What's cooking in the South!

Photo credit: Travis Nelson 

Last night, the James Beard Foundation held its annual awards ceremony in New York City. This morning, I woke up to a wonderful piece about one of the winners, Jones Bar-B-Q Diner, on the CBS This Morning. I also logged onto Facebook to find many of my southern friends (mainly the Alabamians) bragging on the winners from their region.

It got me wondering: Is the south still a place where home-cooking matters? Is it dying off more and more as the newer generations want and demand the quickness of "convenience?" Does food still hold the same reverent focal point in family and other gatherings as it once did? Who's making sure to carry on the tradition? Do people still share (or guard) their recipes? I have the question floating out in the email ether to one dear friend from Bessemer, Ala., but I welcome feedback from everyone. What do you think?

In the meantime, here's a list of the southerners who took home awards last night:

BOOK:

ANew Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen

by Hugh Acheson

(Clarkson Potter)

WRITING:

MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award

John T. Edge

Saveur

“BBQNation”

And the biggies:

BEST CHEF: SOUTH (AL, AR, FL, LA, MS)

Chris Hastings

Hot and Hot Fish Club

Birmingham, AL

BEST CHEF: SOUTHEAST (GA, KY, NC, SC, TN, WV)

Hugh Acheson

Five and Ten

Athens, GA

Linton Hopkins

Restaurant Eugene

Atlanta

AMERICA’S CLASSICS (Presented by The Coca-Cola Company)

Jones Bar-B-Q Diner

219 West Louisiana St., Marianna, AR

Owners: James and Betty Jones

Deerhunter @ Pier 54

Atliens Deerhunter rock the river tonight (8/12)!

"Musically, Deerhunter is, and has been, many things – ambient punk, noise rock, art rock, shoegaze, post-punk and plain pop. Their second and third albums Cryptograms and Microcastle were ranked by music critics and aficionados alike as among the best albums of their respective years – and the latter ranked among the best of the past decade. " (source)

@ Pier 54

ART: The Road to Freedom & After 1968

The High Museum in Atlanta organized these two exhibitions currently up at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.

The Road to Freedom: During the span of twelve years, a series of events, later hailed as the Civil Rights Movement, would forever change the social and political course of America. The Bronx Museum of the Arts presents Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956–1968, an exhibitions that chronicling these pivotal moments in the nation’s history. Featuring 150 vintage photographs, Road to Freedom is the most comprehensive collection of photographic prints and related artifacts ever devoted to the subject and was organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination.

After 1968: As a complement to Road to Freedom, The Bronx Museum will also present AFTER 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy. This smaller exhibition includes works from seven African-American, emerging artists and collectives—all born on or after 1968—who have created new work examining the heritage of the Civil Rights Movement and its affect on the lives of this new generation. Using the movement as inspiration, context or critique, these artists address their own personal understanding of race, identity, American violence, and political activism providing new perspectives on and discourse about this critical time in the history of the United States. (source)

Both close on August 11.

SOUNDS: Cat Power plays Summerstage this Sunday (8/10)

Cat Power and Juliette Lewis join the Pretenders this Sunday, August 10 at Central Park Summerstage (Rumsey Field). The performance is pegged as the 2009 Summerstage Gala which raises funds for City Parks Foundation’s free year-round arts performances in parks citywide. Click here for more info.

RIP: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.

In 1954, Martin Luther King accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.

In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated. (source)

HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS: Sister Louisa

A stream of consciousness e-mail conversation with artist Grant Henry and his “altar” ego Sister Louisa: my gallery Sister Louisa's Art Gallery in the Church of The Living Room And Ping Pong Emporium is in my home in a loft in downtown atlanta...i live in a work/live loft spacewhich caters to the art community by offering moderate income housing to artists,as opposed to single mothers raising litters of kids. it is what it is.

i bleed sister Louisa because that's what i do to process my former relationshipto societal institutions such as religion, politics, family, and community.

i love playing with the symbols of what we all are taught to believe, without necessarily attaching myself to any of those beliefs.

i love the south. i love when one's faith is more sophisticated than the believer herself.i love injecting humor into serious, forbidden places.

foremost: i believe that god's love for me IS GREATERthan anything i can do, or say, to fuck that up!to diminish that sense of unconditionality.

i never apologize for my art. it's a balance.

i'm an artist who doesn't paint (i use found paintings/boards/windows), and a writer who doesn't write (i use as few words as possible), and i don't pursue a gallery because i'm the ultimate anti-artist, i don't do my art to sell my art (however quickly it DOES fly off my walls), i do it to process my feelings, process world events, (i'm working on the VIRGIN SARAH PALIN, and jesus peering across the water saying: I CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM HERE!)

i can't be so intentional as to be part of a DIY MOVEMENT, i just do it myself. i'm not a joiner.

i put SISTER LOUISA pieces on my website, i put SISTER LOUISA pieces on my facebook and myspace pages, i donate SISTER LOUISA art about 20 times a year to anyone who needs it, and i participate in shows if i'm asked.

we have monthly creative writing seminars in my space...going with the flow gets me where i'm going. i'm fortunate to have a local writer who writes about me, grant henry, and about my art, sister louisa, in newspapers, magazines, and books to have gotten some exposure for SISTER LOUISA.

people crave content, yearn for the truth, and want to say things they aren't "supposed to say", so sister louisa provides the levity and courage to face people's shit.

as far as galleries go? Hmmmmmmm…i've never pursued a gallery, i am fortunate to have a huge in home gallery, in the center of atlanta, in a space that give me ample exposure.

i price my pieces based on biblical numbers, not profit.

$33 for a small piece. $66.6 for a little bigger piece.$133.00 for an even bigger piece. $166.60........$266.60........not for religious reasons, but for giggles.

laura dern (actress) has pieces. tammy faye bakker (fabulous religious nutcase) has(had) a piece. ben harper (musician) has a piece. kate pierson (b52's) has several pieces. fred schneider (b52's) has several pieces. david arquette (actor) has a grant trucker hat. anne kristoff (blogger to the arts) needs one.

i've done several art cars and also an art house.......put an ad on the wall of the coffee shop with the art car on it stating: CRACK CAR FOR SALE: $80,000.00 (INCLUDES CRACK HOUSE)

my space has a last supper table complete with a jesus chair and 12 disciple chairs,church pews, a pulpit, revival lights, and real church chandeliers, and, of course,the ping pong table:

SISTER LOUISA'S ART GALLERY IN THE CHURCH OF THE LIVING ROOM AND PING PONG EMPORIUM...

Come On In, Precious....

Sister Louisa will be serving up some Spiritual Sangria:
December 6th & 7th, 2008 at
The 13th Annual Telephone Factory Art Show

828 Ralph McGill Boulevard NE, Loft 202
Atlanta, Georgia 30306

SCOOP: FT. RUCKER, AL by Katrina Rodgers

Just in time for Veteran’s Day, Army wife-to-be Katrina Rogers gives us “THE SCOOP” on Ft. Rucker, AL:

When I tell people I live in Alabama, they usually think I’m close to Birmingham. I actually live 3-4 hours south of Birmingham and have never been here; Alabama is bigger than you think! Chances are, if you are not an Alabama native, you’re not exactly up to speed on your Alabama geography, and I’m sure if my fiance and I had not moved here with the Army, we would never have heard of the area known as the “Wiregrass.” This area includes southeast Alabama, very northern Florida, and southwest Georgia. You might be wondering what on earth there is to do in this area of the country—I know I was! Well, you just have to know where to look.

If you’re feeling ambitious, Atlanta is only 3 and half hours away, and there are so many thing to do there I couldn’t even begin to count (the aquarium is fun; the Coca Cola factory lets active duty military in free!) Montgomery, the capitol of Alabama, is not quite two hours away, and that’s where you’ll find the closest reasonably priced airfare. Panama City and Destin, Florida, are only a two and a half hour drive—here you can find the Gulf of Mexico, many beaches, and all accompanying activities (crab restaurants!)

But no one wants to go that far every weekend, and certainly not with the high gas prices we have had lately as a result of hurricane season. So what is there to do in your own backyard down here? The first thing you have to see in Enterprise is the statue in the middle of town. Long ago, the Boll Weevil, an insect, destroyed all of the area’s cotton crops. Farmers were forced to switch to another crop, peanuts, which turned out to be a fantastic economic change for the region. The statue was erected in 1919 to honor the Boll Weevil for bringing, in a roundabout way, prosperity to the area. Originally the statue was just a woman; the Boll Weevil at the top was added in 1949. The statue in the center of town now is just a replica—the original was moved to the Enterprise Depot Museum in 1998 due to vandalism (the Boll Weevil was stolen right off the top). It is the only statue in the country and most likely in the world to honor an agricultural pest.

Peanuts are also honored in the Wiregrass area. The city of Dothan, 30 miles from Enterprise, is known as the Peanut Capital of the Nation, and rightly so. Sixty-five percent of all the peanuts grown in the United States are grown within a 100 mile radius of Dothan! To celebrate this title, Dothan holds the National Peanut Festival every fall. The festival was first held in 1938 and lasted 3 days; it is now a 10 day event that draws over 163,000 visitors. Be prepared to wait in line to park! At the festival, you can find more than your average share of carnival rides, carnival games, displays (this year they had sea lions!), arts and crafts, a parade, fireworks, and a Miss National Peanut Festival Pageant. In addition, Dothan is a good place for many army wives to find jobs. There also an airport here, although it is horribly overpriced and only flies to and from Atlanta.

Speaking of army wives: last but never least, the Wiregrass area is the home of Ft. Rucker, the primary home of Army Aviation and flight training. It is also the home of Warrant Officer Candidate (WOC) School. Ft. Rucker opened on May 1, 1942 as Camp Rucker (the name was changed in 1955). The population on post in the 2000 census was 6,000, but many army folks live off post. The important thing to remember is that because of this, Enterprise and neighboring Daleville are much more transient areas than other towns. Flight training generally takes about one and a half to two years, so the real estate trends don’t necessarily follow the economic trends since people are always buying, selling, and renting. I have never seen so many townhouses in my life as in Enterprise, Alabama!

So, bottom line: there is more happening here than you think. A good place to get more information about local events and activities in the Wiregrass is on the website of the local radio station, WKMX in their “What’s Up Wiregrass” section. There are things going on at Ft. Rucker several times a month, so there are no excuses for not getting out and getting to know the area! (end)

Katrina Rodgers is a Gettysburg College graduate with a degree in Women’s Studies. She is currently living in Enterprise, Alabama with her fiance and looking forward to finally marrying him in December!

BOOK: TRAILER TRASHED by Hollis Gillespie

Once upon a time, Hollis Gillespie was ashamed about having a hard-drinking, trailer-salesman dad and a missile-making mom with broken dreams of being a beautician. That was then. This is now. Trailer Trashed is a hilarious and heartbreaking collection of essays on one broad theme—Hollis’s relationships with her offbeat sisters, her precocious daughter, her bizarre friends, and the people they love. Brimming with irreverent, side-splitting observations on life that will wow fans of Augusten Burroughs and Sarah Vowell, Trailer Trashed follows an offbeat single mom through the raucous journey of her life, from hauling a safe to Nicaragua for her sister to selling a television series in Los Angeles for herself. (source)

Atlanta-based Hollis Gillespie is a "recovering slut," "bleachy-haired honky bitch," mother, writer and keynote speaker. She has recurring columns in Paste, Atlanta Magazine and Creative Loafing, and has published 3 books. She also holds writing workshops - the Shocking Real-Life Writing Academy.

She's kinda sorta an idol of mine...Trailer Trashed is out now.