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Birmingham News Highlights Kathryn Tucker Windham’s Photos

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http://blog.al.com/scenesource/2008/08/windhams_wit_insight_revealed.html

Interesting article on Kathryn Tucker Windham from the Birmingham News.

Encounters: Photographs By Kathryn Tucker Windham. Jennifer Hunt Gallery. Through Sept. 20.

For those that do not know, Kathryn Tucker Windham is from the Black Belt near where I grew up. She’s famous for her storytelling abilities–I remember going to see her frequently in Selma, Alabama at their annual Storytelling Festival. I’m not sure if they even still have it. What fun we had, though. On that note, I’ve started a new blog: it will be all about the Black Belt, particularly from a tourism perspective, but I hope to toss in all sorts of information relating to the place where I grew up. It is tied to a multi-year project I’m involved with for the University of Alabama: Alabama’s Front Porches. I’ve talked about the website associated with this project before (www.alabamafrontporches.com), but the blog is new. There really isn’t anything there right now (other than a duplicate of this story about Kathryn Tucker Windham’s photography, but keep an eye out in the coming weeks for more content. And if you have ideas, please send them my way! The intent is to have at least one entry each week. They may be about a really interesting place to visit, a wonderful place to eat, some fascinating story about Southern foodways or just about anything that tells the story of Alabama’s Black Belt in a way that helps bring travelers into our area. www.alabamafrontporches.com/blog

She recently celebrated her 90th birthday and really is an Alabama icon. Her stories–ghost stories in particular, but–but many, many stories that simply celebrate Alabama’s deep south–are wonderful. Mama read many of them to me, and I have a nice collection of books by Ms. Windham.  You can find many of them at Amazon.com by clicking the link below!

Books by Kathyrn Tucker Windham

Fried Green Tomato Salad

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Fried Green Tomato Salad: If there’s one thing better than a beautiful and ripe Alabama tomato, it has to be a tart, green Alabama tomato fried up crisp and delicious.

Pretty simple dish, really. I soaked the green tomato slices in fat-free buttermilk (They’ll be fried later so they’ll get plenty of fat that way!). After a little soak, the go into a mixture of bread crumbs, flour, cornmeal and a little cornstarch for good measure. Be sure to season the breading with salt and pepper. I use cayenne and garlic salt.
After a good coating, I let them rest and add panko breadcrumbs (big, flaky breadcrumbs) and canned Parmesan cheese to the remaining breading. Back in the buttermilk go the tomatoes–but only to coat and then into the breading again for another light coating. Fry in plenty of oil until golden.

For the salad I used mache, but arugula would also be great in this. Only a handful is needed for each plate. I dressed the greens with a little olive oil, sherry vinegar, dry mustard and a hint of Alabama honey. On top of the greens go the still very hot green tomatoes. Surrounded by some sliced cherry red tomatoes, they made a nice presentation. The topping is a combination of mayonnaise, malt vinegar, olive oil, a pinch of sugar and cayenne pepper and fresh Alabama goat cheese with some fresh chives from the garden. Oh, and that fried thing on the very top: a jalapeno stuffed green olive fried with the tomatoes. (This seemed like a better idea than it turned out to be. The olive was good, but would have been just as good without frying.)

It made a very tasty salad or, in smaller portion size, an even better first course.

A Simple Summer Sandwich

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Alabama Tomato/Goat Cheese Sandwich

Sorry, no photo–lazy, I guess. For lunch today, we had a simple and delicious tomato sandwich. Fresh, local ingredients are the key:

1 to 2 ounces local goat cheese (Belle Chevre from near Huntsville, AL was my choice)
2 teaspoons good quality extra virgin olive oil
1 to 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
freshly ground pepper and garlic salt
4 slices Big Sky Honey Whole Wheat bread (a local bakery in Birmingham) or other artisan-style bread
Fresh sliced Alabama tomatoes
arugula or mache greens

Mix first 5 ingredients together to form a smooth spread. Spread on sandwich bread. Top with tomatoes and greens. Yum!

What About Signage?

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I don’t normally post videos to my blog, but after the workshop on Wayfinding we had last week at the Barber Motorsports Museum in Leeds, Alabama, I ran across this video on signage. It seems to fit pretty well with what some people might think would be important on their scenic byways signs. Maybe not. Funny anyway!

Scenic Byways Workshop in Birmingham

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It has been a busy week. Monday was filled with the usual Monday busywork, along with catching up  on several projects that are ongoing. Plus, I spent some of Monday on last minute details for the workshop we held at the Barber Motorsports Museum. Yesterday was taken up with a full day of a somewhat participatory workshop on Tourism-oriented wayshowing (helping travelers find their way to the places that they are looking for). It was a good workshop and we brought down a couple of people from the America’s Byways Resource Center in Duluth, Minnesota. 40 people attended the workshop from around the state. We hope to have more.

Uncle Lauren: Old Time Travel and Adventure

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Below, my Uncle Lauren (actually Great Uncle) poses in front of Pike’s Peak, along with a large number of Skinner family members. Imagine traveling out west in that one car with all those people! Uncle Lauren continued to travel much longer than his ability to drive safely (I think he grew up when his was the only car on the road and he sort of couldn’t understand that he needed to be concerned about other cars). (Uncle Lauren was uncle to my father–Clark Watts.)