oranges & Lemons)

Renaissance Eyes – Don Dixon (Most of the Girls Like to Dance But Only Some of the Boys Do)**

 

* While I like the sound of this song, the lyrics ultimately may not be the best for a Valentine’s Day mix, depending on the status of your relationship. I had to delete a song to make this fit, and if I had to do it over, I’d probably leave this off and substitute “Where Do You Go to My Lovely,” preferably the version by Peter Sarstedt from the Darjeeling Limited soundtrack.


** Yes, that’s the title of the album. As I understand it, he would start with a painting by a friend as the cover image for his albums (which also included “E E E” and “Romeo at Juiliard”), then write a song inspired by that image for the appropriate album. Fans just call it “Girls LTD.” 

 

Book Clubs

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Harry Potter and the Socerer's StoneIn the spirit of trying new things, I’ve joined a book club called “Reliving Harry.” It’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallowsfor folks who’ve read the Harry Potter books already but want to reread and discuss from a long-range we-know-how-it-ends perspective. What a great idea! We meet every month at the library and already have done the first book. The group mostly is 20- and 30-year-olds who read the books as teenagers and still can’t get enough. There were a couple oldsters like me who first bought the books for their own kids plus a 10-year-old boy who is just beginning the books and already is quite fluent in Hogwarts-speak. As in all book-club discussions, I learn so much from everybody else and enjoy picking up details I completely miss on my own.  I’m constantly amazed at how the Harry Potter series touched so many different people — everybody has their Harry Potter stories. Go to http://en.wikibooks.org and http://www.scholastic.com for discussion questions.

Music

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CD mixes -- The SmithereensMy husband is the best CD mixer ever. I think it stems from his CD mixes -- Art Garfunkelwide-ranging curiosity about all things pop culture. He’s open to every music genre and has an encyclopedic knowledge of who recorded what and when, where and with whom. He even made tape mixes back in the olden days — not easy! But now he’s got CDs and computers and iTunes and he comes up with some brilliant mixes. (In fact, five years later people still say that the mix he created for our wedding favors was the best. Ever.) So you can guess what my Valentine’s present was: A lovely, lovely mix of some beautifully quirky love songs. Like The Smithereens’ “A Girl Like You” and Art Garfunkel’s “I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever).” There’s also “Message of Love” by The Pretenders, “This and That” from Michael Penn,Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris’s “This Is Us” and some Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison plus a song I’ve never heard, “Renaissance Eyes” by Don Dixon. This CD is a keeper. My husband, too.

Valentine’s Day Gifts

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See's Red Satin HeartSee's best Valentine's candyForget eggs Benedict and mimosas — the contents of a See’s Candies Red Satin Heart make the best Valentine’s breakfast. Ever. My favorites are the lemon and raspberry truffles, the luscious and buttercreamy Bordeauxs and the milk molasses chips. Yes, indeedy. I’m telling you that See’s is the most-accessible best candy ever. Your local mall probably has a See’s kiosk set up this weekend — it’s the one with the six-deep crowd gathered around it today. Be a Valentine to yourself and indulge. Just save the Rum Nougat and the Dark Chocolate Butter for me, please. Visit http://www.sees.com for more.

My son-in-law, a high-school art teacher, is one of the best artists I know. He does pottery, drawings, prints, etchings, Jason Behel artworkJason Behel artworkphotography and just about anything else he decides he wants to explore. He’s a big, bald sort of scary-looking guy who you’d never suspect could create such beautiful and whimsical art work. Such as this Valentine’s Day card he made for his wife/my daughter. He made it from heavy cardstock and treated the outside to resemble a piece of finely worked leatherwork. When you “unlock” it, the card opens to reveal an intricate cutout scene of their little Jason Behel artworkfamily — the two of them and their 10-month-baby who’s also known as Cutest Grandbaby Ever and Capt. Adorable — and a heartfelt message. It made my daughter tear up. And ask him why he’d made her arms so long. A minor detail (and she does sort of have long arms). Anyway, I wish I had a tenth of this talent. Also, I wish that they could move right next door to me and he could spend all his time doing art that would sell for enough money that would make them comfortably happy and they could take care of their families and we could all sit around all day eating See’s candy and being extremely grateful for our good fortune. Also, I wish everybody a happy Valentine’s Day — which seems a little more attainable.

Valentine’s Day

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Last minute Valentine's Day giftsToday combines two significant calendar dates: Friday the 13th and lingerie for Valentine's DayValentine’s Eve. And that makes sense, because it surely will be bad luck for any man who forgets how important tomorrow is. I’m not sure why Valentine’s Day shopping is so tough for most men. I mean, it’s shopping. It’s buying something pretty and sweet and lovely and romantic for your pretty and lovely and romantic sweetheart. How hard can that be? Luckily, my husband is a good sport and he answers all our why-did-my-husband-buy-me-a-new-Dustbuster-for-Valentine’s-Day questions in my column in the TimesDaily today, http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20090213/ARTICLES/902130309

Valentine’s Day

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Heart cookies for Valentine's DayIn an effort to demonstrate to my husband that I can be responsible Praeventia cookiesand frugal, I’ve stayed out of Target recently because I can’t go there without spending at least $50 — even when I had no intention of buying anything. (But it’s all cute stuff I’ll probably most likely need sometime maybe! And at a fantastic price!) But over at http://www.suburbanmatron.com/, Becky’s obsession hunt for the new Orla Kiely line got me curious, so I wandered into our local Target purely for research purposes and to help out a bloggy Orla Kiely friend. And she’s right: There’s disappointingly little of the Orla Kiely things available — a few storage boxes and closet organizers. That’s too bad, since her prints are so fresh and cheerful and springlike. I would have loved to have loaded up my cart with the Melamine dishes that look so wonderful online but are backordered several weeks. But it was not to be. (Insert here the sound of my husband sighing in relief.) So I was forced to wander around and buy look at other things. That’s how I found my new favorite snack: Praeventia cookies. Am I the only one who’s never heard of these?They’re made from whole oats and other good-for-you things — red wine, cocoa, green tea, orange zest — and come in handy pouches so you have to think before you devour the whole box. Plus, they’re satisfyingly tasty and crunchy. The best part? The shape! I’m telling you, those little hearts just make you smile to look at them. They’re perfect for Valentine’s Day, too. I found them in the cookie aisle at my Target and I’m going back for more. Just don’t tell my husband.

Memorials

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jims-quilt-0031My friend’s husband, whom the women in our church made this prayer quilt for during his jims-quilt-0032battle with cancer, died this week. He was a good man who made everyone he met feel special. He loved motorcycles, airplanes, his farm and his family and friends and enjoyed so much being around the people he cared about. He should have been given more time to do that. But right now you and I have that time, so to celebrate the memory of his life, please enjoy being with the people you care about today. Give them lots of love and tell them it’s from Jim. He would have gotten a kick out of that.

Reality TV

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probstIt’s that time of the TV year when everything else is background and 7-8 p.m. on phil-keoghanThursdays and Sundays becomes sacred. That’s when I lust over watch Jeff Probst preside over the disintegration of carefully molded alliances and then ponder the detached imponderability of Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan. Survivor is my absolutely favorite TV show of all time. I love the backstabbing and lies and conniving and skulduggery — and that’s just the first episode. Amazing Race, for me, is less about the personalities and more about the intriguing idea of racing around the world with only a backpack when it takes me two pieces of luggage just to go to the nearest Big City for a weekend. I watch to learn. And this season on Survivor, we’ve got two Alabama contestants and one from Nashville, Tennessee, so I always root for the hometown folks. I also predict Sandy will be among the first to go and Benjamin will be trouble. In Amazing Race, I’ve got Mark and Michael pegged for an early exit, which is sad because those are my brothers’ names. But if reality TV teaches us anything, it’s that you can’t let sentiment — or honesty or friendship or kindness or any of those other peskily inconvenient values — get in the way. Don’t you love it?