BRUNSWICK STEW WEATHER

BARBECUE DOWN SOUTH

“Essential for Memorial Day & July 4 Celebrations.”

By Doc Lawrence

Stew Cooked in a Cast Iron Pot

STONE MOUNTAIN, GA- Truman Capote’s Aunt Sook in A Christmas Memory, announced “fruitcake weather” when the days got colder. It’s May and time to cook  Brunswick Stew. There’s an ongoing friendly debate over its origin. Both Virginia and Georgia claim it. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in Cross Creek Cookery said the recipe came from Germany. The late Jim Sanders, Georgia’s wine pioneer and a French trained chef, made a persuasive case for Georgia.

Sometimes recipes are kept secret. The most famous is the formula for Coca-Cola. The Masonic Lodge in Stone Mountain, Georgia has a barbecue each May and their stew, slow cooked pork and homemade desserts draw those who love the real thing. I asked the nice ladies serving it for the recipe. “Can’t tell you,” they replied with laughter. “It’s a secret.” Mayor Pat Wheeler confirmed that it was indeed protected and guessed that it has been used here “for at least 100 years.”

The Stone Mountain version is not only delicious but doesn’t separate and is easy to freeze and serve months later.

Monument for Brunswick Stew

There are many recipes for Brunswick Stew. I am the unofficial trustee of Jim Sanders' recipe, which he confided had been in his family since the Civil War. Here it is as Jim recorded it long ago.

 








JIM SANDERS GEORGIA BRUNSWICK STEW
INGREDIENTS:
1 four-pound baking chicken
4 pounds ground pork
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1-tablespoon chili powder
1-tablespoon thyme
1 tablespoons cayenne pepper
2 cups chopped onions
1 cup red wine, preferably Rhone style
3 to 4 tablespoons bacon drippings 
36 ounces tomato juice
4-ounce tomato catsup
3 cups cut corn
Kosher salt and black pepper

PREPARATION:
Boil the chicken until it is very tender, cool, de-bone and chop the meat finely. Meanwhile, in a large pot over medium heat, braise the pork until half done. Add half the chopped onions, one chopped garlic clove, chili powder, thyme, cayenne pepper and a generous sprinkling of kosher salt and black pepper. Continue to braise until the meat is well browned, stirring every few minutes to break up any lumps and combine with chicken. Add the tomato juice and catsup and simmer for 11/2 hours. Add the rest of the chopped onions, another chopped garlic clove and simmer for another 30 minutes. Taste for salt and spoon off the fat before serving.

WINE
Beaujolais goes well with Brunswick stew. It does not fight the spices and it has a lot of refreshment value.

Over three decades, Jim Sanders taught thousands in his wine classes in Atlanta. Although a product of the Deep South, Jim was more French than anything. After World War II, where he was wounded five times in the Pacific campaigns, he went to France, bicycled the countryside and found his passion in wine and food. He learned to cook in Lyon and Paris and met Armand Cottin, president of Labourie-Roi and through this brotherly friendship, developed his own cuvee of 179 Burgundies garnering numerous awards. Each day, in the rear of his retail wine shop in Atlanta’s Buckhead, Sanders served most anyone who came in wonderful dishes he prepared along with pours from countless bottles of perfectly paired wines.

There was no charge.

This recipe works even better when it is shared with friends.

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ANGEL FROM ALABAMA

 MOTHER REMEMBERED

“My latest sun is sinking fast, my race is nearly run
My strongest trials now are past, my triumph has begun
Oh, come angel band come and around me stand
Oh bear me away on your snow white wings to my immortal home.”
                                  Performed by Emmylou Harris


By Doc Lawrence

A child of the Depression and World War II, my mother represented the finest of the Deep South. Although she never said it, her role model had to be Scarlett O’Hara. Survival and accomplishment were embodied in a beautiful woman who faced fate squarely and despite unconscionable losses along the way including the death of her youngest child, moved forward relentlessly. 

Her name was Carrie and true to the good manners of her time, she was addressed as “Miss Carrie.” Poverty denied her much formal education, but she loved to read and found time to read bedtime stories to me before I was in kindergarten. Books, newspapers and magazines have been vital parts of daily living thanks to her.

She departed this world before my first book was published, but she is the reason it happened.

Southern boys often talk about their mother in the context of cooking and dining. To this day, I have yet to experience staples like fried chicken that compared to the quality of Mom’s. She would ask me on Saturday what I wanted for Sunday dessert and the answer was always her lemon meringue pie. When I came home from college for the holidays, the pie would be waiting to be sliced and served after the feast.

Big name pastry chefs have never served me anything half as delicious.

She enjoyed working, earning some extra cash to keep her three children a little ahead with occasional extras. While I was a skinny teenager, she worked in the record shop at Rich’s, a legendary department store in Atlanta. She brought home promotional sample records, and I was introduced to obscure names like Johnny Cash, Wanda Jackson, Bo Diddly, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Patsy Cline and Elvis. A new world of rhythm and harmony opened and I became a rocker with a party band in college, following in her footsteps by earning some money through music.

I was never happier.

I believe she attended all of Elvis’ concerts in Atlanta. One morning during the Dog Days of August, Mom called and informed me of his death. I still remember the pain in her voice.

A devoted Atlanta Braves fan, Mom would not die during baseball season. Her time on earth ended during the December holidays while her beloved Braves were in recess.

Like Emmyloe Harris, Zelda Fitzgerald, Harper Lee, Tallulah Bankhead and Truman Capote’s Aunt Sook, Mom was an Alabama girl. Born and raised in the northeast corner of the state, Lookout Mountain forms a spectacular backdrop for lovely. Sequoyia Valley. I always thought it would be a wonderful place for a child.

I’ll visit her grave early Sunday morning to bring roses. As the Georgia sun peeks through the pines, sometimes the air stirs a little. During moments of great peace, I listen carefully for the flutter of angel wings.

SUNDAY IN ATLANTA

BRAVES AT 50
“Baseball is the greatest game there is!”
                                        Ted Williams

By Doc Lawrence

ATLANTA- A baby blue cloudless Sunday sky merits a trip across town to Turner Field for a Braves game. Surrounded it seems by turmoil, divisions, hard feelings and seemingly irreconcilable differences, I’ve always found the national pastime a personal balm in Gilead. Maybe it’s just a local tradition-good cheer, friendliness and courtesy. But with very few exceptions this is where I observe vastly different people cheerfully gathering to have fun.

Top billing on this glorious Sunday Down South was a shared success between Braves pitching ace Julio Tehran who was masterful in a shutout of the Cincinnati Reds and tenor Timothy Miller singing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch with all the power and emotion you expect from an accomplished opera singer.

Timothy Miller During the 7th Inning Stretch

 Watching the game from the right field stands triggered nostalgia, something baseball is well suited for. Memories of Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine,” the dominant National League team decades back when Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Pete Rose could attract sellout crowds here when the Braves weren’t always competitive.

On this glorious day, the women seemed a little prettier, effective clarions for the majesty of springtime in Atlanta. Men of all ages were well behaved. There was a noticeable absence of drunks. No explanation other than maybe more people are coming around to the notion that over-indulgence has a huge downside.

Julio was Masterful

Turner Field has a promenade exhibiting large roster photos of each team for the past 50 years, this being the half-century celebration of their opening night in Atlanta. Fresh out of Emory University, almost penniless without a care in the world, I was there. The old squad images brought back special days and nights. Watching the incomparable Sandy Koufax pitch his last game for the Dodgers here before a sold-out audience who came to say goodbye to a hero. The games Phil Neikro pitched knuckleball victories, literally carrying some mediocre teams to heights they otherwise could not reach. The night “The Hammer” broke Babe’s record.

The years we were blessed with the talent and good character of Dale Murphy, twice the National League’s most valuable player and to this day wondering why in heaven’s name this great player is not in baseball’s’ hall of fame.

Sunday down South is personal, a prelude to paradise.

 NOTE: For cooks, enjoy Georgia Magazine’s six pages of recipes from top chefs and great home cooks using Coca-Cola as an ingredient:
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/gemc/georgia_201505/#/42 

Braves Girls of Summer

WOMEN WHO SAVED A CITY

         THE NANCY HART MILITIA

By Doc Lawrence

Mort Kunstler's Final Painting

LaGrange, Georgia-Brooklyn native Mort Kunstler, widely considered the most successful and admired Civil War artist, came to this lovely west Georgia city to unveil what would be announced as his last painting in a storied career. Almost 150 years ago to the day, a confrontation of local women armed like a military platoon met Union invaders led by Col. Oscar LaGrange, ready to do battle in an effort to spare the city from the atrocities of General Sherman’s total war that included the destruction of Atlanta and the March to the Sea.

Beautiful Downtown LaGrange

Mr. Kunstler’s oil on canvass painting magnificently interprets the dramatic event. The women weere organized as the Nancy Hart Militia paying homage to Ms. Hart, a Georgia girl who defended her east Georgia home during the American Revolution from pillage and destruction by British soldiers,

According to historical accounts, two LaGrange women, Nancy Morgan and Mary Heard recognizing their vulnerability with most able-bodied men away serving in the Confederate army, organized the militia and gave it the name.

The painting shows well-dressed  armed women (they wanted to have clothes to wear in the event their homes were looted and burned) ready to do battle with the battle-tested soldiers. Displaying admiration for them, Col. LaGrange assured them that their homes would be spared. As gratitude for his promise and in keeping with the finest traditions of the South, the Nancy Hart’s prepared and served dinner for the Union officers.

No participant was aware that General Robert E. Lee had surrendered days earlier at Appomattox.

Mr. Kunstler at Legacy Museum

Today, the spirit of the Nancy Hart Militia is evidenced. Many of the beautiful homes survived the Civil War and add to the stunning landscape. Perhaps inspired by their preservation efforts, LaGrange is a showcase of revitalization and prosperity. Restaurants and sidewalk cafes are positioned alongside retail shops and art galleries. Taste of Lemon, a popular family-style restaurant, occupies what was once a Methodist church. LaGrange College enjoys a national reputation for academic excellence while  Legacy Museum and the LaGrange Symphony are testaments to community support of the arts..

Just minutes from the city fountain with the statue of the Marquis de Lafayette, Hills & Dales Estate, once home to business legend Fuller Callaway, welcomes visitors with a tour of the mansion and stunning gardens. Nearby West Point Lake is a top-rated fishing attraction and landmark Callaway Gardens is a short drive from downtown LaGrange.

Close proximity to Atlanta makes a day trip easy. Visitors are inspired to stay a little longer. Not surprisingly, they enjoy this magnificent Deep South city and its friendly folks. Walking around town, there’s a chance that the smiling lady passing by might be a descendant of the Nancy Hart Militia.

ATLANTA THEATER

STOREFRONT CHURCH
SHINES
“I doubt there’s a better play about the consequences of the economic divide.”                                                            
                         Tom Key-Theatrical Outfit

By Doc Lawrence

ATLANTA-Storefront Church  by Pulitzer Prize, Oscar and Tony-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley concludes his "Church and State" trilogy of plays that began with Doubt and   Defiance.  Storefront Church  is a hilarious morality tale that explores the often-thorny relationship between spiritual experience and social action. On a rainy spring afternoon, the story awakened a dormant sense of what is right and wrong when greed faces desperation.

Directed by David De Vries with an all-star cast featuring Donna Briscoe, Tom Key, Joe Knezevich, Clayton Landey, E. Roger Mitchell and Anthony Rodriguez,  Storefront Church transports us to a wintry Bronx, where greedy capitalists devour giant gingerbread houses, a disenchanted, nomadic preacher rediscovers his faith and inspires it in others, and a curmudgeonly loan officer experiences a glorious rebirth.

As in all his best works, Shanley dissects authority figures and tests their mettle with moral issues, often comically. "I think,” he elaborated, ”with the third play, it all comes to a landing place. I feel a sense of resolution. What Storefront Church says is very applicable to the time we're living in. There is a dearth of places for people who have a spiritual hunger to satisfy, and there's a dearth of places for people who have the hunger for community to satisfy.”

Theatrical Outfit, Atlanta ’s second-oldest continually-operating professional theater company was founded and has been led by Artistic Director Tom Key. A visionary, Key led the company through the creation of its award-winning downtown home, the Balzer Theater at Herren’s, the first U.S. theater to achieve LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The theater is on the historical site of Herren’s, the first Atlanta restaurant to voluntarily desegregate..

Tom Key, one of the top actors and directors today, whose masterpiece, Cotton Patch Gospel entertains audiences throughout the planet, sparkles as the top banker in Storefront Church. Located next door to Georgia State University’s magnificent Rialto Center for the Performing Arts and a block away from popular music venue The Tabernacle, the neighborhood is a cornerstone of Atlanta’s downtown revitalization.

Theatrical Outfit tells consistently high-quality, soul-stirring stories, often from great classics and contemporary literature that feature many of the best writers of the American South: Carlyle Brown, Truman Capote, Evan Davis, Horton Foote, Harper Lee, Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Sherry Shepard-Massat, Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder, Hank Williams and Tennessee Williams.

For some personal revitalization, get your tickets now at 678.528.1500. www.theatricaloutfit.org. Runs through May 3.

BRAVES AT HOME

Braves Slugger Freddie Freeman

TAILGATING DOWN SOUTH

By Doc Lawrence

“No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference.”
                                   Tommy Lasorda

ATLANTA-For baseball fans, life begin again each spring with the first pitch. It’s the home opening series for the Atlanta Braves and who better to battle than the New York Mets followed by the Miami Marlins? The Braves are rebuilding, baseball vernacular for low expectations. But who really knows what the standings will look like come September? Youth can trump geezers in this game and when that happens, miracles often appear.

Remember the 1991 “last to first” Braves loaded with kids named Glavine, Smoltz, Breen, Avery and two-sport Falcon/Brave Deion Sanders? That October, the earth trembled. That was the year when the war Tomahawk chant and chop became a Braves’ tradition.

Chef Lara Lyn Carter

With so many new names on the roster, it takes a little time to become familiar, but nothing works better than winning. Strangers become heroes. Hustle, daring, spectacular fielding, daring base running, smart pitching and clutch hits. That’s quite a start. So far, so good.

The inaugural home stand series of 2015 featured something besides good baseball: Tailgating. The tradition is as embedded as the Tomahawk on the Braves uniforms. With the season openers, Chef Lara Lyn Carter created a Tailgate special, a culinary tribute to first-baseman Freddie Freeman.

                     
                     

             
FREDDIE’S FEAST 
 Grilled Catfish with Sweet and Spicy Tartar Sauce
              Chef Lara Lyn Carter 
FOR THE FISH
(4) 6-oz. catfish fillets
Juice of one lime
1/2 tsp. of salt
1/2 tsp. of pepper
Canola oil for the grill
Season the catfish with lime juice, salt and pepper. Brush the grill with canola oil to prevent the fish from sticking.
Cook the fish over medium-high heat for 6-8 minutes per side.
FOR THE TARTAR SAUCE
1/2-cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp. Creole style mustard
1 tbsp. lime juice
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 cup chopped scallions
2 tbsp. sweet pickle relish
Combine all of the ingredients together and serve with the fish.

WINE PAIRING
Catfish has a subtle sweetness that blends well with a classic Chenin Blanc. Few producers do a better job with this white grape than Dry Creek. Reasonably priced, it is widely available.

RACING TO THE BOTTOM?

 ATLANTA BRAVES 2015

 By Doc Lawrence

ATLANTA--Some days I really miss reading Lewis Grizzard. His newspaper columns-loaded with wit and
targeted sarcasm-were best when local sports was the subject. Imagine giving him some fresh meat provided by the Atlanta Braves rather shocking trade of Craig Kimbrel while local fans were still reeling from the unloading of other proven players. Lewis would have been ferociously creative. What he often accomplished was like puncturing overblown egos with his typewriter assuming the function of a large hairpin.

While others, notably the San Francisco Giants concentrate on going to another World Series, our team looks to new digs: a luxury stadium surrounded by sports bars and doodleburger

outlets. Traffic? No problem. They’ll build a skyway over the Interstate-one of the country’s busiest-an engineering feat comparable to Henry Flagler’s plans long ago to connect Key West to Havana with a railroad bridge.

Kimbrel was the National League leader in saves in 2014 (47) and has topped 40 saves in each of the past four seasons. Kimbrel has a 1.43 ERA, the lowest ERA in the entire league in that span.

This feels like the 1970’s, when six months of mediocrity was the norm. A race to last place?