Two Recent Meals with Impact

Hatton Smith, Joslyn Smith and Richard Yeilding at Rotary's
25 year celebration of the Harbert Center in Birmingham

Dad, Mom and Dr. Ruth Hill Yeilding at
Gian Marco's Wine

      
     First, Rotary's celebration of the 25th year anniversary of the Harbert Center.  Quite the crowd from Birmingham's business and education leaders came together to enjoy the center, company, and food with great performances from UAB's symphony and Marching Band.  The original architect was there, who along with others dared to dream big dreams for Birmingham by creating this center.  Through the efforts of Rotaract members $705,000 was







raised for updates to the building, continuing this spirit of dreaming big for Birmingham.
     And second, dinner and wine tasting at the new back house to Gian Marco's which has been turned into a wine cellar.  In a cabin-like atmosphere, customers can enjoy fine wine and traditional Italian while sitting on the porch around a wine barrel turned table top surrounded by a garden.
      Typical of any night at Gian Marcos, Giani engages all his customers with conversation, suggestions of numerous daily specials, and the latest news of ideas percolating this think-tank of culinary arts.  Also it never fails, indicative of the welcoming atmosphere of the restaurant, that you will make a few more friends from one meal by sitting closely with an amalgam of people from Birmingham tucked away in a hidden slice of paradise where risk-takers prosper and every meal is a celebration.

"Make a Plate"

          So far, today, I have put up two more poems, one I wrote for my parent's anniversary and another I put together from notes in Zuni as well as my own experiences with love as my religion as well as in constant pursuit of it.  I also thought I would write more stories of meals I have shared with family and friends.

         One from this summer comes to mind with another poet, Brittany O and family, The Othole's.

            Here is a 2:00 pm meal after graduation with proud parents and artists, Leander and Lisa.  On my return visit, I made famous "Bama" Stew which in Birmingham would be called Santa Fe Chili.  We also had pancakes, eggs, fry bread, coffee and Zuni salt all in moderation.  More exciting news, let's welcome to the world, Kylen Iyah Othole, born yesterday September 20, 2011 as I was thinking about writing this story!

            

            Another tradition that I learned from the Zuni's, after eating, they always tell guests to, "Make a plate" to take with you as you leave.  What I think this means is that cooking is an event to be shared and also to provide plenty for family.  Regardless of whether we're amateurs or not the people and company are what make slow food.  From this experience, I remembered not only to make a plate, but don't let anyone steal your soul (or let you turn into a stella :)  Thank you Othole's, from a guest who believes that you are the angels.

"When entertaining strangers you entertain angels unaware."

           

      

30 Days of Slow Food and Poetry, Day 6

     Tonight after my Language Acquisition class at UAB, I had an important dinner date with one of my heroes, my dad, at Bottega Cafe.  Although they did not have my favorite beer, Magic Hat, they did have a delicious red pepper appetizer stuffed with goat cheese and sprinkled with capers and golden raisins.  For me, this was topped off with a just right, Mireille Guiliano-inspired glass of Prosecco.  I had trout with butter bean cous cous and my dad had chicken scallopine.  Pardis and the crew treated us to chocolate cake with pepper meringue icing.  


     As many times as I think Birmingham has gotten the best of me, I realize that nothing beats the restaurants here or the company of family.  It must be true to it's name, Bottega, the studio of a master artist, in which lesser artists, apprentices, or students learn by participating in the work where I will forever be the learner of my heroes and restaurant family.  Elah'kwa :)

"Don't ever give up: church, work, exercise." Love, Dad

  

No Recipe for this, freezing funnnnnn!

$5 Challenge+30 days of poetry+protesting in the streets of Birmingham= ???

So far, my pledge to Slow Food USA's $5 challenge has included:  putting some poetry out there, a potential protest of football which becomes a little easier when Auburn is losing, but also even better when BC was beating Duke, less meat, more creative projects,  $5 off at Hobby Lobby for paintbrushes, three meals at Chick-fila for $5 before walking for midwives, sharing a Restoration Academy turkey sandwich with my newlywed brother, sister-in-law and friend, another equation for pure poetry!  It's true, "the joy you give to others is the joy that comes back to you!" especially when there's no judgment involved :)

This weekend I started painting the last of four sails with my nephew.  All four sails are for the Watercress darter fish, found only in Jefferson County.  The idea being this:   the 4 sails represent the 4 locations of this particular darter and potential garden art for Powderly, Pinson, Bessemer, and Roebuck Springs.  My class at Tarrant painted one for Pinson, I painted one for Bessemer, Roebuck Springs is hanging at Brad Morton's Studio, and one more to go before October 6th!

Additionally, it must now become a well-known fact that s'mores and ghost in the graveyard cure all heartache.  

There is something about the way the ingredients in S'mores combine to give everyone back their happy childhood:  Graham crackers, slightly burned marshmallows to taste, plus just a tad of melted chocolate, and voila, sticky hands and we're hunting for frogs again.  Ofcourse, you can always take the chocolate out as Alecia did, but be careful what you wish for as well as what you put out there because it all comes back to you.  While sharing my 1,000th S'more, I told my nephew about when my siblings and I would play Ghost in the Graveyard.  With explicit instructions about how to play, Ghost in the Graveyard began with turning out all lights, Alecia and myself counting the 1 o'clock to 12 o'clock, countdown. Midnight! and we opened the door to find James standing in the middle of the hall. Let's also note that to this Ghosts in the Graveyard, we added Vampires, Witches, and everything else scary including Smart Women and Mean Teachers.  We conquered it all.

Quote of the weekend after his first ski behind the boat:  "That was freezing funnnnn!"  

~ from the Book of James 

                              Sunday meal:  Spaghetti Squash, Sweet Potatoes and JVUF basil
                        Just another thing my mother taught me when she helped me fill in the sun...

"Everyone who can stand, stand now. If you can help others, do so." ~Welles Crowther

My red bandana:  community, gardens, and writing.  I support community gardens, am part of Catalyst's CGC Birmingham, and am anxiously anticipating DISCO's EatDrinkReadWrite Festival starting this week; however, I have something to confess I do not have the greenest of thumbs!  Well, at least not at my own tree-lined shady slice of heaven I call home on Oglesby.  But, they say take it in small steps, so an update to my esperanza para las circle of pansies on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we have banana peppers at Jardin de GH.  Great on pizza, and best when grown in a bird bath.  Banana with pepper, perhaps my new approach to life, peace with a kick and in gratitude to the charming gardeners in my life.

Here comes a great time...

Dart to Brad... Thursday, September 15th, 2011

Join the Youth Board of the Southern Environmental Center next Thursday for happy hour with us serving as guest bartenders!  Get a sneak peak of the latest going on in Brad Morton's studio, while supporting the SEC.  Additionally, your participation in this event gets you half off for EcoFest, October 6th at the Harbert Center.  A win, win!  

Thank you to the SEC Board for planning a great EcoFest for this year and SEC's director, Roald Hazelhoff as well as dwindling but ever-powerful, fellow youth board members, Catie Yeilding and Phil Amthor.

(PS, to students, this is an 18 or older event!  You can support the cause by advocating for the environment at your school or asking your teacher for a field trip to the Southern Environmental Center)

"Empowering Teachers, Enriching Students."

Yesterday, I presented to the RMWP Leadership team a dream that many of my fellows and I discussed during our month as fellows in RMWP: 1-1 mentors for students in writing.  Being someone that benefitted both personally and professionally from RMWP, I was thrilled with the opportunity to dream.  What we came up with is a center at UAB for students from K-12 to come after school for tutoring, SAT/ACT prep, and enrichment which would be taught by fellows of the project.  Following models of Dave Eggers and Chip Brantley, we hope to bring to UAB a center for students and teachers to develop and share a love of writing.


     "Empowering teachers, enriching students."  This is the theme of a dream that RMWP’s leadership team discussed yesterday.  We will bring fellows and students to UAB's campus to apply RMWP concepts to a select group of K-12 students from all of metropolitan Birmingham.  Taught by fellows who are also teachers, students will get tutoring, writing support, and SAT/ACT prep in all content areas with writing as focus.  Simply put, teachers who teach writing must write themselves, and writing must be taught in all content areas.  It is a process and art which we want to include the youth on.  Please join us!  More info to come...


Thank you Dr. Perry, Bruce McComiskey and all the many dreamers involved in the project.  

UAB's RMWP Learning and Enrichment Center

          title="Wordle: RMWP Center">