Many Homes for the Holidays

I'm still on the road and will be moving around the South until the Super Bowl. Currently, I am in Tampa, Florida, but before that I was spending time in Atlanta. However, for the last few days I was on Crystal River, just north of where I grew up on the Tampa Bay. I will be posting about another kind of manspace I found there. More later.

Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah to all.

Making Room for the Man Couch

(Humidor)

LaGrange, Georgia. – The way to a man’s heart is not through his stomach, but through a leather recliner. I spent the last two days with my best friend Jessica and her husband James at their home in LaGrange where James took a job a few years ago. Jessica says the house was bachelor pad before she moved in.

Vestigages of that life remain: beer steins and leather couches.

According to one source, a hallmark of the bachelor pad is the lack of attention to detail and cleanliness. The leather couch makes sense, he says. The cushions never have to go to the dry cleaner, which makes cleaning up easy.

A list of men who own leather couches whirls around in my head. Brother-in-laws and rockers among them. In the case of my sister, both she and her spouse decided to put a black leather set in their living room. That was four years ago. Today, she’s wondering why she didn’t recommend them for the den.

This brings me to where the man couch should live. In an earlier post, my architect cousin Beth explained the role of the den, specifically how modern design plans have thwarted this much-coveted man space. Rather than dens or sitting rooms, which were for the ladies, open floor plans force people to share spaces once deemed private for the different sexes.

So what's the big deal? My recent writing on the value of shared spaces suggests that the phasing out of the den is a good thing. It’s not. The best relationships are ones with boundaries, and in the South, where boundaries are often blurred, privacy is at a premium. The man couch in the living room (or what was once the sitting room) looks weird because it is. Where there should be a humidor, there’s a chintz vase in its place.

(Chintz Vase)

Putting the "PUH" in Pecan

As some of you know, I spend a good amount of my life in the kitchen. Today, I received this recipe from Cara Lundqvist, a former high school classmate of mine in Tampa, Florida, who now lives in Finland. (She met the man and moved there!)

A southern home is not complete without its pies. Three gold stars for Cara for keeping up the southern tradition of making pecan (puh-kahn) pie in Finland:

PECAN PIE

Filling
Ingredients
1 cup of dark brown sugar
2/3 cups of maple syrup
1 tablespoon of rum
3 eggs
2 cups of chopped pecans

Directions
In a bowl, whip the brown sugar and the syrup together until sugar has dissolved and the consistency is smooth.
Beat in 2 eggs and add 1 tablespoon of rum.
Add pecans and mix around until they get completely covered in the sticky liquid.

Crust
Ingredients
6 tablespoons of butter
24 graham crackers
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Directions
Melt 6 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan or microwave.
Crush 24 graham crackers into fine pieces.
In a bowl, add the butter into the graham cracker mix. Add more butter if needed. Mix should be moist. Stir in 2 egg whites. Add a teaspoon of cinnamon.
Press graham cracker mix into pie plate.
Pre-bake pie crust for 8-10 minutes at 350F.

Pour filling into the pre-baked crust and bake until the pecans are lightly toasted on top. About 20-30 minutes.

No TV Zone

I am hooked on television. I don't own an "idiot box," so whenever I have the chance to park it in front of one, I do. For those of you who think this is strange, I couldn't agree with you more. I haven't owned a TV in years. The reason is simple. I would become an addict.

(Case in point: Last night, I watched 3/4 of the True Blood series. More on that later...)

It's unfortunate, because Barry Hannah, the acclaimed writer and hero to many, once explained the value of the TV for creativity, and especially writing. It's about stories, he said. (In reality, my friend used this argument when I made fun of how much he watched TV. It's not in the watching, it's what you do with it that counts.) Hannah's point is that too much isolation from the rest of the world is never a good thing.

(Barry Hannah)

Clarissa subscribed to cable this fall. This is my friend who grew up in the bright lights and big cities of L.A. and New York. For the first couple of years she lived in Oxford, she watched movies and a few local fuzzy channels she captured with bunny ears. I recall the day I walked into her house and noticed the screen was clear. You have cable, I announced, rather than asked. Then in her usual way of explaining things (yes, my Clarissa really does explain it all), she told me that she needed it.

All this brings me to the "blog." A few weeks ago during my meeting with Charles Wilson, the professor signing off on this project, we discussed the sudden-hit TV series True Blood. I'd heard about it from my sister in Florida who records it and watches at her convenience every week. It's good she told me, but never why. So when Dr. Wilson brought up, I was intrigued. What is he doing watching this show?

(It's like Cheers with Vampires and Sex and Southern Drawls.)

Charles Wilson has his finger on the cultural pulse of the South, that's why. The show, he explained, and I would later find out, was series of dialogues about race, sexuality, and gender in the South. What I noticed, aside from the rich amount of sex and violence, was the depictions of southern homes. Whether it's the home Jason now lives in since he parents died in a flash flood, the home Sookie inhabits by herself since her grandmother was murdered, or the shabby digs of Tara's abode she shares with her alcoholic mother, the theme is this: the south is all about the shared space. Even Will Compton, the vampire Sookie has fallen for, shares his home with transient vampires; and Sam, the owner of the bar Merlotte's, spends more time in there than in his tin can trailer. You get the sense that people move between spaces more freely in the south.

I thinking about this as I plan my own move from Pierce Avenue. Will it be easy? I hope so, and perhaps watching a little TV will help with the process.

It's a Man's World, but the Bedroom Don't Mean Nothin' Without a Woman or a Girl

So I spent last weekend in Atlanta. The conversation about gendered spaces came up again, although this time I got feedback from my boyfriend Chris, whose corner of his bedroom I had taken over. He scored points with me saying that the bedroom should be a shared space. Really?, I thought, as I reorganized my oversized suitcase blocking the master bathroom.

Ideally, a home, especially the bedroom, should feel as though it is a shared space for those who live there. Most men will take a back seat to decorating, protesting the occasional stuffed bird or pink walls (or curtains, in my case.) Chris's house, on the other hand, is distinctly his own, which is something I can appreciate. He has a plethora prints, a series of monochrome paintings that line his hallway, and a large abstract drawing that forms the focal point (though it competes with his "tiny" television) of his living room. There are leather couches, ample lighting throughout, and a pairs of glass doors that open to a porch (where both male and female smokers congregate.)

Where we were great at sharing space, aside from the obvious, was in the kitchen. Ordinarily, I am territorial in this space, but with the right person I move in tandem with my partner. The kitchen, I was told, was more or less an eyesore before Chris has his way with it. Now replete with slate and granite, and all new appliances, including a gas range, it's a cozy space, and probably the place where we spent a good amount of my visit. We cooked several meals together for ourselves and friends. There was his chicken, pasta carbonara, and chicken salad, paired with my risotto, steak, and grits.

Back in my tiny Oxford home, I crave the company I had in Atlanta. People complain about sharing a home, but I've realized how much we miss out on when we stir a pot of risotto together. A bed even seems more inviting when it becomes a place to disappear to together.

House/Sex/Wars

"So," I ask my friends Michael, Matt, and Clarissa, "Is the bedroom a female space?" Earlier that day, my professor and I discussed gender and space and after determining the porch male, the kitchen female, and the living areas shared, we were left with the bedroom. 

Michael and Clarissa claimed female while Matt later recanted that it is solely such. His parents, he said, share everything. It's a his and hers house. The conversation ended and the guys proceeded to the porch while the women stayed in the kitchen. 

While they did whatever it is men do on porches (Clarissa posits that the porch is actually a shared space, and while I think she is right, it has only recently become this way), we women cooked and dished on men. 

When Matt and Michael returned, the conversation resumed. Matt pointed out how in the 1980/90s there was a change in Southern architecture that witness the den (male space) become a shared space with the kitchen. A bar often separated the two. I'm curious about the truth of his observation. When did the open floor plan take hold of the south? Was it something that the west coast or more urban areas embraced before we did? Very likely, but I'll get the facts from my architect cousin in Portland and let everyone know. 

For now, our group seemed content to interpret the bedroom as a female space. Then I remembered that my mother, in the last year or so, painted her shared bedroom pink. Not a soft pink, but a garish flamingo color. Light comes through the windows on late afternoon and it becomes for my parents what Dr. Charles Wilson calls "a sanctuary." And perhaps he's right. As I write, I am in my sanctuary. A bed with a heated blanket. 

Eat Like a Southerner

(Did someone just die, or are the Rebels playing?)

I finished the article on Helene DeFrance's cookbook/entertainment guide the other night. Reading it was rather timely considering I've been in entertaining mode for most of November. This month there was dinner with friends every weekend. There was Alysson and two other law clerks from Jackson (toast points with caramelized onion and Parmesan cheese, rosemary pecans, and the ubiquitous cheese plate), a baked ziti dinner (a la Marcella Hazan) with Alysson, Nathan and Scott Barretta, and most recently, a shared meal with Scott (a regular) and my friend Avon who spent the last year in France learning about food at Rose Bakery in Paris. The menu was simple: orrecichette with a bordelaise New Orleans-style sauce and salad. This weekend, I'll be cooking remotely in Atlanta.

(The Maryland Rebels and their pan-fried chicken.)

Entertaining is one thing southerners have down pat. Witness the Grove. Aside from weddings, I've never seen such decadent and decided planning of meals. What happens in the Grove has garnered the attention of national print in Saveur among other publications. Recently, I was to meet some editors there from Gourmet who were considering doing a story on the spectacle. A spectacle it is. When my brothers arrive next week from Florida, I intend on sharing this little piece of culinary heaven with them.