May 2020 | Kentucky Monthly Magazine

THE HATFIELD + McCOY FEUD

M AY 2 0 2 0

PLUS...

Home Cuisine: Louisville’s Fresh Home Delivery

The Food Issue WITH...

Bluegrass Baking Company Native Bagel Company The Wrigley Taproom + Eatery

Display until 06/09/2020

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ON THE COVER An enticing bagel sandwich from Native Bagel Company; photo by Erica Chambers

in this issue DEPARTMENTS 2 Kentucky Kwiz 3 Readers Write 4 Mag on the Move 7 Across Kentucky 8 Cooking 40 Off the Shelf 42 Past Tense/ Present Tense

44 Gardening

48

46 Field Notes 48 Vested Interest Due the coronavirus outbreak and the numerous cancellations of events and activities, Calendar does not appear in this month’s issue.

Commemorative mural of the late John Prine, painted in 2019 by Graham Allen and Geoff Murphy of Lexington’s SQUAREPEGS Studio and Design. Find it at Apollo Pizza, 1451 Leestown Road, Lexington.

Photo courtesy of Graham Allen.

13

28 May featured 13 Breaking Bread Lexington bakery’s quality and authenticity attract a diverse following

25 Modern Family Meals

28 A Community Table

Louisville motherdaughter business offers fresh, healthy, ready-to-eat meals with local ingredients

Two local eateries found a way to stay open during the coronavirus outbreak— and their patrons applauded

34 Blood for Blood The infamous HatfieldMcCoy feud came to a boil over decades of skirmishes

This issue published in memory of Lori Williams Hahn Heider (1961-2020). k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 1

kentucky kwiz Test your knowledge of our beloved Commonwealth. To find out how you fared, see the bottom of Vested Interest.

1. Daniel Boone’s wife first was buried overlooking the Missouri River and later reburied overlooking the Kentucky River.

What was her name?

Harrodsburg woman was Kentucky’s first documented schoolteacher, as early as 1777.

A. Rachel

B. Jenny Wiley

B. Rebecca

C. Ann McGinty

A. Jane Coomes

A. Martha Layne Collins B. Mary Todd C. Thelma Stovall 3. A dozen years before settling in Johnson County, this woman was kidnapped and taken there by a mixed band of Native Americans.

She escaped and made her way home to her family. Who was she?

© 2020, Vested Interest Publications Volume Twenty Three, Issue 4, May 2020

Stephen M. Vest Publisher + Editor-in-Chief

C. Ramona 2. Serving from 1983-87, which Shelby County-raised woman served as Kentucky’s first elected female governor?

Celebrating the best of our Commonwealth

7. Born in Garrard County, this woman, known for her frequent “hatchetations” of bars and saloons, was a powerful force for the temperance movement.

A. Julia Tevis B. Laura Clay

Editorial Patricia Ranft Associate Editor Rebecca Redding Creative Director Deborah Kohl Kremer Assistant Editor Ted Sloan Contributing Editor Cait A. Smith Copy Editor

C. Carry Nation Senior Kentributors

8. Who started the Frontier Nursing Service, which was founded originally in Leslie County in 1925 to serve the mountains of eastern Kentucky?

A. Desha Breckinridge

A. Jane Combs

B. Mary Breckinridge

B. Jenny Wiley

C. Sophonisba Breckinridge

Jackie Hollenkamp Bentley, Bill Ellis, Steve Flairty, Gary Garth, Rachael Guadagni, Jesse Hendrix-Inman, Kristy Robinson Horine, Kim Kobersmith, Abby Laub, Brent Owen, Walt Reichert, Ken Snyder, Joel Sams, Gary P. West

Business and Circulation Barbara Kay Vest Business Manager Jocelyn Roper Circulation Specialist

Advertising

C. Rebecca Boone 4. Which author of picture books, poetry and juvenile novels served as Kentucky’s Poet Laureate in 2015-16?

9. Name the nationally known singer/actress from Maysville, whose biggest hit was “Come On-a My House” but who is best known as a co-star in the Bing Crosby film White Christmas.

A. Kim Edwards

A. Rosemary Clooney

B. Martha Bennett Stiles

B. Loretta Lynn

C. George Ella Lyon

C. Dolly Parton

Lindsey Collins Account Executive and Coordinator John Laswell Account Executive For advertising information, call 888.329.0053 or 502.227.0053

KENTUCKY MONTHLY (ISSN 1542-0507) is published 10 times per year (monthly with combined December/January and June/July issues) for $20 per year by Vested Interest Publications, Inc., 100 Consumer Lane, Frankfort, KY 40601.

Periodicals Postage Paid at Frankfort, KY and at additional mailing offices.

B. Loretta Lynn

10. Born in 1906 in Glasgow, she was the first African-American woman licensed to fly in the United States. She also was the first black officer (male or female) in the U.S. Civil Air Patrol.

C. Dolly Parton

A. Harriet Quimby

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to KENTUCKY MONTHLY, P.O. Box 559, Frankfort, KY 40602-0559. Vested Interest Publications: Stephen M. Vest, president; Patricia Ranft, vice president; Barbara Kay Vest, secretary/treasurer. Board of directors: James W. Adams Jr., Dr. Gene Burch, Gregory N. Carnes, Barbara and Pete Chiericozzi, Kellee Dicks, Maj. Jack E. Dixon, Bruce and Peggy Dungan, Mary and Michael Embry, Wayne Gaunce, Frank Martin, Thomas L. Hall, Judy M. Harris, Greg and Carrie Hawkins, Jan and John Higginbotham, Dr. A. Bennett Jenson, Bill Noel, Walter B. Norris, Kasia Pater, Dr. Mary Jo Ratliff, Barry A. Royalty, Randy and Rebecca Sandell, Marie Shake, Kendall Carr Shelton and Ted M. Sloan.

B. Bessie Coleman

Kentucky Monthly invites queries but accepts no responsibility for unsolicited material; submissions will not be returned.

5. Name the Johnson Countyborn country music star with the hit “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”

A. Jean Ritchie

6. Portrayed in a 1941 post office mural by Orville Carroll, this

C. Willa Brown

Kentucky Kwiz courtesy of Karen M. Leet, author of Sarah’s Courage and co-author of Civil War Lexington, Kentucky: Bluegrass Breeding Ground of Power, both published by The History Press.

2 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

kentuckymonthly.com

readers write 2020 GIFT GUIDE

VEST FIRST I admit that Kentucky Monthly is a magazine I read the last page first, because I thoroughly enjoy the writings of Stephen M. Vest!

Melinda Dodds, formerly from the Shelby County area ...

Steve Vest has graduated from pseudo to quasi to very funny. Loved absolutely everything about the February issue: the Lincoln quotes, the writer profiles and Vest’s column (page 48).

How about suggesting your favorite work of Sena Jeter Naslund for a future book club? How lucky were you to have her as an instructor.

Roger Snell, Frankfort ...

featuring ky made products

I can identify with how much Steve Vest dreams (March issue, page 56). I dream almost every night, always full of color and remembered when I wake up.

GOSPEL OF THE TUB

Having been a pastor for 44 years, I’m preaching somewhere in about half of my dreams. Every few months, I have the recurring dream/nightmare that I’m back in college and can’t find the classroom, and then I have enough sense (even in my dream) that I graduated from college over 50 years ago.

The magazine is a great blessing to me.

Terry Faris, Wilmore

GRATITUDE AND A CORRECTION Thanks for the article on Simmons College of Kentucky (February issue, page 36). I appreciate your interview Dr. Kevin W. Cosby.

The article left off one of our key majors of music (Bachelor of Arts in Music Performance). We have a music program featuring our marching band, chorale and now a new offering in jazz music.

Von Purdy, director of development, Simmons College, Louisville

We Love to Hear from You! Kentucky Monthly welcomes letters from all readers. Email us your comments at editor@kentuckymonthly.com, send a letter through our website at kentuckymonthly.com, or message us on Facebook. Letters may be edited for clarification and brevity.

gospelofthetub.com With affordable, small-batch body care products that smell heavenly, Lexington’s Gospel of the Tub makes you feel good and smell good, too.

Choose from manly scents like The Idleman, made with spiced mahogany and bourbon, or The Afters, a feminine blend of sweet orange and citrus blossom. You’ll want to try them all.

Find more of our favorite products in our gift guide at kentuckymonthly.com.

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY. C O M

UN I TI N G K EN TUC KI A N S EV ERY W H ER E .

Featured in this issue

Did you miss a past issue? Visit us online for articles, blogs, recipes, events and more!

F O L LOW U S.

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 3

travel

Take a copy of the magazine with you and get snapping! Send your highresolution photos (usually 1 MB or higher) to editor@kentuckymonthly. com or visit kentuckymonthly.com to submit your photo.

MAG ON THE MOVE

1

Gail and Dale Tucker DENMARK

Even when you’re far away, you can take the spirit of your Kentucky home with you. And when you do, we want to see it!

4 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

The Louisville couple are pictured in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a statue of that city’s native son, author Hans Christian Andersen.

CAPITALCELLARS.COM

Kirk and Christy Clarke

Horticulture Meets Humor

MASSACHUSETTS The Maysville residents shared Kentucky Monthly and the story of Kentucky bourbon with other visitors to Pilgrim Memorial State Park in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

shopkentuckymonthly.com 888-329-0053

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Get ready for gardening season with th down-home collection of practical advice and personal anecdotes from Kentucky Monthly’s gardening columni Walt Reichert. Organized by the season each chapter offers color photography and straightforward tips for everything from combating critters to pairing plant The Bluegrass State’s green thumbs hav proliferated, thanks to Walt’s encouraging and down-to-earth morse of gardening wisdom.

Horticulture meets humor in gardening columnist Walt Reichert’s collection. o o o o o

To order: kentuckymonthly.com 1-888-329-0053

Brenda Morgan AUSTRALIA Brenda, who hails from London, visited her daughter and grandsons in New South Wales, Australia. This photo was taken at the Illawarra Regional Airport museum.

Colonial Cottage Restaurant 3140 Dixie Highway, Erlanger 859-341-4498 thecottagenky.com

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 5

1

travel

The Dame Family

Debbie and Avery Adams

FLORIDA

CUBA

From left, Machelle, Rachel and Jeff Dame from Lewisport traveled to scenic Amelia Island, Florida, for fall break.

The Florence couple enjoyed a cruise to Havana, Cuba. During their trip, many fellow travelers requested to see Kentucky Monthly after they pulled it out for their photo.

Together.

We Fight Heart Disease.

Heart & Vascular Institute

Dermot Halpin, MD, FACS Cardiothoracic Surgeon

Call for a consultation today.

(606) 218-2202 | pikevillehospital.org

Board Certified: American Board of Surgery, American Board of Thoracic Surgery

6 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

BI R T H DAYS 1 Bobbie Ann Mason (1940), Mayfield-born writer best known for her 1985 novel In Country 1 Steve Cauthen (1960), the youngest jockey to win the Triple Crown, in 1978 aboard Affirmed 4 Butch Beard (1947), retired pro basketball player and coach from Hardinsburg 6 George Clooney (1961), Academy Awardwinning actor/ director/ producer from Augusta 6 Lee Todd Jr. (1946), retired president of the University of Kentucky 6 Athena Cage (1970), rhythm and blues singer/ songwriter from Russellville 8 Charton Christopher Frantz (1951), musician and record producer from Fort Campbell, member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as drummer for The Talking Heads 9 Brandon Tyler Webb (1979), 2006 National League Cy Young Award winner from Ashland 14 Robbie Moriarty (1957), noted jewelry artist based in Louisville 19 Paul Brett Johnson (1947), Lexington-based children’s book author/illustrator 24 Don Brumfield (1938), Hall of Fame jockey from Nicholasville with more than 4,500 wins, including the 1966 Kentucky Derby aboard Kauai King 25 Bill Gatton (1932), entrepreneur and philanthropist born in Muhlenberg County and raised in Owensboro 25 Tom T. Hall (1936), Olive Hillborn Country Music Hall of Fame singer/songwriter 26 Paul Patton (1937), chancellor, University of Pikeville; 59th governor of Kentucky from 1995 to 2003 30 Wynonna Judd (1964), Ashland-born country music star with 14 No. 1 hits

across kentucky

BY JACKIE HOLLENKAMP BENTLEY

Quest for Tasting Talent The Bardstown Bourbon Company and Moonshine University are putting out the call for the “World’s Top Whiskey Taster.” The three-phase contest begins with a 1-minute video submission to the Bardstown Bourbon Company’s website, bardstownbourbon.com/ WTWT, as well as posting the video on YouTube, Instagram or Facebook using the tag #WorldsTopWhiskeyTaster.

“Entrants are encouraged to be creative and have fun,” said Herb Heneman, Bardstown Bourbon Company’s vice president of sales and marketing. “Tell us what makes your palate as good as it is. Show us things, like your favorite bourbon cocktail, your most impressive or underrated pairing, or pick the most amazing bottle in your stash and geek out on it. But most of all, tell us what representing Bardstown Bourbon Company as a distillery ambassador would mean to you.”

Bardstown Bourbon Company and Moonshine University will then select a group of finalists to compete in live sensory challenges at bourbon bars across the country.

“The challenges contestants will face at these live events will truly put their sensory expertise to the test,” said Colin Blake, Moonshine University’s director of spirits education. “Where many other competitions have showcased mixology skills, this contest is—to my knowledge—the first to put contestants’ palates to work.”

Finalists will then be selected to compete for the honor of being named the World’s Top Whiskey Taster, plus a $20,000 cash prize and a contract to represent Bardstown Bourbon Company as a distillery ambassador at some of the country’s top whiskey festivals in 2021.

BY JACKIE HOLLENKAMP BENTLEY

Learn + Create The Owensboro Museum of Fine Art is distributing free books about the history of Daviess County to area schoolchildren and to the public. But these aren’t typical history books.

To mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of the county, the museum presents Daviess County Bicentennial, 1815-2015, Coloring Book, which brims with illustrations depicting historical facets of the area. Many of the book’s images are line-drawing representations of artwork from the museum’s permanent collection.

One page describes the Ames Motor Car Company, which was in operation in the early 20th century, then provides a picture to color of the company’s “best $1,500 car in America.”

Another image is a portrait of Col. Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, the county’s namesake. The book explains that, while “Daveiss” is the correct spelling of the colonel’s name, the places named for him are spelled “Daviess.”

Also included are images of the Le Vega Clements House, Yellow Banks, the Owensboro-Daviess County Regional Airport and more. k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 7

cooking

R E C I P E S P R O V I D E D, P R E PA R E D + P H O T O G R A P H E D B Y J A N I N E WA S H L E O F C L O V E R F I E L D S FA R M & K I T C H E N A N D K ’ S CA F É & CAT E R I N G .

SPRINGTIME FRESH

While April showers bring May flowers, May brightens the month on its own by ushering in the special holidays of Mother’s Day and Memorial Day. Plus, May’s sunny days herald the first signs of local produce, such as Bibb lettuce, asparagus and strawberries.

The following recipes will nicely complement any of the farmers market finds you may bring home, and they are special enough for the festivities that you choose to celebrate.

Janine Washle

Winning and runner-up recipes of our 2020 Reader Recipe Contest were scheduled to appear in this issue, but due to the coronavirus outbreak, we were unable to prepare and judge the entries.

Thank you to all who submitted recipes and rest assured that when we are able, we will hold the judging and publish the recipes in a future issue.

8 KE NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

T I P : Serve with a fresh salad of mixed local lettuces, such as Bibb and leaf lettuces, tossed in a light vinaigrette dressing.

Vanilla Bean Ricotta Pancakes Makes 12 small or 36 silver-dollar pancakes

1¾ cups ricotta cheese 1/3

cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract 2 tablespoons milk 2/3

cup all-purpose flour

2 large eggs Cooking spray or 1 teaspoon butter 1½ cups fresh mixed berries Local honey or maple syrup

1. In a large bowl, whisk together ricotta, granulated sugar, vanilla bean paste, milk, flour and eggs.

2. Spray a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray or melt a teaspoon of butter over medium heat. Pour ¼ cup of batter into pan. Make as many pancakes as pan will comfortably hold.

3. Cook about four minutes per side until golden brown. Watch carefully, as they cook quickly. Keep warm in a preheated oven.

4. To serve, transfer two pancakes to a warm plate. Scatter berries over top. Drizzle with honey or syrup.

Spring Pasta Carbonara Serves 6

½ box (12 ounces) spaghetti 3 large eggs 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese 8 slices bacon 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 cup chopped fresh asparagus or frozen green peas 3 tablespoons minced fresh herbs, such as dill, chives, parsley and thyme Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook spaghetti according to package directions until al dente. Drain, reserving 1 cup pasta water.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk eggs and Parmesan until combined.

3. Meanwhile, in a large skillet over medium heat, cook bacon until crispy, about 8 minutes.

Reserve fat in skillet, and transfer bacon slices to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.

4. To the same skillet, add garlic and asparagus or peas. Cook until garlic is

fragrant and asparagus turns bright green, about 5 minutes. Add cooked spaghetti, and toss until fully coated in bacon fat.

Remove from heat.

5. Pour over egg-andcheese mixture and stir vigorously until creamy (be careful not to scramble eggs). Add pasta water a couple tablespoons at a time to thin sauce if necessary.

6. Stir in fresh herbs.

Season with salt and pepper, and stir in cooked bacon.

NOTE: Be aware that gluten-free pasta, which is pictured, will break up with vigorous stirring.

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 9

cooking

Strawberry Cinnamon Rolls Makes 12-18 rolls ROLLS

1¼ cups warm water 2¼ teaspoons active dry yeast 1 box white cake mix 2-2½ cups all-purpose flour, divided 1 cup strawberry jam, room temperature 1/3 cup finely chopped fresh strawberries, optional

½ cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon Strawberry frosting (recipe follows)

GA R N I S H

Strawberry halves

S T R AW B E R R Y F R O S T I N G

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature 2 tablespoons coconut oil or unsalted butter, room temperature ¼ cup freeze-dried strawberries, ground to a fine powder ½ teaspoon vanilla extract 2-3 cups powdered sugar

1. Spray a 13x9-inch baking pan or two 9-inch baking pans with baking spray.

Set aside.

2. In a small bowl, stir together warm water and yeast. Allow to stand for 5 minutes.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together cake mix and 2 cups flour. Pour yeast mixture in and stir with a sturdy spoon until a shaggy dough forms. Add just enough of remaining flour to help it form into a ball. At this point, it is easier to actually knead it with clean hands. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside to rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

4. Dough can refrigerate overnight. The next morning, remove risen dough and allow to rest for 30 minutes before

10 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

proceeding with recipe.

5. Once dough has risen, gently deflate it, gather it into a ball, and allow it to rest 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, stir together sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

6. On a floured surface, roll dough into a large rectangle approximately ¼-inch thick. Spread strawberry jam over surface of dough from edge to edge.

Sprinkle with chopped strawberries, if using.

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over surface. From the bottom, tightly roll up dough. Cut log in half.

Then cut each half into 6-9 rolls.

7. Transfer rolls to prepared pan. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap. Allow to rise about 30 minutes.

8. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375 degrees and prepare frosting.

9. Bake 15-20 minutes or until rolls are light golden brown and center rolls are puffed.

Cool 10 minutes, then spread with frosting.

Garnish each roll with a strawberry half.

10. Serve warm or room temperature. Refrigerate leftovers.

S T R AW B E R R Y F R O S T I N G

1. Beat together cream cheese and coconut oil.

Add strawberry powder, vanilla and 1 cup powdered sugar. Mix, then beat until smooth.

2. Add remaining sugar and mix, then beat until smooth.

Makes one 13x9-inch cake

3 cups allpurpose flour 1½ cups granulated sugar ½ cup cocoa powder 1½ teaspoons baking soda ¾ teaspoon salt 2/3

cup vegetable oil 2 tablespoons white vinegar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups chocolate water (hot water whisked with 2 tablespoons cocoa powder; whisk a little water in at a time to smooth out the powder) 1 jar hot fudge sauce 1 16-ounce container whipped topping MILK MIXTURE

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk 1 12-ounce can evaporated milk 1/3

cup half-and-half

1 cup chocolate sauce (Hershey’s or comparable)

For a fancy touch, use a large biscuit cutter to cut cake into rounds before adding whipped topping. Plate round piece of cake, then dollop with topping.

Chocolate Fudge Tres Leches Cake 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13x9-inch baking pan with baking spray, then set aside.

2. Whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar and vanilla. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients, and whisk until combined. Stir in chocolate water in two additions.

Whisk until smooth.

3. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 25-30 minutes or until center is puffed and firm, and sides pull away from pan. Remove from oven, and cool 20 minutes.

4. In a blender, combine sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, half-and-half and chocolate sauce. Blend on high until smooth.

5. Poke holes in cake using a dinner fork or bamboo skewer until the entire cake surface is pricked. Slowly pour chocolate milk over top of warm cake. Any excess liquid will absorb while cake is refrigerated. Cover cake with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least two hours or overnight.

6. When ready to serve, warm hot fudge sauce in microwave until runny. Drizzle over top of cake and spread with an offset spatula to completely cover surface. Spread whipped topping over cakes, covering the surface completely. Refrigerate leftovers.

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 11

cooking TIP: Skewer the shrimp, and grill over a hot grill for a great twist!

Country-Style Shrimp and Grits Serves 6 GRITS

5 cups water 1 teaspoon sea salt 1 cup Weisenberger grits 4 ounces cream cheese 1 cup shredded white cheddar cheese

COUNTRY HAM MIXTURE

2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 cup diced sweet onion ½ cup diced country ham ¼ teaspoon garlic granules 1/8

teaspoon bourbon-smoked paprika 1 cup regularstrength coffee

SHRIMP

18 large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined 2 teaspoons granulated sugar 1 teaspoon bourbonsmoked paprika ½ teaspoon sea salt ¼ teaspoon ground chili pepper

1. Bring water and salt to a boil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.

Whisk in grits. Continue to whisk for a minute or two. Allow to simmer for 20 minutes or until tender.

2. Stir in cream cheese and cheddar. Stir until cheeses have melted. Set in a warm place until ready to plate.

3. Heat vegetable oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in onion, country ham, garlic granules and paprika. Sauté for 10-15 minutes or until onions and ham start to brown around the edges.

4. Turn heat to high and pour in coffee.

Deglaze pan without stirring until coffee is reduced by half. Transfer mixture to a heatproof bowl. Wipe out skillet, and return to stove for shrimp.

12 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

5. Prepare shrimp by mixing sugar, paprika, salt and chili pepper on a paper plate. Dredge shrimp through spice mixture, making sure to coat well.

6. Heat a nonstick skillet over mediumhigh heat. Place shrimp in hot skillet and cook 1-2 minutes, then flip and cook other side. When shrimp curl to resemble a “C” and turn pink, they are done. Remove from skillet. May have to cook shrimp in batches depending on the size of the skillet.

7. To serve, divide warm grits among six warm plates. Divide country ham and redeye gravy over top of grits. Place with three shrimp atop each serving.

Serve immediately.

Lexington bakery’s quality and authenticity attract a diverse following

TEXT BY Joel Sams PHOTOS BY Rebecca Sams

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 13

14 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

“We’re just returning various cultures to their roots.”

B

ehind the counter, the flour-dusted proprietor of the Bluegrass Baking Company, Jim Betts, chats with customers while deftly filling and shaping the next day’s bacon-cheddar croissants. His wife, Francine, and son Andrew help guests choose sturdy hearth loaves from a wooden display case. (“Sliced or not sliced? Plastic bag or paper sack?”)

One of the bakery’s walls is papered with bread wrappers from bakeries around the world—an apt setting for the cocktail of languages, accents and crosscultural conversations that find their home here.

Tucked away in an unassuming storefront off Clays Mill Road in Lexington, the Bluegrass Baking Company doesn’t just sell world-class bread and pastries—it brings the world together.

Betts doesn’t keep an official tally of global representation, but he’s counted as many as 13

nationalities in the bakery on a given morning. What’s the draw? For the customers I spoke to, the answer is two-fold: outstanding bread and vibrant community. ggg

Paul Tillier, a longtime patron who grew up in Paris, France, said the bakery’s offerings are on par with the best of his home country’s venerable bread culture.

“Each time I go back to France—and it’s about every two or three years—I’m disappointed with a lot of the baguettes I get,” Tillier said. “But Jim, he’s got it down.

The croissants are perfect. The baguette is perfect.”

The bakery’s international atmosphere is another draw for Tillier, who works as an interpreter for French and Spanish. He enjoys practicing his languages on Saturday mornings at the bakery, as he overhears snatches of conversation in many languages.

Opposite page, from left, Jim, Francine and Andrew Betts k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 15

“I order and sit down and try to pick up the different languages,” Tillier said. “It’s wonderful.

People feel very comfortable there. It’s a very open setting. You see the bread being made. You’re either talking to fellow customers, or you’re talking to Jim and his team.”

The Bluegrass Baking Company doesn’t advertise; customers find out about the bakery by word of mouth.

And word does get around.

“People are often either coming through and have heard people talking about the bakery, or they’ve been abroad and are coming back and want to keep in touch with the good bread that they experienced abroad,” Tillier said. “The common denominator is bread—goodquality, artisan bread. If you’re coming from France, the first question is always, ‘Where can I find decent bread?’ And the answer inevitably is the Bluegrass Baking Company.”

The combination of small-business atmosphere, global culture and outstanding product makes the bakery part of Tillier’s weekly routine. He usually goes to the bakery two or three times each week to stock up on bread, catch up on conversations or simply observe.

“I used to spend a lot of time sitting outside cafés, watching the world go by,” Tillier said. “There [at the Bluegrass Baking Company], you can sit and actually watch the world come inside the bakery.” ggg

Gorana Sekulic, another longtime patron of the Bluegrass Baking Company, came to the United States from the former Yugoslavia with her husband in 1993. A physician by training, Sekulic practiced for 20 years before coming to the U.S. After discovering the bakery’s products for sale at a local Liquor Barn, she became a 16 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

regular customer. It was one of the few places, she said, that she could buy bread like she remembered from back home.

“It is the most important part of the diet,” Sekulic said. “We eat bread with everything. If you have nothing but bread, you are OK.” Bread isn’t the only reason Sekulic has been a faithful customer at the bakery. She also loves the atmosphere.

“You see people working all the time who love their job and who love each other,” she said.

Francesc Marti, a University of Kentucky researcher in immunology, is drawn by the traditional, handmade quality of the bakery’s products.

“I love the bread—what else?” he said. “Just look and have a taste. It’s amazing. I am coming from a small village in Spain, and over there, the bread was made by hand, not by machines or anything. So the closest that you have for taste, it is here.”

Colin Fisher, another UK scientist who grew up in Zimbabwe and also lived in England, Poland and Hungary, doesn’t really socialize at the bakery (“Not I—my English heritage is not quite the same as the continental European heritage, I suppose,” he said).

He does, however, appreciate the quality of the goods and the atmosphere, which he likens to a village bakery that you might find in France or Germany.

“They bake goods we haven’t seen anywhere else,” Fisher said. “I don’t know where else you might get the same quality they’ve got there. And secondly, it’s a very personable, very friendly environment. We’ve been going there almost once a week for years and years.” ggg

Running a bakery, let alone a hub for cross-cultural interaction, wasn’t part of Jim Betts’ plan when he was

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 17

Bluegrass Baking Company owner Jim Betts, who became enamored with baking while in college, develops recipes that appeal to a wide clientele, because they are recognizably authenic.

majoring in anthropology at Oberlin College in Ohio.

However, in the midst of what he calls the “late ’70s reverberations of hippieism,” he began eating and working in a food co-op. He had two jobs: dishwasher and baker. It was baking, understandably, that stuck.

“I fell in love with baking,” Betts said. “I would do it late at night, baking for the next day. I liked it so much that I would bake two to three loaves a day, and I lived with six other 20-year-olds who could go through that with no problem.”

After graduation, Betts looked for a job in baking, which he recognized as a “much more employable” field than anthropology. After a first job at Le Matin bakery in Lexington and seven years of honing his craft in San Francisco pastry shops, Betts and his fiancée (now wife) opened their business in Lexington. Today, their sons, Jimmy and Andrew, also work at the bakery.

Betts said that one of the secrets to the Bluegrass Baking Company’s bread is Andy Brown, the night baker. Brown started working at the bakery 18 years ago.

He began as a driver but expressed an interest in baking.

Betts taught Brown everything he could about baking, and Brown “took it and ran,” according to Betts.

“He works overnight in his mad-man laboratory, and he’s terrific,” Betts said. “He’s greatly self-taught.

Without a doubt, he’s the best bread maker I know, and 18 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

the best in this state, if not many others.”

Betts said his products appeal to a wide clientele, not because they mimic a certain type of bread or a specific flavor profile, but because they are recognizably authentic. Customers from Ukraine, Poland, Germany and Russia love the Bohemian Beer Bread, for instance, often comparing it to the bread they remember from home—never mind the fact that Betts came up with the recipe himself.

“It’s the genuineness of the product,” he said. “The style of baking we do, right now, is in vogue and hipster, but it’s also what we’ve been doing for hundreds and hundreds of years—something that we as a culture lost when we fell in love with Wonder Bread. We’re just returning various cultures to their roots.” ggg

Both by luck and by design, the bakery is a magnet for interesting people. Various bakery employees have gone on to find success in other creative fields like photography (Sarah Jane Webb), poetry (Eric Sutherland) and pottery (Link Henderson, owner of Kentucky Mudworks).

“Anyone in the food business will tell you it draws countercultural people,” Betts said. “Why this bakery

Instructions for Curbside Pickup During the COVID-19 shutdown, the Bluegrass Baking Company is still selling its full range of products, available for curbside pickup. All forms of payment are accepted. To order, call 859.296.0581. During the shutdown, hours are limited to the following: MONDAY–FRIDAY 7AM–4PM SATURDAY 7AM–3PM

in particular, I don’t know, except that I tend to hire people I think are cool as opposed to people who are good workers or know what they’re doing. We hire people we want to spend time with—people who are interesting, creative and energetic—and we train them for the position we need them to be in.”

Customers come to the bakery for its artisanal offerings, but they often stay for conversation, making new—and sometimes international—friendships along the way.

“Three or four weeks ago, there was an older gentleman sitting alone, looking forlorn, and another customer named Bruce decided to go over and talk to him,” Betts said. “So Bruce, being an ex-UK professor, and Abraham, a car merchant and repair guy from Libya, sit and spend a half-hour getting to know each other and had a wonderful time, brought together by appreciation of the food and the culture that we have there in the bakery. That’s the kind of thing that happens, and it happens all the time.”

The significance of bread as an idea, as more than just food, is deeply embedded in the human psyche. In many European and Arab cultures, for instance, partaking of bread and salt is a formal recognition of welcome and friendship. In the Passover meal and in Sunday Eucharist, bread takes on deeply religious significance. For Betts, though, there’s no need to

overthink the power of bread.

“I’d like to say that I have some overarching plan, but I don’t,” Betts said. “I like making bread. It’s one of these things that is just pleasurable in many ways—the warmth of the oven, the smell rolling onto your nose.

All these cultural references are there for a reason. I’m part of a very, very long history of people meeting around ‘a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou.’ There’s something special about it. I am as seduced by the pleasures of bread as the next person.” ggg

At the time of this writing, the Bluegrass Baking Company, like most Kentucky businesses, is closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Betts and his team are offering curbside pickup, but it’s not the same. He misses interacting with customers, seeing familiar faces, and guiding shoppers to the product that best suits their needs.

“When customers open the door and walk in, they’re part of the family, and we greet them that way, treat them that way, get them what they want,” Betts said.

“Those things are gone right now, so whatever it is that a bakery provides, we have enjoyed that for a very long time and hopefully will be able to get back to it.” Q k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 19

20

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

Modern Family Meals Louisville mother-daughter business offers fresh, healthy, ready-to-eat meals with local ingredients

BY DEBORAH KOHL KREMER

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 25

“We are 100 percent the real deal—family-owned and -operated—serving up good local food...”

Mae and Sandy Pike

NOW

THEN

S

andy Pike was in the right place at the right time when she left Louisville for the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1960s. There, she worked in the food and beverage industry and saw the increase in demand for fresh and healthy meals. When she moved back to her hometown years later, she brought her expertise with her and introduced her wholesome cuisine to Louisville diners.

“The food in San Francisco was spectacular,” she said. “When I came back to Louisville, I watched the food scene evolve from rich Southern food, to clean, fresh foods, to now, when no one cooks.”

Sandy opened the legendary Jack Fry’s in Louisville, sold the restaurant in the late 1980s, and then opened Café Society, a swanky eatery in NuLu. It was there that she realized she had a flair for desserts, which sold out most days. She dove into her next food adventure, Queen of Tarts, a gourmet coffee shop serving decadent desserts by the slice.

By 2005, Sandy had sold Queen of Tarts but was unsure what direction she would go next. At the same time, her sister was diagnosed with diabetes and was struggling to eat properly for her condition. Sandy began whipping up flavorful, diabetes-friendly meals and dropping them off for her sister to reheat. She realized that others in her sister’s situation struggled to prepare meals and balance the ingredients, and this prompted her to open Home Cuisine, a fresh-homemade-meal delivery service.

“Even though we have been around for almost 20 years, it was hard to teach people what we are all about,” she said. “We pride ourselves on clean food with no preservatives and cook it how you would like it.”

The menus started out as diabetes-friendly classic meals, but as new diets emerged, like keto and Paleo, the offerings evolved, too.

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Now, Sandy, 73, works alongside her daughter, Mae Pike, 46, who also has spent most of her career in the food and beverage industry.

With a reliable stream of clients in Jefferson County, and with planning in the early stages to expand into the Lexington area, the business currently has eight employees at its St. Matthews commissary.

Sandy found that many doctors referred their patients to Home Cuisine to help them stick to a specific diet or for other health reasons. One of those physicians became a steady customer himself. Dr. Mark Barrett of Prospect has been a customer for the past 18 months. His wife has an illness that requires a Paleo diet, and he has a stressful job.

“I’ll admit that I’m a good doctor, but I’m horrible in the kitchen,” he said.

Barrett raves about the food, particularly the corned beef and cabbage, shepherd’s pie, and a fish stew that he said he would eat every day. The couple subscribes to two different diets, and they receive one meal a day, delivered to their doorstep twice a week.

Barrett said the last thing he wants to do at the end of the day is prepare a meal. “This is about the easiest way for a lazy person to eat healthy as you can get,” he said.

Mae said that, although Home Cuisine started out as a way to help people with diabetes—which it still does— the business now finds most of its customers simply want a chef-prepared meal delivered to their door.

“In the early days, people were buying frozen meals like Healthy Choice because that was all that was available,” she said. “But we are able to offer the exact meal plan that people are looking for. If you are on keto but your family is not, how hard is that?”

She said another advantage of this service is that it is cost effective and easy. She explained that it can get expensive for people on special diets to keep so many ingredients on hand and, since Home Cuisine’s meals are simply reheated, there are no pots to scrub.

homecuisineonline.com 502.896.0666 hello@homecuisineonline.com

Photos courtesy of Home Cuisine

Home Cuisine provides home delivery to about onethird of its customers. The rest of the customers pick up their orders at the Prospect Party Mart or Rainbow Blossom Natural Food Market, which has multiple locations in Jefferson County. Customers submit their plan to Home Cuisine, and they get a time and date that their meals will be available at those locations.

“People love our meatloaf, but once they have it, they won’t see it again for about six weeks,” Mae said. “We have a lot of variety in our menus.”

Customers do not get to order specific dishes, as they would at a restaurant. Everyone on the same plan gets the same meals, but customers can request that certain ingredients be omitted. Home Cuisine’s meals do not contain white flour or sugar, and organic products are used whenever possible. Sandy explained that they cook with the seasons, shopping at local farmers markets, sourcing beef locally, and buying hydroponic lettuce that is grown just a few miles away.

Sandy said there are similar companies out there, but those businesses ship their meals in and use frozen vegetables. “Why would you do that?” she asked.

In the early years, the mother-daughter duo realized that people thought it was a luxury to have prepared food delivered to your house, but the world has caught up. Home Cuisine offers meal plans with limited calorieper-day options and category selections of classic cuisine, keto, Paleo and a vegetarian menu that Mae said is so popular, it has almost a cult following. The meals can be ordered a few at a time or up to three meals a

day, seven days a week.

“We are 100 percent the real deal—family-owned and -operated—serving up good local food,” Mae said. “We do what we say we are doing.”

That sentiment rings true for Jon Lee Cope, who has been a customer for about five years. He usually follows the classic menu but, over the years, has switched his meal plan around, depending on changing health goals.

“They believe the food you eat can heal your body,” he said. “So they keep me in check and make me eat right.”

Cope, a successful acting coach, was born in Harlan County but now lives in the Butchertown area of Louisville.

He considers using Home Cuisine to be a quality-of-life issue rather than an extravagance, as he would prefer to do things other than planning and cooking meals.

“I’m from eastern Kentucky. If you can’t put it on a biscuit, I don’t make it,” he says. “But these meals allow me to have something I would never make myself.”

One of his favorite recent meals was Immune Boosting Super Food Soup. “Not only was it smackingly good, I felt so good after I ate it,” Cope said. “But really, in all this time, I’ve never had anything bad.”

Sandy and Mae will continue to meet the needs of their current customers, and both have ideas for ways to expand. One thing will remain constant: their commitment to bringing delicious, high-quality meals to as many as they can.

“If my grandma didn’t recognize it as food as a child, we don’t serve it,” Mae said. “No weirdo processed food here.” Q k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 27

BY KIM KOBERSMITH

A

COMMUNITY TA B L E Two local eateries found a way to stay open during the coronavirus outbreak—and their patrons applauded This is not the article I had planned to write when I originally suggested a feature about two up-and-coming Kentucky chefs and restaurant entrepreneurs. I thought I would tell about their welcoming and comfortable dining rooms, their innovative fresh and local food, and their deep commitments to their communities.

I will. But I also need to tell you about their capacity for adaptation and creativity (reflective of so many small business owners) in the face of a pandemic. I need to tell you about the way their communities showed deep commitment to “their” restaurants in the face of financial uncertainty.

I interviewed Katie Startzman and Kristin Smith on March 13. That was two days after Gov. Andy Beshear recommended that everyone practice social distancing and just three days before he signed an executive order to close all restaurants to in-person traffic in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Within a week, Startzman and Smith of Berea’s Native Bagel Company and The Wrigley Taproom and Eatery in Corbin, respectively, had to make difficult decisions in the name of health and safety. They increased their sanitation protocols, brought

new technology on board to accept digital orders and payments, adapted their hours and menus, and shifted from dining in to take-out, curbside and delivery services.

Startzman’s and Smith’s communities have responded, eager to support these important elements of town life. Customers have purchased gift cards and made donations. They have ordered food and sent Startzman and Smith messages of support and love.

On March 20 on Facebook, Native Bagel wrote: “THANK YOU! We had to turn off online orders for the week because we are out of cooler space for our bagel dough. We are thrilled to be preparing all these bagels for you—we’ll do it again next week.”

Also via the social media site, The Wrigley wrote on March 23: “Dang, y’all know how to show some love! We are able to be open again this week because of you and your support. Your love has brought us so much comfort during this time. We hope our meals can do the same for you.”

At the time of this writing, Native Bagel is open for curbside pickup of preordered bagels on Saturdays. The Wrigley is open for curbside pickup and delivery Tuesday through Saturday.

| PHOTO BY ERICA CHAMBERS

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 29

| PHOTOS BY ERICA CHAMBERS Owner Katie Startzman boils bagels before they are baked— the key to their distinctive chewy texture. She can be found behind the bar serving up bagels or frothing milk for a latte.

K AT I E S TA R T Z M A N

Native Bagel Company Downtown Berea est. 2016 Startzman grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to Berea to attend Berea College. While she loves her adopted hometown, one lamentable deficit was the ability to find a good bagel.

Hers are boiled and baked, giving them their characteristic chewiness.

Native Bagel is inviting, with wooden floors, a tinstamped ceiling and simple furniture. Most breakfast customers opt for the standard bagel and cream cheese, not that the customer-favorite honey-rosemary cream cheese is considered a standard anywhere else.

Another morning comfort food favorite is the sausage, egg and cheese sandwich, made with fresh local sausage and eggs.

The lunch menu includes seasonal specials, openfaced bagel pizzas, and falafel salad. Native Bagels serves up mochas and golden lattes from the espresso bar, along with a variety of freshly baked treats.

Native Bagel recently was named the best bagel shop in Kentucky by Taste of Home magazine and recognized by Yelp as one of the top women-owned businesses in the country.

30 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

The simple dining room at Native Bagel is where Bereans often bump into their friends and neighbors.

E

ven a few minutes into a

conversation with restaurateurs Kristin Smith and Katie Startzman, the similarity of their visions is apparent. Smith, co-owner and chef at The Wrigley Taproom and Eatery, and Startzman, proprietor at Native Bagel Company, are fully conscious of the opportunity they have as business owners to make a positive impact. They both seize that opportunity joyfully, creating restaurants with deep connections to their communities.

“One of the things I like best about being an entrepreneur is that I have the capacity to create the type of business and community I want to live in, from the business culture to how we source food to how we treat our neighbors,” says Startzman, articulating the vision that she and

Smith embrace. “And I try to use my business to support the people, farms and other businesses that I believe are also creating the kind of community I want to be a part of.”

This philosophy intentionally influences all aspects of the restaurants, from design and operations to procurement and menu.

It has created two establishments that are integral parts of the social and economic fabric of their hometowns.

COMMUNAL PLACES In the center of the Wrigley dining room sits a community table, a 24-foot beauty crafted from local barn wood. It sets the stage, letting guests know that this is an intentional place for gathering, conversation and connection. Diners feel at home; they go up to the bar to order, strike up new conversations, and hop from

table to table. For Smith, seeing the way people have taken the intention and made it reality is “beyond our expectations, almost indescribable.”

Native Bagel fulfills the romantic notion of a mom-and-pop business.

The restored historical building in which it is located brings vibrancy and life to Berea’s Chestnut Street downtown area. The storefront is adjacent to the sidewalk in a pedestrian-friendly area and is a place for both planned and chance meetings. “Having a place where people come together is important for a town,” Startzman says.

Smith agrees, noting that, when The Wrigley opened six years ago, Corbin’s downtown was relatively empty. The restaurant helped spawn development, and now the occupancy rate is close to 100 percent. “It is an exciting time for us in Corbin,” she says. “We have a new pride.”

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 31

| PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE WRIGLEY TAPROOM AND EATERY Wrigley chef and co-owner Kristin Smith can be found cooking up chicken and dumplin’s, hushpuppies with blackberry jam and bull’s heart mousse, and much more.

KRISTIN SMITH

The Wrigley Taproom and Eatery Downtown Corbin est. 2014 Smith grew up in Williamsburg and was drawn back to Kentucky to run her sixth-generation family business, Faulkner Bent Farm, which supplies the beef for The Wrigley’s Americano Burger, one of the most popular menu items.

The Wrigley has the feel of a casual public house.

Chalkboard menus list the current signature cocktails and seasonal food menu, and diners can watch their food being prepared in the open kitchen. Saturday brunch features specials such as the Meyer lemon curd and blueberry waffle with maple syrup and whipped cream.

Smith incorporates lots of Kentucky flavors in her dishes such as the Appalachian Sundae. It’s a Weisenberger cornbread cake and house-made buttermilk ice cream smothered in sorghum chocolate sauce and topped with toasted benne seeds, bourbon-spiked whipped cream and spiced pecans.

Smith recently was awarded the Downtown Revitalization Award from Mountain Women Mean Business. The Wrigley has been featured in Time magazine, Food & Wine and Forbes.

32 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

The Wrigley, home for conviviality in downtown Corbin. The name comes from a painted advertisement for Wrigley’s Gum discovered on a brick wall during the building’s renovation.

LOCAL ECONOMY Startzman and Smith started their businesses at their local farmers markets. Along with developing a menu and customer base, they each began supportive relationships with area farmers. The proprietors of Native Bagel and The Wrigley Taproom have long lists of products sourced from Kentucky growers and processors and envision themselves as an important part of a robust local economy.

Startzman sources her ingredients carefully, seeing it as an opportunity to scale up the local food economy.

“We have more buying power as a business,” she says. “For example, we purchase 30 dozen eggs a week, where most families only buy one.”

In 2019, The Wrigley sourced 40 percent of its ingredients locally and paid more than $100,000 to local farmers and agricultural producers.

“Buying local food is a home run,” Smith says. “It keeps money in our community and provides the highest quality ingredients for the restaurant.

It just makes me really happy.”

Both restaurants have certain items they are able to buy from Kentucky farmers most of the year, such as beef, pork and eggs. Both use Weisenberger Mill’s cornmeal, a Kentucky staple from a family enterprise near Midway that has been in business since 1865.

Sourcing Kentucky ingredients is not just an economic decision; there are taste advantages as well. Native Bagel puts Kentucky’s Hosey Honey in its honey-rosemary cream cheese and golden latte. The honey is raw, not processed, and Startzman points out how the flavor subtly changes throughout the year based on the current food source for the bees.

The Wrigley has an ever-changing

menu, so seasonal flavors are showcased at their prime. Fresh tomatoes, even on burgers, are served only during the summer. When farmers come to Smith with an abundance of a crop, like eggplant, she sees it as an exciting menu opportunity and is grateful that customers respond positively to her creativity.

“There is a stigma with the farmto-table concept that it is only for rich people,” she says. “In Appalachia, we are redefining it as ‘farm-to-fork’ and making it accessible to everyone.”

As social entrepreneurs, Smith and Startzman seek to make positive change in their communities through their businesses. “There is a lot of power behind what we are doing,” Smith says. “Appalachia has been in a depressive state, and we are giving new hope and dreams.” Q

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 33

BLO PA R T O N E O F T H R E E I N S TA L L M E N T S

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OOD

BY R O N S O O DA L T E R

for BLO OD

The infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud came to a boil over decades of skirmishes

T

he history of our nation is rife with stories of feuding families. Some interfamilial dustups, such as the so-called Pleasant Valley War of Arizona and Texas’ Sutton-Taylor Feud, claimed countless victims and helped to define the West of the 1870s and ’80s as truly wild. No homegrown family conflict, however, has captured the popular imagination as intensely as the decades-long strife between the Hatfields of Logan (now Mingo) County, West Virginia, and their mortal enemies, Pike County, Kentucky’s McCoy clan.

The two names, familiar to most Americans, have become inextricably joined, a euphemism for any parties locked in irreconcilable conflict. The story of the feud has engendered numerous articles, books, plays, movies, courtroom cases, and annual family reunions and festivals. A dinner theater in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, has staged a version of the saga as—of all things—a musical comedy.

On one momentous occasion, with descendants of both families attending, the governors of Kentucky and West Virginia jointly declared June 14, 2003, to be Hatfield-McCoy Reconciliation Day. In 2012, the History Channel aired a recordbreaking, three-part miniseries purporting to tell the true story and starring some of Hollywood’s most bankable stars.

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 35

Yet, the more publicity the feud has received, the harder it has been to separate fact from fiction—and in many cases, romance. Ultimately, thanks largely to the irresponsible and sensationalist reporting of period journalists and newspaper caricaturists, it was the feud as much as anything else that gave rise to the stereotypical picture of the so-called “hillbilly”—an ignorant, moonshine-swilling, gun-toting, bewhiskered denizen of the Southern mountains. Long before the guns of the feud were stilled and the last participant hanged, this false and demeaning image had taken root across the country and the world.

The truth of the feud is much less simplistic. It involved the extended families of two mountain patriarchies, each finding irreconcilable offenses in the actions of the other, and each committing intermittent acts of violence over a 25-year period that—while perhaps understandable within the context of their time and place—are nonetheless shocking. On a larger scale, the feud was set against a swiftly changing background of industrial intrusion and development such as the region had never known, and that would forever alter the very way of life that had given rise to the bloody conflict.

S E T T I N G T H E S TAG E One of the defining characteristics of many feuds is the eventual blurring of the actual causes of the mayhem.

Nowhere is this truer than in the story of the Hatfields and McCoys. Ironically, for years before the opening of hostilities, the two clans had enjoyed friendships, working relationships and even marriages. There are several theories that purport to describe how the trouble started; the reality would seem to lie in a melding of them all. It began with the homecoming of Asa Harmon McCoy.

By the time the Civil War was drawing to its bloody close, the two families had long been living on opposite sides of the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River, which divided Kentucky and the recently formed state of West Virginia. Here among the border states, sentiments toward the war had been hopelessly divided, with hostilities often focused less on state versus state than on family against family and neighbor against neighbor. The loyalty of many of the people living along this stretch of the Tug— including most members of both the Hatfield and McCoy clans—strongly favored the Confederacy.

Throughout the war, the formation of so-called militia and home-guard regiments provided an excuse for partisan extremists to wage private wars against their neighbors. Bands of irregulars from both sides rained havoc on the region, bushwhacking and killing those who espoused the opposing cause. Hatfield patriarch William Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield, whom one contemporary described as “six feet of devil and 180 pounds of hell,” played an active part in these raids, having formed his own Rebel guerrilla band.

It was against this backdrop of sectional violence that Asa Harmon McCoy, a dedicated Union man and brother of family chief Randolph “Old Ran’l” McCoy, enlisted in Co. E, 45th Regiment, of the Kentucky Infantry. As a result, he was viewed by many—including some members of his own family—as a traitor.

Asa was shot in the chest in battle and mustered out of the army near the end of 1864, whereupon he returned to his wife and his mountain home. Shortly thereafter, a Southern-leaning vigilante band that included Devil Anse Hatfield tracked him through the snow and shot him to death. Historians maintain that the actual murder was carried out by Anse’s volatile relative, James Vance, known locally as “Uncle Jim” and, perhaps more aptly, “Crazy

“I COULDN’T STAND THE HATE IN HIS EYES...”

36 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

Jim.” Possibly because Asa McCoy’s own kin saw him as a turncoat, no reprisals were taken, although relations between the two clans soured considerably.

Things remained relatively calm for more than a decade. Then, in 1878, Old Ran’l formally accused Floyd Hatfield, a cousin of Devil Anse, of stealing one of his hogs—a serious charge, given the worth of such an animal in a poor mountain community. Purportedly, the justice of the peace who presided over the resultant trial was another Hatfield cousin. The verdict was a foregone conclusion, especially after testimony favoring the defendant was given—to the stunned surprise of the McCoys—by their relative, Bill Staton. Floyd was acquitted, and within two years, Staton would die at the hands of two of Old Ran’l’s nephews.

The third supposed impetus for the feud was born of love—at least in the beginning. In the summer of 1880, Johnse Hatfield, Devil Anse’s 18-year-old son, met and wooed Old Ran’l’s young daughter, Roseanna. Aware of the hostility between the two families, Roseanna moved in with the Hatfields, further infuriating her father.

At one point, Roseanna—then pregnant with Johnse’s illegitimate child—returned to the bosom of her family, and when Johnse crossed the river to visit her, Old Ran’l had him seized. In a scene straight out of a period melodrama, Roseanna rushed to warn Devil Anse of the capture of his son. Anse, along with several others, freed Johnse at gunpoint, spiriting him back to the West Virginia side of the Tug. Ignoring his responsibility to the pregnant Roseanna, young Johnse abandoned her to marry her cousin, Nancy.

Roseanna’s health soon began to fail, and when her mother asked the reason for her debilitation, she

reportedly answered, “It was Pa. Every time Pa looked at me, I couldn’t stand the hate in his eyes.”

Novelists and scriptwriters have made much of the story of Johnse and Roseanna, painting it as a backwoods Romeo-and-Juliet romance. While in reality it was a fairly commonplace tale of seduction and abandonment, it certainly contributed to the already harsh feelings between the two clans.

BL O O D F O R BL O O D The most immediate cause of the feud, however, was an incident that occurred on Pike County’s Election Day in August 1882. As on election days past, people gathered from their remote cabins and farms to cast their votes and partake in some jawboning. Traditionally, the event had been a scene of animated debates, fueled in large part by the liberal consumption of spirits. One such heated discussion was taking place between three of Old Ran’l’s young sons—Tolbert, Pharmer and Bud—and Devil Anse Hatfield’s younger brother, Ellison, a 6 ½-foot tall, 200pound Confederate veteran.

According to historian Dean King, Tolbert began the quarrel by verbally abusing “Big Ellison,” as he was known. Matters quickly escalated, with both men drawing their knives. Tolbert’s brothers then joined the fray, and the three McCoy youths stabbed Ellison 27 times and shot him in the back.

The McCoy brothers were immediately arrested. The dying Ellison was conveyed home, where—knowing the likelihood of reprisals—he begged brother Anse to let the authorities deal with the McCoy brothers.

This family affront, however, was not to be left to the k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 37

William Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield

law. Devil Anse—in company with a dozen or so friends and relatives—took the prisoners by force as they were being conveyed to the county seat. The boys’ mother pleaded with Devil Anse for her sons’ lives, but her tears failed to move the patriarch. If Ellison died, he told her, so would her boys.

Upon receiving word of Ellison’s death two days after the attack, Anse and his posse tied the brothers to a copse of pawpaw bushes and fired more than 50 rounds into them. The photograph of the three young men peacefully laid out on their father Ran’l’s cabin porch clearly shows

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the white bandages that were used to hold Tolbert’s and Bud’s shattered skulls together.

Pike County indictments were handed down, and warrants were sworn out for the apprehension of Anse and his men for the crime of murder. However, the local Kentucky lawmen were less than enthusiastic about crossing into Logan County, West Virginia, in pursuit of the Hatfields. By the time the next court term commenced six months later, the sheriff had simply written beside each fugitive’s name on the warrants, “Not found in this county.” It appeared as though the

Hatfields would escape unscathed. Retribution would come, however; it was just a matter of time.

For the next few years, an uncomfortable truce prevailed. Then, in the autumn of 1886, Anse’s 22-year-old son, William Anderson “Cap” Hatfield—often described as the most volatile of the Devil’s brood—brought matters to a boil once again.

According to chronicler King, the Hatfields were planning a raid on the McCoys when, somehow, word of it was leaked. It was strongly suspected that two McCoyrelated women, a mother and daughter, were responsible.

Cap and an ally named Tom Wallace were ordered to address the situation. At the head of a dozen or so masked men, the two broke into the women’s cabin in the night and beat them mercilessly.

Shortly thereafter, Jeff McCoy, son of the murdered Union veteran Asa Harmon McCoy, crossed into West Virginia along with a friend, looking for Cap and Wallace.

They settled for shooting up Cap’s home, with his wife inside. When the absent Cap returned to a furious wife and a cabin in shambles, he swore out an arrest warrant for Jeff and his accomplice, nd had himself appointed a special constable to serve it personally.

Cap captured the two, but as he and Wallace were returning them to the Logan courthouse, Jeff attempted to escape by jumping into the Tug. He managed to swim across, with rifle bullets pinging the water all the way, but as he reached the far shore, a bullet ended his life. Whether Cap facilitated Jeff’s escape in order to personally execute him is a mystery that remains unresolved.

I N P U RS U I T O F T H E D E V I L While the lunges and thrusts of the feud were taking place, Devil Anse was working to shore up and broaden his political connections within his home state. At one juncture, he rode in upon a local election at the head of dozens of armed men, “persuading” the locals to vote for his chosen candidate, John B. Floyd. Largely as a result, Floyd was elected state senator. Devil Anse Hatfield was indeed a daunting and powerful force in the state of West Virginia.

Immediately after the shooting death of Jeff McCoy, Old Ran’l asked an ambitious, politically well-connected attorney named Perry Cline to write to Anse Hatfield in the hope of ending the feud. Unbeknownst to either the Hatfields or the McCoys, hiring Cline would prove a game changer.

As it turned out, Cline entered the picture with his own agenda. He was clearly determined to see the Hatfields called to account for the murders, and he had two defensible and personal reasons for wanting to punish Devil Anse and his brood. For one, he was related to the McCoys by marriage and thus was an uncle to Jeff McCoy, whose

recent death was being laid at Cap Hatfield’s door. More telling was the fact that Devil Anse had once cheated Cline out of thousands of acres of valuable family land.

Despite a lack of formal education, Devil Anse Hatfield was a natural-born businessman. In addition to profiting from the distillation of illicit alcohol, he had turned a simple timber operation into a going concern that employed dozens of locals. At one juncture, he had illegitimately laid claim to some 5,000 acres of timberland that Cline’s father had left to him. Adding insult to injury, Anse and his family then moved into the old Cline homestead on the property.

Stealing Perry Cline’s land was bad enough. Now, in these post-war times, Northern industrialists were clamoring for the coal, minerals and hardwood timber of southern Appalachia. These businessmen were blasting tunnels and laying railroad tracks throughout the region, and they would pay handsomely for both the timber and the right-of-way on the land that Anse had taken from Cline.

According to various accounts, Cline nurtured an abiding hate for Devil Anse and swore to repay the Hatfields for this injustice. It would take years, but ultimately he would get his pound of flesh.

As McCoy’s attorney, Cline did, in fact, honor Ran’l’s request and wrote to Devil Anse. In his response, Anse expressed his sorrow that “the Troubles occored [sic]” and avowed that he would have stopped them if it were possible. He denied, however, that his son, Cap, had had anything to do with the death of Jeff McCoy—an obvious lie. At that point, an exhausted Ran’l was content to place his family’s business and well-being in Cline’s hands, and it was there that matters would take a new and darker turn.

Cline immediately swung into action. First, he had the Kentucky courts reinstate the five-year-old arrest warrants against Devil Anse and the others for the killing of the three McCoy brothers. Cline then publicly announced that the state was offering rewards on the men’s heads, payable on their return to Kentucky for trial. If West Virginia’s administration at the time was unwilling to extradite the fugitives legally, it was Cline’s hope and expectation that private detectives and bounty hunters would do so by force.

To that end, one of Cline’s first orders of business was to enlist a locally known hardcase and gun for hire named Franklin Phillips, who went by “Bad Frank.” As the Hatfields would soon discover, it would prove to be an apt moniker.

The feud was about to enter its darkest phase. The events to follow would encompass a cowardly, murderous attack on an entire family, a full-scale gun battle fought between the Hatfields and their dogged pursuers, and the public execution of one individual, whose death—it was hoped—would put an end to the hostilities between two ancient and implacable families. Q

Part II of “Blood for Blood: The Hatfield-McCoy Feud” will appear in the June/July issue.

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 39

off the shelf

Culinary Culture The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell: Contemporary Appalachian Tables is, in its words, “dedicated to the next generation of Appalachian foodways scholars, writers, cooks, artisans, farmers, seedsavers and advocates.” For that purpose, this collection of essays, poetry and memoirs—fully exploring and celebrating a diversity of mountain foodways culture—serves up a tasty bit of success.

The anthology includes 14 illuminating chapters, bookended by an introduction by editor Elizabeth Engelhardt and Ronni Lundy’s afterword, both with compelling perspectives. Lora Smith’s examination of an iconic recipe book is both nostalgic and informing. Poems by noted Kentucky writers George Ella Lyon and Crystal Wilkinson reveal nearphotographic memories of familial upbringing carved out of time spent in the kitchen, and Rebecca Gayle Howell’s verse asks us to consider the gravity of killing fowls for our dietary desires.

Robert Gipe’s lighthearted “Confessions of a Spear Packer” is a look at his younger life working in a pickle factory, where he was expected to “pack the spears in the jar with the ‘seed sides out.’ ” One reviewer called the book “a fresh perspective on Appalachia, using foodways as a lens,” and that could well be true.

By Steve Flairty The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell: Contemporary Appalachian Tables Edited by Elizabeth S.D. Engelhardt and Lora E. Smith, Ohio University Press, $22.95 (P)

40 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

(P)-Paperback (C)-Clothbound (H)-Hardback

Gastronomical Guide Louisville has been a foodie’s dream city for decades, with hot spots for Southern cuisine, fine dining, barbecue and great pizza. If you like to eat, Louisville is your destination.

Unique Eats and Eateries of Louisville is a pocket guide of some of the offthe-beaten path, mom-and-pop, only-in-Louisville kinds of places.

Some are dives, and some are fancy, but all are worth the trip. Sure, most locals have been to Mike Linnig’s and Dizzy Whiz, which are rightfully included, but how many know about Vietnam Kitchen or the Chinese vegetarian establishment Zen Garden? So many delicious options.

Each two-page spread contains a brief description of the restaurant, the owners and the menu, along with a few photos. Don’t skip over the black boxes at the bottom of each page, which feature ordering tips or historical tidbits that you can get only from an insider.

Author Kevin Gibson is from Louisville and knows what he is talking about. His other books, Secret Louisville: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure and 100 Things to Do in Louisville Before You Die paved the way for this guide to the city’s most unique eateries.

By Deborah Kohl Kremer Unique Eats and Eateries of Louisville

By Kevin Gibson, Reedy Press, $20.95 (P)

Story of Strength This vividly narrated novel of historical fiction is set in the Cherokee Nation just after the Civil War. The story centers around matriarch America Singer, who goes by “Check,” a strong woman of mixed race and somewhat wealthy means, who is ready to fiercely protect her family, her farm and her fellow Native Americans.

Cherokee America begins as Check, the mother of five boys, is approaching widowhood. She spends her time keeping her sick husband comfortable, minding the farm, contemplating the lives of her hired hands whom she treats as family, and carefully planning the future of each son. If Check wants something done, it happens. And if something happens, Check knows about it.

Throughout the book, Lexington author Margaret Verble weaves in a bit of humor and an amazing amount of detail. Verble is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, and the story is inspired by her own family. Her first novel, Maud’s Line, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

By Deborah Kohl Kremer Cherokee America

By Margaret Verble, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27 (H)

BOOKENDS Though raised in Louisville, missionary Paul Rusch focused his deeply religious inclinations toward a faraway land—Japan, where his first experience saw him help rebuild YMCA facilities in 1925. That spurred him to a life of advocacy for the nation, both via the direction of his personal Christianity and his ability to deftly work with the governments of the United States and Japan, much of the time decades later in the World War II era.

Rusch’s life of humane passion is told in detail by authors Andrew T. McDonald and Verlaine Stoner McDonald in their book, Paul Rusch in Postwar Japan: Evangelism, Rural Development, and the Battle Against Communism. Rusch was courageous, often receiving harsh resistance from both his native country and Japanese detractors. Despite that, he carried the torch for the virtues of both cultures, hoping to mesh them in a positive way.

Two major accomplishments were Rusch’s introduction of American football to Japan and his founding of the Kiyosato Educational Experiment Project, “a vehicle for feeding, educating, and uplifting the rural poor of highland Japan,” still viable today.

Published by University Press of Kentucky, the clothbound book retails for $50.

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Two experts in the study of cyanobacteria, Mark A. Nienaber and Miriam Steinitz-Kannan, have authored A Guide to Cyanobacteria: Identification and Impact, a 186-page book that includes 132 color photos designed to “help students, landowners, and citizen scientists identify different kinds of cyanobacteria and understand their impact on waterways, from neighborhood lakes and farm ponds to major river systems.”

Better known as blue-green algae, the toxins they produce can, according to the authors, “pose serious economic, environmental, and public health problems worldwide” as they “undergo explosive growth and form harmful blooms.”

The guide includes a glossary to help newcomers to the study and an in-depth bibliography for those more advanced in the field. It helps fill a void for accessible subject material lacking in the past, and “systematically walks the reader through each step of the identification process,” aided by the color photographs for confirming findings.

Neinaber is the proprietor of Algae Services, with more than 40 years of experience in the field. SteinitzKannan is Regents Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biological Sciences at Northern Kentucky University.

Published by University Press of Kentucky, the softcover book retails for $20. k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 41

past tense/present tense

by Bill Ellis

Jesse Stuart: Kentucky Author

H

“

illbilly” and “redneck” are epithets most Kentuckians have heard, especially if they are from Appalachia. Do you take this sobriquet as a source of pride or an insult? “Cracker” is a mocking name used in Florida, and we all know the derisive nicknames that have been applied to African Americans.

Among my own people, I relish being called such names, but certainly not by others outside the region or for the wrong reason. God bless the poor Yankees who don’t even know how to pronounce “pecan” properly or have never eaten grits and collards (just kidding). We all come from backgrounds that can make us defensive or offensive sometimes.

In recent years, the publication of Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance has stirred up debate, newspaper and magazine columns, and seminars. Some are thoughtful, and others are perhaps harmful about the fate of Appalachians and, in a broader context, that of all Americans who come from difficult childhoods to eventually achieve success. That book, as well as others, begs the question: “What makes for a successful life?” Is it education? Hard work? Nature or nurture? Does meritocracy still function in the United States? How do you find your place in the world?

Vance left Appalachia eventually.

Similarly, Tara Westover was raised by survivalists in the mountains of Idaho.

In her 2018 memoir, Educated, she detailed how she educated herself well enough to graduate from Brigham Young University, then earned a doctorate from Cambridge University.

She now lives in New York City.

A few months ago, an old friend commented upon the death of a mutual friend, “He never quite found his place.” I have no doubt that Jesse Stuart found his place in the hills of Appalachia.

Many Kentuckians have heard of Stuart. However, I wonder how many have actually read one of his books or 42 K E NT U C K Y M O NTHLY MAY 2 0 2 0

are acquainted with his poetry.

Jesse Hilton Stuart (19061984) grew up in Greenup County, attended Lincoln Memorial University, became a teacher, and then served as a school administrator.

Before long, he embarked on a successful writing career.

He served briefly in the Navy during World War II, then settled into a farmstead, W-Hollow, in his home county.

Today, you can visit his home, stroll around the Jesse Stuart State Nature Preserve, and visit the Jesse Stuart Foundation in nearby Ashland.

Stuart was perhaps the most prolific writer in our Commonwealth’s history, traveling the globe to teach and lecture. He penned four books of poetry, five autobiographical books, eight novels, six books for young readers, and more than a dozen short-story collections. At least five biographies have been written about this premier Kentucky writer, including Jesse Stuart: Immortal Kentuckian by James M. Gifford, director of the Jesse Stuart Foundation, and Erin R. Kazee. In addition, several libraries and archives hold hundreds of correspondences between Stuart and his many friends and writing colleagues.

I have chosen one book among his voluminous works to tell about his love for, and sometimes exasperation with, his homeland.

Taps for Private Tussie, published in 1943 by E.P. Dutton with illustrations

by Thomas Benton in comical

hillbilly stereotypes, was an instant success. In a 2013 Kentucky Monthly article about Stuart, Robbie Clark best described the novel as “fictional dark comedy.” Prior to the release of Taps for Private Tussie, Stuart already was a successful author.

In Taps for Private Tussie, the Tussies are a prolific family. Grandpa Tussie is the central character. He has numerous progeny, close cousins as well as distant relatives who often vote as a bloc in county elections.

Grandson Sid narrates the novel and is a central figure in working out the future of the Tussie clan.

As the novel opens, the Tussies are living in a schoolhouse while the summer term is out, after briefly living inside a cave entrance. They own no property, living off the land but particularly from the grub handed out on a regular basis because of their poverty and Grandpa’s small pension from the federal government.

The family gets along from hand to mouth. Then word arrives that Pvt. Kim Tussie has been killed in combat, assuring his widow, Vittie, of a $10,000 G.I. insurance payment, which is used to rent a large house and outfit multiple rooms with fine furniture. Complicating the story, which really is great comedy, Vittie is

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE H. EDWARD RICHARDSON COLLECTION, EKSTROM LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE

pursued by Uncle George (Grandpa’s brother) and an alcoholic Uncle Mott.

Word travels fast, and relatives descend on the house, which soon is overcrowded with dozens of Tussie kin. Meanwhile, Sid is able to go to school and learn to read and write.

Before all the survivorship money vanishes, Grandpa buys some land, admitting, “When you raise your own corn, beans, taters, and pumpkins, you don’t haf to depend on relief …

Farmin is the only sure way.”

Though Grandpa had been among the first to get a small federal pension and gratefully took surplus grub, he began to realize the right way to live.

Of course, this is Stuart’s critique of the profligate lifestyle he detested in “his” mountain people.

As the novel concludes, Uncle Mott and Uncle George have it out, Mott blasting George’s beloved fiddle to pieces with a shotgun, then the latter shooting Mott with a pistol. Sid witnesses it all. “I saw Uncle Mott fall like a tree, his face down, his head toward Uncle George.” Sheriff Whiteapple and his deputies then pursue George into the winter snow.

The story has a happy ending. Kim Tussie returns one day, his mother fainting at the sight. After cavorting with Uncle George and Uncle Mott, Vittie is elated to have her husband back from the dead. Finally, Sid is told that Vittie is his real mother, having been born illegitimately before she married Kim. Sid is finally accepted by Kim into the family.

Sid ends the novel with increasingly grown-up observations: “I wondered what Uncle Kim would think when he looked at his own grave.” Kim and Vittie are wrapped in each other’s arms. “Uncle Mott was dead, Grandpa was dyin and Uncle Kim was lovin, all in the same room … It seemed like a dream, but it wasn’t a dream for I felt life surge through my body and I felt warmth from the big fire.” Sid is comfortable in his time and place.

Many have strong opinions about the life and craft of Stuart. “It is hard to separate Stuart from his ego—his obsession with the number of works published and not the quality,”

explained State Historian Jim Klotter in an email. “Yet he, in other times, could write eloquently about what I thought it means to be a Kentuckian.”

Sympathetic biographer Gifford found that sometimes Stuart’s “worst personality traits, including his inability to hold himself accountable for his own words and deeds, his willingness to ignore the facts and jump to the wrong conclusions, and his tendency to angrily overreact” got the best of him. Above all, Stuart’s “enormous energy” sometimes led to conflict.

The dean of Appalachian scholars, Loyal Jones, found that Stuart was always writing, almost obsessively. “I visited him in his home in W-Hollow, and there were books on most of the walls and over doorways. There was a roomful of gray manuscript boxes of unpublished material. I exclaimed over these, and he pointed to another room and said, ‘There are more in there.’ He had a receptive audience, and for many years was Kentucky’s best-known writer.”

Charles Sweet, emeritus professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University, praised Stuart for his everactive pen. “Stuart has often been damned by putting him in the category of a popular writer. While there is no doubt he wrote for money, so did Hemingway and Faulkner, and Poe and Twain before them. It is possible to be popular and still express some essential truths of the human condition, and Jesse Stuart assuredly captured the heart of being a Kentuckian and a Southerner.

It’s time to realize just how good Stuart is.”

Hal Blythe, emeritus professor of English at EKU, also praised Stuart.

Taps and Stuart’s other writings “are best read as fiction portraying the foibles of human beings—like Faulkner’s Snopes [family],” according to Blythe. “Stuart shows us a bit of ourselves, even though we would never admit it. I think that Stuart is a Kentucky treasure, and I wish he was accorded a little more respect in our state’s literary history.”

Unlike Vance, Westover and others, Stuart returned to his roots in

eastern Kentucky. His sense of place was strong.

Are you comfortable where you are and with who you are? Do you have a strong sense of place like Stuart?

If you have read something by Stuart, what is your favorite? Is he still relevant today?

As I have often written in these columns, I am comfortably a Kentuckian although at times critical of our politics and continuing inability to react to the problems of the modern world. And you can call me a hillbilly and/or redneck, but only if you are of my ilk.

After teaching high school for four years and at Lees Junior College and Eastern Kentucky University for more than three decades, I found the most grounded students, without a close tie to region, to be “Army brats,” as they called themselves. They had often lived overseas and could fit in about any place without a regional accent.

I suppose everyone is offended by something. Many years ago, I boycotted Jay Leno after he began making fun of Kentuckians. I find much modern humor offensive, particularly if ridiculing racial, ethnic or religious groups. I have a grandson who has cerebral palsy.

Anyone who mocks the physically or mentally challenged is beyond the pale, in my estimation.

Words can hurt. All people have value. The 20th-century genocides in Turkey, Germany, Cambodia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as more local outrages—even in this country— began with belittling others by denying their humanity.

I believe Stuart’s message to us today would be to accept people as they are. He championed the people of Appalachia when they needed someone to explain their worth as Americans—and he did it extremely well.

The Stuart legend and publications live on in the efforts of the Jesse Stuart Foundation. Stuart’s books for elementary school students are particularly popular.

Many thanks to Jim Klotter, Loyal Jones, Charlie Sweet, Hal Blythe, James M. Gifford and others who contributed their thoughts and opinions to this article. k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 43

gardening

by Walt Reichert

The ‘Don’t’ List

M

ay is prime gardening month in Kentucky. The gardening magazines and columns will give you lists of hundreds of plants you ought to be planting, seeds you ought to be sowing, holes you ought to be digging. Lots to do.

So I thought, just to be contrary, how about a list of chores that you don’t need to do this month? Now, admittedly, some of these chores you don’t have to do because it’s too late, and for others, it’s too early. They still have to be done—eventually. But isn’t it refreshing to know that in this busiest of gardening seasons, some chores can be neglected or put off?

encourages a flush of growth that is prone to insect and disease damage. n DON’T apply crabgrass killer in May. It’s too late. The best time to do that is late March through mid-April.

You’ll just have to live with crabgrass this year. You can apply weed killer this time of year if you are hysterical about the appearance of dandelions, clover and other broadleaf weeds in your pretty green grass carpet.

(Seriously, get a life!) n DON’T put down grass seed. It’s too

THE LAWN Most of these “too late now” or “wait till later” chores involve lawn care. Even though the garden centers are stacked full of lawn fertilizers, weed and insect killers and treatments, you have my permission to pass them by. At least for now.

late (or too early). That’s better done mid-August through the end of September. Grass seed sown in May will start growth just when the heat of summer is going to burn it up. The only exception would be if you are planting a warm-season grass, such as bermudagrass or zoysia (which you’ll probably regret). Those grasses must be planted after threat of frost.

n DON’T fertilize the lawn now. It may be counterintuitive, but the best time to fertilize the lawn is in the fall, between Oct. 1 and early December.

Putting down fertilizer now

n DON’T aerate or “roll” the lawn.

These are two chores you don’t have to put off; you can skip them altogether.

Aerating may have some benefit for sports turf, but University of Kentucky

44 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

research shows little, if any, benefit for home lawns. And those shoes garden-supply stores sell with spikes on the sole, so you can aerate as you walk on the lawn? Did you truly think that would work?

Mercifully, I don’t see many people around here rolling their lawns. That involves attaching a roller filled with water (to make it heavy) to your lawn mower and driving around the grass, pushing down little mounds and bumps. It is something folks in the far north might do because the thawing of the soil in the spring heaves up turf, but around here, all you are doing is compacting the clay soil, which makes it harder on your grass.

And if you think rolling will make the moles run away, think again. It just ticks them off, and they rebuild their mounds even higher. n DON’T collect grass clippings.

Collecting grass clippings as you mow steals nutrients from the soil. The only exception may be if you have not mowed the grass in a while—perhaps you have been on vacation or your lawn mower went on “vacation” to the shop—and the grass has grown so tall it looks like a hayfield after you mow.

Those clumps of grass you should remove because they will kill the grass beneath, and dead grass is an open invitation for weeds.

OTHER DON’TS n DON’T apply lime now. Lime acts slowly, so if your plants need it this growing season, applying lime now will give them little benefit. If you suspect you need to add lime to the soil, first get a soil test at your local Extension office, then proceed according to recommendations. (Most soils in central Kentucky do not need lime at all.) The lime can then be applied in the fall.

CELEBRATING 71 YEARS IN THE BLUEGRASS!

n DON’T spray ants and other insects “just because.� Many gardeners think ants over their plants and swarming

trees are doing harm and reach for the spray bottle. Unless you live in the jungle where there are leafcutting ants, our ants are not harming your plants. Ants do, however, problems that may

indicate potential to be dealt with.

Aphids attract have

2020 ants who “farm� them for their honeydew. While the ants aren’t doing any harm, the aphids are.

Aphids will gather, usually at the tips of plants, and suck plant juices, just as a louse or tick will suck an animal’s blood. Aphids’ feeding also can spread disease. Aphids can be killed by spraying with insecticidal soap. That will dry out their bodies but will not harm ants or other beneficial insects.

The best rule is to not spray any insect unless you can identify it and know it is doing harm. Most insects are either benign or beneficial.

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Monthly

n DON’T plant trees and large shrubs

Uniting Kentuckians everywhere.

Kentucky Monthly Magazine is your guide to the Commonwealth, and the exceptional offerings that make the Bluegrass State such a wonderful place to visit or call home.

• GARDENING • EDUCATION • OUTDOORS • • FOOD + RECIPIES • TRAVEL + GETAWAYS • • KENTUCKY LIFE + EVENTS • KENTUCKY PEOPLE • KENTUCKY DAYTRIPS FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY KENTUCKY

AUGUST 2019 J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 9

AUGUST 2019

of

Giants at Bernheim Forest

ts

M O N T H LY

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now. I say this reservedly, because you can plant trees and shrubs any time of the year that the ground is not frozen. But if you plant them now or in the summer, you are going to have to stand by with the hose or watering can. You just missed the second-best time to plant—March and April—and the best time will come in the fall—October through Christmas.

Did you notice how much work I let you put off until fall? You’re welcome.

There’s more than enough to do in May: Plant your vegetable garden; put out your summer annuals; mow the lawn; spray fruit trees for insects and disease; pick your asparagus, peas and other cool-season crops; plant roses and summer lilies; and weed, weed, weed.

Gia n

OUTDOOR THEATR

Four Different Shows Summer 2020 June 19 – August 15

THE

Chrysalis PROJECT

plus VOLUME 22 ISSUE

6

First Generation Women Achievers Touring Your Home State Frontier Nursing University Ignite Institute Facts About Kentucky Colleges

Photography exhibit in need benefits women

Display until 9/10/2019

plus

Birding in Kentucky

Display until 8/13/2019

Berea Festival of Learnshops Pioneer Playhouse Celebrates 70 Years www.kentuckymonthly.com

www.kentuckymonthly.com x-cover.indd 991

Readers may contact Walt Reichert at editor@kentuckymonthly.com

5/14/19 8:22 PM

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H L Y. C O M k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 45

field notes

by Gary Garth

Social Distancing in a Time of Virus

I

have a friend and former editorial colleague who has tossed concern about the novel coronavirus aside like last season’s frayed fishing line.

His attitude has ranged from dismissive to snarky.

It’s also dumb and dangerous. His self-righteous arrogance poses a risk to himself, those around him, and those he likely will never encounter.

“Are you at least staying at home when you can?” I asked with obvious annoyance. “And keeping your distance from people?”

His response was unsuitable for a family publication but ended with: “I keep my social distance by going fishing.”

On that, at least, we agreed.

Getting outside—walking, hiking, camping, biking, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, star gazing, bird watching—is the best medicine. For many of us, these are solo pursuits and are the original social distancing.

The 6-foot minimum personal space rule still should be applied, whether you’re hiking a piece of the Daniel Boone National Forest’s 319mile Sheltowee Trace Trail or strolling the 2-mile path that circles Hematite Lake within the 170,000-acre Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. And follow the hand-washing rule—both before and after your trek—regardless if that trek is via foot, pedal or paddle, electric or outboard motor power. Keep a bottle of hand sanitizer in your pocket, and use it often.

“Even if you don’t believe the coronavirus crisis is a real crisis,” I suggested to my friend, “wouldn’t it be better to err on the side of caution?”

He answered with a wave of disdain, then said, “I don’t know … maybe.”

I live in a college town, around which the community hums. But the city also has a character separate from the school. During spring break week, as the virus was creeping

46 K E NT U C K Y M O NTHLY MAY 2 0 2 0

across Kentucky like cold fog, and students were being informed that the remainder of their semester’s studies would be done online, but before Gov. Andy Beshear directed that all nonessential retail businesses close their doors to in-house customers, I spent a morning running some needed errands.

My final stop was at a locally owned tire store. My wife’s Ford had a damaged front tire, and I stopped by to have it replaced. I had ordered the tire by phone, and the shop called to tell me it had come in and ask if I could come by that afternoon. I stopped right after lunch.

The bay door was open. The technician guided me onto the rack, pointing this way and that as the car moved an inch or two to the left then right. He finally held up his hands indicating I should stop, and I touched the brake, pushed the transmission into P, exited the car, and walked into the small customer waiting area.

The owner exited his office, acknowledged me with a nod, and disappeared into the service bay. He and the tech quickly finished their work and, a few minutes later, the owner walked back into the waiting area. I followed him into his office.

The place doesn’t take cards, so I paid with a check. He handed me a receipt, and we crossed the waiting area to the door that led into the service bay. We were standing about 4 feet apart—not the minimum social distancing recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but close enough for two men with compromised hearing to understand each other.

“What do you think about all this?” he asked.

He didn’t mean the tire replacement. He was talking about the coronavirus outbreak that was rattling the world.

I answered as honestly as I knew how.

“I think it’s serious business, and

it must be taken seriously,” I said. “I know people are hurting. I know businesses are hurting. But what is being done, is being done out of necessity. But no one really knows what’s going to happen.”

“Trump says he does,” he said, glancing down toward the cracked concrete floor. “But he don’t.”

I agreed but was unsure how to proceed when he continued.

“I can’t stay home,” he said. “I do this.” He pointed toward the service bay. “I got to get inside people’s cars.”

Like me, the guy was probably just inside the “at risk” 60-and-older age group. And, like me, he probably gives this little if any thought. He makes his living with his hands.

We stood in silence until just before it became uncomfortable.

“I think everyone just needs to be careful,” I said. “Be cautious. Wash your hands. Keep your distance. Get people in and out as fast as you can.

Just be careful.”

He pointed out the door toward a small building across the street, an insurance agency.

“That guy keeps his door locked,” he said flatly. “Got a sign on the door and lets people in, then he wipes down the door handle and wipes it again when they leave.” I was unsure how to respond to this.

“I don’t know that that’s really necessary, but people need to do what they feel comfortable with,” I finally said. “Everyone just needs to be careful. But I think if someone came in here that you didn’t feel good about, it’d be OK to ask them to wait outside. Or to leave. It’s your shop.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

He pushed open the door. We walked into the service bay, and I opened the door to my car and climbed in.

“Be careful,” he said.

“I will. You, too.”

Vested Interest continued from page 48

Kacey Musgraves’ not-so-secret “idea of heaven is to burn one with John Prine.” ggg

Social distancing isn’t a problem when your backyard is this pretty...

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G A L L AT I N C O U N T Y As of April 1, Hartig Park and Wildlife Reserve is still open! 500 acres of horse trails, hiking trails, kayaking and primitive camping.

John was born on Oct. 10, 1946, in Maywood, a western Chicago suburb. His father, Bill, a Paradise native, was a tool-and-die maker. He migrated north with his bride, Verna, and raised four boys: John, David, Doug and Billy.

They loved country music and annual visits back to Muhlenberg County.

John served in the U.S. Army in 1966 and ’67 in West Germany. He returned home to the same battleship gray house his father rented for 30 years and became a mailman, trudging through the snow and rain. “I passed the time making up these little ditties,” Prine said.

John had the observational skills of a writer and could isolate the details to make any story funny. One example was a girl he met in college who said he reminded her of Roger Miller, best know for his songs “King of the Road,” “Dang Me” and “Chug-A-Lug.” “She was so pretty,” he said. “My senior year, I’m sitting behind her in art class. She had a voice like Marilyn Monroe, real soft. She turned around and said, ‘Hi, Jimmy.’ I went out with her for four months and never once corrected her.”

Among Prine’s awards were his 2003 induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, an Americana Lifetime Achievement Award for songwriting, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

He managed to view the world with a wry innocence.

Last year, he told American Songwriter, “When I get up in the morning, I’m 9 years old. I’m not a 72-year-old man until I look in the mirror.”

Regular readers of the column know I’m always on the lookout for connections. Allen Taylor Nall, mentioned above, was my best bud during my time in the Green River Valley. He was 83 when Lattie turned 100. I think of him each time I cross the Green River, and I sing the “Paradise” chorus.

“Oh Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenburg County, Down by the Green River where Paradise lay.

I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking; Mr. Peabody’s coal train done hauled it away.”

As I was writing this, listening to Prine, I got an email from Ted Wathen, my college photography professor. It concerned an exhibition at the Frazier Museum in Louisville. Titled Rough Road: The Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project, 1975-1977, it featured the Paradise strip mine on the cover of the exhibit’s catalog. “After one of our artists’ lectures, a woman asked me to sign the catalog and dedicate [it] to her friend, John Prine. What a request! I turned to the page where the photograph was printed and wrote: ‘To John Prine, I sing your song every time I cross the Green River.’ ” When I die, let my ashes float down the Green River, Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam; I’ll be halfway to heaven, with Paradise waiting, Just five miles away from wherever I am.

Readers, and those looking for a speaker, may contact Stephen M. Vest at steve@kentuckymonthly.com

k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m 47

vested interest

Halfway to Heaven with Paradise Waitin’ When I get to heaven, I’m going to shake God’s hand And thank him for more blessings Than one man can stand.

— John Prine (1947-2020)

T

his morning, I am alone, sitting in my office, listening to John Prine.

I’m biding my time. Keeping my distance. I’m praying the plague passes over my friends and family, leaving them unscathed.

We are in uncharted waters. The other night, I was sitting on the couch, watching the latest news and helping Sydney, my college freshman at home from Western Kentucky University, work on her world history assignment—American colonization in the Philippines reflected in a Rudyard Kipling poem.

“So, a hundred years from now, you think kids will be studying the COVID-19 pandemic and all the great memes we’ve created?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe Walton Mayor Gabe Brown’s coronavirus rant will replace Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.”

Memes, for the uninformed, are humorous images shared through social media, depicting thoughtful or sarcastic views on current events, such as Gov. Andy Beshear’s enforcement of social distancing.

I hope those future students STEPHEN M. VEST study how we Publisher + Editor-in-Chief “flattened the curve” and remained calm by listening to afternoon affirmations from Gov. Beshear, which have garnered national attention from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and HBO’s

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. Gov. Beshear’s 5 o’clock broadcasts have spawned cocktail parties— “Afternoons With Andy”—and drinking games—“Bourbon With Beshear”—and made Virginia Moore, executive director of the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, a household name.

Gov. Beshear has developed more catchphrases than J.J. Walker.

“We’ll get through this together.”

“We can’t be doing that.”

“If you are still holding mass gatherings, you are spreading the coronavirus, and you are likely causing the death of Kentuckians.”

“You’re not being a good neighbor—a good citizen.”

The news one day was about Pastor Jack Roberts insisting that services would continue at his Maryville Baptist Church in Bullitt County because such gatherings are a right guaranteed by the United States and Kentucky constitutions. “[Gov. Beshear] does not have the right, constitutionally, to make the comments that he’s making and say you’ve got to do what he says to do,” Roberts said. “We’ve done several things to try and comply without basically shutting our church down.”

Over my office computer, Prine is singing, “You’re running with a caravan of fools.” Only history will show which side (if either) was right.

“Any likeness to the current administration is purely accidental,” Prine said in a 2018 Tiny Desk Concert on National Public Radio. ggg

A son of Kentucky parents, Prine died at 73 on April 7 from complications of COVID-19 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, 90 miles south of Paradise, the western Kentucky ghost town he made famous in a 1971 song.

He battled the virus in intensive care

for 13 days. “He was never anything but the loveliest guy in the world,” said Bruce Springsteen on his passing.

I learned of Prine early in my newspaper career in McLean County, just north (downstream) of Muhlenberg. One of my first assignments was about a woman, Lattie Lockett Edds, who was celebrating her 100th birthday. Born in Beech Grove in 1886, “Lattie Tat” told how she was once considered scandalous for being the first woman in the county to ride astride a horse, rather than sidesaddle. She said her first memory was going on a family picnic at Airdrie, which Prine mentions being an “old prison” near “Paradise”—it was actually an abandoned iron furnace, built by Scottish Lord Robert Alexander the Younger in the 1850s.

I learned about Prine and Airdrie, once the home of Civil War Gen. Don Carlos Buell, from Allen Taylor Nall and from Agnes S. Harralson’s Steamboats on the Green. Of Airdrie, Harralson wrote, it “stands nestled in the undergrowth on the bank of the Green River like an old fortress, a symbol of failure and frustration.”

I never met Prine. I had a chance, afforded me last year by my friends Heath and Molly Eric. The Rumsey couple organized a “Prine Returns to Paradise” concert in Muhlenberg County and offered me a front-row seat. I had to decline because of other obligations. It’s one of the items on my “regret” list.

Dave Hoekstra, who covered 30 years of Prine’s career for the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote that Prine’s appeal resonated with generations young and old, especially in a “world cluttered with ornamentation and pretension.

How refreshing it was to hear someone tell the truth and speak from the heart.” His appeal is reflected in millennial singer/songwriter Vested Interest continued on page 47.

KWIZ ANSWERS: 1. B. Rebecca Bryan Boone raised her 10 children and at least two nephews; 2. A. Opened in 2010 in western Shelbyville, Martha Layne Collins High School pays tribute to the hometown icon; 3. B. The Jenny Wiley Theatre is named in her honor; 4. C. Lyon is a native of Harlan, and her first book of poetry was titled Mountain; 5. B. Loretta Lynn; 6. A. Coomes is depicted in one of six murals completed by Carroll in 1941; 7. C. Carry or Carrie Nation also was opposed to tight clothing on women; 8. B. Mary Breckinridge; 9. A. George Clooney’s Aunt Rosemary; 10. C. Known as “The Aviatrix,” Willa Brown also was the first African-American woman to run for a seat in the U.S. Congress.

48 K E NT U C K Y M O NT HLY MAY 2 0 2 0

10 Consecutive Appearances on Jay Mathews’ List of Top Performing Schools with Elite Students 5 Straight Years Advancing to the National Science Bowl Competition in Washington, D.C. 136 National Merit Finalists

We come from all across Kentucky to The Gatton Academy on the campus of Western Kentucky University. As juniors and seniors in high school, we enroll in WKU courses, conduct research with WKU professors, and study abroad. While we are challenged academically, we thrive in a supportive environment designed just for us and make lifelong friends. Best yet, our tuition, meals, housing, and fees are all paid for by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. You, too, can have a future filled with infinite possibilities.

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