okra. Issue 4, 2018 Preview

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ISSUE NO. 4T

2018

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NAMED ONE OF THE

TOP 20 HOTTEST MAGAZINE LAUNCHES OF 2017 see inside

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54: HUSS & DALTON

Perfection and passion for building and improving guitars

62: DAN BELL

Hand carves one of a kind fiddles and brings musicians together

66: SWEET GRASS DAIRY

One family’s love of the land produces more than award winning cheeses

STORIES 76: EASTABOGA HONEY

Justin Hill produces Intoxicating honey on his family’s Alabama farm

84: ONE OF A KIND

There’s no denying the magic of this memorial to the Coon Dog

90: MOON SHADOW A road trip with friends to chase the total eclipse

CHAPTERS EDITORIAL

TO DINE SOUTHERN

PG 8: EDITOR’S LETTER

How food and music feed our souls

PG 14: MAKING A DIFFERENCE

New Orleans rocker Anders Osborne builds a support network for working musicians

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PG 36: THE SOUTHERN TABLE

Jonathon Barret Scott reminisces on picking figs and the cake that came afterwards

PG 41: COME FOR SUPPER

Into the woods at Lula Lake with Chattanooga’s Scenic City Supper Club

PG 132: MAGEE’S SOUTHERN ACCENT

PG 46: ON OUR PL ATE

Chef Katy Keefe’s creamy rice pudding deliver’s Carolina Gold rice with a citrus note

Moon Pie memories resurface at “The Pig”

PG 48: IN OUR GL ASS

A lemonade made to enjoy all year long

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36 SOUTHERN COMFORTS

A ROAD LESS TRAVELED

PG 18: BOOTHILL BL ADES

PG 120: WANDERING

Turning their passions for raw materials into products their customers love

PG 23: BY SOUTHERN HANDS You’ll want these finds made by locals

PG 28: PAGES

Taking a look behind the bar with Michah LeMon and his new book , The Imbibe

PG 30: LISTEN UP

Lisa Mills brings her roots, blues & gospel music from the Gulf Coast to stages across the globe

PG 32: LOOK FOR

John Calvin Abney delivers a soft and haunting sound on his new album

41 SOUTHERN SNAPSHOTS

Jefferson, TX will forever be Queen of the Cypress

PG 127: SOMETHING ELSE Not your typical petting zoo in AL

PG 130: SOUTH AND ABOUT What’s happening around the South

PG 134: WHERE WE WENT Keeping history and the arts alive at Heritage Hall in Talladega, AL

PG 100: ALONG THE ROAD

The special ingredient in Woodruff’s pies keeps their family history alive

PG 108: SOUTHERN C HARACTER

Boxing champion Deontay Wilder is a humble man just grateful for his accomplishments

PG 110: L AY OF THE L AND Readers share photos of their South

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STAFF Scott Speakes Publisher Genie Gaither Jones Editor-in-Chief Rebecca Cashwell Design Director Lynae Bryant Visual Communication Artist Steve Ransom Digital Imaging Specialist Tom Ramsey Matthew Magee Shane Kinder (@monkontheradio) Contributing Editors Richard L. Jones Copy Editor Scott Speakes Lena Seaborn Photography Katie Kunsman katie@okramagazine.com Advertising Sales Specialist Alicia A. Porter aporter@okramagazine.com Advertising Sales Specialist Randall Grussing randy@okramagazine.com Advertising Sales Specialist

Front Cover photographed in the Mississippi Delta

by Rory Doyle.

Published by Southbound Publishing, Inc. P O Box 4107 Cleveland, MS 38732

okramagazine.com

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EDITOR’S LETTER

What is it that makes these two things fit together so naturally?

Does music affect how food tastes? Does food make music more beautiful? We can’t say, but we do know where one is, the other seems to follow.

Recently, we attended a covered dish dinner on the grounds of a local church. The tables would have sagged from the weight of the food if they hadn’t been made from concrete.

You could see how people were watching for certain cooks to arrive with their particular dish. Overheard were comFOOD IS MUSIC TO ments like “Make sure you get some of Miss Annie’s cherTHE BODY, MUSIC ry pie. She grows those cherries and puts that pie filling IS FOOD TO THE HEART. GREGORY DAVID ROBERTS up every year. It’s the best thing you’ll every taste!” or “See those rolls Sister Ruth just put on the table? She still makes her own butter and they’re coated with honey from her bees. They are so good!”

Well, they were right about those things and more. Meeting, eating and relaxing with this wonderful group of people was amazing and took us back to our childhood when church congregations did this much more often. But as the tables were being cleared and empty bowls packed away, a group of people began to congregate in a corner of the churchyard, creating their own stage. Soon guitars, banjos and fiddles filled the air with music. Chairs were pulled around as the musicians took turns singing gospel and bluegrass songs. It was a wonderful and unexpected way to spend the afternoon.

A few days later, friends invited us to a “picking” at their house. They hold one at their cabin in the woods every week and to put it mildly, it was glorious! A fiddle, guitars, drum, steel guitar, accordion, mandolin, there was even a tuba.

The evening was a night filled celebration of music. Once again, tables were filled with food: this time in the snack category, but nevertheless amazing. It was clear that these people meant business.

As our host made introductions, it was pointed out that more than a few of these people made the instruments they were playing. Later as we sat outside around the fire and talked with these musicians, listening to them describe their love of music and how much these evenings of music, food and fellowship meant to them, we couldn’t help but think this was something we wanted to explore further - food and music - more specifically, those who make them.

But what do the words “hand crafted” and “artisanal” really mean? We use those words a lot. Is it really as simple as just making something with your hands? Yes. And no.

To describe something as hand crafted the dictionary defines it as being “made skillfully by hand.” And to elaborate further on that definition, an artisan is best defined as a worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand. And when referring to food and drink as artisanal, it means they are made in a traditional (or non-mechanized) way.

So in this issue, while we celebrate all things made by Southern hands, we focus on makers of musical instruments and makers of some of the best artisanal foods we’ve ever tasted. We think you’ll agree; there is no comparison to something that is hand crafted.

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Scott Speakes // Publisher

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Genie Gaither Jones // Editor-in-Chief

GET A ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTION FOR $22.95 @ okramagazine.com Back issues are available in limited quantity Visit the subscription page @ okramagazine.com

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PREMIERE ISSUET

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ISSUE NO. 2T

ISSUE

DEFENDING SOUTHERN FOOD

Chef Kevin Gillespie’s Love Affair With Southern Fare THE SUPPER TABLE

Celebrating A Cajun Heritage

THE LIAR’S CLUB

A Virginia Community Elevates Lying to an Art RANDOM JOURNEY

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ISSUE NO. 3T

2017

2017

FindingHome TOWN : MADE : GROWN PRIDE OF PLACE

Ben & Erin Napier show off their hometown of Laurel, MS ANKIDA RIDGE VINEYARD

Keeping it all in the family in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains

THE REAL DEAL

A hidden blues lover’s dream in a neighborhood of Bessemer, AL COURIR DE MARDIS GRAS

Making a run for Fat Tuesday in Louisiana’s Cajun Country

2017

THE

hidden south THE LOST TOWN

THE BLIND PIG

MATERIAL GIRLS

THE BACK SWAMP

Ashleigh Coleman shares her fascination for Rodney, MS Putting it all together with the quilters of Gee’s Bend, AL

Celebrating everything pig at a supper club in Asheville, NC Life in the ever-changing Atchafalaya Basin, LA

An Eye-Opening Visit to Charming Washington, Georgia

Read okra. to find out what’s happening in the Real South— who to meet, what to eat, where to go, and what to buy. In each issue you’ll get beautiful photography and inspiring stories about the people, places and cultures that shape the Real South.

45%

okra. delivers without sacrificing the traditional essence of the Southern identity.

SAVINGS

Subscribe at okramagazine.com or mail your check made payable to: Southbound Publishing, Inc PO Box 4107 Cleveland, MS 38732

The South...where roots, place, family and tradition are the essence of identity CARL N. DEGLAR

CONTRIBUTORS TOM RAMSEY is a chef, sommelier, raconteur, writer and media personality.

At his “day jobs” he manages the Louisiana Food Prize and writes about food & travel. Tom resides in the cool, old South Highlands neighborhood in Shreveport, Louisiana with his wife and too many cats. info@tomramsey.com

JENNIFER STEWART KORNEGAY is a freelance writer and editor based in Montgomery, AL. Her work has appeared in Garden & Gun, Southern Living, The Bitter Southerner, The Local Palate, thekitchn.com, Bake From Scratch, Paste, Travel&Leisure. com, Nashville Lifestyles, Good Grit, Birmingham magazine, Alabama magazine, Georgia Magazine, Alabama Living magazine and more. She’s interested in everything, will write about almost anything but most often reports on Southern culture, food and travel. www.jenniferkornegay.com

MATTHEW WOOD was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta and has always had a passion for the arts. In the fall of 2012, he moved to Tuscaloosa, AL to work as a photographer for the University of Alabama. Although he now lives in Tuscaloosa, the Mississippi Delta will always be his home and has forever shaped his perspective of the world.

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JON STELL, is a Texas native turned South Carolinian. He is a lover of road trips, good cold beer, and action sports.

His favorite part of photographing any project is meeting the masters of the craft, seeing how they approach their process and overcome any dilemma put before them.

LYNDSEY KEEGAN is a dog trainer and photographer based out of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Even though her photography work has taken her as far as Japan and Slovenia, she loves staying close to her roots and documenting the culture around her. Her love for nature she attributes to her Appalachian ancestors, who taught her to respect the land, as well as the time she has spent working on dairy, beef cattle and chicken farms.

“I highly admire those who make with their hands and put their skills and passions into their work,” says Keegan. “That’s why capturing the makers of agricultural and hand crafted goods (and their products) are my favorite subjects to photograph. I want to tell their story and highlight what they pride themselves in.”

NANCY HENDERSON is an awardwinning, Chattanooga-based writer whose work has appeared in Smithsonian, Parade and other top publications. She is also the author of Able! and Sewing Hope, which feature groundbreaking “rebels” who are making a difference through their work. A born-and-raised Southerner, she has captured the region’s people and places for The Local Palate, Southern Living, The New York Times, Atlanta magazine, and others. Her favorite interview of all time: President Jimmy Carter, in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.

LIESEL SCHMIDT lives in Navarre, Florida, and works as a freelance writer for local and regional magazines, web content writer, and book editor. Having harbored a passionate dread of writing assignments when she was in school, Liesel never imagined making a living at putting words on paper, but life sometimes has a funny way of working out...

Follow her on Twitter at @laswrites or download her novels, Coming Home to You, The Secret of Us, and Life Without You available at amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com

< DEBBY MAUGANS is a food writer,

photo stylist and author of four cookbooks, including the Small-Batch Baking series and Farmer & Chef Asheville.

A former Birmingham News columnist, she has contributed to many cookbooks and magazines, including Fannie Flagg’s The Whistle Stop Café Cookbook, Bon Appetit, Food&Wine and Cooking Light.

She is currently working on a new edition of Farmer & Chef Asheville, as well as opening a soup restaurant in Asheville this spring. She’s a Florida Cracker with deep roots, but has found her own sense of home in the culturally rich Appalachian mountains.

SE C O N D

HEL PIN G

okramagazine.com We are so proud! okra. was named one of the TOP 20 HOTTEST MAGAZINE LAUNCHES OF 2017!

What a huge honor!

Criteria for selection was first and foremost based on creativity and audience reaction.

We receive so many kind words from our readers and we cherish every one! So we want to thank y’all!

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THANKS FOR YOUR KIND WORDS.

“Just found the 3rd issue at my local Harris Teeter in Raleigh, NC. LOVE it! I moved to Raleigh from Minnesota 18 months ago and love my new Southern life.

Okra does a great job of highlighting what I’ve come to love about the South. I’d love it if you could point me in the direction of either your Premier Issue or 2nd Issue. I feel the need to catch up on what I’ve missed.”

Nikki C Got my issue...love, love, love. Your tagline should be “okra: a Southern Staple.” Victoria W Discovered this yesterday at a family reunion! I am a magazine fanatic and this is one of the best I’ve ever read. Beautiful photography, inspiring stories...people and places of the real South. Sheryl S Another great okra. Now you’ve gone and caused a road trip that might or might not involve chocolate.

Louie F I was walking through Walmart tonight and found this gem. As a child of the Delta (born in Greenville and raised in Lake Village, Arkansas) and now living in the Ozark Mountains of Northwest Arkansas, I would love to have a copy of your Premiere issue. Barbara T

You’ve made us feel loved.

Got my okra. magazine in the mail today. What a pure pleasure! I enjoyed every article and the photography is nothing less than stunning. I want to stand in the sacred silence of an abandoned Baptist church in Rodney, MS. I want to chow down on some crawfish on a Henderson Swamp houseboat. I want to hear tall tales from “Shotgun” Giddens as he gives me a trim. Most of all, I want someone to fix me Mama’s chicken pot pie.

Great magazine. Keep ‘em coming! Paul H Authentic down-home Southern writing. Susan E My folks love the subscription I gave them for Christmas...even my father read it cover to cover. Chase M Thank you okra. magazine for including one of my photos in your beautiful magazine and thank you for creating something extraordinary to show and preserve Real Southern Culture. Aneta H One of the best magazines out. Great content!

Gray Fox Farm A very cool and very Southern magazine! Amber A LOVE this new issue in my hands right now! Beautiful art and writing. Thanks for such a great mag. Roy D Just picked up my first issue of okra. and I love it! I want to catch up on what I’ve been missing. Kathy B

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Good morning and Happy New Year. I found Issue #3 in Dallas at Thanksgiving and am finally getting around to reading it. Holidays are always busy. It is awesome and I am sending my subscription request after I finish this email. I saw that your first Issue is titled “Southern Food Culture”. How can I purchase this issue (hoping it’s still available)? Thanks so very much for your beautiful magazine. Julie Anderson I just found your magazine TODAY----at a BAM bookstore---I am glad that they had the kick off edition---but now hope soon that your magazine gets picked up for greater distribution and I can get the latest edition.

Looks like you guys have a winner here----you bookend nicely with other southern mags like Garden and Gun, Southern Living, Creative South from Savannah, and the Oxford American. Your magazine is going to be joining those mags on my archive bookshelves. Michael G Hey team Okra….congrats on a homerun of a magazine….you guys have captured the hallowed ground I only thought attainable by the Garden & Gun folks….

I found the Nov/Dec 2017 Issue at my grocery and would love to receive the earlier issues if possible and also sign up for a subscription.

Keep up the great work….there’s no place like the South and especially Mississippi…the last bastion of all things southern! Stan Evans

H S U B S C R I B E T O D AY & S AV E 4 5 % O F F T H E C O V E R P R I C E ! H In every issue, you’ll discover Real Southern Culture. Along the way, you’ll meet our wonderful people, enjoy Southern foods and visit unique and interesting places. Subscribe and receive 1 year for $22.95 at a 45% savings! www.okramagazine.com/subscribe 12 okramagazine.com

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Ben & Erin Napier show off their hometown of Laurel, MS ANKIDA RIDGE VINEYARD

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MATERIAL GIRL

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Celebrating everything supper club in Ashe pig at a ville, NC

THE BACK SWA MP

Life in the ever-chang Atchafalaya Basin, ing LA

THE REAL DEAL

A hidden blues lover’s dream in a neighborhood of Bessemer, AL COURIR DE MARDIS GRAS

Making a run for Fat Tuesday in Louisiana’s Cajun Country

Did you miss an issue?

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SHARE YOUR STORIES

What does the South mean to you? Is it the

EVERYONE HAS A TALE TO TELL. At okra.,

beauty of our landscape; the houses, fields,

we want to tell every good Southern story we

mountains, seas and towns? Or is it our peo-

can, and we need your help to get this done!

ple and our foods? Maybe it’s even our be-

We’d love for you to submit your stories so

loved pets. The South is all of these things

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Send them to submissions@okramagazine.

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com We’d love to print them on the pages

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AMERICAN HISTORY ~ Mississippi Music ~ Southern Charm

Simply email it to us at submissions@okramagazine.com We can’t wait to share them!

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MAKING A DIFFERENCE

“

The idea for Send Me a Friend spawned about four years ago. If you are a musician, a roadie, or a tour manager and you need a friend, some support out there; we’ll send someone to you. The friend is like an anchor. Someone you can drink coffee with, someone to talk to between sets.

ISSUE NO. 4

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Send Me a Friend

NEW ORLEANS ROCKER ANDERS OSBORNE BUILDS A SUPPORT NET WORK FOR WORKING MUSICIANS Written by J. M. McSpadden / Photography by Jay Blakesberg Imagine the life of a professional musician. On the road for months at a time, sleeping in motels and buses, grabbing family time on the cell phone or via skype. How do you fill the hours of boredom? How do you balance the fatigue of travel against two hours of stage time and the adulation of strangers?

Add to all of that the challenge of trying to maintain your sobriety in some town in the middle of nowhere. A moment of compromise can turn into days, weeks, even months, off the rails. Twelve Step programs teach years of hard-gained wisdom summed up in simple, direct phrases or acronyms. Take HALT, for instance. Hungry Angry Lonely Tired. It is the perfect description of a working musician’s life. It also represents the state of mind that is likely to trigger a relapse.

Anders Osborne knows a thing or two about addiction, and about taking your victories one day at a time. He wants to help. If you’re facing the monster alone, all you have to do is reach out and say, “Send me a friend.”

The fifty-one-year-old Osborne has been a musician most of his life. A southerner by choice, Osborne was born in Sweden into a musical family. “My dad was a professional drummer, and my grandfather played accordion. Around seven or eight-years-old I took up guitar. I came to the states at sixteen.”

Settling in New Orleans, Osborne became a fixture on the music scene there. He is a fierce guitar player and passionate performer. His fret board fireworks and keen songwriting instincts have earned him respect and record sales. Osborne’s songs have appeared on records by Keb Mo,’ Tab Benoit, Aaron Neville, and Brad Paisley. Tim McGraw scored a number one hit on the country charts with Osborne’s “Watch the Wind Photo by Jim Mimna Blow By.” As a songwriter he crafts moving portraits of contentment as a family man and deeply painful images of pain and addiction.

The history of rock and roll is littered with more crash-and-burn stories than you can count. Life on the road is not conducive to sanity or sobriety. Anders Osborne soon found himself on the lost highway. “People on the front row would slap me five and slip me a packet (of dope) in the process.”

“I first realized it was a problem around 1999. I couldn’t put it away. I kept losing my instruments, playing poorly. I lost days. I’d be running late for dinner and the next thing I’d know it was three days later.”

Initial attempts at sobriety were short-lived. “So, in ’99 I just stopped. But I didn’t join a program or get any new tools. I couldn’t keep it together. I couldn’t play gigs, I couldn’t support my family. When Katrina hit it made things worse and I had to move out. I slept in the park, or on friend’s couches.”

Osborne rattles off the names of substances like people run through their grocery list.

“Alcohol was the grandfather of all this. Pot and uppers and other stuff came later. The opiates were about isolation. But underneath it all was alcohol.”

Osborne was in and out of meetings for a couple of years. It would take an intervention to get him moving in the right direction. “I had my manager and a sober guy with me on the road. They came to me and said, ‘You’ve been out of it for five days, we’ve got a bed reserved for you.’ You realize that you are at the end. You either start your walk back, or you jump.”

“After three weeks in rehab I had a breakthrough. The crying started. You have that

moment where you start seeing the movie of what you’ve done and who you’ve been. It isn’t pretty.” Whatever self-delusion Osborne may have wrestled with, he was clear on one thing. “I’m a musician.”

When his time at rehab was ending the staff told him that they would really like to keep him longer. Their advice was for Osborne to take a year off, get a “regular job.”

To Osborne this made no sense. Playing music was how he made money. “What am I going to do? Work at Home Depot? I needed to work. And yet there was something missing for me in the music industry.”

An idea began to grow in Osborne’s mind. What if he could develop a support network that he could take on tour, one that crisscrossed the highways and back roads of America? “The idea for Send Me a Friend spawned about four years ago. If you are a musician, a roadie, or a tour manager and you need a friend, some support out there; we’ll send someone to you. The friend is like an anchor. Someone you can drink coffee with, someone to talk to between sets.”

Osborne experienced the importance of that anchor on his first New Year’s Eve gig as a sober musician. “Two guys showed up and sat by the stage. It made me accountable. It was like, okay, I don’t have to be afraid. I’m just here to work.” Osborne now had hope that he could have the career and the sobriety he wanted.

Osborne did some benefit shows for flood relief for the Can’d Aid Foundation. Can’d Aid is the charitable arm of the Oskar Blues Brewery, located in Longmont, Colorado. “I pitched my idea for Send Me a Friend to them. They said to me, ‘You realize we are a brewery, right?’

I responded that it was their chance to be a voice for responsibility.”

A few fundraisers followed and Send Me a Friend launched in December 2016. “An artist can sign up on my site or on the Can’d Aid site.

They have to fill out a questionnaire, some soft vetting to make sure they are sane. We have some people whose names everyone would know, many they would not. But it isn’t about celebrity. I’m thinking about that horn player who plays in a club on Bourbon Street. We send a friend a half an hour before the show. If the parties decide to swap phone numbers and keep in touch, that’s cool.”

Osborne has a vision. With the help of a corporate sponsor Osborne and company are developing an app. “It’s not just about being sober. Maybe we will connect to Uber… need a ride to a meeting? There will be links to living healthy, to a message board. I will be writing a blog.”

Since the December launch the network now has over a thousand “friends” across the country, each with over a year of continuous sobriety. Artists, roadies, guitar techs and others are signing up to use the program. At the moment Send Me a Friend is helping over twenty musicians in the early stages of sobriety get on solid footing.

These days it’s a brighter world for Osborne. “Recovery is a cool thing because it gives you a green light to talk about what matters, a chance to be real. My wife calls it ‘Too much Information Anders.’ But I’m okay with it.” www.andersosborne.com/ www.candaid.org/send-me-a-friend/

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CHAPTER 1

SOUTHERN COMFORTS

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SOUTHERN COMFORTS

T A S T E S

SHARP PASSION Written by Liesel Schmidt / Photography by Brad and Jen

As they so often say, necessity is the mother of invention; and that was certainly true

As anyone can see from the beautiful knives and striking wooden pieces that Boot-

for Jared Thatcher as he tossed aside knife after knife when they’d dulled into use-

Hill creates, self-taught talent is often the strongest, as it is an inner passion that

lessness during the course of fabricating a deer back in 2012. Breaking down a doe

drives one to learn by doing. And both Jared and Kylee possess a wellspring of shared

is a challenge in itself, but when your knife is actually working against you instead

passion, creating a partnership that serves them well not only in business, but in life.

of for you, it can make that victorious hunt quickly turn into a frustration. But rather

Having met on a blind date, the couple married in 2010 and now have two young

than sinking more money into bigger and “better” knives from various big-box man-

daughters. The happy little family set down roots in Clarksville in 2012 after Jared

ufacturers, the resourceful twenty-something did something quite enterprising—he

and Kylee decided that the small-town environment would be perfect for raising their

scoured the web to find YouTube videos and

children. “We actually just picked Clarksville

read articles that could teach him how to forge

off a map and then went there,” says Jared.

his very own knives, using his Weber grill to

“We wanted a slower, friendlier environment

fire-up his craft and ignite a new passion.

for our kids, and that’s exactly what we found there.”

Initially begun as a hobby for Jared, whose suit-and-tie days spent as a financial advisor

One might easily imagine that forging

were in direct contrast to his love for the great

knives and carving wood requires farm acre-

outdoors, forging knives became an actual

age far away from the everyday noise of the

business a year later in 2010. It was then he

modern world. But the Thatchers carved out

and his wife Kylee started BootHill Blades

their own little niche right in the midst of city

from their home in Clarksville, Tennessee. The

life, their home and shop neatly settled in the

pair made a strong team, as both had back-

normal neighborhoods of Clarksville, where

ground in finance, sharpening the business

the closest you’ll come to a cow is likely the

end of things even as Jared’s skilled crafts-

burger you’re eating for lunch.

manship made their products a great success.

An unlikely setting, perhaps, but the cou-

Metal wasn’t his only medium of choice, how-

ple made it work well for them. So well, in

ever, and in an effort to break away from the

fact, it was the inspiration for the name of

hammer and heat, Jared picked up woodwork-

their company ‘BootHill’. “There was a hill

ing. The two crafts were complimentary being

right by our house lovingly referred to by the

rustic in their roots and raw in presentation. As

locals as ‘Boot Hill,’ because of the giant

his knives grew in demand, Jared’s attentions were drawn to his knife craft and less time was

Husband and wife team, Jared and Kylee Thatcher.

available for BootHill’s wooden kitchen wares.

boot that used to be there when the area served as the headquarters for a major boot factory and manufacturing plant,” Kylee ex-

Rather then scrapping the idea, Kylee took her turn at the workbench, diving

plains. “The boot was taken down a few years ago, but most of the locals still re-

deeper into the sawdust as she learned just how much skill her own two hands pos-

member it. So we decided BootHill Blades had a nice ring to it and really seemed

sessed for turning chunks of wood into functional works of art. “She’s really taken

to pay tribute to the community of Clarksville.”

the woodworking side of the business to heights we never could have imagined, and

And there’s certainly a sense of community that arises from the work that they

most of it has happened through a process of trial and error until Kylee comes up

do, as their hands are the ones that create their pieces, turning raw materials not

with something she likes,” says Jared, who along with juggling the knives, keeps

only into a product, but a personal connection to their customers. That, in and of

BootHill Blades’ social media presence sharp and heads up the marketing. “She’s

itself, is one of the very reasons that Kylee and Jared love most about what they

the epitome of self-taught.”

do—and one of the main things that’s led to their success.

19

SOUTHERN COMFORTS

“We’re passionate about our work because it’s extremely rewarding to make something that people appreciate. We realize that a handmade knife or spoon might not be for everyone, but the people who do buy our products and use them everyday or give them as gifts value the care that goes into them and their uniqueness,” says Kylee, whose own love for uniqueness keeps her ever-inspired to try new things and create new designs.

“Many jobs out there are unfulfilling, but there’s a sense of completion and a pride that comes with finishing a piece. It’s rewarding in so many ways, especially when we have the opportunity to work directly with a client to create a custom item to their specifications—they receive something that once only existed in their imagination, and they’re usually blown away. That makes us feel like we’re doing something right, and it’s incredible to have that chance to build a relationship. That’s really been one of the best things about what we do,” Jared continues. “We set out to create something that our girls could be proud of one day, something that they could look back on and say, ‘My parents made that,’ and know the amount of hard work we put in to create that legacy for them.”

Legacy and heritage are something that people appreciate more and more, and society has noticeably taken a turn back toward the traditions that once made our communities strong. “Keeping craftsmanship-driven industry thriving is very, very important to our economy,” offers Kylee, who dusts off the wood shavings to oversee many of the dayto-day administrative workings of BootHill, including keeping the books, maintaining customer relations, and shipping out orders. “We feed back into the community in a way that big corporations can’t and play a crucial role in passing down the traditions and processes of craftsmanship to future generations. So many of those old processes have been forgotten or lost over the last century; but it’s important not to forget how things were originally done, and by whom.”

“I think people are moving back to an appreciation for heritage products with a story because they know what they’re getting, and they can be assured that the highest quality materials were used,” adds Jared. And indeed, they are. Having sharpened his rudimentary skills under the tutelage of such skilled knife makers as Cris Anderson, Luke Snyder of Bloodroot Blades, and Tom McLean of McLean North America, Jared forges each knife from non-stainless carbon steel, crafting the handles from recycled materials and woods that make each piece truly one of a kind. Much the same way, Kylee’s kitchen tools are ingrained with their very own unique attributes, each vein and marl shown off in their glory.

Plans for expansion recently led them to leave behind their home at the hill and move to the small town of Lafayette, Kentucky where they took on the project of renovating an antebellum house built in 1840. With acres of grape vineyards and orchards filled with pear, peach, and pecan trees, their vision for the land is to create a wedding venue over the next few years. For now, however, they continue to grow the company that bears their mark.

There is a pride that shines through in everything BootHill does—from the simplest spoon to the most elaborately handled knife. It’s a dream they’ve carved out and sharpened, a legacy they’ve planted.

And as their own creations started on land where boots once stood, Jared and Kylee Thatcher are leaving footprints that will last long into the future. boothillblades.com

20 okramagazine.com

ISSUE NO. 4

Top, left: Knives go fast, so email sign up is necessary to know what’s new.

Bottom left: Each piece is hand forged and hand crafted.

Right page, top left: Keeping the fire hot in the forge.

Right page, top center: Each cutting board is seasoned and sealed using mineral oil and board butter from locally harvested beeswax.

Right page, top right: Blanks hang ready for the forge.

This page, bottom: When knifemaking began to consume Jared’s time, Kylee stepped in and took over all things wooden and never looked back.