Just a Pinch of South

New York has always had its restaurants. The South has always had entertaining at home. It is simply what one did.

My paternal grandmother kept a record of what she served when she entertained. I find it fascinating. This isn’t “good old Southern cooking.” The dishes are aspirational, of-the-moment (gelatin was big mid-20th century), and practical. Most of the food was able to be prepared ahead so that the hostess was able to entertain her guests without disappearing into the kitchen. This was the era before “open kitchens” and “casual entertaining.”  She wasn’t having a few friends to lunch. This was a luncheon.

I can only imagine how hot it would have been in our family’s house in Atlanta in August. At lunchtime. Without air-conditioning. This kind of entertaining is not for the faint of heart.

In case you can’t read her writing, here’s the menu:

• Molded vegetable salad (individual on each plate)
• Chicken Loaf with Irish potatoes around it (passed)
• Creamed asparagus with cheese (passed)
• Hot rolls
• Iced tea
• Ice cream served in merangue [sic] shells

Continuing with my occasional series of interviews with people who embody the concept of “just a pinch of South” I had the opportunity to interview Micah Whitson from The Old Try a few weeks ago. He and his wife Marianna are Southern expats living in Boston, Massachusetts. Micah was raised in Alabama, but has also made his home in Mississippi, Georgia, and North Carolina before moving to Boston in 2007. That’s what I call Southern ecumenical.

Micah and Marianna have day jobs, but you may know them from their unique Southern inflected letterpress posters. I first fell in love with their work when I saw (and immediately purchased) their manners print. It turns out that one is Micah’s favorite, too.

Micah and I talked books, faith, and barbecue (As Micah says, “Alabama barbecue is my jam.”), but there’s just too much to include it all. Here are some highlights.

JaPoS: What do you miss about living in the South?

MW: I certainly miss the food of the South, but I think the main thing I miss is that even if it’s really, really busy back home, there’s always this feeling of the possibility of fellowshipping around the corner.  You know you could just roll into someone’s house, or call up a friend, and could actually do things with them. Boston is such a scheduled and regimented place. Our best friends here we see three times a year, maybe.  If we don’t work with people then it’s really hard to get time to see them. There’s just that feeling of harried-ness here. When we go back home I can call up friends in Alabama and I can say,  “Hey, do you want to get a beer tonight?” and they are like, “Sure I’m not doing anything.”  Here I feel like it is tough to do those things and be neighborly because you try to do it, and nobody’s got the time for it.

JaPoS: How do you think living in New England has shaped or changed you?

MW: I think the biggest thing comes from living with people who have different kinds of backgrounds. I can be a pretty judgmental person and think, “This is right and that thing is wrong,” and there isn’t any grey area.  But living in New England has really allowed us to realize both as Christians and as human beings on the earth that there is a place to speak truth, and there is a call to do that with love, but at the same time, it isn’t really my place to judge. I can try to live an example, but I don’t think it is really my job to force that example onto everyone else.  Living here has made us a lot more accepting. Not necessarily that we have just thrown the baby out with the bathwater, but a lot of our lives are lived in that grey area. It’s a helpful thing to have to grow and think about that and wrestle with those ideas while not being surrounded with the “group think” that says, “This is just what we do, and if you don’t do it you can just move to a different state.” Instead, by living [in Boston] we’ve really had to confront those things and live with people who believe different things.  Because we are all just people, it’s our job to love one another.

I think too another thing that has changed, in part the main genesis for Old Try, is living somewhere else and then realizing that there can be a lot of shame in being a Southerner. I grew up just regular old guy in Alabama, and I feel like because of the stories that we are told and the things we read we think, “Oh man I guess we as Southerners are not as cultured as other people.” Then by moving elsewhere I’ve seen that there are just as many rednecks in Connecticut and Massachusetts as there are in Tennessee and Alabama.  You get somewhere else and you realize that there are all the same kind social problems and issues that happen in the South. I’ve realized that I don’t need to be ashamed of my Southerness.  I think now I can go toe to toe with a person who thinks something negative as to what being a Southerner is.  I can talk about it with some amount of realism because I’m living elsewhere.

What was the inspiration for The Old Try?

MW: Several things came together. Marianna made me a letter sweater which I wore to an Ole Miss game, and everybody was kind of fired up about it. They said, “I have to know where to get one.”  So Marianna and I said, “Well, let’s make some stuff that really connects people to what they are really about and where they are from.” For instance, I went to Ole Miss. But that won’t work for everyone. Let’s say your grandad went to Davidson. If you were to wear a Davidson shirt, that actually has a connection to you beyond just an arbitrary brand. But [because of the difficulty of collegiate licensing] and not knowing what the heck we were doing with fashion, we tabled it. Our name came from “the old college try” because of our original idea.  So [The Old Try] sat around and languished. Then the Tuscaloosa tornadoes came through 2 years ago. Being here, away from home, seeing helicopter footage of Athens and Limestone county, and seeing buildings that had been there for years disappear, it made me miss home. After that I saw a lot of Southern designers who were living outside the South doing different designs to show their solidarity and that they were thinking of home. I was on the bus thinking of that one day, and I realized while we didn’t know anything about clothing, I knew a heck of a lot about print design and how to do that. I walked home and ran the idea by Marianna. So the iteration of Old Try as it is took place in about five minutes on the bus.

Since then, The Old Try has made numerous letterpress posters (and now t-shirts) referencing a wide range of Southern places. To create them, Micah researches history and takes little details to create something unique. No “Hey Y’all” prints from these folks. Most recently, Old Try has partnered with Union Press to produce a print with proceeds going to victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. To get one of these limited edition prints click here.

 Photo Credit: David Salafia

You may not be familiar with the TV show 1600 Penn. But episode 7 (“To The Ranch”), which I watched today on demand, features a scene between Bill Pullman, who plays the US President, and his son Skip, acted with charming cluelessness by series co-creator, Josh Gad. As they watch the film Fried Green Tomatoes Skip says:

Dad, have you ever eaten fried green tomatoes? I ate like a million of them after I watched the movie - just trying to immerse myself, and to be honest I did not love them. I liked them - did not love them. I wonder why the tomatoes have to be green? Why not just “fried tomatoes”? You literally never hear about those. Kinda weird, right? Kinda weird. Maybe it’s a flavor profile thing…

I’ve had enough bad to mediocre fried green tomatoes myself to wonder the same thing. The green-ness is meant to give the tomatoes enough body to handle the frying and a tartness to balance the fried-ness. But more often than not, they are tough and flavorless. Thoroughly disappointing. FGT’s are sort of this emblem of Southern cuisine, but I’m not sure they really deserve it. Maybe I just haven’t had great ones, but I have to give Skip (or perhaps episode writer Bridget Bedard) credit for bringing up a valid point.

I declare, I do think I need to read this issue!

spencerlewis:

ATLANTA

A little bit of Southern wisdom for you:

Keep your HAIR and your STANDARDS HIGH.

agirlnamedchristopher:

track practice at the University of Texas, March 1964

Rob Amberg takes pictures of the people and happenings of his adopted home in Madison County, North Carolina.

And he writes about them, too. Here’s an excerpt from his blog entry about the photograph above:

When we was coming up, the old people would be sitting and talking and they wouldn’t want the children to sit and listen. They’d say, ‘go off and play.’ So, we didn’t know nothing, unless we asked them, and it was very little that we could ask them about.

Read it in full, and check out his blog here.

PS - He’s currently serving as a visiting artist at my Alma Mater, Duke.

(Source: mysteriesmanners)

No need to say much here, except I love seeing these old places when I drive through the country.

scuffalong:

Stacked stone. Turbeville VA, Jul 19.

© LY Henderson

I have a favorite Southern photography Tumblr. It is called “Scuffalong” and is by photographer LY Henderson. Her photographs are quiet. Often of empty spaces. They capture the beauty, the heartbreak, the “present past” of the South.

Do yourself a favor and check out her blog here.

scuffalong:

Outbuildings. Near Aspen VA, Jul 20.

© LY Henderson

In honor of Father’s Day, I am posting this photo of my paternal grandfather, Daddy B.

He was, by all accounts, a true Southern gentleman. Born and raised in rural Georgia, he was an attorney in Atlanta for his entire career. He purchased the house my father still lives in, in 1937.

From all of the pictures of him as a young man to this one taken probably in the late 1950’s, he could only be described as “dapper.” I love the white tuxedo jacket. Guys today could take a lesson in style. I love how he appears to be holding court with adoring ladies (not my grandmother, may I add). He was a member of several social and service organizations and was apparently what would be called a “hail fellow well met.” (I don’t think that’s a Southern turn of phrase, but perhaps it is).

I never knew Daddy B myself. Born in 1890 he was in his 40’s when my father was born (and I was born when my father was in his late 30’s). The years didn’t line up for me to know him in his prime (he died when I was a toddler), and for that I am sorry.

But his younger son, (my father) likewise is a Southern gentleman, wears a suit well, rises in the presence of ladies, has a firm handshake, and a kind word. My grandfather was a teetotaler, my father nearly so. They were both attorneys. Apples not falling far from trees.

Hail to you, good Southern men. Hail.

I had the chance to have a drink, play a little bocce, and eat dinner at Empire State South last night. The weather was perfect. Actually, there was a lot of perfection going on.

First of all, I won at bocce. But that’s not what I really want to talk about. I had a delicious Pimm’s Cup and our very friendly waiter let us try a little taste of Fernet Branca which was delicious. I could only describe it as Robotussin meets Pinesol, but in a good way. (I know, I have a future as a sophisticated beverage critic.)

We stuck to the first courses and shared. I just wish I didn’t have to share, because I could have eaten a lot more of everything. The farm egg, the pork belly, and the scrapple were all tasty. It’s the little things, like the field peas, the crispy rice, the sauce that make these stand out. Again, pretty darn close to perfection.

I haven’t encountered many restaurants in the South that could hang with the best of them in New York City. I know that sounds a little pretentious and superior, but it’s sadly true. I’ve been to far more restaurants in the South that had aspirations that exceeded the reality. But not the case here. ESS would be as welcome in Brooklyn or Manhattan as Midtown Atlanta. But I doubt they’d have room for bocce. Which would be a shame. Because I’m really good.

Empire State South, 999 Peachtree Street, Atlanta Georgia 30309

(Source: spaceforfaith)

As Father’s Day draws near, I’ve been thinking about the things my dad loves.

One of them is sitting on our front porch. He can sit there for hours. He loves it. He enjoys watching the robins and cardinals foraging in our yard. Lately, a hawk has taken up residence as well. He’s the “neighborhood watch” as he keeps tabs on the comings and goings of folks on our street. He laments the fact that the people across the street drive across their yard their two white matching pickup trucks rather than backing out.

I confess that when I first get to my dad’s I get a little antsy after a just few minutes on the porch. I want a book or my computer or something to entertain me. But after few days my brain slows down. I’m better able to be present. It’s just what a New Yorker needs every so often.

This picture is of my dad when he was about 6 years old taken on our front porch. The very same porch he will be sitting on today.