33 minute read
MAN ABOUT TOWN
READ ’EM & WEEP
THE MAN WRESTLES WITH THE COMMENTS OF HIS REVIEWERS
by Steven Tingle
During my eleven years as a freelance magazine writer, I’ve rarely received comments on my work. Occasionally, but not often, someone I’ve interviewed for an article will send me a nice email or a handwritten note with some kind words about a story I’ve written. One man, a former illustrator for NASA, upped the ante and brought me homemade biscotti after the piece I wrote about him was published. And every once in a while, I’ll run into someone who will say, “I loved your last Man About TOWN. It was hilarious.” When that happens, I thank them graciously and try to remember what I’ve written, and if it was meant to be funny.
So, when my novel was released in August of last year, I was completely unprepared for reader reviews. As they started appearing online, my blood pressure, already relatively high, spiked into stroke territory. “This one’s going in the trash where it belongs,” a woman noted in her one-star review. A man, who hated the book so much it took him six hundred words to fully communicate his distaste, said, “The book sounded interesting. It wasn’t.” Other reviewers called the book “brutally boring, and almost a DNF (did not finish)” and “overly simplistic, relying solely on the stupidity of bumbling cops to string things out for an entire book.” To be honest, that last reviewer might have a point.
Fortunately, the positive reviews vastly outnumber the negative ones. But it’s the handful of negative reviews that feed my insecurity and my insomnia. Why don’t they like me? I’ll wonder as I toss and turn at two in the morning. Why do they have to be so critical? And so mean? The reviewers remind me of the bullies in seventh grade who tormented me because I carried my books in a briefcase instead of a backpack.
“Don’t read them,” an author friend recently told me when I divulged my obsession with reviews. “Good or bad, don’t read any of them,” he said. “If you’re reading reviews, you’re not writing, and writing is your job.” He’s probably right. It would be better for my mental health, and my productivity, if I put all reviews in the trash, where he believes they belong. But I’m too neurotic to do that. I’ll keep reading them and keep tossing and turning. And keep kidding myself that it’s possible to please everyone. Steven Tingle is the author of Graveyard Fields and is the monthly contributor to this column. Find more at steventingle.com.
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Bob Jones Jr., son of the evangelist Bob Jones, began purchasing Old Master paintings when he became president of Bob Jones University in the 1940s—and it has become one of the most valuable collections of European art in the world.
by John Nolan
President Bob Jones Jr. acquired Botticelli’s Madonna and Child with an Angel within the first year of starting a world-renowned art collection at Bob Jones University.
(opposite) A fine example of a nineteenthcentury Orientalist painting, Edwin Long’s Vashti Refuses the King’s Summons illustrates a rare theme in Old Masters’ works.
Robert Reynolds Jones Jr. was born in the cotton fields of Dothan, Alabama.
When Bob Jones University, the school his father started in 1927, moved to Greenville from Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1947, students and faculty arrived driving through cotton fields in the surrounding countryside. At the same time, scores of mills were making cloth in Greenville for global markets—earning Greenville the title, “Textile Center of the World.” While wealthy mill executives brought an array of fantastic architecture, music, theater, and country club organizations to the Upstate, the European fine art that filled the homes and museums of their big-city counterparts was not to be found in Greenville.
Within a few years following Jones Jr.’s arrival, as president of BJU, he set about changing that. Culture had always been a part of the university’s core emphasis of what a well-rounded education should be. BJU had successful vocal, instrumental, art, literature, and theater programs, but lacked an art collection that could inspire students and expose them to great masters of the past. Over the course of his life, Jones Jr. visited many great art museums around the world while traveling with his evangelist father. In the late 1940s, a friend and wellconnected businessman, Carl Hamilton, encouraged Jones Jr. to build an art collection for the school. Hamilton had relationships with many of the top art dealers and curators at the time and offered to help him assemble a museum collection that would not only round out the students’ college experience but serve to inspire the larger community with the beauty and skill of great artists.
When the campus museum opened to the public on Thanksgiving in 1951, twenty-five paintings ranging from the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries brought an opportunity for locals to view Old Masters. Prior to that time, they would’ve had to travel to Richmond, Virginia, or Sarasota, Florida, to see anything comparable. The university entrusted Jones with a $30,000-per-year budget to buy paintings that would build a pre-twentiethcentury survey collection of Western European art that had the unique parameters of religious subject matter, with a focus on those depicting scriptural events or Biblical characters.
Recognizable painters were certainly on Jones’s agenda, so patrons could see works by artists with whom they were familiar. Within the first year of opening, the museum was able to secure a beautiful tondo (round) painting by Allessandro Filippepi, aka Sandro Botticelli. Today, Botticelli’s works, which fill the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Louvre in Paris, and the Sistine Chapel in Rome, can also be found in Greenville, South Carolina. The Madonna and Child with an Angel, also called “Madonna of the Magnificat,” shows the graceful lines and coloration so characteristic of the master—especially in the faces and hands, which were the aspects that Botticelli painted, while leaving the less important parts for his apprentices to complete.
An even more recognizable artist came when Jones acquired the Head of Christ panel painting in 1963, ascribed to none other than Rembrandt van Rijn. The painting’s style is characteristic of the master’s dark brown tones and expressiveness of his subjects. However, as the study of art history advanced, the work was deemed to have been painted by a member of Rembrandt’s studio. Nonetheless, the painting gained an international
Vashti Refuses the King’s Summons, Edwin Long, R.A. English, 19th century, oil on canvas. Museum & Gallery at Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC
Bob Jones, Jr., 1961. Museum & Gallery at Bob Jones University, Greenville SC
As president of BJU, Bob Jones Jr. built the core of the widely acclaimed religious art collection that now makes up the university’s Museum & Gallery.
audience in 2011, when it was featured in the traveling exhibition Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus, displayed at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Louvre. Though the work was by an unknown student, it hung prominently with six other Rembrandt Head of Christ paintings for the first time, as all seven were originally together in the master’s studio. It marks a watershed moment when Rembrandt enlisted a Jewish neighbor to pose as the model for Christ—the first time in art history when an artist used an ethnically correct subject for the image of Jesus. Rembrandt would go on to paint ethnically correct Christ characters for the rest of his career, and the collection’s painting will forever be part of that momentous change.
Beyond name recognition, Jones assembled a remarkable survey of painters from most of the major Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch, Flemish, British, and German schools with both familiar and unfamiliar names, all with an eye to the quality of the work. A fine example is Vashti Refuses the King’s Summons by the British painter Edwin Long, which Jones purchased in 1969. It’s a great example of an Orientalist painting, but Edwin Long is not a name that most people recognize. Instead of paying an expensive price for a more familiar Orientalist like Jean-Léon Gérôme [note accents], Jones chose a high-quality work by Long that is signed and dated, which fit the collecting focus just as well. Not only did the painting fill a role in representing a key nineteenth-century artistic movement, but the subject matter is a relatively rare theme found among the Old Masters. Here the artist uses Arab-looking women and interior decorative elements that are authentic to the Medo-Persian time period and culture around 600 BC. a great example of an Orientalist painting, but Edwin Long is not a name that most people recognize. Instead
The Mocking of Christ, Unknown French or Dutch (follower of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio), French or Dutch, 17th century, oil on canvas. Museum & Gallery at Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC
Orientalist like Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jones chose a high-quality work by Long that is signed and dated, which fit the collecting focus just as well. Not only did the painting fill a role in representing a key nineteenthcentury artistic movement, but the subject matter is a relatively rare theme found among the Old Masters. Here the artist uses Arab-looking women and interior decorative elements that are authentic to the MedoPersian time period and culture around 600 BC.
The last painting Dr. Jones acquired for the collection before he died in 1997, The Mocking of Christ exemplifies many of the characteristics of his purchases over the decades. Painted by an unknown follower of Caravaggio, one of the most respected Italian artists, the work is noteworthy as a seventeenth-century Baroque painting. Nearly half of
Painted by an unknown follower of Caravaggio, the Baroque work The Mocking of Christ reflects the master’s style.
Head of Christ , Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (school of), Dutch, 17th century, oil on canvas. Museum & Gallery at Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC
The Head of Christ, done by a member of Rembrandt’s studio, is notable for the fact that a Jewish model sat for the painting. the more than 400 paintings in the collection are from the Baroque period. It was Jones’s good fortune to find and buy quality Baroque paintings for bargain prices in the 1950s and ’60s because the style was out of favor with most museums and private collectors at the time. Most scholars agree that the survey of Baroque paintings in Greenville is outstanding. Keith Christensen, curator of paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art admits, “No question, Bob Jones has the best Baroque around.”
Like The Mocking of Christ, Jones often bought paintings of superior quality that were clearly painted by an accomplished artist but may have lacked a solid attribution or maybe had a wrong one. Even in the hot Old Masters art market in the 1990s, the painting was affordable. His practiced eye had found a gem that he bought for a proverbial song. Today, the value of the painting would be significantly more than what he paid for it. Even four decades into collecting, Jones was still finding bargains like The Mocking of Christ. Knowing he could never afford an autographed Caravaggio painting, Jones invested in this one, which demonstrates the master’s style better than any other in the collection.
Over time, the collection in Greenville became a bucket-list stop for all art experts and scholars of Old Master paintings. The museum’s paintings have traveled around the world and been included in some of the most scholarly exhibitions in the last seventy years. In 1996, the Museum & Gallery became an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit, separate from the university and serving international audiences, college students, and K-12 students statewide, as well as Greenville residents. Thousands have been enriched by the cultural breadth and importance of the collection, which is proposed to be housed in a state-of-the-art civic center in downtown Greenville. Now that the city has become an international tourist destination, it only makes sense that this collection should be highlighted as one of Greenville’s—and the world’s—greatest assets.
For more on the Museum & Gallery, go to museumandgallery.org.
HOLLIDAY INGRAM
Real estate law
ESTABLISHED: 2016
WHAT INSPIRES YOU? “Our families. And it’s very motivating to build a company with dear friends in a way that helps others and contributes to the health of our community.”
Led by Hayes Holliday and Trey Ingram, Holliday Ingram is not your traditional law firm. Headquartered in downtown Greenville, the firm focuses primarily on real estate closings. The team is also intentionally nontraditional — a go-to, friendly, trusted team of relationship-driven professionals dedicated to providing a stress-free, celebratory closing experience.
With a competitive market, it’s good to find a team you can trust with your real estate closing, and Ingram is very proud of his expanding team. And since Holliday Ingram takes pride in their non-traditional approach, those new team members are coming from unexpected places.
“We have added more than 20 talented team members since the pandemic started in response to the housing demand,” Ingram says. “Some of our best hires were right after the restaurants shut down. They are truly amazing individuals who excelled at customer service in the restaurant industry and now provide exceptional client service in the legal field.”
And Ingram adds that they’re just getting started. “We’re a young company, with over 40 talented team members that are fully equipped to provide the high level of service and quality of experience that our clients have come to know and expect.”
Dedicated to upholding the high standards of a large firm while delivering the personalized attention of a smaller practice, Holliday Ingram is always happy and honored to serve its clients and to celebrate their closings!
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CONTACT US TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR MISSION AND WORK, OR TO BECOME INVOLVED YOURSELF.
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MOD ERN MOV EME NT
By Kara Blanken Soper Photography courtesy of Black Mountain College Museum
, 1949. Geodesic Dome Construction, Buckminster Fuller and Students Hazel Larsen Archer, Courtesy of the Estate of Hazel Larsen Archer and the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center.
Nearly 100 years ago, Black Mountain College became the cornerstone of artistic life in the United States, fostering the seminal work of Buckminster Fuller, Anni and Josef Albers, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and exceptional creatives of the twentieth century.
WHEN
When we think about modern art in America, our thoughts rarely land on the South. Most people place the development of modernism in urban centers such as New York or Los Angeles where highminded intellectualism reigns king. This exclusion creates a problematic separation between fine art and craft—one that continues to divide societies along class, gender, and racial lines.
What if progress toward the democratization of art took root not in a major metropolitan city but in an isolated area of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the southeastern United States? About 20 minutes outside of Asheville, Black Mountain College became a key player in the history of American modernism. Operating between 1933 and 1957, the school was an experimental, progressive institution that encouraged interdisciplinary as well as communal living. Its idyllic setting on Black Mountain’s Lake Eden, different from the limiting atmospheres of traditional institutions, allowed participants to learn through artistic placemaking, democratic governance, and a student-centered environment. Its core tenet, the idea that the arts are a great equalizer, central to education and lived experience, paved the way for a historic experiment that changed the trajectory of art history, and for the first time, re-positioned the spotlight of the art world away from Europe and onto the United States. A NEW WAY The founding of Black Mountain College is rooted in escape from conventional limitations and the pursuit of freedom of thought. John A. Rice was a controversial American educator and Rhodes scholar who challenged conventional teaching practices. He had a rebellious streak that eventually led him to resign from his teaching post at Rollins College in Florida, which was the catalyst for the founding of Black Mountain College in 1933. In searching for the school’s first faculty members, Rice looked toward the Bauhaus in Germany, arguably the most influential modernist school of the twentieth century. With an aim to abolish the distinction between “fine art” and “craft,” the school sought to unify art with industrial design. The Bauhaus had a democratic mission to synthesize art and technology to create a well-designed environment that could improve society.
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Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, progressive Black Mountain College set out to unify fine art and craft traditions.
The Black Mountain College
Museum + Arts Center
(BMCM+AC), located in downtown Asheville, North Carolina, operates under a mission to preserve and continue the legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College (BMC) through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications, and public programs. Founded in 1993 by Mary Holden to raise awareness about BMC’s impact on the development of modern and contemporary art, the BMCM+AC is currently hosting a wide range of programming that deftly explores elements of the BMC legacy. 120 College St, Asheville, NC. blackmountaincollege.org Unfortunately, this mission did not align with the priorities of Hitler and the Nazi Party, and the school was forced to close in 1933. This left faculty and students displaced, and many of them fled to the United States along with other avant-garde artists and intellectuals attempting to escape escalating persecution in the face of authoritarianism. This group included Josef and Anni Albers, who arrived in Black Mountain, North Carolina, in 1933 at Rice’s invitation to lead the art program at his new experimental school.
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD Josef and Anni Albers brought the Bauhaus spirit of experimentation in geometric abstraction to Black Mountain College and maintained it until their departure for Yale University in 1949. They also embraced a globalist approach to aesthetics and emphasized the importance of studying art and artifacts of nonWestern cultures. Josef’s paintings and prints from his Black Mountain College period are experimental investigations in composition and decorative pattern that seem to combine the vocabulary of abstraction he acquired while at the Bauhaus with an affinity for the aesthetics of Mexico’s indigenous cultures. He is more known, however, for his contributions to Op Art through his Homage to the Square series that he developed in the 1950s and 1960s.
Anni was an assistant professor and ran the weaving workshop with the ultimate goal of elevating textiles to the status of fine art. At the core of her artistic practice and teachings was her admiration for the art and artifacts of ancient pre-Columbian cultures, which she developed after multiple trips to Mexico during the 1930s and 1940s. This look toward the past rather than a rejection of it redefined what it meant to be “modern” and ultimately led Anni to combine the old and the new in a way that changed our notions of what modernism means. Her textiles lift art out of dusty intellectual ideology and unify fine art and craft into a realm that transcends the limiting divide between “artist” and “maker.” Her pictorial wall hangings, especially Ancient Writing (1936) and With Verticals (1946), are excellent examples of her mission to create a new visual language while at Black Mountain College that could be achieved through weaving. Her reimagining of the woven textiles of ancient civilizations created an opportunity to use old modes of representation to revitalize and reinvigorate contemporary aesthetics.
Art, music, and dance were all part of the curriculum at Black Mountain College, under the tutelage of luminaries such as German-born artist Josef Albers (opposite, top left), his wife, Anni, a textile artist (shown with Josef, opposite, bottom left), as well as influential choreographer Merce Cunningham (opposite, top right). Josef and Anni Albers’s artwork (top left; opposite left; opposite bottom right) merged the influences of global cultures.
The progress Anni Albers made toward elevating the fiber medium had parallels in the growth of the Upstate textile industry, a connection that seems to be the ultimate realization of the synchronicity of fine art and industrial craft originally imagined at the Bauhaus.
ARTISTIC LEGACY Although Black Mountain College eventually closed in 1957 due to a void in leadership and a perpetual lack of funding, it had a lasting impact on the development of post–World War II American culture. Canonical figures of American modernism like Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Robert Rauschenberg, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Cy Twombly made many of the most celebrated works of American modern art on the Black Mountain College campus.
Interdisciplinary communal living allowed for the free exchange of ideas that ultimately led to conversations about social justice and environmental sustainability. Ten years before the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, Black Mountain College integrated their student body in 1944, making it the first higher education institution in the Jim Crow South to welcome African Americans. Josef Albers invited Jacob Lawrence to teach at the 1946 summer session, which was a fruitful experience that contributed to Lawrence’s highly successful career as an artist. The first iteration of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome was constructed near Lake Eden during the 1948 summer session with the goal of making housing more economically available for a greater number of people. Although it collapsed, Fuller went on to perfect his design, which would eventually be reproduced more than 300,000 times around the world and is known to be one of the most innovative, environmentally sustainable, and socially minded shelter designs ever built.
We can also trace the influence and importance of Black Mountain College on contemporary movements and environments. The current emphasis on studio practice in the making of both fine art and craft objects embodies an experimental spirit originating from Black Mountain College. Acknowledgment of the blurred line between fine art and craft explains, in part, the emergence of the contemporary “makers movement,” which originated in our region and is now a vital part of the Southern cultural landscape. This unification of fine art and craft tradition as manifested by contemporary makers serves to further democratize art and make it more easily accessible for all to enjoy, which is a core principle of modernism itself.
ad VANCE!
MODERNISM, Black Liberation + Black Mountain College
On view until May 14, 2022; open Mon–Sat, 11am–5pm
This exhibition at the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center explores the work of Jacob Lawrence, the reverberating impact of his connection to Black Mountain College on his work and students, and the pursuit of abstraction as a vehicle for Black liberation. The museum’s curator Marie Cochran expertly brings contemporary voices into the conversation through making connections to advancements in social justice seen throughout Appalachia and the Southern region as a whole. She uses Asheville as a case study and weaves the work of Lawrence in with contemporary artists to generate a conversation about the legacy of BMC as it relates to current movements in contemporary art.
Museum + Arts Center; Hazel Larsen Archer, Merce Cunningham , c. 1953. Courtesy of the Estate of Hazel Larsen Archer and the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center; Josef Albers, Showcase , 1934, linoleum cut, 15 x 14 in. (38.1 x 35.6 cm). © 2022 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Anni and Josef Albers, Black Mountain College , 1938. Photograph Photograph by Tim Nighswander/Imaging4Art; , 1946, cotton and by Ted Dreier. Courtesy of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation; Anni Albers, With Verticals linen, 61 x 46.5 in. (154.9 x 118.1 cm). © 2022 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Tim Nighswander/Imaging4Art
A stack of bourbon, chocolate bourbon, and mint julep cream pies are just the thing for your Derby party.
eat drink
FOOD FINDS & CAN’T-MISS DISHES
ON THE BURNER p. 102 OPEN BAR p. 104 SWEET SPOT p. 106 KITCHEN AID p. 108 DINING GUIDE p. 113
The CAROLINA BOURBON BELLES whip up irresistible bourbon-spiked confections.
CHEF
CHEFS TO THE RESCUE
Sometimes you just can’t stand back and watch anymore. That’s how Greenville chef John Malik felt when he decided to go to Poland for two weeks in March and help World Central Kitchen feed refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. Founded by Chef José Andrés in 2010, WCK is the first to the frontlines, providing hot meals to people in a humanitarian crisis. Side-by-side with other chefs and volunteers, Malik chopped onions, peeled carrots, made hot chocolate—whatever was needed to feed the thousands of Ukrainian families crossing over the border to Poland daily. “I thought I understood hospitality,” John writes in his online essay dated March 22nd, “until I served customers that packed their lives into one carry-on suitcase and walked for ten days to safety and a bowl of beef stew.”—M. Linda Lee
Read John’s detailed accounts of his WCK experience on chefjohnmalik.com.
Electric trolley in Krakow, Poland EVENT
Lady Hill Wine Dinner at Stella’s Brasserie
It’s a special evening when Jerry Owen, a fifthgeneration farmer and the owner of Lady Hill Winery in Oregon, comes to Stella’s Brasserie to pair his wines with excellent cuisine crafted with farmfresh ingredients by Chef Anthony Gray. Owen’s family has been farming the same 1,500 acres of land in the Willamette Valley since the 1850s, and he’ll happily regale attendees with tales of how he and his team hand-craft Northwest expressions of classic French varietals into sophisticated wines with layers of complexity.—MLL Stella’s Southern Brasserie, 340 Rocky Slope Rd, Ste 100, Greenville. May 3, Tues, 6:30pm. $85 (not including tax & gratuity). (864) 626-6900, stellasbrasserie.com RECIPE
Mint Julep
Recipe courtesy of Paloma
No self-respecting Derby party would be without mint juleps. The official drink of the Kentucky Derby since 1983, the mint julep is traditionally served in a silver julep cup, which frosts over and keeps the cocktail icy cold.—MLL
Ingredients
8 fresh mint leaves ¼ oz of Demerara syrup (simple syrup made with equal parts Demerera sugar [sugar in the raw] and water, boiled until sugar is dissolved) 2oz bourbon of choice; we prefer Woodford Reserve Crushed ice
Instructions
Muddle the mint leaves and Demerara sugar in the bottom of a glass. Add crushed ice to the top of the glass, then add the bourbon and stir until the glass is frosted. Top with more crushed ice and garnish with a sprig of mint.
PLACE
Tea Party
“Be careful of your hobbies,” warns Steve Lorch, whose casual interest in growing tea plants blossomed into a 30-acre farm in the shadow of Table Rock. Some 40,000 Camellia sinensis plants thrive there, making Table Rock Tea Company, which he runs with his wife, Jennifer, one of the leading tea growers in the U.S. From seed to cup, the couple does everything on-site, from planting and harvesting to processing and packaging the tea. Their signatures are a dark oolong called Black Claw and Winter Leaf™, a cold-harvested green tea they invented, which can only be grown in freezing conditions. Former missionaries, Steve and Jennifer donate 10 percent of their gross revenue to their ConnectiviTea Fund to help farmers in other countries grow tea on a small scale.—MLL
Table Rock Tea Company, 118 High Hills Lane, Pickens. Free tours, Thurs–Sat, 10am; Sun, 2pm. Buy Table Rock Tea at the farm or online: tablerocktea.com
MAIN SQUEEZE
ADD SOME EXTRA ZING TO SUMMER’S MOST REFRESHING DRINK WITH THREE EASY TWISTS
by Kathryn Davé • photograph by Jivan Davé
Hot summer days are coming, and the only way to survive them is with a cold beverage in hand. Soda’s reign is long over; sweet tea is sticky and one-dimensional; but lemonade never lets you down. Balanced with just the right level of tart and sweet, this childhood classic deserves a fresh look this summer (no powdered mix or store-bought pink stuff allowed). Invest a few minutes into making a big batch of lemonade concentrate, store it in your fridge, and enjoy fresh-squeezed lemonade any time you crave it. You’ll wonder how sweet tea ever got crowned as the South’s summer drink.
Lemonade Concentrate
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups sugar 2 ½ cups fresh-squeezed lemon juice (from about 16 lemons)
Instructions:
1. Bring the sugar and 1 ¼ cups of water to a boil and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool completely.
2. Stir the lemon juice into the simple syrup to create a concentrate. Store in an airtight container or bottle in the refrigerator for up to three weeks, or freeze it for later use.
3. When ready for a glass of lemonade, simply pour concentrate into a glass and dilute with cold water and ice to taste. A good ratio is one part concentrate to one part water—but use less water if you like your lemonade punchier. Summer’s classic cooler, lemonade made from scratch is well worth the effort.
Upgrade Your Lemonade
Strawberry Lemonade
Sure this sounds like a drink you’d order from Chili’s circa 2007, but its appeal can’t be denied. Purée ½ lb. hulled strawberries in a blender to yield approximately 1 cup (strain through a fine mesh sieve if desired). Stir together ¼ cup strawberry pureé, 4 oz. lemonade concentrate, and 3 oz. water. Pour into a glass filled with ice.
Lemonade Fizz
So simple you can make this with one hand, which is good, because you should have a book in the other for a couple hours of porch sitting. Pour one part lemonade concentrate and one part club soda in a glass filled with ice and stir.
Limonana
This frozen mint lemonade is an Israeli staple for a reason—the combo of cool mint and tart cold lemonade cuts right through summer heat to refresh. Blend 8 oz. of ice, 5 oz. of lemonade concentrate, 5 oz. of water, and a packed ¼ cup of fresh mint leaves in a blender to slushie consistency. Pour into a tall glass and enjoy with a straw.
BETTER WITH BOURBON
KENTUCKY NATIVES MICHELLE CURRAN AND EMILY BURRESS HIT THE TRIPLE CROWN OF CONFECTIONS
by M. Linda Lee • photograph by Paul Mehaffey
Carolina Bourbon Belles’ recipes are tailored to people who love bourbon, so it was important to Michelle and Emily that the bourbon taste shine through in their finished products. During the testing phase for their bourbon balls, they relied on Michelle’s father’s knowledge about different bourbon profiles to create something mild enough for people who don’t drink bourbon, but potent enough so enthusiasts could recognize the bourbon flavor.
Growing up in Kentucky, Michelle Curran and Emily Burress were no strangers to the culture of bourbon. Both reveled in Kentucky Derby parties on the first Saturday of May, where bourbon balls, Derby pie, and other bourbon-infused sweets were long-standing culinary traditions.
The two women met after relocating to Simpsonville with their husbands. “We lived across the street from each other in Simpsonville and had no idea the other was from Kentucky,” recalls Michelle. Bonding over being young mothers and their mutual love of baking, Michelle and Emily distilled the idea of starting a small business focused on their Kentucky heritage. Carolina Bourbon Belles launched in 2017 with bourbon balls, the “tiny little labors of love,” as Emily calls them, each of which the two partners hand-roll and hand-dip themselves. Next, they added the bourbon chocolate pecan pie that Emily’s mother made every year on Derby weekend. “That’s what catapulted us into popularity in the community,” Emily reports. “That pie . . . developed its own fan base.”
Between Emily’s family recipes, which have been handed down through generations, and Michelle’s family’s background in the bourbon industry, their business has an abiding connection to their Old Kentucky Home. “My dad [a former VP of operations for Buffalo Trace] was in the bourbon industry for 36 years,” notes Michelle. “My mom used to hand-write information on the Blanton’s labels, and my grandfather was one of the last barrel coopers to make bourbon barrels by hand. Bourbon went with everything when I was growing up.” It’s that history, and the fact that they pour their hearts into their small-batch products, that sets Carolina Bourbon Belles apart. “We’re not just baking desserts,” says Emily. “There’s a little part of our heritage that we just love to share with people.”
Buy Carolina Bourbon Belles’ products at seasonal markets, local retail partners, and online at carolinabourbonbelles.com.
PARTY TRICK
CRISPY CARNITAS AND ROSITA COCKTAILS ARE ALL YOU NEED TO HOST A FUN SUMMER GATHERING
by kathryn davé • photography by jivan davé
There’s a time for sandals, spontaneity, and shortcuts, and that time is summer. Don’t waste a minute of May’s long, gorgeous days with complicated entertaining or timeintensive get-togethers. Now’s the moment for the power couples of summer gatherings: easy, perfect pairings that make a shared meal come together in a flash. First up: slow-cooked carnitas and the Rosita cocktail, a versatile, delicious duo that can flex in a lot of different directions. Layer in tortillas and all the toppings for a low-key but impressive taco spread that can scale to feed a crowd, or satisfy a few with plenty leftover for enchiladas or bowls. No one turns down tacos, and if you toss the pork in the slow-cooker first thing in the morning, you’ll have all day for summer adventures. No sunshine wasted.
Crispy Business
What makes these carnitas irresistible is not just the complex spice rub or the deeply flavorful braise of beer, citrus, and salsa, but the final fifteen minutes of cooking, where a light sprinkle of brown sugar and a trip under the broiler gives the pork its signature crispy ends. Make summer entertaining a snap with carnitas and Rosita cocktails, a tequilabased Negroni variation that’s just as sultry but a little less serious.
SLOW-COOKER CARNITAS
Serves 10–12
INGREDIENTS:
4–5 lbs. boneless pork shoulder 1 Tbs. salt 1 tsp. cumin 1 Tbs. chili powder 1 tsp. black pepper 1 tsp. oregano ¼ tsp. cinnamon ½ tsp. cayenne pepper 6 cloves garlic, minced Juice of 2 limes ½ cup orange juice 12 ounces lager beer ½ cup salsa ¼ cup brown sugar
1. Mix the spices (excluding the brown sugar) together in a small bowl. Rub the pork shoulder liberally with all of the spice mixture and the garlic. Place in a slow cooker.
2. Pour the liquid ingredients in around the pork. Cook on low for 8 hours. Transfer pork to a large dish or platter and use forks to shred it, discarding any fat. Reserve ¾ cup of the braising liquid.
3. Preheat the broiler. Line a sheet pan with aluminum foil and spread out the shredded pork evenly. Pour the reserved braising liquid over the meat, and then sprinkle it with ¼ cup brown sugar.
4. Broil meat until the ends get crispy and browned, turning once, about 5–10 minutes per side. Serve with tortillas, cilantro, limes, avocado, and black beans for tacos or use the meat to make enchiladas or burrito bowls.
ROSITA
Makes 1 drink
INGREDIENTS:
½ oz. reposado tequila ½ oz. sweet vermouth ½ oz. dry vermouth ½ oz. Campari 1 dash Angostura bitters
Stir all ingredients together in a mixing glass filled with ice until chilled. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass over cubed ice or serve it up in a chilled coupe. Garnish with an orange twist.
FOR MORE RECIPES: TOWNCAROLINA.COM
