Magnolia and Moonshine | Fall 2024

Fall 2024

DISPLAY UNTIL NOV 30, 2024

ART HISTORY: THE STORIED QUILTS OF GEE’S BEND

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Publishers: Katie Waldrep & Leslie Anne Jones Executive Editor: Cara D. Clark Content Editors: Leslie Anne Jones & Joan McLendon Budd Layout & Design: Denise DuBois Advertising Sales: Taylor White, Suzy Brown Ad Designer: Haylie Rivera Social Media: Ivey Evans Contributing Writers, Photographers, & Stylists Katie Waldrep Cara Clark Leslie Anne Jones Marian Carcache Bryan Hendricks Sally Anne Sessitte Lauren Finney Harden Lee Hurley Christiana Roussel Morgan Duke Tristan Cairns

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all brings blessed relief from the heat to Magnolia Greene’s fields and woodlands. The leaves are fading to gold or blazing in red and orange hues, and the days are growing shorter. We see the deer moving through the fields, and the quail and doves are feasting on insects and seeds before winter arrives. And the chickens have a new barn to keep them warm and safe as the seasons change.

Off the farm, the activity level is ramping up with football season and other extracurricular activities, and festive holiday parties round out full schedules.

In this issue, we’re celebrating the many beauties of the fall, including the airing of treasured quilts at Gee’s Bend in Alabama. Preserving the past through this art form honors the original quilters and the heritage of current ones.

With Halloween soon to come, we see how expert pumpkin carver Jaimie Houser crafts pumpkins — plenty of pumpkins — for Dollywood. We talk to Chef Ford Fry about his restaurant empire, learn about his favorite Thanksgiving recipes, and see how

decorator Laurie Byrne sets a festive fall table. Fall is a season for cozy gatherings, and Michelle Mize of Sun Cookery shares her spirit of Southern hospitality with Carolina style and memories of her grandmothers’ warm welcomes and feeling of community. If you haven’t heard about the Southern Coterie, learn how two publishing dynamos set an idea in motion to empower women in business through a unique collective.

We take to the fields with a pack of beagles on a rabbit hunt and troll Lake Pontchartrain with a Louisiana crabber. We also talk to Pat Mathews, an Arkansas artist who exchanged a career in architecture for a passion for painting landscapes. We take a look at the popularity of croquet, with players from North Carolina and Alabama gathering for friendly rivalry. And we feel the soul in the spirit of a New Orleans songbird, whom the Crescent City’s lively culture has shaped.

Katie Waldrep & Leslie Anne Jones Publishers Magnolia and Moonshine MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

Eliza Daffin Brit Huckabay Matt Young - Young Videography Kelli Boyd Photography Sara Baurley Keith Lusher Sirena Singleton - Aneris Collection Ashton Henry - Small Studio Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio/Souls Grown Deep Andrew Thomas Lee Fall 2024 • Volume 3, Number 3 Magnolia and Moonshine is a product of Magnolia Greene, Inc. in Seale, Alabama.

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On the Cover: Agatha Bennett quilts on a fence in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Photo

by Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio/Souls Grown Deep

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C ONTENT S Stitching Together Pieces from the Past: Gee’s Bend’s community of quilters preserve the past and pave the way for future generations.

a rich tapestry of cultural expression.

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Launch without Limits: A mother-daughter duo is redefining and customizing fashion with Brakefields.

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Eternal Optimist: Chef Ford Fry’s expertise extends beyond food to branding savvy that launched an empire.

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Living Color: A Little Rock artist exchanges architecture for art, illustrating nature through impressionistic scenes.

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Sequestered by the Sea: The Cloister’s Golden Isle appeal

30 Perfecting the Pumpkin: Tennessee artist Jaimie Houser rules the pumpkin patch and artfully incises the traditional gourds for a harvest celebration at Dollywood.

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Sound of a city: The ‘Songbird of New Orleans’ has made a mark on her hometown and in the music world.

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Conviviality & Croquet: A matched set

36 Down the Rabbit Hole: Sally Bickerstaff hares around the south with a specialized pack of basset hounds.

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Land of libations: Chattooga Belle Farm in South Carolina, once owned by celebrated comedic personality Groucho Marx, is a land of plenty.

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Southernisms: How and why we say it

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Under the Muscadine Vine: The Mystique of Mayhayley

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Southern Essentials

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Mama Said, ‘Trick-or-Treat’

14 Autumnal Glories: An Atlanta, Georgia, decorator brightens harvest hues for elegant fall festivities.

18 Collaborative Collective: Through the Southern Coterie, a pair of publishing experts hatched a braintrust to empower women.

24 Epicurean Extreme: 1856 Culinary Residence redefines hospitality with a soaring start in Auburn.

40 Pushing for Crabs at Lake Pontchartrain: Nudged by nostalgia, Corey LaBostrie turns to the old ways of pursuing blue crabs near the shoreline of Louisiana’s splendid estuary.

44 Enduring Ethos: Michelle Mize creates Sun Cookery to encourage Southern hospitality, connections, and

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STITCHING TOGETHER PIECES FROM THE PAST Gee’s Bend’s quilters preserve the past and pave the way for future generations.

Story by Lee Hurley and Cara Clark

Photo by Brit Huckabay

here’s a rhythm in the movement of the needle and a cadence in the flow of conversation, punctuated by the click of a thimble, moments of laughter, and the soundless harmony of souls joined by shared experience. The celebrated community of Gee’s Bend in Alabama, recognized internationally, comprises intricately designed quilts created by women who learned their craft from their mothers and grandmothers.

Yet, Gee’s Bend is only about quilts in the way that the Statue of Liberty is about freedom. They are both symbols of something more profound.

In Gee’s Bend, quilts represent dignity and the struggle to survive and prevail.

Like Mahatma Gandhi at the spinning wheel, Gee’s Bend is the story of smart women literally taking matters into their own hands. Those magical hands created quilts, which initially helped them stay warm and later helped them fight for the right to vote and earn a decent wage. This art became as vital as the soil and trees, inspiring creativity in patching together simple pieces of fabric and elevating the whole to treasured artwork.

Through Souls Grown Deep, which promotes the work of Black artists from the South, quilts and stories are being preserved, and people are recognized for the importance of passed-along traditions.

According to Souls Grown Deep Curator Raina Lampkins-Felder, “There’s a paucity of narratives around those who were enslaved, but we work with genealogies, libraries, and handwritten texts from the time Joseph Gee brought a number of enslaved people from North Carolina to Gee’s Bend. The question of the genesis of this art is a bit of a tricky one, but from what we’ve understood, it’s probably Dinah Miller, who came from what is known as the Clotilda (the last known ship to bring enslaved African people to America, arriving in the Mobile Bay area around 1860) and ended up in Gee’s Bend. Because Gee’s Bend is a very specific non-incorporated sort of village, sometimes there is confusion about that area versus Alberta or Rehobeth in the surrounding area.”

Souls Grown Deep began working with the Artists Rights Society in 2012 to assist Gee’s Bend quilters in protecting, managing, and profiting from their intellectual property. Raina explains

that the quilt-making tradition in the community, defined by the land encompassing a 6,000-acre plantation at the bend of the Alabama River, is unique from any in the world.

“What happens in Gee’s Bend is this continual transference of knowledge — something that, for us as Americans, we should take pride in because there is really nothing like this on the planet that has been continuing in this way — you have an area and source materials and people whose histories go back 150 years. Sometimes, you have material that’s from 70 years ago that you find in a quilt today. There’s very much a mélange — this mixing of history, past, and present that makes this place quite remarkable. It’s unique not just for the ingenious use of recycled and discarded material. It speaks to the circumstances of the time, from enslavement through Jim Crow.”

The community of quilters relied on materials such as old work clothes, flour sacks, feed sacks, and any other discards they could repurpose into a practical and aesthetically pleasing covering.

Ideas, stories, and patterns emerged from discarded materials — there were no bolts of fabric to choose from and make grand plans.

“These quilters are known for their ingenious use of materials but also for the fearless, improvisational nature of their pattern creation,” Raina says. “It’s so interesting to see their textile selection and the sort of chromatic vibrancy in their work. There’s a wonderful kind of creative and artistic intentionality behind many women finding fabrics and finding a way of expressing themselves while at the same time really needing these quilts in their unheated homes. There’s that absolute practicality married with beauty and finding beauty in the everyday. That is something that’s being transferred from generation to generation and is embedded in the mindset there.”

The quilts drew the women together from early times to the present in a shared mission and vision, and the knowledge was transmitted like clicks on a telegraph wire.

“The women would sit together and sing spirituals and share stories as they hand-sewed these quilts,” Raina reflects. “It was a communal experience. Then, the young children, who had very nimble fingers, would thread the needles or beat the dirt out of the cotton flock that was left over from picking cotton to be used as batting. That

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AIRING OF T H E Q U I LT S F E S T I VA L To know Gee’s Bend is to see Gee’s Bend: • Saturday, October 12, 2024 • Quilt displays, workshops, guided tours, exhibitions, music, food, and drink.

• airingofthequilts.org Come to the country, take a deep breath, and soak in the energy of this vibrant artistic community.

Photo by Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio/Souls Grown Deep www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

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Photo by Brit Huckabay

Photo Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio/Souls Grown Deep

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ith each careful stitch, the members of Gee’s Bend continue a tradition begun by their ancestors during a time of great struggle. The skilled seamstresses celebrate their heritage through art, creating museum-worthy works tied to life lessons learned and the area where they were born and raised. As they work, each quilter fulfills a vision for how color and shape come together to create the perfect whole.

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was kind of their after-school chore. After they did that, they could go to play. When you have that kind of gentle introduction to quilt making, this idea of communal collaboration from a very young age proves inspirational to young girls. Then they would take up the artistic challenge that’s been presented to them by their elders.”

From the shared necessity of making quilts and the imaginations of crafting them into beautiful patterns, the community also embraced the idea of using and not wasting — even a flour bag.

“They knew you don’t just throw things away,” Raina says. “You can find a use for that and embed beauty into it. It becomes an ethos of a place, and it’s manifested in these quilts. They become autobiographical, in a way. You can see the history of a family, of a place, of a story that someone wants to tell through the fabric, pattern, and colors. Each quilt is so populated by history and by people.”

Raina says Gee’s Bend quilters often begin with one pattern and then let the work take shape — seeing where needle, fabric, and memory take them. Most artworks can be called “My Way” quilts because “you start in one direction, then go off your own way.” That could be a memory of beloved family member or a scene that captured the imagination and was transmitted through painstakingly stitched swaths of material.

KEEPING TRADITION ALIVE

with meaning and beautifully crafted in geometric patterns or free-form shapes — all planned to the last detail.

“Later on when we got our start, putting our own quilts together, it might not come out the way you want it, but it would still be beautiful,” they say. “You have a love for it, you know. It’s a lot of meditation. We don’t draw our quilts out. We just have it in our minds. Sometimes, we do straight lines, some horizontal lines; sometimes, we do diagonal lines. It depends on how you feel and what you want to do. You go all over the place.”

Marlene Bennett Jones puts it all into perspective: “I quilt now because it gives me peace of mind, helps me stay out of other people’s business, and do my work. I don’t get into any trouble. I just make my quilts, doing my thing.

That’s a good philosophy of life right there.”

RESILIENCY OF THE SPIRIT Gee’s Bend is enclosed on three sides by the Alabama River, named after a North Carolina plantation owner named Joseph Gee, who bought 6,000 acres in the early 1800s and established a cotton plantation in 1816. The Gee family operated the plantation until 1845, when, to settle their debts, they relinquished the property and its 100 enslaved men, women, and children to a relative named Mark Pettway.

Like everywhere else in the country, Gee’s

A visit to the renovated Freedom Quilt Building in Alberta found local leaders Polly Mooney Middleton, Lue Ida McCloud, Loretta Pettway Bennett, Pattie Irby, and Marlene Bennett Jones willing to share their accumulated wisdom, laughter, and kindness. These women are friends, sisters-in-law, cousins, quilters, civic leaders, board members, and historians.

After high school, in 1969, Lue Ida moved to Brooklyn, New York. Her family of 12 gave her $30 to go, which was more money than she had ever seen. She came home years later when her mother got sick and picked up quilting. Polly left home, too.

“I wanted to get away from the cotton field, so I went to Birmingham for a year. But I didn’t like that fast living at all. When I came back, I started getting into quilting real good. Because it was our turn, right?”

Pattie and Lue Ida shared their thoughts about the intricate shapes and stitches that pull together these iconic Southern quilts, each rich Photo by Brit Huckabay www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

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Bend was hit hard by the Great Depression.

Cotton prices continued to plummet, farms were foreclosed, equipment sold, and citizens became destitute. Yet help was on the way. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, through his New Deal, purchased the former Pettway plantation, some 10,000 acres, and provided low-interest loans to help Black families buy the land and build homes. To this day, descendants still own their land and homes.

During the civil rights era, Martin Luther King visited nearby Alberta and Boykin. His encouragement helped the communities organize to vote, taking the ferry across the river to Camden to register. Authorities responded by discontinuing the ferry. An Episcopal priest, Father Francis X. Walter, noticed the colorful quilts hanging on clotheslines in the area, and with the help of a local, Estelle Witherspoon, the Freedom Quilting Bee was established to sell their homemade art and create critically needed economic independence.

The Freedom Quilting Bee cooperative began to gain recognition for the “free-form, improvisational designs,” which came natural to these quilters. And as awareness grew, so did accolades and sales. These Boykin and Alberta Alabama quilts (Gee’s Bend), made from old work clothes and fertilizer sacks, were being purchased and displayed in museums worldwide — and sold at department store giants Saks Fifth Avenue and Bonwit Teller. In 2006, the U.S. Postal Service issued ten commemorative stamps featuring images of Gee’s Bend quilts.

In 2012, the Freedom Quilting Bee closed after the death of its last board member, Nettie Young.

It remained dormant until 2019, when Kim Kelly, whose family is from the area, helped refocus attention on Gee’s Bend. Others jumped on board, including Souls Grown Deep, which also supports artists’ communities by fostering economic empowerment, racial and social justice, and educational advancement.

In 2020, the Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy was formed to help preserve and honor the past while envisioning the future. That future includes bolstering tourism and increasing economic opportunity for the community with quilting workshops and classrooms, a library and technology lab, a walking trail, a restaurant, and an event center.

ARTISTRY OF THE SOUL Raina, who was first introduced to Gee’s Bend quilts during a 2002 quilt exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York City. She was an associate director of the museum and recalls being surprised

that the Whitney would host a quilt show. She was accustomed to working with celebrated modern and contemporary artists and wasn’t prepared for the impact the quilts would have — visually, artistically, and emotionally.

“As soon as I saw the work, I was so overtaken with the artistry,” she says. “I could approach these works. I could read these works. I could find myself within these quilts in the way that I could find myself within the works of other artists. And that was something that I found so fascinating and exciting.”

Almost twenty years later, she works closely with the community in Gee’s Bend and the surrounding areas, researching their stories and histories.

“I jumped at that opportunity to be able to do this,” she says, of the place where artistic form meets function. “It’s incredible to see the minds of these women who were using textile patterning design and artistic solutions and presenting something very new. That’s what artists who are interesting and who are good do. They expand us.

They expand the possibility of what we are able to imagine visually.” The oldest quilts in the Souls Grown Deep collection date back to the 1920s, but many older quilts are in private collections or among the descendants of quilters.

The organization is constantly exploring to unearth new quilts and to learn about collections within the families — treasures as yet unseen.

As with any artwork, the value lies within the artistry, and Gee’s Bend quilts generally range from $2,000 to in excess of $100,000. More than 30 museums around the world have acquired quilts for their permanent collections. An exhibition of quilts at the Royal Academy of Art in London, England, last year included quilts as old as the 1930s and as new as 2021, illustrative of the continued value of this tradition passed along through generations and among family and friends in this small area in Alabama.

“There’s still that kind of peace and spirit that is what continues to be passed on,” Raina says. “It’s a wonderful thing to be able to pass on tradition, to pass on an incredible artistic feat. And within that, there is a kind of glory. There’s always hope; there’s joy; there’s a movement outward and upward. In this small, isolated hamlet of a place, we find such incredible innovation that, in some way only, sadly, could come out of a sort of oppression. These incredibly resilient people have overcome to create these majestic works of art. It speaks to the resiliency of the human spirit.”

For more on this, visit fqblegacy.org, and for ways to purchase Gee’s Bend quilts, visit Geesbend.org and geesbend.org/shop-the-bend

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Photo by Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio/Souls Grown Deep

Photo by Brit Huckabay

Photo by Brit Huckabay

Photo by Brit Huckabay

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he women of Gee’s Bend are dedicated to their community and preserving the traditions they have learned from their ancestors. With every click of the thimble or push of the needle, they honor those who have come before them, following the courage of their beliefs and the beauty of the imaginations that inspire them to create new works of art for the future.

www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

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Autumnal

GLORIES An Atlanta, Georgia, decorator brightens harvest hues for elegant fall festivities.

Laurie Byrne finds her bliss in pulling together the perfectly set table to create a feast for the eyes, combining fall accents with elegant touches and an uplifted palette as she fashions a welcoming table for an autumn gathering.

Fresh, minty and moss hues complement cocoa and blush tones with dinner and salad plates from the Ginori Oriente Italiano Collection in malachite color, bone dishes in Herend Chinese Bouquet Green, hand-painted Italian chargers, custom monogram napkins by Kimberly Whitman, Chantilly Sterling flatware by Gorham, smokecolored stemware by Estelle Glassware, antique crystal, and green floral bow cups from The Enchanted Home.

Custom placecards were created by Laurie’s LB Originals and combined with acorn vases from Anthropologie. A tablecloth in Lee Jofa fabric is custom-designed to match the dining room chairs.

Centered on the table, Laurie’s floral arrangement of pheasant feathers, garden roses, hypericum berries, shamrock hydrangeas, pittosporum, craspedi, and dianthus green flowers are anchored with an antique brass footed container from Peachtree Battle Antiques in Atlanta, Georgia.

Brass and silver pheasant figurines (Scott’s Antique Market) accent the artfully arranged setting.

The decorator behind LB Originals Personalized Papers, Gifts, and Tabletop Shop can’t resist an opportunity to elevate a tablescape.

Find Laurie on Instagram @lboriginals.

Photos by Sara Baurley

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aurie Byrne of LB Originals brings bright ideas to each table she sets, infusing the setting with color and decorative elements to delight the eye as guests gather to enjoy a meal. For this fall table, she envisions the many hues of a woodland canopy, accenting evergreens, moss, mint, and other verdant hues, which she combines with sienna-colored acorns, pheasant feathers, and blush tones. Each element warms and enlivens the setting of complementary patterns and tones.

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Collaborative

COLLECTIVE Through the Southern Coterie, a pair of publishing experts hatched a braintrust to empower women.

Story by Cara Clark Photos by Kelli Boyd Photography ncubated bird eggs undergo miraculous changes inside delicate shells, fostered by humidity, heat, and coordinated position shifts to mimic avian parents’ endeavors to give their offspring a successful start. When the baby birds are strong enough to tap their way into a world of myriad possibilities, the nestlings still need nurturing until they flourish into feathery tufts and are fully fledged.

Two publishing mavens, Cheri Leavy and Whitney Long, envisioned a haven with a similar effect — a space for women to nurture each other, buoying them to business success. They sought to

unite women with a common purpose and shared vision in an incubator-like atmosphere where bright ideas could be illuminated to radiance.

With The Southern Coterie, better known as The Southern C, the two have done just that, developing a sisterhood of entrepreneurs and creators from different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences but with a shared bond that transcends boundaries.

It is a bond forged in mutual respect, empathy, and a deep-seated desire to see each other succeed.

In this sisterhood, competition is replaced with collaboration and envy with encouragement.

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hitney Long and Cheri Levy were determined to crack the code on entrepreneurial success for women. Through their creation, The Southern C, business owners meet virtually or in person to share ideas and lift one another up. The idea has become a movement throughout the South as this coterie of women gather for special events that hone in on best business practices and the importance of connecting. www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

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P OW E R F U L P RO J E C T I O N S The two longtime residents of St. Simons Island, Georgia, turned thought into action. What began as a blog about people and places in the South in 2013 was workshopped, then turned on its head as they looked at a business plan for themselves and began pondering what common threads they shared with others. The snarled thread unraveled into a need for more resources to unite as a community and learn how to scale and market a business. With women combining their shared knowledge, all could prosper. It took research and deep discussion to pinpoint the solution.

“As we talked to people, we realized the common thread was that female business owners had problems to overcome and were very much in the same boat,” Cheri says. “We realized we don’t have a lot of resources out there for us. At the time, there were not a lot of resources for coming

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he Southern C Summit at The Cloister in Sea Island combines fashion, finery, and fellowship as women Shop & Sip or attend curated conferences that give insight to developing marketing strategy and growth ideas for beginning and burgeoning businesses. The in-person experiences extend to special dinners in various cities with active members. Whitney Long and Cheri Levy, The Southern C creators, also created a gathering in Round Top, Texas, for business principals to pursue best practices for developing personnel, marketing methods, and financial progress. www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

together as a community of women or learning how to scale and market your business. We knew there was something in the idea of community over competition.”

That’s when the idea of adding events to the blog emerged, and a coterie of women was soon to find the resources they needed.

“It was a leap of faith, but we knew if we could get these people together, they wanted to work together and help each other,” Whitney says. “It’s true that a rising tide lifts all boats.”

The “boats” were lifted on waves of shared interests and cooperation.

“By 2013, we decided to do three events. We could sense people wanted to get together, work together, and help each other,” Cheri says.

Jekyll Island, Georgia; Nashville, Tennessee; and Athens, Georgia, were targeted as early venues.

Cheri and Whitney set about creating an event to promote commerce, offer shared insights from entrepreneurs, and include an educational element.

Women signed up for membership and connected via emails and online meetings, then gathered in person to discover revelry and resources.

Today, The Southern C offers the opportunity to connect in person via The Southern C Summit, held annually at The Cloister on Sea Island, Georgia, and at a yearly Fall Retreat, which is held in creative hubs such as Watercolor, Florida; Round Top, Texas; and Palm Beach, Florida (Fall 2025).

The Southern C membership also offers weekly Zoom educational sessions featuring expert insight from industry leaders, an extensive video vault housing member webinars and Summit sessions, an exclusive members-only app, and chapter meetups. Membership allows this thriving community of female founders and entrepreneurs to thread the needle between events and encourages the connections and camaraderie, hallmarks of The Southern C, all year long.

The organization has expanded into a powerful conductor, supercharging women and their ideas about managing everything from manufacturing to social media to workforce challenges.

“It started as a passion project, and we decided to ‘leap and the net will appear,’” Whitney says.

“We were probably winging it the first year, not knowing what it would turn into. I still have pinch-me moments. Eleven years later, we’re going strong, and the best thing is the people we get to meet and interact with — all of these smart, kind, compassionate businesswomen and founders. It’s work, but it’s work we really, really love.”

The two foster a sense of community — women having each other’s backs by sharing what works and, more importantly, what doesn’t. Those

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try-and-not-succeed moments are as valuable as the successes. Whitney and Cheri have created a community where women allow others to avoid their pitfalls and profit from their pinnacles, an idea that only two like-minded women would have established.

“We’re both problem solvers, and we like to find fresh ideas and experts in various fields,” Cheri says. “With all that energy, it always feels like there’s something new and buzzing. We love it.”

At the annual Southern C Summit at The Cloister in Sea Island, Georgia, members feel the hum of that energy in the same way static electricity can lift hair on the head. To experience it is to grasp the power of women working toward common goals.

“Once you get to the Summit, you walk in and feel the camaraderie and excitement,” Cheri says.

“You walk in, and everything is clicking.”

Cheri and Whitney use the phrase, “the company we keep,” referring to an adage about how the people you associate with influence your success and others’ perceptions of you.

“We are honored and humbled to be with brilliant brands and founders, which speak to the caliber and the variety of what we offer,” Whitney says. “We have so many creative collaborations among members.”

One example is Caroline Bramlett Broome, a Palm Beach-based photographer and blogger behind LCB Style and her fashion line, Tillie (introduced this year). She first came to an event with her mom while a senior in college.

“She was doing a blog at the time, and she came to The Southern C with this spirit of openness,” Cheri says. “She made all sorts of connections, and she moved her business along so much faster because she was open to asking questions and

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Wi t h a l l t h a t e n e r g y, i t a lways f e e l s l i ke t h e r e ’ s s o m e t h i n g n ew a n d b u z z i n g . We l ove i t . asking for support. She collaborated with Buru, bringing an equestrian influence, which was phenomenal. And it was a nice move for Buru because it put them in a younger demographic and another area. It was great for everybody. Fast forward, and she’s launched her own line after being into sewing and fashion her entire life.

In short, dreams are coming true, but watching her trajectory from a true startup has been so rewarding.”

The enthusiasm for the growing number of collabs and successes is evident as Cheri and Whitney discuss their favorite stories of emerging dreams developing into ultra-successful reality — Mignonne Gavigan’s jewelry line, Sissy Light’s hats, Lindsay Thomas’s Garland Bags, and numerous other creators, decorators, and influencers.

The anecdotes are recalled with fondness and genuine excitement for the next big story to crest a wave. Mother-daughter teams often find footing for their businesses in The Southern C, and seasoned business owners join to revitalize their business model or if they need a tech refresh.

SUMMITING SUCCESS Flanked by salt marsh and sea, The Cloister at Sea Island is an enclave for The Southern C members to gather and share ideas each winter at the Summit, where 200 or more women meet and greet, collaborate, and exchange valuable intel.

Amid the stucco walls and Spanish Mediterranean rooftops of the seaside retreat, women — and a few men — are honing their interests into polished plans. Cheri and Whitney never realized that their decade-old dream would impact so many.

“I will say honestly, we did not know that what started as a passion project would become what we see today,” Cheri says. “We would take one step, and the next step would appear.”

“It was exactly that,” Whitney agreed. “Leap and the net will appear.”

Secure in that supporting net, the cadre of women continues to grow, increasing the network of women who each help the other by sharing their experiences with stumbling blocks and difficulties and ways around them.

“We truly love fostering the sense of community,” Whitney says. “We love all of that www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

energy. It always feels like there’s something new and buzzing.”

Members of The Southern C mentor one another, sharing their knowledge, skills, and expertise to help each other grow and thrive. They offer support and encouragement, lending a listening ear and a shoulder to lean on when the going gets tough. But perhaps most importantly, these women serve as role models and advocates for one another, While the Sea Island Summit is for almost everyone in a business to gain insight into oiling the operational gears, the Fall Retreat is a more intimate offering that allows business owners and seasoned entrepreneurs to dive deeper into vital business topics in various lively locations.

Cheri and Whitney have learned their shared interests run deep, including an abiding love of Sea Island — both are members. The two live on nearby St. Simons Island, though Cheri spends a portion of her year in Athens.

In discussing their shared passion, the two laugh when admitting they’re the type of dream team who think so alike that they sometimes wear almost identical clothing to a gathering without having discussed fashion choices. There are deeper similarities, of course.

“We both have servant leadership in us,” Whitney says. “We want to help people; we’re both philanthropic. This is just the ticket for us.

The founders say it’s always rewarding to hear feedback from attendees who have made new friendships or rekindled old ones and established critical business connections to propel their entrepreneurial endeavors along the road to success.

Amid Sea Island’s stately homes and ancient oaks, the usually restful resort of The Cloister hums with a flurry of fashionably attired women armed with ideas and objectives. Spoonbills, buntings, warblers, and plovers all nest on the isles of Georgia’s coast, but these women are in a glamorous incubator, hatching new ideas and deep friendships.

Whitney says to experience it is to understand it.

“We all connect and follow along online or on social media,” Cheri explains. “You can subscribe to the emails and do all of the things we do before you go there, but once you arrive, you walk in and feel that sense of camaraderie, and it’s an amazing feeling. We are there to support one another. Our attendees and alums actually call this Summit ‘pixie dust.’ That captures the essence of it.”

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Extreme

EPICUREAN 1856 - Culinary Residence redefines hospitality with a soaring start in Auburn.

Story by Cara Clark Photos by Morgan Duke

A multiple-course meal — from aperitifs and amuse-bouches to desserts and digestifs — is a sensory adventure. The chef crafts an immersive experience that engages all the senses, evokes emotions, and tells a story through each bite. The courses are meticulously planned and executed to create a harmonious journey that leaves a lasting impression.

Visually stunning morsels are designed to intrigue the mind, while vivid colors and artful presentation entice the eye. Aromatic hints of the dish’s delights prepare diners for bursts of flavors and textures skillfully combined for an evening’s enjoyment.

That, and much more, happens at a restaurant named the best new restaurant in the South and Alabama. Garnering new honors

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ith each dish, served at 1856 - Culinary Residence dining room, the arrangement of colors, shapes, and garnishes is designed to delight the eye and set the stage for the tasting experience. Tea on Thach, which celebrates traditional British tea time, is a sought-after reservation. www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

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as quickly as empty dishes are whisked away from satisfied patrons, 1856 - Culinary Residence is now an epicurean destination in Auburn, Alabama.

The “loveliest village on the plains” has made countless headlines for academics and athletics, and now it has secured a reputation for excellence in the hospitality industry.

With the culinary residence hallmarked as the world’s first teaching restaurant, chefs and students carefully orchestrate flavors, textures, aromas, and visual appeal. A seven-course meal becomes more than just dinner — it’s a symphony of the senses, a story told through the medium of food, and a memorable experience that lingers long after the final bite.

The teaching restaurant opened in August 2022 on the first floor of the new Tony and Libba Rane Culinary Science Center, which was made possible by a $12 million financial gift from entrepreneur and philanthropist Jimmy Rane of Abbeville, Alabama. The $110 million center pays homage to his late parents.

“It’s hard to put into words how much the culinary residence means to me and to my family because it honors my parents, Tony and Libba Rane, in ways that truly represent their personal legacies,” Jimmy says. “They both loved great food, hospitality and entertainment, and these elements were at the center of their lives in our hometown of Abbeville. But they also enjoyed traveling the world and taste-testing their way through other cultures. My parents were the kind of people who learned on the go and loved sharing their knowledge when they came back home.”

The much-lauded Laurel Hotel and Spa, part of the Culinary Science Center, is a luxury teaching hotel and the first AAA Five-Diamond property in Alabama, honors usually reserved for island resorts or mega-city hotels. It includes 16 guest rooms, 10 suites, six residences, a signature spa, a fitness studio, and a rooftop pool.

The buzz began months before the doors even opened, and the word was out that 1856 - Culinary Residence, named for Auburn University’s founding year, was set to redefine dining in the city and beyond.

“It’s been a whirlwind since we got up and running,” says Jacob Hoop, an alumnus of Auburn University’s Horst Schulze School of Hospitality Management and general manager of the perennially popular spot. “What we are doing is creating a place for academics to lead the future of the leaders of the hospitality and fine dining industry.”

Jacob, who graduated in 2017, said he knew the concept would be hot from the beginning —

after all, it combined the vision behind the Horst Schulze School with that of Hans van der Reijden, founder and CEO of Ithaka Hospitality Partners.

“To have both of them together, I knew it was going to blow up, and we were going to be at the forefront of the industry,” Jacob says. “It’s still the talk of the town. We were quickly becoming one of the top hospitality schools in the country, and this is just cementing that in place. We can compete with all the other schools, such as Cornell and Florida State.”

Since its inception, Jacob says he has seen numerous companies at the top of their industry seek out 1856 - Culinary Residence students for employment or bring their executives to stay at the Laurel Hotel and Spa to personally experience the industry standard.

Jimmy says his father would especially approve of how students learn those high standards.

“Of course, the entrepreneurial aspects of the culinary residence speak right to my dad’s legacy in the worlds of hospitality, fine dining, and tourism,” Jimmy says. “He was a great businessman who turned his gifts for opening his home and sharing a meal into remarkable dining venues that our part of Alabama would never have seen without his willingness to create something exciting and new.

Ford Fry became the second chef-in-residence for 1856 - Culinary Residence. After imparting his experience to students for a year, he returned to his diverse restaurant portfolio.

Photo courtesy Auburn University

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ailed for its immediate success, 1856-Culinary Residence opened in 2022 in the Tony and Libba Rane Culinary Science Center, which was made possible by a $12 million financial gift from entrepreneur and philanthropist Jimmy Rane, at left. The center is an homage to his late parents, both experts in the hospitality industry. www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

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hings can get tense between the pass and the kitchen in a high-end restaurant. Orders come through, ingredients hit the chopping board or prepped pans, and the challenge is creating a dish around which tastebuds will be enlightened to new flavors and memories made. A rooftop garden brings fresh vegetables and herbs to 1856 and offers a lovely vista of the village. Photo by T2 Photography, Thomas Boutwell

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We ’ re p u t t i n g Au b u r n o n t h e m ap a s a c u l i n a r y d e s t i n at i o n .

We ’ re l e a d i n g t h e c h a r g e o f wh at ’ s n e x t , d r aw i n g p e o p l e i n , a n d m a k i n g Au bu r n a f o o d d e s t i n at i o n c i t y. We d o n’ t wa n t t o fo l l ow.

We ’ re p l a n n i n g t o s t ay at t h e fo re f ro n t .

“When you think of Chef Ford’s restaurants and experience, it was a real gift to have him share that with us for a year,” Jacob says. “Some people might not immediately know his name, but if you ask about their favorite restaurant in Atlanta, they’ll say Marcel or No. 246 or Beetlecat or St. Cecilia. He has so much success with different concepts, and he’s ever-evolving. But at the same time, he’s straightforward. He wants to focus on the seasonality of ingredients done with the best techniques. A great thing he has sold the students on is that he wants delicious to trump interesting every time. He wants us to be able to execute all of the basics at the highest possible level.”

The current chef leading 1856 - Culinary Residence is Joel Antunes of Le Logis in Cognac, France. He began his tenure on August 1 and is a James Beard Foundation Award winner and recipient of a Michelin Star.

From the complex chemistry of molecular gastronomy to celebrating the beauty of an heirloom tomato, the chef-in-resident encourages students to let each ingredient shine. The freshest produce and herbs are harvested from the 1856 Culinary Residence rooftop garden, created and managed by Auburn University’s Horticulture Program.

During Ford’s residence, the à la carte lunch menu served options from salads to shrimp remoulade. A multi-course tasting menu offered adventurous appetites such gastronomic delights as savory Marcel bread, Hamachi crudo, soft shell crab, rigatoni with classic vodka sauce, pork belly, and English cheddar, with a dessert of strawberry shortcake and petit fours.

The menus perpetually alter, teaching a breadth

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of knowledge to up-and-coming sous chefs, master chefs, pâtissiers, and sommeliers. Students learn the art of preparing with the best ingredients from other top-tier chefs, who share their flavors during summer sessions at 1856 - Culinary Residence.

The 2024 lineup featured Chef Kyle Knall, culinary director at Stone Bank Farms and coowner of Birch in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Chef Leo Maurelli III of Ithaka in Auburn, Alabama; and Chef Ford Fry with a “Marcel Takeover,” sharing flavors from his Atlanta, Georgia restaurant.

“We’re putting Auburn on the map as a culinary destination,” Jacob says. “We’re leading the charge of what’s next, drawing people in, and making Auburn a food destination city. We don’t want to follow. We’re planning to stay at the forefront.”

One idea in place is “Tea on Thach, a modern take on the classic English tea, held on the second and fourth Sundays each month. It’s a sell-out with every sitting.

“We’re doing the old style but with a contemporary twist to ensure we stay on the cutting edge,” Jacob says. “We’re doing fun pastries with different themes. People love it.”

Lunch at 1856 is an a la carte menu, which allows guests to meet the students. Dinner is highbrow, with a seven- to eight-course tasting menu.

“We see Mr. Rane now and then when he is here in town, and he’s all smiles and gratitude,” Jacob says. “Without his generosity, a lot of this wouldn’t be here. He has that same mindset, wanting Auburn to be the best and leading the charge for future leaders. Anytime he’s here, he’s super excited and loves interacting with the students.”

For Jimmy, Auburn University has a feeling of home that resonates with his family, several of whom followed his footsteps in pursuing degrees at Auburn University. Playing an essential role in cooking up this mecca of the hospitality industry has been a fulfilling project that developed over time.

“This was, of course, a very long process that began in 2009 when Dr. Jay Gogue came to Auburn from the University of Houston, which has a highly regarded hospitality program, and he saw that Auburn could excel in the same way,” Jimmy says.”My involvement began in 2012, when Dr. Gogue and Hans van der Reijden first presented the concept and vision to me. The Rane Culinary Science Center was officially dedicated ten years later, in September 2022. Since that time, my family and I have been thrilled by what the center has meant to Auburn and to the state of Alabama as a whole.”

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Perfecting the Pumpkin Tennessee artist Jaimie Houser rules the pumpkin patch and artfully incises the traditional gourds for a harvest celebration at Dollywood.

Story by Cara Clark Photos by Matt Young

uring autumn, hollowed pumpkins are transformed with artistic flair as the air grows crisp and the leaves flame orange and red, then fade to gold or wither before abandoning trees. Flickering lights dance with shadows, bringing the pumpkin carvings to life. A humble harvest vegetable undergoes a Cinderellalike transformation to celebrate the changing season — not only with frightful faces but also with fanciful forms that honor nature, celebrity, or fantasy.

With steady hands and a heart full of inspiration, Jaimie Houser of Seymour, Tennessee, carves pumpkin after pumpkin — meticulously, bringing to life a scene of a vigilant owl, a majestic bear, or a spiky sunflower. These creations won’t just set a festive note at someone’s front door or fall fête; they’re destined for display at Dollywood, where Dolly Parton’s vision of families coming together to spend quality time in the Smoky Mountains is accented with art each season.

Jaimie and husband Kris, senior events manager for the Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, theme park, enjoy the challenge of meeting the demands of mass artful pumpkin production. Many are genuine gourds — the kind that, with candlelight and smoke, fill the air with the earthy aroma of fresh pumpkin. Others are Funkins — molded, carvable foam that simulates the genuine article but lasts through fall for numerous photo ops and fun around the park.

Jaimie, an ER nurse, splits her time between art and medicine — patching up patients in one career and delighting park patrons in the other.

And on some fall days, she’s as much an attraction at Dollywood as her art, launching into pumpkin carving demos, a guest experience that combines creativity, sensory delight, and a touch of tradition.

While Kris is checking in with Tennessee pumpkin growers to determine when the crop will be ready to harvest for Dollywood’s Harvest Festival, Jaimie is coming up with ideas to fit the park’s fall festival theme — less scare and more flair.

Jaimie’s talent as an artist was recognized early — at age 8, her school sent her first efforts to a regional art competition. When she went to work at Dollywood in food service (and eventually met her future husband), her talent was quickly noticed, and she’s been crafting chalk art, murals, paintings, and

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more for 20 years. At the Dollywood resort, guests in the Dolly suite are treated to the scenes Jaimie painted on some of the singer’s famous albums.

“I’ve loved art my whole life,” says Jaimie, who studied art history and fell in love with the classics.

“And I love to stay busy. When I’m working at the ER, it’s intense, but I enjoy helping people. And I’m a very creative person, so I love to have this outlet.”

The pumpkin gig for Jaimie’s Houser Studios began with a commission for 200 or so beautifully hand-worked pumpkins.

“The next year, we asked her for 500 more,” Kris says. “Then it was, ‘We need 1,000.’ Now, she’s carved well over 6,000 pumpkins. Some of our sister properties — like Silver Dollar City Attractions and Callaway Resort & Gardens have launched pumpkin festivals and have hired her to build up their stock of pumpkins.”

The advantage of faux pumpkins is their durability. They’re stocked for reuse each year and mixed among real pumpkins that brave the October heat before crumpling from the stress as if midnight struck, extinguishing the magic from Cinderella’s special night.

“When we first tried using real pumpkins only, it took 100 or 150 pumpkins a day just to replace what was rotting,” Kris says. “We have a real hot October in Tennessee.”

Jaimie led the charge to create the needed pumpkins, designing stencils so that 12 people could steadily carve each day to keep fresh pumpkins around the amusement park.

Bears, raccoons, eagles, and owls prowl the spaces in Dollywood — representing the wildlife in the Smokies and delighting children and adults. It’s challenging work to carve real pumpkins with a set of blades or faux pumpkins with Dremel tools. It’s especially tough to see the perspective of how the art will look when lit from within.

For the best frame of reference, Jaimie sometimes retreats to a dark room to cut and carve, seeing how the light shines to create just the right impressions in the foam. It’s a fulfilling commitment best captured on film or video, especially her sidewalk chalk masterpieces.

“I love drawing beautiful flowers and birds,” Jaimie says. “I can use my imagination and so many bright colors. And it’s so rewarding to see people enjoying it. It’s like they’re walking through the park and suddenly find a surprise when they see a new

drawing.”

All that effort and beautiful aesthetic are subject to the whims of nature — a quick summer storm patters against the intricately painted blues and greens of a peacock’s feathers, turning them into a mix of misshapen hues.

“It’ll come a quick rainstorm and wash it away, and then you got to have it pressure washed and start over,” Jaimie says. “It’s living art, and it’s sad to see it go, but I’ve gotten used to that.”.

With her passion for art history, during the Dollywood Flower & Food Festival, Jaimie organized a tribute to some of her favorite, famous art figures — the head of the statue of David, a portrait of Rembrandt, and a likeness of the Mona Lisa.

“Once she got it all done, it rained that night,” Kris says. “We had a night crew come in and pressure wash the area. Then she starts over the next day with something new.”

Through her boundless imaginative vision, Jaimie is on a quest to create, allowing others to see the world through a different lens, making the intangible tangible.

Find Jaimie’s artwork during a trip to Dollywood or at instagram.com/houser.studios.

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or more than a decade, Jaimie Houser has been beautifying Dollywood with her artwork. When the fall festival began at the theme park, she was asked to carve wildlife and woodland art on about 100 pumpkins. By the second year, she was carving 500, and the demand grew. Now, Jaimie demonstrates her skills for festival goers, artfully incising the images with her tools to bring light to the harvest season and the lives she touches with her work.

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DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE Sally Bickerstaff hares around the south with a specialized pack of basset hounds.

Story by Christiana Roussel, Photos by Eliza Daffin

It would be a mistake to think that rabbit hunting is just about rabbits. Far from it.

In fact, sometimes you may wonder if the rabbits aren’t in on the whole escapade themselves, they are so seldom caught.

Just as jogging is not necessarily about getting from point A to point B, rabbit hunting is about more than finding a four-legged woodland creature.

For the uninitiated, it is important to note from the outset that rabbit hunting is more about the hounds that scent them through the woods than anything else. To join in on a rabbit hunt is to be let in on a community of folks who love to be together outdoors, watching their beloved dogs work.

Those dogs are a joy to behold for the Hughston family of Cataula, Georgia. With adjacent homes on either side of several acres, Ann and Edgar Hughston regularly go to the woods, which link them to that of daughter Sally and son-in-law Brad Bickerstaff. Ann and Edgar may ride in the electricpowered Polaris while Sally and others walk the woods with the pack of bassets between them.

Sometimes riders join on horseback, flanking the group, letting these dogs do what they love most: follow their noses.

Each member of the family has smiles and similar stories about how they got into rabbit hunting — that fox hunting was their gateway drug to the addiction that is this folly. Ann and Edgar grew up in the sport, and Edgar’s father and uncle started the legendary Midland Fox Hounds in

the area. In family photos lining the walls of the Bickerstaff home, one can trace the history that tells the story of their love of being outdoors with horses and all manner of dogs.

The Hughstons have traveled around the country for decades, joining friends at regional hunting events and competitions. Ann is candid about her love of the sport and even admits that she planned when she would have her two children according to the hunting calendar. True to her calculations, Sally and her brother Jack were born just one day and a couple of years apart, in October, and Ann never missed a day afield.

Sally quips that “rabbit hunting is basically fox hunting but on foot,” which drew her parents to it in the first place. Less of a full-scale event, it can be a simple morning spent walking in the woods.

Horses are not requisite in a rabbit hunt; all that is needed is a sense of adventure and a pack of welltrained dogs. Some people might use beagles to hunt rabbits, but the Hughstons had other ideas.

Sally shares, “We had a fox hunting friend from Maryland, Jeep Cochran, visiting us who suggested we try bassets.”

Jeep is known to be a pretty strong-willed redheaded woman and when she makes a suggestion about a topic, folks are apt to listen and follow her lead. Their Ripshin Bassets started with a French basset and an English basset — both due to have puppies — imported from England by Edgar’s uncle, Ben Hardaway. The pack grew from there to

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ith a devoted pack of bassets baying and barking, Sally Bickerstaff embarks on a rabbit hunt on the family farm. The Ripshin basset hounds are a hardy breed developed by the family. With wire-haired coats like the griffon, the devoted dogs have a countenance both clever and mischievous. www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

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The idea is to put t o g e t h e r a p a ck o f h o u n d s t h at w i l l wo rk a s a t e a m a n d r u n we l l t o g e t h e r. We o f t e n c a l l t h a t t h e ‘ l eve l n e s s o f yo u r p a ck ’ – t h e i r s i z e, t h e i r l o o k , t h e i r p a c e, a n d t h e i r n o s e. include the best traits needed for rabbit hunting: a good nose and the ability and desire to follow commands.

Many readers may be most familiar with the archetypal basset — the one with the droopy eyes and long floppy ears — but there are several types of this hound: that traditional AKC basset, as well as the Griffon Vendéen, Fauve de Bretagne, Blue de Gascogne, and the Artésien Normand.

“The idea is to put together a pack of hounds that will work as a team and run well together. We often call that the ‘levelness of your pack’ — their size, their look, their pace, and their nose.”

The Ripshin pack has been crossbred to retain the best traits of several of these varieties, and that is evidenced in the way they take to the woods, with happy hearts and eager yelping.

“I like to think of rabbit hunting as solving a puzzle,” Sally offers.

The dogs work in concert to solve the problem, which to them, is finding the rabbit, a creature with a faint scent.

Rabbits in heat or those yet not mature will not have a scent — nature’s way of protecting the species.

The dogs must be trained not to follow other scents — deer, pigs, coyotes, bobcats — that may also reside in the woods. Once a rabbit has been spotted, or Sally picks up that the dogs are on the scent, as huntsman she’ll blow the horn and give a good “Tally ho!” cry to the pack. From there, the dogs bay or give out small barks to communicate to the others where they are. The rabbits run in circles near their den or crouch and stay still.

“I’ve seen the dogs jump right over a rabbit standing still,” says Sally.

After a couple of hours walking the woods, it is time to head back to the barn — with or without a rabbit. No one seems to mind the lack of a lucky-footed quarry, least of all the rabbits. The dogs and the humans are both undeniably happy from the morning’s work and the time spent together.

Sally looks at the bassets heading to their kennel and remarks, “You know, it’s not about us. It’s about them.”

Her smile says it all.

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athering for a rabbit hunt is about more than catching a cottontail. For Sally Bickerstaff, her mother, Ann Hughston, and their hunting buddy Carol Whitney, it’s about watching the basset hounds work the scent trail and enjoying an outing on the farm.

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IN THE FIELD Sally Hughston Bickerstaff is animated when she talks about the sport she loves, and her language is peppered with phrases related to her passion. These terms are native to her but bear some explaining to follow along and are all part of rabbit hunting puzzle-solving: • Check – to lose a rabbit • Picking a Check – finding the scent of a lost rabbit • Running Heel – going back on the line of scent • Cold Nose – a dog that does not run as fast as the others on the line • Couples – hunts are often done in groups of hounds, usually 3, 5 or 7 • Whipper-In – the hunters that flank the pack and help keep the group together • Tally Ho – the call a hunter gives when a rabbit has been viewed, alerting the others

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PUSHING FOR CRABS AT LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN Nudged by nostalgia, Corey LaBostrie turns to the old ways of pursuing blue crabs near the shoreline of Louisiana’s splendid estuary.

Story and photos by Keith Lusher

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eelings of nostalgia can be triggered by the simplest things —a familiar song, the scent of fresh-cut grass, or a cluster of cumulus clouds against the bluest skies. For Corey LaBostrie of Lacombe, Louisiana, it’s a mixture of all the senses that causes old memories to come flooding back, accompanied by a longing for days gone by and an appreciation for shared experiences.

Corey grew up fishing the marshes of Lake Pontchartrain. There, he learned a method of catching blue crabs that doesn’t require bait, strings, or traps.

“Sometimes I just sit out here on my tailgate and stare. I can see the cul-de-sac filled with cars and trucks,” Corey says. “Everybody was out there. My friends Pokey, Glen, and Flukum — my brother Al — they were all out there,” Corey says. “You had the guys that were just walking and scooping up crabs. Then, you had the group that would paddle their pirogues and scoop up crabs. And then there were the serious ones who were using the pushers.”

The locals refer to the cul-de-sac Corey speaks of as “the end of the road.” The gravel straightaway of Lake Road stretches about two miles from Hwy 190 in Lacombe and ends with a circular turn-around that protrudes into Lake Pontchartrain. It was where cars were lined up in a mismatched assortment while their occupants took to the water.

This landmark evokes memories of how things once were in Lacombe. Pushing is a style of crabbing Corey was taught as a child.

Today, he wants to pass on the tradition to the younger generation of crabbers and to see them appreciate the simple things in life when you don’t need a fancy outboard to take to the coastline.

“I just don’t see it done anymore, and it’s a shame,” the 55-year-old says. “I can remember people all over here walking the shoreline with their heads down. Sometimes, they’d catch four dozen crabs out here.”

“This thing is a family heirloom and belongs in a museum or something,” Corey laughs at the lightweight fiberglass — easy to maneuver underwater and not the sort of tool that would be found in the hallowed halls of historical collections. Still, it’s an essential device for finding crabs just offshore.

“This technique was taught to me by my elders here in Lacombe when I was growing up,” Corey says. “I remember Mr. Herbert Batiste going all the way from Bayou Lacombe to Goose Point just scooping up crabs.”

Lake Pontchartrain’s shoreline is peppered with Vallisneria patches, known by the local fishing community as eelgrass for its long, ribbon-like strands. It is found in water from a foot to six feet deep. They grow into underwater islands as large as 30 feet in diameter.

“What the crabs do is hide in the grass, and it is nearly impossible to get to them,” Corey says.

“But when I push the crab push across the bottom, it flattens the grass down and exposes them.”

When pushing for crabs, Corey holds the tool’s handle while simultaneously gripping the scoop net. As he moves the makeshift instrument, he watches for crabs that scurry out of the vegetation along the sandy bottom.

“When I spot a crab, I rest the push on my stomach and make an overhand scoop with the net,” he says.

After netting the crab, he tosses it into an ice chest fixed inside his canoe, which he ties around his waist.

THE CRAB PUSH A crab push is a simple tool fashioned to scrape the bottom of the lake.

“Picture a lawnmower handle and turn it upside down,” Corey says.

Often made of lightweight fiberglass, the pushes are shaped in an upside-down “U” shape with a thin blade used to run along the sandy bottom.

Corey’s push is more than 50 years old.

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PA P E R S , BU S T E R S , A N D DOUBLES While the majority of what Corey catches are hard shells, there are times when he comes across what is known as the “filet mignon” of the crab world — the soft-shell crab, which can sell for as much as $60 a dozen. Corey says the great thing about catching crabs in the eelgrass is sometimes you see a few while they are molting. Soft-shell crabs are also called “busters” because their new shell is busting through the old one. At this stage, these crabs are entirely soft and can be deep-fried whole, resulting in a Cajun delicacy.

“These crabs are just waiting to be scooped up, but you don’t see anyone out here walking anymore — everybody is throwing out baited lines or nets and crabbing from the road,” Corey says.

During the molting stage, crabs don’t feed, making them impossible to catch with bait. But they will scurry away from the old-fashioned push, exposing themselves for capture. While it’s rare, there are times when Corey catches “doubles,” a pair of crabs.

“What’s happening here is a hard-shell crab climbs on the back of a soft-shell and completely covers it,” Corey explains. “This is to protect the soft shell, which is incapable of protecting itself while it is soft.”

He also pulls “paper shell” crabs, which have progressed just past the soft-shell stage. While they aren’t as coveted as soft shells, they can be prepared like a buster.

“You can just pop the shell off these and fry them up just like you would a soft shell,” he says.

During summer and fall, crabs grow the fastest and experience frequent molting. This past summer, Southeast Louisiana saw a boom in blue crab numbers. Corey says the chances of catching soft and paper shells will remain high until the cold fronts blow through in late October.

Corey told his niece that he would take her to catch crabs. “She thought we were doing it the traditional way with strings and bait, but I took her straight to the lake and walked her out there,” he says.

Corey started walking with the youngster and pointing out crabs on the bottom.

“She was a little scared at first and walked backward instead of toward the crab but after showing her how to scoop them, she picked it up quickly,” he says.

Now Corey and Nadia walk the shoreline for crabs every time she visits.

Teaching Nadia the same skills he was taught over 40 years ago gives Corey a sense of satisfaction that he’s sharing his history with a new generation. Even if pushing doesn’t see a resurgence, he’ll always treasure the memories of those days when the cul-de-sac was filled with people showing off hampers of crabs they’d gathered by walking the shoreline. He affirms that sometimes, the old ways are still the best.

“There’s plenty of crabs to be scooped up on the sandy bottom outside the eelgrass if you just go looking,” Corey says.

With his passion for the giant estuary of Lake Pontchartrain and preserving traditions of the past, Corey’s crabbing tactics are an inspiration for outdoors folks across the South.

RESTORING TRADITION Corey adheres to the time-honored tradition but realizes revitalizing this way of crab catching is diminishing — that’s why he’s teaching the younger generation that baiting for crabs isn’t the only way to harvest them. His latest student was his niece, Nadia, who came down with her family to visit from Missouri, where they enjoy fresh seafood they don’t find as easily in the north.

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orey LaBostrie is serious about catching — and eating — Lake Pontchartrain’s tasty blue crabs. Using a technique he learned as a child, Corey flushes the crabs from shallow water grasses and scoops them up neatly in a low-tech, warmly remembered tradition. He wants to teach new generations to capture soft shells, busters, and fully armored crabs.

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ichelle Mize started Sun Cookery to share the importance of community, friendship, and the Southern tradition of welcoming others with open hearts and homes.

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Enduring Ethos

Michelle Mize creates Sun Cookery to encourage Southern hospitality, connections, and a rich tapestry of cultural expression.

Story by Cara Clark Photos by Sirena Singleton and Ashton Henry Southern hospitality is deeply ingrained in culture and traditions, embodying a genuine desire to make others feel welcome and at ease. That’s one reason Southerners are known for sharing what they have — a slice of cake, a glass of sweet tea, or bright inspiration.

Entertaining and inspiring are inherent in the soul of Michelle Mize, creator of Sun Cookery and a North Carolina Southerner to the bone.

When she moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with husband Darren 15 years ago, Michelle realized her comfort zone was set differently than that of the friends she met in her new realm. While she had her compass set for a return to the South from the outset — the couple recently moved to Charleston, South Carolina — this hostess went with her heart and carried on traditions she had grown up with, welcoming people to her home.

“In the Midwest, I did those things we do in the South,” she says. “We had margarita parties, taco trucks, and steak and wine nights. We did all the things you do to build community. After a decade of that, we realized people (in that region) didn’t invite people into their space. Instead of being sad about it, I started to think about why it was different.”

As a dynamo combination of thinker and doer, Michelle needed to know more. It catalyzed casual Q&A sessions with groups of women friends and acquaintances.

“I spent about a year hosting different dinners and asking people about entertaining,” she says. “I came up with all sorts of different answers: ‘Well, I’m really busy.’ ‘It’s very exhausting to host.” I just don’t have the right stuff right now.’ ‘My house just doesn’t look right.’

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“These are all real issues that I can appreciate.

I thought, ‘What if I put together the ultimate box with its own personality?’ You would feel like you could create a beautiful space, and it would be easy to have a gathering. It doesn’t have to be a 10-person event. You could have your best friends over or invite new neighbors or colleagues.

You create a groundswell if you have a strong community and invite people in. I’m passionate about authentic hospitality, original food, and

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intentional connections that create thriving communities.”

With the firm belief that community starts in the home, Michelle encourages hosts and hostesses of all ages to open their doors without feeling every detail has to be perfect. The magic is in the moment of coming together, whether over dinner or easy bites and beverages.

With that, she created the first of four boxes, the Foundations Box, which showcases her exuberant enthusiasm, marketing savvy, and charismatic creativity. Each piece of the whole is meticulously curated, expertly assembled, and rich with meaning.

“My goal with Sun Cookery is to encourage people to start hosting again at home,” Michelle says. “The concept of putting everything in a box was based on listening to what women told me was holding them back. And then each box evolved out of a cultural expression of different things that have appealed to me and have always made me feel at home.”

With a magnetic personality that draws people in, making them feel comfortable and welcomed, Michelle is a natural at entertaining. Through her curated boxes, she is giving others the tools to do the same. All the experiences she has collected over time — degrees in entrepreneurship, small business management, and marketing, a Culinary Certificate from Kendall College, and a high-

pressure role in corporate marketing for Fortune 500 companies — have set her up to bring back the lost art of entertaining.

FA M I LY A N D F E L L OW S H I P “Life is funny,” says Michelle, who grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana; Tampa, Florida; and on the Carolina coastline. “We all have chapters in our life, and as I started to pull the boxes together, I realized I was tapping into core memories. I was looking back to how I felt about what was important.”

When she mocked up the first box, pulling together pieces and textures, she was reminded of her paternal grandmother — not for any piece or pattern — but as a reminiscence of the comforting feelings of nurturing and warmth. Both of her grandmothers made simple but memorable touches in the way they cooked, cared for family, or served that Southern essential — sweet tea.

“They didn’t get out their linens, but I always knew how my Grandma Betty’s table in Concord, North Carolina, would be set and what it felt like at the home of my grandmother, Margaret, who lived on the beach in North Carolina. They had their own style. That was a lot of the inspiration behind that first box, and it evolved from there.”

From the outset, Michelle had four boxes in her head: The Foundations Box, which gave

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ichelle Mize, left, began Sun Cookery to share the importance of community, friendship, and the Southern tradition of welcoming others with open hearts and homes. With boxes like Pineapples on the Patio, at left, and Fall into Home, she provides the foundation pieces needed to feel prepared to throw open the doors and invite a guest, or guests, into your space.

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he Fall into Home box includes pieces that create a warm ambiance, including a trinket dish made with an impression from her grandmother’s doily. Pineapples on the Patio brightens a gathering with wooden dishes and pineapple glasses while The Foundations Box gives placemats, tablecloths, napkins, and napkin rings that can be combined with favorite things for a special gathering.

everyone the essentials, classic pieces in neutral tones to make them effortless to mix and match.

Fall into Warmth adds special touches to subtly pull together a party in the cozy spaces of a home.

Pineapples on the Patio salutes a Bahamian getaway’s easy, breezy feeling. Wrapped in Warmth makes hostess gift giving easy — a box filled with ready-wrapped, thoughtful appreciation — it’s easy to grab and go out for a festive gathering.

Inspired by trips to the Bahamian islands of Abacos and Eleuthera, the Pineapples on the Patio box pays tribute to the history of the pineapple as a symbol of hospitality. With bright pops of colors and flavor combined with foundation pieces such as versatile pineapple glasses (or vases or treat holders) and wooden appetizer plates, the idea is to entertain wherever you’re comfortable. If the kids have toys strewn about, open an outdoor space to your guests. It’s not about preparing a full meal; it’s simply coming together.

In her blog, Michelle shares insight about how to add personal pieces to the boxes and the perfect

drink recipes for a seasonal party.

The Fall into Home box feels warm and soulful — and tangerine-colored trinket dishes have a special significance for Michelle. She selected Melissa Reddick of Clay Works in North Carolina to craft the multipurpose handmade bowls, preserving the patterns from her Grandma Betty’s crocheted doilies.

“It reminds me of when I was younger and spent summers in the Carolinas with both sets of my grandparents,” Michelle reflects. “Those times with your grandparents growing up are really special — you have these tender moments. When I was pulling together the Fall into Home box, I knew something was missing — I’d seen Melissa’s stuff and had earmarked her for a concept, but I wasn’t sure what. When I realized something was missing, those dishes found their way into the box.”

The Wrapped in Warmth box also reflects impressions left by her maternal grandmother, Grandma Margaret. It’s a way to help people be

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I t d o e s n’ t n e e d t o b e a n ove r- t h e - t o p d i n n e r o r c o c k t a i l h o u r, b u t j u s t t h o s e m o m e n t s wh e n yo u r f r i e n d s t o p s by t o t a l k , a n d yo u n e e d t o o p e n a b o t t l e o f w i n e, p u t o u t s o m e t h i n g s a l t y, a n d h ave t h at d e e p c o nve r s at i o n . great guests.

“Y’all don’t show up empty-handed, but also don’t show up with a bottle of wine that you picked up on your way,” Michelle says humorously. “This box helps you feel like you put some thought into it.

My Grandma Margaret always had a gift drawer to keep things from when we were out and about and saw something cute. My mom did the same thing.

They would say they didn’t know who it was for, but, ‘Oh, we’ll just put it in my gift drawer.’”

During summers with her Grandma Betty, Michelle recalls how it felt to be “wrapped in warmth,” waking to the aroma of frying bacon.

Her grandmother would savor a cup of coffee at the breakfast table while writing a list — not her own agenda for the day but with care for others.

“It was usually a list of who we would drop off tomatoes to or who was getting a cake,” Michelle says. “That was how she thought about her day.

I’m generalizing, but I feel the world doesn’t wake up anymore and think of others. The first thing we think of is our needs and our calendars. I feel like thinking of others is part of being hospitable. Let’s wake up and think about, ‘What does that neighbor need?’ We’re so laser-focused on our calendars that we’ve forgotten to look out for each other. I want that to be part of what Sun Cookery is saying: ‘Stop by and let’s chat.’”

when Michelle’s past comes into perspective.

“I have all of my old Martha Stewart magazines,” Michelle confesses. “At one point, I’ve cut them all apart and refiled them by good things, home décor, and seasons. These are old — really old. Her early content was so original — that was before Pinterest, and I love that people get inspired and put their riffs on things. But I remember when I first saw Martha Stewart magazines, it was more photo journalistic in nature. That creatively really left a mark on my brain.

I knew I had this knack for seeing things and pulling them together — it was a monumental moment when I saw that first Martha Stewart magazine.”

Michelle encourages people to examine what they already have and look for decorative elements and heirlooms in their homes to contribute personal flair to accompany the painstakingly curated pieces in her first four boxes.

“I have always enjoyed the ideation of bringing people together and bringing ideas to life and standing back and watching it,” Michelle says. “I love seeing how people have their take on these boxes that mean so much to me. My next step is creating videos to show people how to shop their house and pull their pieces together with what they have in the boxes. One person plans to pass around a box in her book club, and they’ll see how differently everyone sets them up.

Things like that make me so happy.”

OPENING THE DOOR Michelle remembers cooking with her grandmothers when she was young. Already her passion for entertaining was evident. It was a highlight of her day to set the table and add her own personal touches to her grandmother’s dishes and cutlery — a point of humor among family members.

Michelle was in her element as she earnestly dashed around the house, finding this or that piece to add to the tablescape.

If hydrangeas were blooming in the yard, she was cutting the blooms and arranging them with “random foliage” in a receptacle of some sort to add decor to the table. Sun Cookery makes so much sense

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Saturday . October 12 . 2024

.

© MARY LEE BENDOLPH

Gee’s Bend Welcome Center Boykin, AL 36723

Join the Gee’s Bend community in this annual celebration of its generations-old quiltmaking tradition WORKSHOPS

FOOD & MUSIC

EXHIBITIONS

QUILT SALES & DISPLAYS

organizing sponsors

scan to learn more or visit airingofthequilts.org

GUIDED TOURS

launch

WITHOUT LIMITS A mother-daughter duo is redefining and customizing fashion with Brakefields.

Story by Lauren Finney Harden It happens infrequently these days — a meeting with someone, chance or otherwise, in which one can observe true goodness shining — as evident as a brightly colored top or elegantly styled chignon — and so much a part of the person that it is the characteristic most remembered when walking away from such an encounter. Rarer still is it to meet two such people, as is the case with daughter and mother Mary Cayten Brakefield and Stephanie Brakefield.

The two lifelong sewers together are beautiful inside and out and set about helping others to feel the same with their fashion line.

“My mom taught me how to sew when I was about 6, and my grandmother taught her at about the same age,” says Mary Cayten. “I come from a family of seamstresses. We’ve both spent our lives with a love for design and sewing for our friends and family.”

While the idea of starting a label together at some point always brewed in the back of the pair’s mind, they both had priorities: For Mary Cayten to grow up and attend college and for Stephanie to care for her children.

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utline

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Mary Cayten, a student-athlete, always wanted to merge her love of fashion with comfort. Her attention was captured by those with more complex clothing needs. While in college at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, she was on the swim team and worked with many athletes with disabilities through a university leadership program.

“I was struggling to find pieces that overlapped between the two,” she says. “When these athletes heard I was a retail major, they’d immediately launch into how frustrating it was to find clothing that worked for their bodies.”

Supportive but unsure how to solve their problems, Mary Cayten got an upfront seat about how frustrating it can be for some athletes to find clothing. “It was eye-opening — there was an entire group of customers that didn’t have a lot of options,” she says.

Not long after these conversations, Mary Cayten was diagnosed with Ehler-Danlos

Syndrome, a genetic connective tissue disease with comorbidities ranging from nervous system malfunctions such as dysautonomia and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). The diagnosis made her rethink everything, including how accessible her own clothing was.

“It got a lot more personal all of a sudden, and I learned more and more about what it looks like to design accessibly,” she says.

Then the pandemic hit, and like many, mother and daughter were brought together for the lockdown.

“Mary Cayten was supposed to come home for two weeks and ended up being here two years,” says Stephanie.

They finally decided to create a brand together and combined forces to interview people with disabilities worldwide to hone in on what their designs could and should be. As a fashion design lover and special education teacher, Stephanie was

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he Brakefields team custom makes their styles for the perfect fit — no more worrying about hemming or being in high water with these lovely garments.

Color combinations change with each season, though classics such as true navy never rotate out of a wardrobe. Beautiful button accents and easy access pockets complete the garments. www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

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positioned to understand both the problem and the solution simultaneously.

“Teaching special education taught me to solve problems,” she says. “I learned quickly it’s not the person who has the problem, it’s what they’re dealing with, and things need to be adapted.”

Brakefields, the line they founded in 2022, is the manifestation of a goal of making fashion more functional for everyone, not just those with disabilities. Some Brakefields’ customers have adaptive needs across the board, from breastfeeding to ports to pelvic disorders.

“We believe that designing for disabilities just means better clothes for everybody,” says Stephanie. “Designing more inclusively and thoughtfully means everybody wins. We’ve found that all women want more comfortable, greatlooking clothing regardless of size, style, abilities, or stage of life.”

They’re naturally inspired by their customers, who share a myriad of needs. They might want to run to the park with grandchildren, head to lunch with friends, or host a book club, and they want to look and feel great, no matter the activity. The designers have also learned many are entrepreneurs themselves.

“Our customers are vibrant, energetic, and have a wide range of interests,” says Stephanie.

“They are mothers, sisters, and friends who are physically and socially active. They want clothes and accessories that are polished but comfortable and fun.”

Supporting social good is equally important to their customers, who like that they think about accessibility and use small-batch manufacturers.

Whether for women with disabilities or not, Brakefields now includes adaptable details such as no-closure garments that pull on rather than zipping or buttoning. Everything has excellent stretch and return, and comes in prints that cover a multitude of stains and spills, whether it be sweat, drool, or breastmilk.

This season, they’re most excited about the Yesi pants.

“We’ve been working on this pant for a very long time,” says Mary Cayten.

Based on a design Stephanie made for herself several years ago, they’re knit, wide-leg pants with a fully concealed elastic waistband.

O u r c u s t o m e r s a re v i b r a n t , e n e r g e t i c, a n d h ave a w i d e r a n g e o f i n t e re s t s. T h e y wa n t cl o t h e s a n d a c c e s s o r i e s t h a t a re p o l i s h e d bu t c o m fo r t abl e a n d f u n .

“They’re meant to replace a pair of leggings or joggers or sweatpants so you can look fabulous and elevated,” she says. “They have details you’d see in woven pants but translated into knit garments, so they’re as comfortable as they are fabulous.”

The Yesi comes in a variety of prints in deadstock fabrics and is made on-demand, meaning there’s no production waste. It also means that the customer has control over everything.

“Our customizations are optional,” explains Mary Cayten. “Someone can choose to add an insulin pocket, pull loops in the waist to pull them on more easily, or have them in an extended height and size range, going all the way from XXXS to a 6X.” There’s also the Julie, an iteration of the pant that has an angled welt pocket and decorative, sailor-inspired buttons, and Joy, one that has decorative buttons down the front. Also of note are the brand’s accessories, which the duo says speak to the spirit of the company. That includes scarves in prints they designed, statement earrings, slippers, and a popular fashion sash.

It’s been a mission accomplished for the pair, solving the adaptability issue as well as creating fashionable, stylish pieces.

“The inspiration came from a place of functionality and accessibility, but what we’re most excited about is that we’re able to serve everyone,” says Mary Cayten. “It’s not just an adaptive brand; it’s one where everyone can shop together and enjoy the benefit of functional fashion. You no longer have to choose between style and comfort.”

Find their designs at shopbrakefields.com.

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ETERNAL

OPTIMIST Chef Ford Fry’s expertise extends beyond food to branding savvy that launched an empire.

Story by Cara Clark, Photos by Morgan Duke and Andrew Thomas Lee

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hef Ford Fry has a knack — and not the obvious one. His ability to craft flavorful dishes that linger in the mind, creating the yearning to experience them once again is the primary ingredient in a recipe for restaurant success. But composing an exemplary culinary experience and building brands through Rocket Farm Restaurants means adding a pinch of heart, a dash of inspiration, and a soupçon of the incorporeal.

Ford has a sixth sense of what works — the intangible “it” factor that makes all the difference in a successful establishment. He can go all-in, studying and honing his craft from the front of house to the pass to the checkbook. And less is more — in a thoughtfully crafted recipe and in life’s journey.

The most satisfying part of composing perfection on a plate or building an empire of more than 20

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restaurants is feeling that he’s developed with each experience.

“I’ve grown in my career — when I created this, it had so few ingredients, but it’s still what I would call perfect,” Ford says. “It doesn’t have anything added to it that it doesn’t need, just like you don’t add too much to the dish. And it looks beautiful. Sometimes, we get caught up in doing things to make the plate look a little bit better, but it’s very challenging to use a few ingredients — just three ingredients to make a dish that tastes beautiful. It’s satisfying to embrace simple food that tastes really good.”

Ford, a native of Houston, Texas, has cooked all over, but he settled in Atlanta, Georgia, and put down roots with his first restaurant — JCT Kitchen.

He now owns 27 restaurants, including Little Rey, St. Cecilia, BeetleCat, no. 246, Marcel, The Optimist,

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Little Sparrow, and Bar Blanc, all in metro Atlanta; State of Grace, La Lucha, and newly opened Little Rey in Houston; Superica with six metro Atlanta locations, Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, locations, a Houston location one in Winter Park, Florida, and one in Nashville, Tennessee; and The Optimist, Le Loup, and Star Rover Sound in Nashville.

When he moved to Atlanta in 2007 to be a corporate chef, Ford noticed a different approach to dining out — more high-end elegance than the chef-run, casual places he knew so well. He wanted to bring a bit of Texas inspiration to the ATL, combining the best ingredients in a more laid-back atmosphere.

“Texas was always about wood cooking,” Fry says. “When you walked into a restaurant and smelled burning wood, you knew they cared about what they were doing because they were using some wood fire — whether it’s a grill or smoker. In every restaurant we own, we have wood cooking.

So that’s been the common denominator in everything.”

Another correlation among Ford’s establishments is the aim of drawing family and

friends close over shared experiences in any environment he shapes. Concepts range from vibrant to subdued, elegant to easy with a feeling of approachability. That accessibility reflects Ford’s demeanor — a down-to-earth guy doing his job. It’s the operational scale that sets him apart.

With each new restaurant, a new chapter in his book of life. Ford says graphic design and branding expert Alvin Diec of Atlanta has helped bring some of his most fantastic ideas to life, beginning with the 2011 launch of no. 246, an Italian spot just outside the ATL. The two put their minds together to conceptualize the restaurant and knew it was a successful pairing, like a fine wine accompanying a dish.

L AU N C H I N G A C O N C E P T When Ford was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, his grandparents and parents enjoyed taking him and his sisters on trips — not just to enjoy the sights or tour museums, but to sample the flavors of a particular place.

“I learned to love the experience of eating in a restaurant,” Ford recalls. “I loved the food, and I

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was intrigued by different experiences. I think that’s where my love of food came from.”

During one such experience at La Tour d’Argent in Paris, France, young Ford was fascinated by the restaurant’s famed pressed duck.

“They would press all of the juices from the duck to make the sauce, then give you a little tag number for the duck. You can walk away with that, and I remember when we were there, my family thought it was so interesting that this little kid would order something like duck instead of chicken fingers. That’s just one of my memories. I have a ton.”

His family always gathered with great food for the holidays, but the experience of dining out and sampling different restaurant fare stayed with Ford. He worked in restaurants for summer jobs — busboy, server — but never in the kitchen.

“I didn’t think being a chef was a cool thing,” he says. “I thought the restaurant manager was cool as the front-of-house person. But I was a horrible busboy and a horrible server.”

Having decided the restaurant business wasn’t for him, Ford decided to go to college, major in business, join a fraternity, and, like most people his age, wait for life’s big plan to shape itself.

But something about being a businessman wasn’t igniting his interest.

“I’m the type of person that if I’m not interested in something, I don’t apply myself,” Ford reflects. “If I am, then I go full on and do it 110 percent.

My mom and dad had noticed that I was interested in cooking — if we fished or hunted, I always wanted to cook whatever we caught or shot.”

So, Ford looked into cooking school and settled on the New England Culinary School in Vermont, in part for the appeal of the outdoors and skiing. When he started classes, he knew he was on the right track.

“Many people start culinary school and realize they don’t want to do anything like that,” Ford says. “But with me, it definitely clicked. I was a hands-on learner, and I loved it.”

SAILING TO SUCCESS Ford says he wasn’t quick to leap into a position of sole owner in the restaurant world — he wanted a partner in a venture.

“I wanted someone to hold my hand, figuratively,” he says. “I thought I needed a financial partner, but my family would argue the point with me and say I didn’t need that. So, when I started JCT, my goal was to dive in and know every aspect of the business. I cut the checks, I looked at the P&L statements, I worked with accountants … I was there in the window in the kitchen watching every single plate go out. I didn’t just want to succeed; I didn’t want to fail. So I just dove in.”

It was a committed plunge. Ford’s first year was an intensive immersion in the restaurant industry.

“I was testing things like advertising — I was finding out what moves the needle in a restaurant and what makes it work. After four years of doing that, I got pretty solid.”

With money coming in, Ford was inspired to do more — the dreamer in him, a quality inherited from his mother, pushed the pragmatist.

“I was honestly going on a spree of opening restaurants,” Ford says. “It was just fun.”

Choosing the names and identifying the personalities of the restaurants was a formidable challenge because Ford wanted each to have significance

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to him. That also has proven one of his strengths as a restauranteur.

“It’s like naming a child,” he says. “When we named our kids, we didn’t tell our friends or family what we were thinking about because we didn’t want them to say anything to ruin it (and the same concept applied to restaurants). Alvin, our graphic design guy, and I love humor. I would come up with a pitch book of what it looks like and the vibe of the restaurant.”

He cites his seafood restaurant, which creates a seaside fish camp experience, to demonstrate how a name should hold more profound significance.

“The Optimist is a type of boat (a sailing dinghy), but not too many people know that,” Ford explains. “And it has another meaning because I’m an optimistic person.”

If Ford sits with the name, savoring it like fine wine, he’ll usually know within a few months if it’s the right fit for a restaurant. It’s a commitment — an identity the restaurant will carry for a lifetime. Just as he takes that seriously, Ford can’t choose a favorite among his creations.

“They all speak to a different need in each neighborhood,” Ford explains. “We’ve always designed the restaurants based on the location.

We visit a location and decide what we want to do, what we are passionate about cooking, and what the neighborhood would really embrace. It has to have those elements.”

If pressed to name a favorite among his many concepts, he might choose The Optimist, which struck a chord with him and the patrons — it’s an instance of putting the perfect garnish on the impeccably composed dish.

As for menu items he craves, the top-of-the-list might be the tacos at Little Rey, a laid-back, counter-service spot with Tex-Mex cuisine.

“I’m very casual, and I love that we’ve created this little secret menu — kind of like an In and Out Burger,” Ford says. “Those tacos are my current craving. It reminds me of a little food truck outside the bars of Mexico City that made tacos with grated cheese put straight on top of the grill so that it melts and forms a bubbly crust. You put that inside the tortilla with your meat and salsa. It has this toasted cheese that’s soft and chewy at the same time, and it is just so amazing. That’s my go-to passion right now.”

Ford cooks at home for special occasions. Thanksgiving is a busman’s holiday — he always gets roped into working the kitchen. But he has fun with that, too.

“I love cooking for the holidays,” he says. “What I do in the kitchen depends on which side of the family we’re with. But I’ve figured this out.”

Ford has cracked the code for turkey prep and does it the way he does other things — on a large scale and with utter conviction.

He makes one smoked turkey for the Thanksgiving table. The other he roasts largely for post-holiday leftovers.

“You have to have enough turkey for a couple of days,” he says. “The one in the roasting bag puts off a ton of juice — liquid gold juice that I turn into the gravy. So, I get the gravy and the sandwich meat left over. You don’t want to run out of turkey during Thanksgiving.”

Ford also makes his mom’s cornbread stuffing and his grandmother’s pineapple dressing, an unconventional blend of white bread and apple custard. When mixed with gravy, this sweet and savory concoction takes on even more personality. “People think, OK, that’s pretty crazy, but when you grow up eating it, it’s just yummy.”

Little Ray is one of Chef Ford Fry’s popular restaurants with a Tex-Mex flair. www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

Fry is the author of the cookbook Tex Mex, available at www.fordfry.com/book

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H O L I DAY T U R K EY Ford says, “Before I dive into recipes, this is what I look forward to every Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is so important for me to have fantastic turkey for the immediate meal itself, plus an abundance of turkey, stuffing, and gravy leftover for the next three days.

“First of all, turkeys need to go in a brine for at least two days. I always make 2 turkeys: one for smoking (holiday meal itself) and one cooked in an oven bag (for leftover sandwiches and juice to make gravy).”

Brine for 2 turkeys: 2 gal water 2 cups kosher salt ½ cup sugar Instructions: Boil 1 gallon of water with the salt and sugar until fully dissolved. Add the remaining gallon of cold water to the salt water mixture to cool it down.

Submerge the 2 turkeys in the brine for 2 days. I do it in a Yeti cooler with bags of ice that are sealed so that they will not water down the brine yet keep turkeys cold. You can also brine them individually in large oven bags but be careful not to let them slip out of your hands and all over the floor!

This has happened to me!

Cook one turkey as you normally would. I smoke mine in a Big Green Egg. At least cook one in a clear oven bag. By doing this, you will see the turkey gives off so much “liquid gold” (real turkey broth) to make your gravy. If you like oven roasted turkey for your main meal turkey, do both in the oven bag.

More “liquid gold” for your stuffing! Note: the turkey does cook way faster in the bags so keep an eye on it so you don’t overcook it. I’d take the turkey out of the oven at 145-150 degrees and let it sit in the bag unopened until it reaches 160 degrees in the deep part of the thigh and deep part of the breast.

“ T RU S T M E I T ’ S Y U M M Y ” P I N EA P P L E D R E S S I N G Feeds 6 to 8 Ingredients: 1 large can of crushed pineapple 1 stick unsalted butter 1 cup sugar 4 eggs 5 slices “wonder bread” (crust removed and cubed) Pinch of kosher salt Method: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 2 qt casserole dish with some of the butter.

Cream the butter, sugar, and pinch of kosher salt in a mixer. Drop in eggs one at a time. Fold in pineapple and bread cubes. Place in a greased casserole dish and bake for roughly an hour or until lightly browned.

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LIVING COLOR

A Little Rock artist exchanges architecture for art, illustrating nature through impressionistic scenes.

Story by Bryan Hendricks

O

n a slow day in a deer stand, some hunters read books, some play on social media, and some nap. James Patrick Matthews of Little Rock, Arkansas,

paints.

It dates back to a November day when deer weren’t moving while Pat was hunting in Southeast Arkansas. There was no game, but the hunter wanted to capture the morning’s glory on canvas.

Paintbrushes are not part of most hunters’ gear bags, so naturally, Pat was not prepared for this sudden burst of inspiration.

Instead, Pat painted with his knife. It was an ordinary Milwaukee pocketknife from Home Depot, artfully repurposed.

“You can paint with anything,” says Pat. “I’ve had several orders for pocketknife paintings. I signed the pocketknife and included it with the painting.”

Nowadays, Matthews goes on painting “safaris.”

His four-wheeler is a mobile art studio equipped with custom storage containers for paints, brushes, and other accouterments, including his easel and canvases. If he sees something that catches his artist’s eye, he unfurls his “safari studio” on the spot.

Pat, an avid hunter and angler, has always been passionate about painting outdoor scenes and

P

at Mathews turned in his architectural drafting table for an easel when he realized painting was his passion. He paints landscapes, hunting properties, and wildlife, all of which began while waiting in a treestand. His impressionistic paintings bring outdoor scenes into vivid focus through use of color and his specialized application of oils.

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landscapes. Arkansas has an uncommon diversity of landscapes, and his pursuit of game and fish around the Natural State gives him unlimited perspectives.

“Arkansas has these cypress and tupelo forests and rice fields,” Pat says. “We have the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets.”

One of his specialties is painting prized hunting spots for his clients.

“A friend sent me a photo of a rice field with the sun going down, and I painted it,” Pat says. “Another friend owns a big Tupelo hole. I hunted it with him and have since painted several works of that exact place. Since then, I’ve been commissioned to paint a lot of people’s hunting spots.”

These paintings, Pat says, allow him to share his appreciation for the beauty of his native state.

“I love Arkansas,” Pat says. “I’ve lived all over the country, and Arkansas is awesome. People talk about wanting to go to Colorado to go fishing, and I’m like, ‘Seriously? With the fishing we have here, and you want to go to Colorado to catch five or six little bitty trout?’”

Pat’s talent was evident in high school as he made remarkable pencil-and-ink drawings of eagles, www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

falcons and other birds of prey with minute and intricate detail of the feathers and the intensity of the eyes. After graduating Little Rock Central High School, Pat earned a degree in architecture in 1987 from the University of Arizona, was named the top designer in his class, and returned to Arkansas to start his own architecture firm.

In the mid-1990s, Pat saw the work of another artist, Barry Thomas, in a Little Rock gallery. It was then that he worked out a trade to learn how to paint, doing architectural designs for Barry in exchange for lessons.

For three years, Pat drew blueprints by day and painted at night. Restless and unfulfilled, he consulted a life coach for advice on how to deal with his yearning to quit architecture and devote his time to painting.

“Quit talking about it and just do it,” advised the life coach.

“I can’t quit,” Pat protested. “I’m working on six jobs! I’ll get sued.”

“She said, ‘Pat, it’s your life. You can do anything you want to do,’” Pat recalls. “‘You created your situation, and you can change it just as fast.’”

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Pat thought it couldn’t possibly be so easy to pivot from a career to pursue a dream. Important things like that involve a process.

Pat says he put the coach on hold, called one of his clients, and asked if it would be acceptable to quit his project and turn it over to someone else.

“Sure, no problem,” was the reply.

Client after client gave him the same reply. They wanted an architect’s product and weren’t particular about who drew up the blueprint.

Pat says he quit all six jobs that night. It was too easy. He was disposable, and he said that hurt his pride, but it also convinced him he’d done the right thing.

“Nobody cared. I wasn’t anything to them,” Pat says. “People need to hire an architect, but nobody needs to buy my paintings.”

People buy paintings because they want them rather than need them, and art patrons emotionally bond with their favorite artists.

“Everybody I meet is happy,” Pat says. Those meetings began at his first show in 2002 when he sold his entire inventory of 48 paintings in one night. Nine months later, he sold out his second show.

In 2003, he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and was soon ensconced in one of the picturesque city’s top galleries. With his reputation well-established, he moved back to Little Rock in 2008. Life continued to get sweeter when he married a fellow artist, Tracee Gentry Matthews, in 2011 He cites another influence on his life and art:

Gary Keller, founder of Keller-Williams Realty Inc. He is one of Pat’s mentors and benefactors, who encouraged Pat to share his story on a broader scale and inspired others to follow their hearts. Gary facilitates public events where the artist paints and has spoken onstage to as many as 10,000 people.

Pat is most famous for his impressionistic flag paintings, “American Pride” and “American Pride II.” Lithographic prints of the American flag art hang in almost every office building in Little Rock, including the State Capitol building.

The painter created “American Pride” in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, to memorialize those killed in the attacks and the loved ones they left behind.

Pat reproduced 1,000 limited edition lithograph prints of “American Pride” and “American Pride II,” all signed and numbered. Proceeds from the sale of these prints are in a fund for the Fire Department of New York City. He presented the original “American Pride,” 100 lithograph prints, and a check to Engine 4, Ladder Company 54, Battalion 9, which is stationed at 782 Eighth Avenue, New York City. That station lost 15 men on 9/11.

With hands that once drafted buildings, Pat is now capturing moments and memories whether raising funds for a cause close to his heart or painting nature. Through his art, he captures a sense of place on canvas, interpreting the atmosphere, the serenity, and the timelessness that the landscape evokes.

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Sequestered by the Sea: The Cloister’s Golden Isle appeal Story by Cara Clark Old oaks stretch their arms low and wide, seemingly welcoming those who travel to Sea Island, Georgia, for a sojourn by the shore. Like the Spanish explorers who sailed into mystery and found land four centuries ago, visitors are soothed by the sounds of the Atlantic’s waves, sweeping to Georgia’s shores on nutrient-rich tides, casting shells and sand dollars along the shores and surging into the marshes surrounding the island.

Set among the Spanish moss-draped oaks and hardy palms, The Cloister resort brings an Old World ambiance to the ageless island — Spanish Mediterranean architecture stretches from inland waterways to the ocean, where packed golden sand meets foaming surges of surf. The resort’s exposed beams and stucco walls seem hewn in a European past. Still, the resort, a retreat for heads of state and honeymooners for decades, expanded in 2006, respecting the original 1928 design but adding guest rooms, a ballroom, and meeting spaces to usher in a new era.

The resort’s design is a mark of respect for the region’s rich history, incorporating elegant details such as wrought-iron railings, marble floors, and antique furnishings, all in keeping with the original design by acclaimed architect Addison Mizner. It is a hotel that sees generations of families return to experience the atmosphere and character of the settlement on this five-milelong island.

So aptly named, The Cloister exudes the ambiance of an exclusive escape where guests are pampered and indulged. A colonnade aligns with flourishing gardens and water features along the pathway traversing the main resort building. At

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one end, guests gather in the solarium, home of colorful love bird pairs, for morning coffee and pastries or for afternoon tea and hot chocolate.

The Cloister’s dining venues cater to various tastes, from haute cuisine to fresh seafood and locally sourced ingredients. The resort has an

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abundance of unique experiences around every corner. For instance, those dining at The Lodge enjoy a traditional Scottish sunset serenade performed by a bagpiper to mark the day’s end at the Sea Island Golf Club. The concierge team is adept at crafting bespoke experiences tailored to individual preferences throughout the property, ensuring that each guest’s stay is as unique as they are. From horseback riding on the beach to hawking in the marshes and paddleboarding in the bay, the experiences are as varied as the tastes of each explorer.

At the beach club, the casual vibe invites

guests to chill and enjoy the shore, where beachcombing yields treasured finds — oyster shells, pieces of coral, wing-like mollusk shells — each a unique artifact of the ocean’s artistry. These natural wonders, worn smooth by the ceaseless cycling of the tides, offer a glimpse into the rich wonders of marine life and a remembrance of a lovely retreat.

Stunning accommodations and exclusive experiences make The Cloister a haven for those seeking the ultimate retreat from the ordinary.

Whether you’re looking to unwind in sublime comfort or embark on a journey of discovery,

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SOUND OF A CITY

The ‘Songbird of New Orleans’ has made a mark on her hometown and in the music world.

Story by Lee Hurley Oh, to be born and raised in New Orleans. That American treasure is where one begs forgiveness, not permission, jazz parades through the Quarter, the homes are shotguns, and K & B Gin meets Cajun gumbo. New Orleans is itself a gumbo or jambalaya, a spicy mixture of art, food, and music. And so sets the stage for born and raised Robin Marie Barnes whose musical career began at age 6 in the church choir.

“The first mass after my mom made me join (yes, she made me), I was given a solo in ‘Ave Maria.’ I closed my eyes and sang my heart out, and when I opened them, I only looked at my mother,” Robin says. “She was crying along with the rest of the congregation.”

It didn’t hurt that her dad and namesake, Robino Barnes, is a well-known and respected bassist who taught his daughter to appreciate the roots of jazz and blues. Yet before music became a thing, there were other things.

Robin was a collegiate-bound scholarship golfer, number one in the state, and planning to turn pro one day.

Then Katrina happened. Pivot. Once allowed back in the city, Robin instead helped rebuild her parents’ home, got an undergrad degree from UNO (University of New Orleans) in business, and then a master’s degree.

Music was a plan, but not necessarily the plan, yet destiny called. Robin earned the nickname “Songbird of New Orleans” for her sweet, soulful voice. She sang her jazz

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originals and standards and later performed R&B with her husband, guitarist, and bassist Pat Casey in a duo called Da Lovebirds. And then there’s The Fiya Birds (Fiya means fire, passion), her sextet funky jazz band, which is described as “Ella Fitzgerald meets Chaka Khan.”

During a musical residency at the famed Windsor Hotel in her early career, Robin saw and was seen by other high-caliber musicians.

“I met so many amazing visitors. I mean, I performed in front of Rod Stewart and Eddie Vedder,” she says. “If that doesn’t give you confidence to keep doing what you’re doing, I don’t know what can.”

Growing up in the Lower Ninth Ward shaped her young life and ambition. Most of the people she knew had a side hustle before the term came into vogue, and it taught her to work hard and smart.

“I think that area gets a bad rap but I don’t think I would be the entrepreneur I am today if I didn’t grow up there,” Robin says. “My grandfather was a skilled brick mason, and my grandmother became a special needs educator. My next-door neighbor, Mr. Loomis, was the postman, but he also cut hair. Across the street, Ms. Rose was the school bus driver, but she sold frozen cups in the summer.”

Robin has been called an ambassador of New Orleans for her promotion of the Crescent City, sought out by the hip, the famous, and those in the know for her joyous energy. Today, Robin and Pat have two young daughters, Riley and Parker, and have a very active career performing, touring, recording, and doing other heart-fulfilling activities.

The songbird is also the founder of Move Ya Brass, a movement for community fitness inspired by her epiphany about the need for self-care.

She remembers, “I came back from a tour in Greece with a serious health issue, and my doctor was like, ‘You need to get involved in more cardio.’

I tried to look for affordable fitness because I was a full-time musician and didn’t have insurance. My mom came into my room one day, and she opened the curtains and said, ‘Girl, you better get off your ass and move ya brass!’

“I thought that was such a clever saying that I made a Facebook post and asked if any-one wanted to run or walk with me at City Park,” she says. “Ten people I never met in my life showed up.”

Move Ya Brass is now 11 years old and offers community fitness, a run-walk group, and dance cardio called Voucher Brass. The movement also encourages yoga.

A pivotal moment in Robin’s life was meeting her husband, Pat Casey, an accomplished bassist and guitarist.

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“I went to rehearse with another band,” Robin says. “I’m walking in the house, and Pat had his upright bass, and he’s walking out. He looks up, and he has this amazing smile. I was like, ‘Oh my God, who’s that?’ This guy said Pat’s name was Bob. So, for four years, I’ve been looking for a bass player named Bob. “One day, my piano player said, ‘I know one of the best bass players in the South; his name is Pat Casey.’

Remember, I’ve been looking for a guy named Bob. Then Pat walks in, and it was like, wow, and I said ‘So, what are you doing the rest of your life?’ And he goes, ‘I guess playing bass with you.’”

The two have been on a musical journey that spans genres and experiences. Robin’s voice is powerful, and her presence is electric. In some performances, she moves from the stage to mingle with audience members, singing a line to one person and a refrain to another. Her attire can be elegant and subdued or flamboyant and fiery.

“If you’re not familiar with all my music, it gets complicated,” she says. “There’s so many Robins. So now it’s time to introduce just Robin. This past Jazz Fest, I actually premiered my latest music, if you will. I didn’t want anyone to know. I just wanted to perform my songs to just really get that authentic reaction from the crowd and from my fans, and it went off amazing. Next I’ll be dropping singles all year long.”

To learn more, visit robinbarnesmusic.com.

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CONVIVIALITY & CROQUET: A MATCHED SET

A croquet match, rich in tradition and strategic finesse, is a captivating display of skill and sportsmanship.

Story by Cara Clark Photos by Tristan Cairns Southerners tend to be serious about guidelines for etiquette — from table manners to fashion choices. Wearing white after Labor Day is simply not done, with only the rarest exceptions. The croquet field is one such departure — traditional, crisp white attire dates back to the sport’s European origins, and to borrow the British parlance, competitors look smashing when they take up the mallet to whack brightly striped balls through the wickets.

When fall temperatures feel more hospitable, croquet weekends can fill the social gap caused when away games deprive fans of tailgate parties.

In Eufaula, Alabama, the local croquet club has assembled a squad that brings in outside competition, recently hosting North Carolinians for lively competition on the well-manicured green lawn at the Eufaula Country Club.

When Terry and Claire Honan of Eufaula took up the sport while staying at their second home in the mountains of Lake Toxaway, North Carolina, they were instantly enamored. Terry said croquet

was ubiquitous in the mountains with numerous clubs. When the world went into lockdown for Covid, the couple intensified their play — it was a safe way to socialize while social distancing on a wide-open expanse of turf.

“I had played what’s known as backyard croquet as a boy, as many do in the South, but I learned there’s almost no comparison between backyard croquet and the croquet we play now,” Honan says.

“It’s actually called ‘professional croquet’ at the club level.”

After returning to their hometown for the winter, the Honans wanted to introduce the sport to the area.

When Terry talked to the Eufaula Country Club board about repurposing the former clay tennis court — long out of use and graveled for extra parking — the idea was met with some skepticism. Deciding to donate the first court, Terry spearheaded the drive to bring the sport to the club, which dates back to 1916 in the historic lakeside town.

“I thought if no one else wanted to play, Claire and I would have our own private court, and that would be fine,” Terry says with remembered humor. “I thought we would just play the whole time we were in Eufaula in the winter.”

The croquet court was playable in July 2021, and the Honans began inviting friends to learn the game.

They brought a host of ideas — a fee for members to play croquet to make it sustainable for the country club, Wine and Wickets on Wednesdays, and special Sunday play. Lights from the former tennis site mean Eufaula now has the only lighted croquet field in the state, making evening play possible.

“Lo and behold, in two months, we had 56 members who signed up for the croquet club,” Terry says. ‘It turned out to be tremendously popular.

People were lining up to play — especially for Wine and Wickets.”

Before long, the club added a second court and a pavilion for players and spectators. Dedicated members make a weekend of play, cocktail parties, and dinners.

“One of the things I like most about it is that I can play with my wife, and that’s fun,” Honan says.

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ristine white brings an elegance to a fall afternoon when players pit their wits and skills with the mallet against one another. They’re also quick to share advice on the way to take a particular shot in this game of light-hearted rivalry. Bob Hamilton looks on as Sherm Rounsville gauges the best strategy for his shot. www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

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“The other thing is that it’s a very social game. You visit with each other and talk. The other thing I like is that it’s a game that requires a lot of skill and concentration and a lot of strategy. The more you play, the better you get. We’ve got so many players now in Eufaula who are really good croquet players.

They’re competitive. Any number of people could win a tournament because everyone’s play has gotten so much better. You can spend a lot of time developing your skills, learning the game, and learning the strokes.”

One of the sport’s many appeals is accessibility — folks from kids to octogenarians can successfully contend at a high level, playing offensively, defensively, or both.

“Men and women can play equally well,” Terry says. “It’s a great game for couples to play. It’s great for older people who can’t play tennis anymore or don’t golf for health reasons or bad knees. Whatever the case, everyone can enjoy croquet.”

While it’s all in good fun, conviviality sometimes gives way to strategy. Each player takes their turn with focused precision, aiming to navigate their ball through the wickets while blocking their opponents’ progress.

“I never realized how strategic the game was until I started playing,” says Leckie Maddox III, a Eufaula club member who took up the sport two years ago.

“Sometimes we just go out to have fun and visit with friends. Other times, it can get intense. There’s a lot of strategy that goes into a match.”

Leckie theorizes it’s not always the best player who prevails when fate and chance take a role. A ball may find a divot, or an opponent may deliberately knock a ball out of range of a wicket — a chess-like move to topple a player’s odds for a checkmate. The atmosphere is one of quiet concentration, punctuated by moments of strategic brilliance and gentle camaraderie.

“When a person’s ball is in your way, it could get knocked to the other side of the court, and moves like that can change the game,” Leckie says. “No one has hard feelings about it because that’s the way it’s supposed to be. And it’s not uncommon for one player to ask another what they would do in a particular situation or with a certain shot. There’s offense and defense, and it’s a good time.”

The game begins with the placement of colorful wooden balls at the starting point, poised to navigate the intricate course of wickets and stakes. Each player takes a turn, carefully striking the ball with the mallet, aiming to pass through the hoops in a specific order. Precision and patience are paramount as players advance their positions while anticipating their opponents’ moves.

Tension builds as the game progresses, and more aggressive tactics are employed. A well-executed roquet — a shot where a player’s ball strikes an opponent’s — allows for additional strokes and opportunities to disrupt the opposition.

Midway through the match, the lawn becomes a battleground of strategy. Players employ a mix of offensive and defensive maneuvers, using split shots to move multiple balls or setting up tricky angles to block opponents’ progress. The sound of wooden balls clacking resonates in the fall afternoon air, a testament to the players’ calculated efforts.

When six or so couples from the Lake Toxaway club visited Eufaula for a sporting weekend, highlevel players spent time sharing techniques for jump shots and tactics and answering questions about how to approach different configurations on the court.

The pace of a club-level match can be as leisurely or vigorous as the players choose.

When a ball arcs gracefully through a wicket, it’s a moment of brilliance, highlighting the finesse required in highly competitive croquet, where a single stroke can turn the game’s tide. The tension can be palpable, yet the atmosphere remains respectful and sportsmanlike.

Ultimately, a combination of skill, strategy, and a touch of luck determines the victor. The match concludes with smiles and a celebration of the game and the spirit in which it was played.

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W

hen Eufaula Country Club’s croquet players met with Lake Toxaway Mallet Club competitors, game play was simultaneously cordial and strategic. While the members don immaculate whites for the game, mallets and balls bring color to the field of play and distinguish each player’s progress through the game. At left, Eufaula Country Club member Leckie Maddox prepares for an offensive shot. Lower right: Mary Ann Hamilton lines up a play.

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LAND OF LIBATIONS Chattooga Belle Farm in South Carolina, once owned by celebrated comedic personality Groucho Marx, is a land of plenty.

Story by Denise DuBois

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hattooga Belle Farm may be the ideal destination for those who dream of a place where history, humor, and handcrafted spirits blend as seamlessly as a well-mixed cocktail. Located in the landscapes of Long Creek, South Carolina, this 200-acre working farm, distillery, and event center has a history as rich as its brandy.

Once upon a time, before the apple trees became the star of the farm, the land belonged to iconic comedian Groucho Marx. The Marx Brother had a love for apple orchards and a knack for purchasing property across the country. In one of his final acts, he bought the land on which the farm now sits.

After Groucho’s era, the land was idle for a time, then turned into a hangout spot.

But in 2005, Edward and Kitty Land bought a chunk of the land with a few rows of apples and turned it into a farm ready for visitors in just a few years. Edward built a barn and event pavilion with his construction background and can-do attitude.

Inspired by a weekend outing on the Bourbon Trail, Edward decided to dive into the distilling world. The farm was primed to produce something special with an abundance of fruit — 25 varieties of apples, muscadines, and blueberries. In 2014 the distillery’s construction began, and by 2015, it was open to the public.

Ben Wesley, a chemistry graduate from Bowling Green State University, is the farm’s third master distiller. He moved to South Carolina in 2018 after working seasons at the farm for three years. He found out about the farm through the owner’s son and his best friend. The duo worked at Disney World entertaining visitors and “hanging out with a lot of characters,” he says.

With his entertainment background and education, Ben knew the work and atmosphere at Chattooga Belle would be right up his alley. It also allowed him to escape the busyness of Florida and soak up the natural beauty surrounding the farm.

In his time at the distillery, he doubled the number of liquors they offered. What makes Chattooga Belle Farm Distillery unique is that it grows the fruit, ferments it, distills it, bottles it, labels it, and sells it all right on the premises. Of

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the 12 varieties of brandy, vodka, gin, whiskey, and bourbon the distillery makes, Camp Fire is Ben’s favorite. Camp Fire is a smooth and smoky half apple, half muscadine brandy about three and a half years aged in used whiskey barrels, then charcoal filtered. This is one that can’t be found online. It requires a visit to the farm to attain the exclusive spirits.

The distillery’s hands-on approach adds an air of excitement for visitors.

“Oh my gosh, it almost brings you in. You just get so excited,” Ben says. “There are people sometimes like, ‘Hey, do you want me to mix that?’ I’m like, ‘Hey, if you want to mix it, you can.

You’re more than welcome.’ It’s exciting for people because they’re like, ‘Wow, I actually get to be a part of it.’”

Unlike many distilleries where peeking at the equipment costs extra, Chattooga Belle Farm’s tours are free.

“The best part about our distillery is that we do free tours. The reason why they are free is because you never know how long or how short they’re going to be,” he explains. “And we never know if we’ll have time to do it because every day we’re open, we’re still producing.”

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Ben enjoys the occasional tasting, but only when a product is ready to roll out of the barrel.

“Sometimes, when you walk in the building, you can taste something,” he says. “When we’re pulling something from a barrel or getting ready to bottle, I’ll try something out. I like to get customers’ opinions because they’re going to be the ones buying it eventually. Getting people involved, especially customers who have never been here before, is exciting. They don’t experience that at many places; if they do, they paid a lot of money for it.”

Chattooga Belle Farm isn’t just about spirits.

Its beautiful views of the Blue Ridge Mountains provide the perfect backdrop for its orchards and seasonal fruit picking. The on-site bistro serves meals made from farm-fresh ingredients.

Concerned about bringing kids along? Fear not. The farm has plenty to keep the little ones entertained, from feeding apples to the resident cows, goats, llamas, and horses to playing on the swings and cornhole boards.

“We like to say we’re like a New Jersey gas

station,” Ben jokes. “We’re a full-service gas station, except you can drink the gas.”

For those who want to extend their stay, the farm offers tiny homes for rent, places to camp, and space to park an RV. “We have these really, really cute, tiny homes,” he says. “Perfect for families, and yes, you can bring your kids.”

The farm also offers education and community involvement, with tours and workshops that peel back the curtain on distilling and sustainable farming practices. Even in the off-season, the farm is actively bottling and preparing for the busy summer months.

“We easily produce over 1,200 bottles a year,” Ben says. “When we’re in the winter and people don’t show up as much, we do a lot of production a lot of bottling. Then, during the summer, we sell a lot of it.”

The farm offers multiple appeals — to history buffs intrigued by its Groucho Marx connection, to spirit enthusiasts ready to sip, or to those simply seeking a quiet escape from the hustle and bustle.

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Bee Fashioned

Pink Panther

2 oz of Uncle Sam’s Bourbon Splash of water 2 Dashes of Orange Bitters Bourbon-infused dark cherry (see directions below) 1 teaspoon of Bourbon Barrel Aged Honey Ice

Ice 1.5 oz of Dark Sky Vodka 6.5 oz of Strawberry Lemonade 6 Vodka-infused blueberries

Ben Wesley says: Start with Bourbon in a whiskey glass, add a splash of water, then add 2 dashes of Orange Bitters.

For the cherry, I like to buy dark cocktail cherries, pour out the juice, and replace with Bourbon, filled to the top. Let sit in the fridge for a few days to get the full experience. Those cherries will be another little drink After cherry is included, pour bourbon barrel aged honey over top. Give it a good mix. Shaken or stirred works. Add either cubed ice or large whiskey ice ball afterwards. Please enjoy.

Ben Wesley says: Start with Ice in a 10 oz glass. Pour in 1.5 oz of Dark Sky Vodka. Add 6.5 oz of Strawberry Lemonade. For blueberries, depending on how many drinks you plan to make depends on the container to use as well.

Since this is one of my more popular drinks, I get a mason jar, fill it with blueberries, and then add my Vodka until all blueberries are submerged. You could obviously go with a smaller jar. I then put the container in the freezer. The best part is that the blueberries cannot freeze since they are submerged in vodka, rather the skins are hard like ice and the inside like a little slushie.

Keeps the drink even cooler, and gets you a little dose of fruit that your parents would be proud of. Don’t be afraid to have a little taste of that vodka from the jar, just to make sure it is good. Add blueberries to this drink or any other drink it sounds good with and enjoy.

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SOUTHERN SASS

Southernisms

How and why we say it

By Sally Anne Sessitte

You can’t swing a cat online without hitting an article about Southern dialect and accents. We could talk for hours about how bad it is to have to listen to very shiny actors doing bad drawl in movies about the South. The accent cannot be faked, but even the most committed listener may be able to pick up a few Southern sayings. There is a Southern saying for just about every situation so let’s get you started with a few useful Southernisms you’ll need to express yourself.

“A gracious plenty” Southerners can be sarcastic and snarky, but we are generally a positive group. Saying “no” can be hard and saying “no” to food can be near-to impossible. We don’t shut doors or burn bridges down here, which is why we have the expression “gracious plenty.”

“I’m stuffed.” Too direct, relates only to food, boring.

“I have had a gracious plenty, and it has all been delicious!” Poetic, grateful, complimentary, leaves door open to more food at a later time. This expression applies in many settings. It can also be used at work to let your boss know that while you’d love another project, your proverbial plate is full. It can also be used in a social setting where you have to politely decline a board seat or bridge lesson or bunko invite.

This can be helpful when combined with the uniquely Southern use of “season.” For Southerners, season refers to a period of time totally unconnected to weather, and it is typically used to put a positive spin on something that is challenging. Example: “I have three kids under the age of 3. None of my clothes fit, and I’m exhausted and cranky.” Translated into Southern: “I have a gracious plenty on my plate, and I am barely hangin’ on, but I know this season of having little ones won’t last forever, and they say I’ll miss it.”

“Geez Louise” First of all we love the name Louise, and I personally know four. This expression has so many uses, and it’s a gentle way to express light befuddlement and just the tiniest dollop of frustration with no blame. See also: “Bless” and “Aw, foot.”

“Gussied up” This expression comes in handy especially with Southern moms around. You may be stumbling out of the house at 5 a.m. for a morning run, and if your mama is Southern, you will hear, “Honey don’t you want a little lipstick on before you head out?” In the South, this isn’t vanity; it’s more of a way of showing a little respect to the folks you will see as you go about your day — and yes, we will absolutely stop and “say hey” to you in the middle of a 5 a.m. run.

If you go “full glam” as the kids say, and if you’re “puttin on airs,” the expression for that is “high falutin.” An outfit that’s more about the labels than being appropriate and tasteful is “high falutin.” This can also be used to describe any showy purchase that says, “Hey, look at me.” You know that one mom who shows up on the first day of carpool with a new car every August always has a blowout and won’t wear any shoes that don’t have a Gucci logo … well, she may be high falutin. Bless her heart.

“Stove up” “Stove up” is a great expression to explain how tight and sore you might get after weeding all afternoon in the heat and humidity.

If you sit down for a second to have some tea and realize you’ve gone stiff and can’t get up, you’re stove up. Another way to explain this is “stiff as a dishrag.” If you’ve been in the car six hours on the way to the Georgia game with no breaks, you may be stove up and stiff as a dishrag when you get there.

See below, because if you’re stove up, you’re fixin’ to need a stretch and a drink.

Action verbs: It’s hot, and we’re social ... this means we move a little slower and may not always

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G u s s i e d U p.

H o n e y d o n’ t yo u wa n t a l i t t l e l i p s t i ck o n b e fo re yo u h e a d o u t ? get that whole “honey-do list” done. Because of this we have a few expressions to explain that in-between time that some might call idle time. “Fixin to” do something means something will happen — could be in the next five minutes, could be in five years.

“We are fixin’ to renovate mama’s house, but every contractor we like is tied up tight busy, and we just can’t get movin’.”

“Might could” means something will happen, but there are a few other things that need to happen first. “We might could get new sofas and rugs, but I’m gonna need these dogs to move to the farm first and these kids to quit colorin’ on things.”

“Useta could” means something has happened in the past, and is still possible but not likely. “Honey, I useta could wear those triangle swimsuits, but I sure didn’t wear them to my mother-in-law’s club pool.”

“Come apart” Southerners are patient, but even with the patience of Job, there are going to be times when that long fuse burns all the way down. When things have gotten too overwhelming, a Southerner is entitled to have a little “come apart” which may involve anything from a frustrated outburst to some swear words to locking your husband out of the house. www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

Now, if that “come apart” gets real bad, it may progress to the level of a “F-i-t fit.” If someone has an “F-i-t fit,” they are usually fussing loud about something a bit petty. For example, “You know I don’t like talkin’ about people, but Louise had a f-i-t fit yesterday and hollered and fired her decorator because she was five minutes late for a meeting. She is really somethin’!”

“Good thing it’s not a snake.” This is used in place of “If it was a snake, it would have bit ya” to help us respond to our husbands and kids asking us where anything and everything in the house is located.

“He was born on third but walks around actin like he hit a triple.” This one may be selfexplanatory, but if you know an “entrepreneur” or “investor” who brags a lot about “passive income” and freely offers lots of unsolicited business advice … well, you may have a good use for this expression.

There is nothing wrong with having financial security or a good position, but if it came to you through the luck of birth, a little humility goes a long way.

Share your expressions and ideas with SAS at sallyanne@magnolianadmoonshine.com.

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Under the Muscadine Vine: The Mystique of Mayhayley Story by Marian Carcache When Ruth Montgomery’s A Gift of Prophecy: The Phenomenal Jeane Dixon hit the market, I was in eighth grade, and my two best friends were in seventh and ninth. The book’s publishers marketed it as “the million copy best seller by the woman who predicted Kennedy’s assassination.”

On the cover, Dixon was shown gazing into a crystal ball and wearing a cross necklace. Religious jewelry or not, the mostly Baptist and Methodist mothers in Jernigan didn’t take any truck with what, in their minds at least, bordered on “the occult.”

Of course, that wariness made the book even more enticing for my friends and me. It may have even sparked my lifelong fascination with those who claim to be clairvoyants, soothsayers, and seers. Finding out about a prophet close to home — right next door in Georgia — was thrilling.

I don’t remember the first time I heard about Mayhayley Lancaster, but I know I’ve been mesmerized by her existence for a long time.

Mayhayley was a fortune-teller, landowner, educator, lawyer, midwife, numbers runner, and newspaper columnist from Coweta County, Georgia.

She was well known for finding lost things, including at least one dead body, and for testifying in two highprofile murder trials. She was also a progressive thinker and the first woman in Georgia to run for political office.

She was born in 1875 in Heard County, Georgia, and she wore a caul covering her face, indicating her gift of second sight. Although a devout Methodist, she charged a dollar and a dime for psychic readings. The dollar, she said, was for herself, and the dime was for her dogs, who attended church with her.

The lines of people waiting for her help with relationships, finding lost objects, and health problems were sometimes so long that neighbors took the opportunity to sell snacks to the crowd in her yard hoping for a consultation.

Though she lived in an old house until shortly before her death and is said to have burned dried corn stalks for heat, legend has it that cash was stuffed in various places in the house and yard: in

the hen house, in the pig pen, under the porch, and in her mattress. After she died, vandals dug up her yard looking for the money, and a cement slab had to be poured over her grave to keep hoodlums from vandalizing it.

She also dressed according to her own sense of fashion. Dot Moore and Katie Lamar Smith, in their book about Mayhayley, Oracle of the Ages, describe her as “tall” and “skinny-looking,” “wearing layers of dresses with long voluminous skirts that swung as she walked. Tied about a waistcoat … were ribbons, cords, and belts. A multitude of necklaces jangled around her neck, and on her head was a bright red hat that sported flowers, feathers, and beads threaded into its crown.”

At some point in her life, Mayhayley lost her left eye. Often, she wore a marble in the empty socket.

At times, she embellished the marble with a handpainted iris and blood vessels. Something of a chameleon, she is also reported to have worn plain dresses or feed sacks tied with rope at other times.

Sometimes, she was seen wearing a bonnet or an old Army hat.

June Carter Cash played Mayhayley in Murder In Coweta County (1983), the movie inspired by Margaret Barnes’s 1976 book by the same name that covers a murder trial in the late 1940s in which Mayhayley testified. The movie also starred Johnny Cash as the sheriff and Andy Griffith as the bad guy.

Although Mayhayley died in 1955, she remains a presence all these years later. She is buried at Caney Head Methodist Church in rural Georgia. Nearly 70 years after her death, her grave is still visited and decorated with flowers, stones, coins, and other mementos.

As I continue my years-long fascination with Mayhayley Lancaster, I ponder: where have the oracles gone? Have we replaced the mystery with so-called “advisors” and “influencers?” Has the gift of second sight been genetically modified right out of us, or are folks living among us who “see” what the rest of the world does not? I suspect — and devoutly wish — that the latter is true.

For more about the self-proclaimed “oracle,” visit trouphistory.org.

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Photo courtesy Troup County Archives and Legacy Museum on Main www.MagnoliaandMoonshine.com

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Southern Essentials Our team shares its Fall finds.

Oh My Mahjong starter kit. If you don’t have the Mahjong bug, it could only be a matter of time. This game originated in China in the 1800s, but now its popularity is spreading and becoming the center of cocktail parties, afternoon gatherings, and fun-filled fundraisers. The name translates to “The game of sparrows,” but birds of a feather choose beautiful sets like the Shangri-La ultimate starter kit. ohmymahjong.com $835

Pre-game Earrings. Supporting our favorite teams just makes us feel better going into game day. It doesn’t have to be with a screen print tee. You can show your team spirit with Pre-Game beaded hoop earrings by Taylor Reese, a North Carolina-based accessory designer known for her game day, bridal, and everyday jewelry designed with elevated fun. These 18-karat gold plated brass earrings are crafted with glass beads in 10 color variations. Shoptaylorreese.com $45

Heated massage stadium seat. If you sit on a concrete or steel bleacher in an unforgiving stadium spot, you should make the experience warm and cozy. Hoperan heated massage stadium seats have built-in back support and arms. They provide hours of soothing heat using a USB power source with three heat levels. amazon.com $59.99

Bar Cart Snack Set. Fall kicks off tailgates outside stadiums across the South for armchair quarterbacking right at home.

Either way, you’re going to need snacks. Damn Man’s Bar Cart Snacks serve up a nostalgic collection of salty snacks in a creative vintage case. The 12-tin set includes salted pistachios and cashews, or it gets more adventurous with cinnamon-flavored almonds and savory trail mix. These are tasty for game nights, barbecue parties, and tailgates. DMSnacks.com $60

Thousand Oaks Barrel’s Foghat Cocktail Smoking Kit. Having your own personal smoker helps elevate a party or meal to the next level with smoked perfection, allowing you to infuse cocktails, whiskey, cheese, and meats with that delicious flavor. The kit includes Bourbon Barrel Oak Fuel Wood Shavings, a smoking torch, and butane. amazon.com $89.95

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MicroStitch Tagging Gun. Let’s face it. We will have fashion emergencies or garments that don’t cooperate.

One of our favorite purchases is this quick fix for necklaces, hems, and more. The gagging gun starter kit includes one needle and 540 black and 540 white fasteners. This handy gadget eliminates the need for safety pins and glue. You’ll find it convenient for repairing fallen hems, hemming drapes, tailoring garments, tacking appliques, assembling framed keepsakes, or just decorating.

Amazon.com $34.50

Barbour Women’s Wilton Rainboots. These mid-calf, slipon rainboots are waterproof and from a name we know and trust. The weather may by iffy during autumn, but these boots will take you where you need to go, despite changing conditions. With lugged soles and low heels, these are comfy for long walks or for rainy game days, and you won’t sacrifice style in this brand trusted for more than a century. Amazon. com $95

The Tyger Forge Bronze Turkey Buckle and Belt.

This classic will be a go-to for the outdoorsman. The timeless styling, featuring a turkey print, goes from every day to evening and all points between.

Mark Goodwin creates the hand-cast figures and solders them to the buckle, applying layers of mineral acids that react with the metal to develop rich colors — antique and art patina. Each buckle is made with recycled USA metals, hand cast and tooled, and signed and hallmarked by the artist. This buckle is partnered with a fullgrain buffalo leather belt. tygerforge.com $225

Navy Bleu Embroidered Dress. It will still be hot for those football parties or festive gatherings in early Fall. It’s important to look elegant and feel cool and collected. The Navy Bleu high-collar Campbell dress in 100% cotton poplin is a bit preppy and beautifully embroidered. Pockets are convenient for popping a cell phone out of the way.

The 36-inch length midi is available in tan, black, navy, and green. Shopnavybleu. com $198

Sweet Cacao Chocolates Giftbox. If you need a hostess gift for a season filled with parties, this Thomasville, Georgia-based company handcrafts each chocolate with fair trade sourced cacao products from all over the world. A 15-piece truffle box brings artisan flavors and showy colors together to delight the eye and tastebuds — sure to win over the recipient. Flavors include Bourbon Pecan, 85% Extra Dark, Coconut Pineapple, Cookie Dough, Key Lime, Sugar Cookie, Savannah Latte, Goat Cheese and Fig, Carmel Milk Chocolate, Strawberry and Guava Vanilla. sweetcacaochocolates.com $30

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Mama Said, ‘Trick-or-Treat’

Story by Leslie Anne Jones

It’s March. New blossoms are beginning to emerge, the days are getting warmer, and Easter is on the horizon. Your daughter runs in to tell you something exciting: “I know what I want to be for Halloween!” That’s right, she’s already thinking about her Halloween costume. Probably has been since November.

What once was a single night of the year for a costume and a little trick-or-treating has become a whole season. Decorations now begin to pop up in September, bringing a bit of a thrill and a little spookiness to wide-eyed children on an otherwise ordinary carpool ride home.

But with this new, month-long season comes more work for us Mamas.

When I was little, we had a festival at school and went trick-or-treating that night. That was the extent of Halloween. I think I even wore the same costume two years in a row. Now, there’s the pumpkin patch, the church fall festival, the school fall festival (and if you have kids in two different schools, you can double that), the trunk-or-treat at work, the school field trip back to the pumpkin patch, just to name a few. And all of this is right in the middle of football season!

There are only four Saturdays in October. When are we supposed to fit this all in?

Don’t get me wrong; I do love seeing how excited they get. And I want to do it all for them so they don’t miss out on a single thing. But man, it is exhausting.

And then of course there are the things you can’t plan for — a diaper blowout in the adorable little lamb costume or the beginning of cold season. And I don’t mean the weather. With all those events you’ve packed into your October, the kids are bound to pick something up. The year my daughter was going to be the cutest little donut you’ve ever seen, with — pink sprinkles and all — we ended up spending the night of October 31st in the Emergency room with a 104-degree fever.

Like everything that comes with being a parent to little ones, life throws you curve balls, and you’ve got to just enjoy the ride, knowing that it doesn’t last long.

When it comes to picking costumes, here’s how it goes in our household. First of all, nothing scary.

We don’t want to drift too far into the world of the occult, and we certainly don’t want to give anyone nightmares. Second, you gotta think about the weather and plan accordingly. October 31st in the South can be 85 and humid or 55 and freezing. You must have a backup plan if the weather changes on you. Not to mention, the temperature on the day of the fall festival could be wildly different than

actual Halloween trick-or-treating. I recommend two options, or at least something that can be modified by throwing on a pair of tights and a cape. Excessive?

Maybe. But a second costume also comes in handy when they spill that chocolate ice cream down the front of an astronaut suit that can’t go in the washing machine.

The final rule is that Mama gets to choose the costume until around age 5 (give or take a few years depending on the child’s personality). They are only little for so long and only get to be dressed as a cute strawberry for a few years of their life. At least give me that.

However, once the child is able to articulate and form costume ideas of their own, you must listen and take their opinion into account. After all, this holiday is about the children, not you.

I think my favorite costume to date, was when my daughter was 3 and declared with a fist in the air as if she were flying, “Mama, I want to be a superhero.”

She didn’t specify a particular superhero, so what did I do? I took to the internet and found the cutest superhero costume I could find.

When she put that costume on, something changed. She was confident and so, so happy. Seeing my child like that changed me, too. And I realized she was my superhero. That little girl who is funny and smart with a touch of hardheadedness like me — she’s my superhero. To infinity and beyond.

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