Innholdsfortegnelse for October/November 2021 i Garden & Gun

LETTERS “For anyone like me who likes a tub bath, here’s a tip: A can of Budweiser floats” RAISE A GLASS For me, 2020 involved making a pitcher of something alcoholic, cooking, eating, and repeating it all again. By January of this year, I suspected I was partaking in alcoholic libations a little too much, so I quit. (Still cooking and eating, though.) This week, my Garden & Gun drinks issue (August/September 2021) arrived. I drove eighteen miles east to get a huge fresh watermelon from a farmer I know, then I drove thirty-five miles in the other direction into Louisville to the “fancy” liquor store to buy cachaça (Drinks) and Plantation Stiggins’ Fancy Pineapple Rum (“In Good Spirits”). I happily dove headfirst off the wagon. Pat Swetnam Simpsonville, Kentucky…

JUBILEE Houston on the Plate VIETNAM AND TEXAS FORM A BEAUTIFUL UNION AT XIN CHÀO BY JOHN T. EDGE PHOTOGRAPHS BY SHANNON O’HARA Illustration by Michael Spitz My crab legs at Xin Chào come as a pair. Cracked by the kitchen, battered and deep-fried, the long, thin shells bulge with sweet coral flesh. Painted with a sticky mix of tamarind pulp, palm sugar, and fish sauce, they eat messy like barbecue ribs. I snack on them as a bar appetizer, popping shards of crust in my mouth, digging into crevices with a small fork to snag big hunks of crab. About the time I finish my legs, a young couple get theirs. They ooh and aah and selfie tamarind-smeared faces. They drink margaritas, sweetened with house-pressed sugarcane juice and garnished…

MADE IN THE SOUTH Feast for the Eyes THE BLACK FOOD EXPERIENCE SHAPES A NEW ORLEANS ARTIST’S NEW CERAMIC COLLECTION By Shani Raine Gilchrist PHOTOGRAPHS BY L. KASIMU HARRIS Production/photo editor: Natalie Gialluca When Bradley L. Bowers steps into the studio behind his New Orleans home to shape pieces for his ceramic serving-ware collection, his mind lingers on family, and history, and the art of gathering. He thinks of his maternal grandmother, Dorothy; he moved to the Crescent City to help care for her as she succumbed to Alzheimer’s, but before that, she lived most of her adult life in Clemson, South Carolina, tending tomatoes and just about every other vegetable. And of his father, born in Nigeria, with its tradition of communal eating. And of the enslaved Africans once…

INTO THE WOODCOCK WOODS LONG OVERLOOKED AS A PRIME UPLAND BIRD IN THE SOUTH, THE TIMBERDOODLE IS QUICKLY INSPIRING A NEW LEGION OF HUNTERS. BUT THAT BY NO MEANS MAKES THIS WHIMSICAL-LOOKING, ERRATIC-FLYING, THICK-COVER-LOVING QUARRY AN EASY TARGET by T.EDWARD NICKENS photographs by PETER FRANK EDWARDS WE’RE NOT PROUD OF WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED SO FAR, BUT WE’RE NOT THAT SURPRISED, EITHER. The first bird came twisting out of a thick mat of spicebush and Christmas fern, and the three of us missed five times. That’s a lot of shooting on a single American woodcock. We’ve driven a long way, with nine pointing dogs in tow, and set up camp by the lake and laid in three days’ worth of food and gear and to be honest we think we’re pretty good at this…

The Thoroughbred Estate Hermitage Farm GOSHEN, KENTUCKY A swank Bluegrass hideaway strikes an artful balance between tradition and modern hospitality By Tom Wilmes Top: courtesy of Hermitage Farm When her hosts wanted to give Queen Elizabeth II a close look at some of Kentucky’s finest Thoroughbreds during a 1986 visit, they brought Her Majesty to Hermitage Farm. The prior year, a half brother of Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew foaled at Hermitage sold at auction for $13.1 million, a record that, adjusted for inflation, still stands. The farm’s owner at the time, Warner Jones Jr., then chairman of Churchill Downs, showed the queen his prized stallion Raja Baba and hosted a luncheon in the farm’s stately 1835 manor house. The farm itself was part of a land grant given to…

The Grand Manor with Heart Welbourne Inn and Farm MIDDLEBURG, VIRGINIA Retired horses roam the pastures surrounding this eighteenth-century bed-and-breakfast By Kinsey Gidick PHOTOGRAPH BY KATE THOMPSON Like a pony Palm Springs, Welbourne Farm near Middleburg, Virginia, serves as an oasis for retired steeds. “Almost all of them come because they’re not able to be ridden anymore, usually from an injury or a degenerative condition in their legs or hooves, but they’re all certainly sound enough to traverse the farm at their own pace,”says Josh Morison of the nearly ninety jumper, dressage, and rodeo horses that have found a home on his seventh-generation family estate’s 520 acres. Morison’s father, Nat, got into the business of caring for aging equines after years of farming. “Pop had always kept a few horses…

Who’s That Doggie on the Cover? Plus: Get your pooch in the pages of G&G Meet Calvin, the cover model for our Best of the Sporting South issue. G&Gphotographer Andrew Hyslop owns the English cocker (and took the shot). Rumor is Calvin is proving to be as sharp in the field as he is in front of the lens. If your dog likes to mug for the camera, our annual Good Dog Photo Contest is in full swing, and we’re looking for pooches of all types: fun loving, serious, hardworking, hardly working, newly born, nimbly aging, purebred, mixed breed—you name it. One overall winner, picked by G&Geditors, will appear in our next issue, and your votes will determine the readers’ choice winners. Enter and vote now at gardenandgun.com/gooddog .…

Standout Voice Adia Victoria’s unflinching blues Adia Victoria A SOUTHERN GOTHIC A fearless songwriter, Adia Victoria continues to untangle the South’s knotty history with her exceptional third album, A Southern Gothic. It’s a haunting record, steeped in the blues, filtered through the South Carolina native’s breathy coos and fuzzy guitar. Pals Margo Price, Jason Isbell, and Kyshona Armstrong help out on a searing “You Was Born to Die” (originally done by Blind Willie McTell). The epic “Far from Dixie” reaches discordant heights, while a tender duet with the National’s Matt Berninger, “South for the Winter,” brings the album to a peaceful close. MH…

BOOKS Swan Dive THE SECRETS AND SCANDALS BEHIND TRUMAN CAPOTE’S NOTORIOUS FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS By Jonathan Miles Nabokov had his butterflies, and Flannery O’Connor her peacocks. But Truman Capote had his swans. Swans was the term Capote (1924–1984), the author of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, coined for the circle of glamorous female friends he cultivated in the 1950s and ’60s. The term more or less fit: The half dozen or so women were devastatingly gorgeous and socially graceful and, considering their high-flown marriages, tended, like swans, toward elaborate mating rituals. One was Babe Paley, the superchic wife of a CBS founder whom the fashion press regularly deemed the world’s most beautiful woman. Nancy “Slim” Keith was another: a golden-haired California model who was romanced by Clark Gable, hunted…

ANATOMY OF A CLASSIC Eggplant Surprise FALL SQUASH SALSA AMPS UP AN OVERLOOKED INGREDIENT By Kim Severson PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHNNY AUTRY ILLUSTRATION BY LARA TOMLIN Food and prop styling by Charlotte Autry Maricela Vega learned early that a dish can rise or fall on the right ingredient. The Atlanta-based chef says her mother, who is from a village in Guanajuato, Mexico, was very particular about her peppers. “When we would go to Mexico, she would say we had to get these peppers from these stalls for these reasons,” she recalls. “I didn’t understand it then.” Now sourcing is everything to Vega. The deliciousness of an ingredient matters, of course, but so do its provenance and the personal connections she makes with farmers and producers. “I think about it all,” she…

SOUTHERN STYLE The Revel Is in the Details LITTLE THINGS DONE RIGHT ENHANCE A THANKSGIVING TABLESCAPE By Haskell Harris Set design by Linden Elstran/Art Department; food styling by Victoria Granof/Pat Bates & Associates; production/photo editor: Natalie Gialluca PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALICE GAO HOLDING PATTERN Every piece designed by Astier de Villatte, including this stunning platter, gets made by hand in Paris using black terracotta coated with a signature white glaze. No two look exactly alike, and the distinctive geometric edge sets off the turkey with flair ($221; jaysonhome.com). SEASONAL FAVORITES Salt and pepper shakers add a dash of panache WOOD OF WONDER  Beech-and-brass lookers by Chiarugi, of Florence, Italy, bring organic elegance to the table ($262; theark elements.com ). LIGHT AND DARK  White marble cellars and polished black horn pinch bowls and…

OUR KIND OF PLACE Outdoor Classroom A MISSISSIPPI PROFESSOR AND POET WANDERS THROUGH THE SEASONS OF OXFORD’S WHIRLPOOL TRAILS By Aimee Nezhukumatathil Erin Austen Abbott It might seem odd to talk about electricity in the middle of a forest. But that’s the word that springs to mind when I visit the Whirlpool Trails in Oxford, Mississippi, to unplug from social media and the tyranny of my email in-box. The walks I take in autumn feel differently charged when the forest lights up for fewer and fewer hours as the days get shorter. Leaves scatter and fall as the school year ushers in new students who gingerly step wide-eyed into these cooling corridors for the first time to see a vibrant array of locusts, red maples, American beeches, and my favorite—with…

CONTRIBUTORS Russell Worth Parker WRITER “I’m probably best at fishing, but I always say if turkeys gobbled all year, I’d be useless” —David Joy, who wrote about flounder gigging in Savannah (p. 116) After retiring from the Marine Corps this past summer, Russell Worth Parker took his ten-year-old daughter, Annabelle, on an RV journey from their home in Wilmington, North Carolina, across the country, stopping at such sites as Yellowstone and Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. “I was inspired by someone who retired a few years before me,” Parker says. “He said that he’d seen more overseas than he had in the United States. I agreed and wanted to change that.” For this issue, Parker, who has also written for Shooting Sportsman and Outdoor Life, profiled fellow outdoorsman Jonathan…

INTERVIEW Right on Cue CNN’S KAITLAN COLLINS NEVER MISSES A BEAT (OR AN ALABAMA GAME) By Jenny Everett Production/photo editor: Natalie Gialluca When CNN promoted Kaitlan Collins to chief White House correspondent earlier this year, she seemingly earned a second title: chief Crimson Tide correspondent. In May, for instance, the twenty-nine-year-old Alabama native appeared on the network’s morning show. But instead of asking questions about the Biden administration, an anchor asked her about the New England Patriots’ draft picks from the University of Alabama, her alma mater. After some serious in-depth analysis of the players and the relationship between Patriots coach Bill Belichick and Alabama coach Nick Saban, Collins ended the segment with: “Roll Patriots.” ¶ That interaction offers a perfect distillation of her life in D.C. and politics. While…

Wild, Wild Wonder A lauded writer turns to nature once more Richard Powers’s 2018 novel The Over-story was nothing shy of a literary sensation: The sweeping, species-linking epic following nine people and five trees won a Pulitzer Prize, and its poetic observations of both human and plant life set a new bar for nature writing. With Bewilderment(W. W. Norton), Powers returns with a story that’s a bit more intimate; at its heart thumps the relationship between a father and a son who, having lost their wife and mother, are seeking to understand one another, and the earth, among the moss and rhododendron of the Smoky Mountains. Powers’s masterful observations of the beauties and sorrows that connect each and every living one of us, human or otherwise, pulse as strong as…

TASTEMAKER North Carolina Oysters for All RYAN BETHEA WANTS EVERYONE IN THE STATE TO BE ABLE TO GET THEIR HANDS ON FRESH BIVALVES By Sheri Castle Jeyhoun Allebaugh AGE: 36 HOME BASE: New Bern, North Carolina KNOWN FOR: Ryan Bethea is an oyster farmer with a side of road warrior. The founder and owner of Oysters Carolina, he starts most days on the water, harvesting bivalves from his lease off Harkers Island in the southern Outer Banks before heading inland to deliver them fresh to any spot in North Carolina, logging some fifty thousand miles a year. Jeyhoun Allebaugh An acquired taste: “I grew up in Durham. I didn’t taste my first fresh oysters until I was in my early twenties.” Fortuitous find: “One night after a bartending shift, I…

HOMEPLACE Dogtrot Dreams IN THE HILL COUNTRY, A FAMILY WITH DEEP TEXAS ROOTS RESCUES A CABIN FOR GENERATIONS OF GUESTS TO COME By CJ Lotz PHOTOGRAPHS BY NICK SIMONITE Styling by Brie Neumann with Seaminx Artist Management When Alice Welder was a little girl visiting family in Fredericksburg, Texas, she would look out the car window and widen her eyes to take in the sight of old German pioneer houses. One homesite that sat along a cypress-lined creek enchanted her the most—even before she heard the family stories about the place. “That spot has always been magical,” Welder says, “and I think even then I dreamed it would be part of my life forever.” In the early 1900s, Welder’s own relative Albert Keidel planted those cypress trees when he restored…

WEEKENDS Saddle Stays THREE HISTORIC SOUTHERN INNS WHERE HORSE LOVERS FEEL RIGHT AT HOME Courtesy of Hermitage Farm; production/photo editor: Natalie Gialluca All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow,” wrote Thomas Wolfe in Of Time and the River. Around the time he finished that work, the author stayed at the historic Welbourne estate near Middleburg, Virginia, a place that itself seems an idyllic vision of a Southern October—horses grazing in pasture, fires crackling, and bourbon flowing. Welbourne operates today as an enchanting inn and a sanctuary for retired horses, just one of the getaways in the South that invite equine-loving guests to walk, ride, rest, and stay awhile. PHOTOGRAPH BY KATE THOMPSON…

Classic Rides Adventures on horseback through some of the South’s most inspiring scenery BILTMORE Asheville, North Carolina Round out a visit to Biltmore with a trail ride along the French Broad River and through the woods and meadows of the estate’s 8,000 acres, just as a Vanderbilt would have done around the turn of the century. DAUFUSKIE TRAIL RIDES Daufuskie Island, South Carolina On South Carolina’s southernmost inhabited barrier island, amble along the beach (except from March to October, to protect sea turtle nests) and to historical landmarks, including the First Union African Baptist Church and the school where Pat Conroy once taught. HAPPY TRAILS STABLES Nassau, Bahamas The oldest equestrian center in the Bahamas, Happy Trails boasts quarter horses and Palominos that take riders along wooded trails to the…