Ashlyn: Cabin fever. BAD. i'm about to say lets jet off to ATL or nashville
Sloan: really?? can we please? i just said those exact same words to my mother i am DYING to get outta this town. (I should add at this point that, despite a Braves game, we have been kicking it in the fabulous 'Ham for approximately 5 consecutive months.)
Ashlyn: you think we could swing it? you know i'm in if you are.
Sloan: well. we'd have to decide where first.
Ashlyn: ha. okay, hm. can we go to n'ville?

The choice of restaurant was easy: Give a girl French lessons for five years, and she's got a built-in affinity for anything francais, mais oui. We trotted over to Chez Lulu, a bohemian yet refined French cafe tucked into Birmingham's English Village. (Think decor of Grayton Beach's Red Bar with less flip flops and sand, more ballet flats and white table cloths.) Lush reds, walls covered in scrolling-gold frames, and European food: Perfect ambiance for a new 21-year-old and her mama.

Okay, okay. So while I may be interning in a city where I go to college, let's be honest: You kinda lose the "explorer" habit when sophomore year hits. This summer, I'm going to finally dig into Birmingham like I am a fresh out of the gates traveler. And while I may be no novice to Birmingham, there a a plethora of mossy Shades Creek rocks I have left to unturn. Keep checking back with me--I'm a girl on a mission and I will welcome any and all ideas you have for me!

GILCHRIST'S
I've smugly uttered the following phrase approximately 26 times: "Oh, well I never order the same thing twice." My, my. How cosmopolitan. But alas, as I add years to my life I find some comfort in having my "usual." At my table. In my restaurant.

This past weekend my family and I experienced the beauty of the Locust Fork River for the first time. One of Alabama's longest remaining free-flowing rivers, it twists and turns its way between ridges and cliffs just north of Birmingham. Home to several rare aquatic species, including a few stands of the beautiful Cahaba lily, the river meanders lazily in places, while at others its waters rush between rocks, over shoals, and, when I hit the chutes just right, over the bow and all over my wife. 

by Ashlyn Stallings

You know those little triggers that cue the voice in your head to say, “This time last year?” Lately for me, memories ensue with the thick scent of confederate jasmine or the lowcountry cookbooks lying around my apartment—it’s safe to say I miss Charleston these days.

This time last year, I was interning at the fabulous Spoleto Festival USA in the Holy City. Trotting up and down King, George and East Bay streets to hit up shows with my comp tickets, I was high on art, music and dance during the 17-day festival. This is the last weekend, so check it out now.

(I visited Mose Tolliver at his home in 2005.)

I'm heading to Tallahassee, FL, this week to interview an artist for an upcoming feature on the great Southern folk artists you need to buy now.

(I would tell ya more about it, but I don't want to scoop the story.  Keep your eye on the mag...) 

I'm a folk art enthusiast, investing any extra cash into pieces I admire and the artists who create them. The trip reminds me of my first folk art encounter: A trip to see Mose Tolliver, one of the most noted artists of the contemporary folk art genre... 

Buddy Grimm stepped off his long, flat stone crab boat just as the sun began its last half-hour in the south Florida sky. He looked beat: reddened on his forearms and ears, his loose and tatteredoxford shirt stained by tobacco and sea salt. His three crabbers lifted the day's catch in large rectangle boxes filled to the top with pink-and-black stone crab claws. Looking at the catch, I thought of two things: 1) Would the poised and frightening claws come back to life if I touched one; and 2) Were a bunch of crabs swimming in circles out beyond Chokoluskee Bay?

Everybody fears #17.  The island hole at TPC Sawgrass haunts all of professional golf's big boys (Tiger, Phil, and the rest of the pack) who are swinging away at THE PLAYERS tournament kicking off today in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. 

I understand.  I played the course last Spring with my father (see my story on the TPC Sawgrass Experience in SL's April '09 issue).  #17 beat me.  Dad smote it, however, and I even shot a video of his tee shot. 

Last week I traveled to North Carolina. It was my first trip to NC in the two years I've been on staff at Southern Living. After tens of thousands of miles logged in the far reaches of Texas and in Louisiana's  bayou backwater, seeing the rolling, tree-wealthy range of central North Carolina was the freshest breath of air I've had in a long while. At times, I felt like I was in another country, maybe Scotland.

Hikers, spelunkers, and other outdoors lovers often advise "take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints." As a photographer, I've always tried to adhere to that. Yesterday morning at the beach in Camp Helen State Park in Florida's beautiful panhandle, I found a lot of different footprints to photograph. 

Photo: Robbie Caponneto

A 450th birthday calls for some serious celebrating and Pensacola plans to commemorate its founding all year long. The Florida Panhandle city, home to a festive lot of residents well rehearsed in the art of merriment, has planned a slew of events throughout 2009 and in the process remind St. Augustine which city was actually settled first. (See below for the answer.)

Okay, so this is really cool.  I caught wind about the Southwest Airlines Wi-Fi, but it didn't cross my mind this morning when I hopped the plane from B'ham to Dallas.  

Then, Bam!  Here I am, blogging in real time from the skies.  Their wi-fi homepage shows me the progress of the flight.  (It's 8:15 a.m., we're going 450 mph, our ETA to Love Field is 68 minutes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses...)  During this testing period, the service is as free as the two packs of peanuts sitting on my tray. 

Now, what could I write about?  The guy in 12D holds his newspaper close to his face.  The woman in 13D brought cheese crackers.  She offered me one, but I politely declined. 

I never promised the post would be exciting. Just cool.

Kachina Peak as seen in the distance from the intersection of the Highline and West Basin trails

My head was in the clouds and my burning lungs felt like they were in my stomach…being digested. At an altitude of some 12,000 feet, I looked up at the final approach to Kachina Peak, breathless and more airheaded than usual. More than a little humbled, too, as the words of the ski shop clerk down in Taos Ski Valley (TSV) echoed in my head with a sort of taunting lilt. When I had asked him earlier in the week if the hike to the ski resort’s highest peak would take me the 45 minutes a local had estimated, he in turn asked me, “Where you from?” Upon hearing the place I call home is the relatively low altitude Birmingham, AL, he smiled and answered my original question with a confident, perhaps overly so, estimate of, “An hour and a half.”

Back on the mountain, I looked at my watch and reveled in the fact that he was wrong. By his reckoning, I should’ve reached the top five minutes ago, yet I still had another quarter mile to go – all of it up hill.

Mark your calendars for April 19-20 and 25-26: The global music community is descending onto Houston for iFest. From Celtic to Tejano to African drum circles, the city will be jamming out both weekends. Since 1971, the iFest has been THE international event of the year in hTown, and for good reason. When you look at all the offerings, it will make your head hurt it's so packed. 

Editor's Pick: Rootz Underground, one of Jamaica's hottest reggae bands, shown above. There's plenty of good acts to catch on the 10 stages. So, if international travel is out for your family this summer, head into Houston. Tip: If you buy before March 31, one-day tickets to all the shows are only $7.50.  For a preview of Rootz Underground and other performers, continue reading...

Detoured off I-540 to hike at Devil's Den State Park in NW Arkansas.  Followed unmarked paths to crevices and blazed trails to caves.  Didn't make it too far into this one.  Next time, I'll pack a flashlight.   

Ah. It's FINALLY here. My very favorite two days of the sporting year. Thursday-Friday of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tourney, the day when giants are knocked off, when the little guy hits the game-winner to clinch immortality on his home turf. Tune in to this post to hear all about the South's best sleeper teams likely to shock the hoops world. Even President Obama is in on the fun. 

Some people think of Oxford and immediately think of The Square, The Grove, and Ole Miss. For me, Oxford is a bastion of Mississippi culture and great Southern dining. So it disheartens me to report that Yocona River Inn, one of the community's culinary landmarks, was destroyed by fire on on Thursday, March 12.

I wish Billy Reid was my roommate. Then whenever I needed to look especially cool and dapper and Gatsby-gone-South, I'd just raid his closet. Last month, the New York Times ran a killer piece giving the Alabama fashion designer major kudos. He deserves it. Now only if I can convince Billy to move from Florence to Birmingham.

There’s something strange afoot in Lake Wales, Florida. Automobiles seem to defy gravity on one notorious side street.

Just down from peninsular Florida’s highest point, the aptly named “Spook Hill” has been thrilling the willing for nigh on 100 years now by making wheeled vehicles seemingly roll up hill. Is it the result of a buried magnetic pole? Or is it the protective ghost of a Native American chief and the gator with whom he fought to the death, both of whom are supposedly buried nearby? Or maybe it’s a Bermuda Triangle-esque portal to another universe?

I can claim a few towns as my own, at least enough so to give strong local-recommended, mother-approved tips on what to do. Foodie heaven Charleston, mega-opolis Laaa-Grange GA, Grayton Beach, and everyone's favorite string music capitol Nashville. Just yesterday on a Mexican beach (Tulum, but don't tell anyone, ok?), I ran into a man on his way to Nashvegas. Going to the Whole Foods executive board meeting. Big wig, I know. Anyways, he mentioned the Music City, so I quickly mentioned The Station Inn on 12th. If you like live music and popcorn and possibly pitchers of Bud, well, JT Gray's cinderblock wonderpalace of banjos and mandos will slap you happy. Enjoy.

This moonlight photo would never have worked the old way Southern Living shot images. Want to know why?

(photo by Robbie Caponetto)

“Everybody wants to know when they will win the lottery," said Margaret "Miss Maggie" Burkley. "It’s not the winning or the losing, though. It’s the playing of the game.”

SL Photographer Robbie Caponetto and I sat down with Miss Maggie last March while researching our story The Allure of Natchez in the March '09 issue.  We found her, because when we asked locals about the unique personalities and characters, they all recommended we make an appointment to see her at her pink house on the bluff. 

Why?  She was the town psychic, and even though I called ahead, I had a feeling she knew we were coming... 

The first thing John David Montgomery ever gave me was a pair of red chopsticks.  To be fair, they were the only things he ever gave me.  To be even fairer, he tried to give me a Bud Light when last I saw him, but I politely passed.  I still had a ways to go on the bottle in my hand...

The James Beard Foundation recently announced the Semifinalists for the annual James Beard Awards, the Oscars of the food world. And not one, but three Charleston chefs got the nod.

Pictured from left: Chef Aaron Deal of Tristan (nominated for Rising Star Chef of the Year), Chef Sean Brock of McCrady's (Rising Star Chef of the Year and Best Chef: Southeast), and Chef Mike Lata of FIG (Best Chef: Southeast)

Now, Momma taught me it's rude to say, "I told you so." No one likes a know-it-all. But in the February issue of Southern Living,

Yesterday I read something very, very Southern in the New York Times. For months now the newspaper fairy has been delivering to my doorstep a free copy of the Sunday Times. I used to "borrow" the local public library's copy early sabbath AM --- returning it before the den of books opened on Monday --- until, lucky for me, the daily gods saw fit to save me the two-mile drive. Now, it's waiting thickly folded and wrapped in thin blue plastic when the sun comes up, minus that obscene $5 price tag Starbucks requires. But, back to the gorgeously written piece...it was about a frozen deer carcass in southeast Tennessee.

“He is not my friend.” That’s what my 3-year-old daughter, Campbell, said when she first laid her eyes on a clown at Ringling Bros. and Barnum Bailey circus. We went an hour before the show to the All Access Pre-Show. All ticket-holders can go early to take pictures with the clowns, get performers’ autographs, meet the performers, and even see an elephant paint. I found it a good way to introduce my first-timer to the circus.

Read More

Hey, just a quick post from the Romance-Isn’t-Dead department. As we barrel into Valentine’s weekend, I was reminded recently how simple displays of love can mean so much.

A friend told me about when, this past Saturday night, she and her husband were driving home from a dinner out. “He kept driving around in circles, and I’d ask him what he was doing. He’d say ‘I’m not going to tell you.’ He was playing ‘Moonlight Serenade’ by Frank Sinatra on the stereo over and over.’

For me, it was love at first sight.

Growing up, we never went on snow-filled vacations, but opted for with sandy beaches instead. I never got "snow days" from school, but instead watched Dallas shut down due to ice. Snow was something I had only seen on the big screen. So when I saw all that snow in Taos, New Mexico last year, well, I was smitten.

From watching skiers at the Bavarian Lodge and Restaurant to driving to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Angel Fire, a visit to Taos is all about relaxation and exploration. Taos Ski Valley right now has 84 inches of snow and primo conditions for skiing. Or, if you're like me, making snowballs and simply gazing at the beautiful white stuff.

Check it http://www.skitaos.org for more information.

Downtown Roswell, Georgia, a suburb about 14 miles north of Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood, feels much like a little English village. Clockmakers, painters, tidy and cute cottages, the whole bowl of cheerios. Now, as restaurant men with an affinity for country pubs opened Red Salt, Roswell really feels like Sussex.

As news of the ice storm and its drastic effects on Kentucky and parts of Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee, spread in our offices, the common question was "How can we help?" Over the next days and weeks as a staff and magazine, we'll do everything we can to keep readers and travelers updated on progress in those areas touched by the storms.

In this effort, we ask for your help as well.

As news comes to you, please let us know by posting comments at the bottom of this blog post. What restaurants and grocery stores are open? What community projects are starting up? Where can families find aid and relief? Any pertinent information that people in these areas would benefit by knowing, post it. Also, if you read of any info relevant to your family and friends in these towns, consider calling them and letting them know. With such a storm, internet service is likely down. Sources tells us cell phones are your best bet.

Last week's ice storm left considerable destruction in several states, including Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois. Some communities may not have electricity or municipally supplied water for weeks. Stay tuned to this site for information concerning how you can help residents rebuild infrastructure and get their lives back on track.

If you're planning a trip to the area or just want to know how family and friends who live in these states are faring, see www.wpsdtv.com for information on utility outages in Kentucky. The list includes county-by-county information concerning electrical outages, what businesses are open, road conditions, locations of warming centers, and water boil orders. The site also includes information on Missouri, Illinois, and Tennessee counties affected by the storm.

(Photo: Wendy Davis, Cunnigham, KY)

Sure, Grand Isle is a famous fishing village in South Louisiana that has endured more than its share of hurricane misery, most recently from Gustav. It's also the name of a new dining spot in New Orleans that captures some of the soul of the Lousiana coast in all its funky appeal.

(Photo: Ken Walker)

I’m like a moth to a bug light when I see a front porch like the one in the painting above. It’s like a mood ring. In a cheery state of mind, I see the light emanating from inside and immediately hear music and voices, expecting the door to swing open and the party to spill outside. In more introspective moments, I focus on the emptiness, the tidiness, the skull, as metaphors for the spent spirit after a long day…and wonder how long before that party spills outside.

Continuing our local's look into the city of Dallas, here are the next five reasons to visit Big D. Also, I didn't mention that this list of 25 is not ranked. It's a sum-greater-than-the-parts deal. OK, let's get to it.

16. They've painted the town.

Check out two more vintage covers from Southern Living's early years. Other than the hairdo, Jackson Square's sidewalk art still looks pretty much the same. If you readers have any SL's from the 60's and 70's, feel free to share favorite story subjects, pictures, or advertisements.

In the February issue of Southern Living, I wrote about "the most misunderstood metropolis in America" --- Dallas. Big D. The Other Dubai. The Central Coast. Where the east ends. The nicknames help to push this fashionable boom city into unflattering light. Fortunately, we don't research with Wikipedia. Truth be told, Dallas is a killer town. I've never in my life been more welcomed into a big city. It's very local, if that makes any sense. And I've never been more happily surprised to find indie music joints, laid back beer gardens, ambitiously green locals, and enough material to warrant a follow-up, top 25 list of reasons to kick it in Dallas sometime soon. So here we go...

21. They are building a waterfront.

January 20th 2009, Washington, D.C., 9:34 a.m.

"Twenty degrees up here feels a lot colder than twenty degrees in Birmingham," says Southern Living assistant travel editor Farrah Austin.  She called us this morning from her spot alongside thousands and thousands and thousands of people in front of the nation's capitol building.

There's a buzz in our magazine's offices, but it hardly compares to Farrah's perspective...

(Tungurahua as seen through our bus's window.  --photos by Tanner Latham)

It’s roughly a four hour bus ride from Quito to Ambato.  We rolled south on the Pan-American Highway, also called the avenue of the volcanoes. About 45 minutes from our destination,

(Plaza de San Francisco, Quito, Ecuador--photo by Tanner Latham)

Photographer Cary Jobe and I were in Ecuador for a week last year researching "The Common Language of Caring," a story that starts on page 74 in the February '09 issue of Southern Living.

A medical mission team, comprised of many Southern doctors, nurses, medical techies, and volunteers, returns each February...

The towns of Marfa, Alpine, and Marathon embody the far west Texas spirit of wide open possibility. If you react like locals to the almost endless spread of landscape, you'll be on the next plane to El Paso. For some backstory on the assignment and my three trips out west, watch the audio slideshow.

They just don’t make them like this anymore. With a winding lane that twists around a central fountain and between brightly painted, gabled buildings, the 78-year-old Chalet Suzanne looks more like an old-world village than a Florida motel. Add a high-end restaurant that’s served celebrities from around the world, a soup factory that’s fed astronauts, and an airstrip atop the highest ridge in peninsular Florida, and the little 26-room hideout in Lake Wales easily scores the classification as unique.

Even after 100 years of mountain solitude, Balsam Mountain Inn, opened in 1908, remains as tranquil as it is painted white. According to one guest when I visited last fall, the leaves beginning their magic show on the hills, "I just sort of fell in love with the rocking chairs on the porch." Couldn't agree more. An added, and often overlooked, bonus to the driveway-wide porch? The restaurant there is fit for a Carolina king.

While researching "Old Salem by Candlelight", (p. 40 in Southern Living's December issue) I took a stroll down Church Street in this historic district of North Carolina.  Four birds waddled out, crossed the street, and bee-lined to a pile of corn kernels scattered in a front yard. 

A local later told me he had heard of a gaggle of vagrant guinea hens inhabiting the neighborhood. 

He thought it was an urban legend.

For a slide show of images from the story, click here.

In Atlanta for the Bama-Florida game—the Tebow Blowout—we Crimson Tiders needed to drown some serious sorrows. Destination: Two Urban Licks, a short cab ride away from the scene of disaster.

Sometimes those little voices in my head offer good advice. I don't know why but while driving to Florida this past fall I bypassed my usual haunts in Montgomery and Ozark, and decided to look for dinner in Dothan. I guess the voices convinced me I needed to try something new. That is, in part, my job as a writer, after all.

"Barbecue is the closest thing we have to cheese in France. It’s our food. There’s no getting around it.”

These words spoken by Patrick Martin of Martin's Barbecue Joint in Nolensville, TN (about 20 miles outside of Nashville), tell of his love for the Que. We're talking God and country love---first kiss love---favorite football team love---the kind of love a man feels when he's found the "one." But his adoration for pulled pork goes far beyond succulent slices of meat layered on greasy buns. With smoke in his hair, fire in his eyes, and barbecue sauce in his veins, this Que connoisseur specializes in the fine art of whole hog cooking--an old-school culinary art form that has him winning recognition by respected pit masters from Memphis to Manhattan.

With one visit to his restaurant---a wooden structure with a large front porch---I knew why.

(Photo by Jennifer V. Cole)

Anyone who has read any of my Tales from the Road posts has surely picked up on a theme. From nostalgic musings on bacon grease to recounting a muddy afternoon spent with feisty pigs in a North Carolina pigsty to my ode to Donald Link's Cochon restaurant--when it comes to pork, I'm like a kid in a candy store. Sometimes I even hear angels.

When I found out that Aaron Deal put a new dish on his lunch menu at Tristan that celebrates pork belly, I had to make a pilgrimage. I don't mean to be sacrilegious, but let's just say I was moved by the porcine spirit.

Houma, Louisiana is true Cajun country, home to some outstanding down-home food. But on a fishing trip a few years ago, I discovered Cristiano's, one of the best restaurants I've visited anywhere in Louisiana. It's a great surprise and worth a drive.

I don't understand the Blues. I don't know the Blues. My dad only played country music on our car trips growing up. I listened to Mariah Carey and REM and Crash Test Dummies as a teenager. And now the songwriters I drift towards like Bon Iver might put Howlin Wolf and Buddy Guy to sleep. It wasn't until I heard Solomon Burke sing "How I Got to Memphis" - a song that to this very day makes me want to call the river city home, just for a little stint, to feel the hurting truth of King Solomon - that the Blues knocked on my door. But even as I write this, the soft, cottony talking Blues angel in my backseat mumbles two words. Muddy. Waters. Yessir, Muddy Waters, my friend.

Yesterday I hit the red leather-bound volumes of Southern Living, starting at the top left corner of the shelves in 1966. What I found felt very much like a time capsule.