We have a wall full of folk art, which my husband, Rick, and I have collected over the past 30 years. We started our collection with a piece by famed Montgomery artist Mose Tolliver. It's called Fountain Ducks with Eggs, and it was an engagement gift from our colleagues at The Alabama Journal. We lived … Continue reading A DIY That Should Have Been Done Already
A couple of my kids are great thrift-store shoppers, so I took them to the thrift-store mecca Unclaimed Baggage Center. This huge store in Scottsboro, Alabama, is where unclaimed bags and cargo from all over the country eventually end up. "You never know what you'll find," is the logo of this store. It's an understatement. We … Continue reading Day Trip to Unclaimed Baggage
I had long been a fan of Alabama artist Beverly Erdreich when I got an assignment to interview her. Funny how things work out that way. This was for the first issue of Portico Mountain Book, and while this happened a while ago, I'd still like to share the story. You'll need to scroll to … Continue reading Art Lessons with Beverly Erdreich
We made Melissa Clark's shakshuka from the New York Times Cooking website all fall, and this North African dish of eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce had become my go-to. Wanting to change things up a bit, I decided upon the Southern Italian version of this, Eggs in Purgatory. Then I got sidetracked by Ande ki … Continue reading Dinner at My House: Put an Egg In It
Here are the books I featured on WBRC Fox 6's Good Day Alabama on January 2. The Missing (William Morrow) In this twisty thriller by C.L Taylor, made highly intriguing by an unreliable narrator, a teenager goes missing from a family with lots of damaging secrets. The story is told from the perspective of Claire Wilkinson, who is … Continue reading Fox 6 Books: January
A Brighter Star Alabama’s oldest restaurant, The Bright Star in Bessemer, is looking a little brighter these days. First know that this restaurant is a real treasure. I’m not just referring to the delicious Southern (and Greek) food there. The hand-painted murals in the main dining room have been restored recently to the kind of … Continue reading Alabama Eats: The Bright Star
The awesomely grotesque chimeras (including the famous le Stryge) high above Paris were a few of the rewards for climbing the more than 400 twisty, corkscrew steps all the way up to the belfry of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral. There are safety nets everywhere you look, but there also are little holes in these nets--just … Continue reading View from Notre-Dame’s Towers
Five-Carat Soul (Riverhead Books) by James McBride was one of President Obama’s favorite books from 2017. I enjoyed it, too, and included it in my book recommendations on WBRC Fox 6 in December. This is the first new fiction from McBride since his National Book Award-winning historical novel, The Good Lord Bird, which was about … Continue reading Recent Reads: Five-Carat Soul
Julia Moskin’s Best Black Bean Soup from the New York Times Cooking website is a winner. I’ve made a lot of black bean soups over the years, and, in my opinion, this really is “the best.” My family thinks so, too. Here's the link to this awesome recipe. I didn’t have time to go to … Continue reading Dinner at My House: Black Bean Soup
1. Open a dedicated checking account. Our daughter made a budget (with extra money for unexpected expenditures), and we opened a checking account with that amount. She was great about keeping up with everything on a spreadsheet, and she and her husband-to-be could spend the money as they wanted--and keep what was left over! 2. … Continue reading 10 Things I Learned as Mother of the Bride
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