BILBOA

I ask Frank Gehry to help us build a house on the lake. Well I never heard back from him or any one at his firm. How rude. But I hear he’s that way. If you look at his design style as of late, the last 20 years or so, your can see the madness. I could see the madness when we left San Sebastian and drove to Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim Museum. It had not been open very long and I had read and heard great things about it.

Bilbao is a kind of small industrial town, but thanks to the Guggenheim’s presents it is quickly becoming a very cosmopolitan city. It has been years since we have visited and I bet it has changed a lot.

I think we saw the first show they offered. The main display was a Richard Serra exhibit. He is the guy that takes huge plates of steel and twist and turn them into these nice, flowing organic shapes. We went to another show of his at the MOMA more recently and I decided I wanted to live in one of his art pieces. That’s how large they are.

But back to the Guggenheim. Click on this link and take a look. It’s been a while since I have looked at it myself. Seeing it makes me want to go again. And this is really where this blog started, Southerners in Spain. I have written about this trip that took us from Barcelona, where we arrived from Atlanta, then to Bordeaux, France. After a few days there we left for San Sebastian, Spain. San Sebastian is one of my favorite cities I have ever visited, can’t wait to get back. After San Sebastian we left for Barcelona, but first we stopped in Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim. I am glad we did because as you can see that building, designed by Frank Gehry, is a sight to behold. It is huge and very modern. It is clad in sheets of titanium. I have never seen anything like it, although I think he has a few buildings very similar to it here in the states.

Well, this trip ends where it began, Barcelona. Barcelona is another great city, the people there love to party. Eat, drink and dance all night long. I’ll tell you a little more about our visit there soon. Until then, chow baby.

When beds fly out of my Southern end

Seems like I’ve been building lots of bed’s lately. The first one is made from front porch post. Very old and from the Grant Park neighborhood of Atlanta. I used antique, tongue and groove bead board. More than likely the bead board is from a front porch ceiling, it was often used in this application. Also it has green and blue and yellow paints, common for porch ceilings.

This second one is made from new lumber. A couple I have worked for before commissioned this one. I hardly ever used new materials to build furniture. Antique pine is my main thing. I love to make it look like a one of a kind piece that some farmer made to fit a particular place in their house.

These guys came to me with web site that featured Shaker style furniture. Click on the link and see the bed I am using as a guide. I am doing the mortise and tennon for the rails just like the Shakers did. I used new wood because we are gonna paint and distress this bed black and I hate to paint the antique wood. I hand carved the four post using electric hand tools. I bought “furniture grade pine” for this project. The four post started as a 4″ square post. I used, in this order, my router, belt sander, hand held planner and a palm sander to sculpt them into the shape that matches the bed on the web site. This is all new to me and fun. I am very happy with the results and so are the clients. I will post a photo when finished.

This bed is for a beach house and they just ordered another for the same beach house. I am working on it today. I got to find something old and rusty to mount on headboard. More fun.

Popin’ off in the South

Things are popin down here in little ol East Point these days. Just check out this pink bush. It’s popin right in my front yard.

And look at this purple vine, it’s popin like purple popcorn. WOW this is colourful.

This is a small maple tree my Ma gave me a few years back. It pops like a firecracker. POP!

We got brats popin on the grill. Can’t ya just smell em? Can’t ya just hear em’ popin’?

We got those brats popin on a plate with a little tomatos and blu cheese and roasted corn and some fancy chili/ lime butter. It’s all popin real good together.

But ain’t nothing popin’ like these new shoes Stacey pick up for me the other day. Just look at Geo he knows these shoes are popin’. ( click on photo for full effect) They are white. White loafers. Steve Maddens baby. Thats right, thats how I roll. Stacey likes to buy me clothes. It’s ok with me, we can always take em back. Anyway she showed up with these a few days ago. She had also bought me a Seersucker blazer. The blazer didn’t work out, but I love the white loafers. I was a little worried about them being white and all. I told Stacey I was afraid I was gonna trash them right away. And with her infinite wisdom and foresight, she told me,

Oh no, you gotta scuff those up, those shoes are about traveling through life with ya.

Good Speech, you should take the time to read it

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PIG ENDS, SOSOSOUTHERN

The other day I had the pleasure to try pig ears and pig tails. They were prepared by Chef Linton Hopkins and I will eat anything this guy cooks.

Linton and his wife Gina own and operate Restaurant Eugene here in Atlanta. Friday they had a lunch as part of the High Museum’s annual fund raiser. I had the chance to attend and jumped at the chance. As of late Restaurant Eugene is becoming one of the top restaurants in the city. They have embraced their southern roots and it shows in many ways.

This was a fun day. At the lunch there was a panel of guys who shared a little information on their specialty in the food or wine world as we enjoyed pig parts, pimento cheese and a caramel popcorn that was some how made to have a smoky taste, among other dishes.

There were two wine makers, a southern food writer, Chef Hopkins and Alan Benton, who is the worlds greatest bacon maker.

The writer, John T Edge, was the MC if you will. He let us know why we were there, fund raiser for the High Museum, and took turns asking each of these guys to pontificate a bit on their product and it’s connection with the south. It was good stuff and the common theme of each was they way food and the dinner table brought us all together. Then it was question and answer time.

There were about five or six people who ask questions. Everyone of them were directed to Alan Benton. This guy is a cult hero and the cult loves his meats. Mr. Benton talked about how he was not really doing anything special, just doing what his father and grandfather and great grand ect… He talked about how it was just a way of life for him to smoke meat. It was for survival more than anything. He talked about what a humble background he came from. He talked about how hard it was to make a living smoking meat. That was up until about ten years ago. He told us about how a hot shot chef in Tennessee found his product, loved it and started to spread the word. He told us how today he could connect every chef that uses his product to this Tennessee chef. He let us also know how grateful he was to this chef and everyone who used his product. This was because for many years he could hardly make a living smoking meat. He talked about laying awake at night and wondering if he should stop and do something else. When the last question was answered he got a standing ovation.

Mr. Benton is around sixty years old and a very humble man. He is very soft spoken, but when he speaks people listen, they hang on every word. He also listens to what you have to say. I was introduced to him before the lunch, three hours later I went to him to say thanks and nice to meet ya. His reply was “Tracy it was nice to meet you as well”. I could not believe he remembered my name, he must have been introduce to sixty or so people at this lunch. When I told him this he said “Tracy I don’t have so many friends that I can afford not to remember someones name”.

Southern Comfort in a Can

THAT’S MR. BROWN CHOWIN ON A X-MAS BONE

So one of the best things in the world happened this week! Marcia May opened Urban Pet Supply. Then I fashioned a wire basket to the back of my bicycle and rode the 2 miles or so to her store and purchased eight cans of dog food. So I had a great day. I really want to incorporate my bike into my daily way. And with Marcia opening her store it just gives me another reason to ride my bike.

Bicycles. I love them. I think it’s one of the most brilliant inventions ever. It’s the answer to so many issues. Fuel, exercise, money, stress relief, not to mention it’s just fun. I got a few bicycle. One is used exclusive as a Mardi Gras float. One is a beach cruiser and is good for flat streets, as in beautiful downtown and midtown Mobile. Bikes are also great in New Orleans. It’s flat and not hard to get around. My Atlanta bicycle is a bastardized 18 speed all terrain bike. It’s the one I just added a custom wire basket to. Watch the gas prices, we’re screwed.

The eight cans of dog food, that was a good find as well. My dog sitter has opened a pet store in College Park, Georgia and has found the coolest dog food I have ever seen. Check out these flavors. Mediterranean Banquet, Campfire Trout feast, Brauts-n- Tot’s, Turducken, French Country Cafe and my favorite Southern Comfort. Hell yea, that’s what I’m talkin ’bout. George is as happy as a little girl.

So go to Urban Pet Supply and get your dog a can of Turdcken or Trout or the Country Cafe………

Southern Networking

We had been in NOLA for about 24 hours and had managed to have Bloody Marys at Igors on St Charles for breakfast. In the event we would have needed them, Igors had a washer and dryer in the backroom with the pool table. A sign near by read “naked people drink free”. Cool place, good bloodies.

We had tried the bloodies at Parkway Bakery and Tavern. We had a couple po boys with these drinks, fried shrimp and one oyster. These people have a huge menu and I bet there is some good stuff on it, but the po boys were just okay.

We also spent three hours parading with the Mardi Gras Indians. You can read about that a few post down.

We had also hooked up with some friends from Mobile. They had parked their car and were on their bikes. They caught up with us at the Indian parade and then again for dinner. These guys know the downtown area pretty well and they took us to a little neighborhood just outside the French Quarter. We had dinner at a tiny little place named Adolfo’s. It’s in a cool little hood called Marigny. All kinds of bars, restaurants and street life. The restaurant reminded of a small place in the west village, in NYC. The food was pretty good and we just happen to get the last table of the night.

So the next morning I called my dad to wish him happy St. Paddy day. We get to talking and I tell him where I am and he starts telling me about some restaurants he just read about in his current New Orleans magazine. He tells me about Il Posto, he tells me about Gautreau’s and he tells me about the St. James Cheese Co.

Il Posto is an Italian cafe on Dryades st. Stacey and I were looking for a lunch spot and decided to find Il Posto. We found it, no problem except it was closed on Mondays. So we were just kind driving around and found ourselves in front of the St. James Cheese co. I wasn’t thinking lunch there but Stacey thought we should have a look. We went in and there were these two people behind the counter tasting cheese. I watched them for a moment as they cut a piece of cheese, would smell it, then taste it and then let their eyes roll back in their head in pure ecstasy. We knew we were in a good cheese shop and decided to eat lunch there.

We had a Charcuterie board. It has cured meats, pate, cheese, a chutney we were told was colonial style and olives. It was great, the cured meats came from the restaurant Cochon (see previous post). We also had a salad, it had arugula, almonds, pears and a quince vinaigrette dressing with grated Manchego cheese on top. It was the perfect lunch and I wish I could have something like this for lunch more often, but ya just can’t get this in my neighborhood in Atlanta. I can get all this, don’t get me wrong, I just got to get in the car to go get it.

At this point we had been in NOLA for just over 24 hours and I was quite proud of our activities so far.