Music City: An Ode To Joy

WORDS Anna Lowder  PHOTOS Harvi Sahota

Nashville is a town of Now. If you’re over a certain age, or haven’t visited the World Wide Web in a bit, you may not know. Otherwise, I’m telling you something that’s obvious.

What may not be so obvious is exactly what makes Nashville Now. Our esteemed MADE Columnist tells you this month about Pinewood Social. It is no doubt one of the finest establishments in Nashville today. Or anywhere in the US for that matter. But for all its delicious food and cocktails and coffee and young people, Pinewood Social is just doing the best job at what Nashville does best: being fun.

It is a city of music, design, craftspeople, chefs and artists. That’s fun. That creates events and rituals. That makes neighborhoods and brings new ideas. Set against a backdrop of a financial institutions, state government, industry, tourism, and universities, it’s a city were everything feels possible. Nashville is the Atlanta of ten years ago, the next Austin, the Brooklyn of the South. 

That’s why its food festival, Music City Food & Wine, surpasses all others. Dropped in the center of downtown, it celebrates Southern food and drink with the third fist of music. And not just any music: founded by Caleb and Nathan Followill of Kings of Leon, the band curates the live music line up and plucks from their friends and Nashville headliners. Performances by Kings of Leon paired with the likes of Bobby Bear Jr. and Sr. bring a diversity of ages and techniques, that sings of the new Nashville spirit. And hanging out with Frank Stitt, Iron Chefs and food media from all over the country isn’t too bad either. 

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Here’s MADE Paper’s picks for the best at this year’s Music City Food & Wine.

Upstarts: The Ones To Watch

Otaku South - This new spot at POP in East Nashville is a ramen shop serving the best Tantan Mazeman. The menu is simple and cheap but stars quality ingredients and technique. otakusouth.com

Alon Shaya - Amazing guy with a work ethic to match, Alon (head chef and partner at Domenica and Pizza Domenica in New Orleans) showed up nationally renowned chefs with his chilled, charred octopus. domenicarestaurant.com

Hattie B’s - Modern take on Nashville’s famous hot chicken. The weak order it “Southern” (no heat), the strong order it “Damn Hot” (firestarter). Gallon of tea or pitcher of beer required for success. hattieb.com

Nashville Flavor

Tandy Wilson - City House head chef and owner, Tandy has the arguably the hottest restaurant in Nashville. Located in Germantown, it serves cured meats, pizza and simple food done right. cityhousenashville.com

Olive & Sinclair - Chocolate. Add bourbon, salt, pepper, other things. Magic. Especially the chocolate truffle that explodes bourbon chocolate lava in your mouth. oliveandsinclair.com

Martin’s BBQ - These guys set up a BBQ pit in the middle of a packed food festival, giving tastings of pulled pork, sausage, beef, ribs, chicken, branzino, and brisket all day. Think they were popular? martinsbbqjoint.com

Yazoo Brewing Co. - Nashville’s favorite microbrewery serves good beer. All you need to know. yazoobrew.com

Classics and Standouts

Ashley Christensen - In an industry crowded by loud men, Ashley breaks the mould. 2014 James Beard Winner Best Chef: Southeast, she oversees eight operations including Poole’s Diner in Raleigh. ac-restaurants.com

Frank Stitt - He plates a lovely trout salad, but his ping pong backhand is actually more impressive. This legend of Southern cooking parties like a genteel rock star (at least at Pinewood Social). highlandsbarandgrill.com

Kings of Leon & Harvest Night - King of Leon organized this year’s after party concert, held outdoors in the center of Nashville’s booming downtown. Nights like this make you happy to be in the South. kingsofleon.com

The City of Nashville - Get here now. Something for everyone, and a damn nice place too.

Exploring The History of Winter Place

WORDS Devin Yates   PHOTOS and PAINTINGS David Braly

Oh, she’s got a story to tell.  She’s aged but has seen such youth, she’s severe but gentile, and she is oh so hauntingly gorgeous. Meet Winter Place, an antique house with two distinct personalities. Imagine a journey from The Great Gatsby to Grey Gardens.

In the beginning, Winter Place was imagined by Colonel Joseph Samuel Prince Winter and his wife Mary Elizabeth Gindrat with the help of Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan. At one time Winter Place housed Mr. and Mrs. Winter, their three children and all eleven grandchildren. The construction of the Winter Place residence on Goldthwaite Street began in 1858 but stalled due to the Civil War while parts of the Winter family relocated to Wales. Once the war was over construction was completed around 1871. 

The main residence is comprised of two structures connected by an above ground passageway; the south house designed in a more ornate Second Empire style, while the north house is Italianate.  The north house appears to be two stories tall, but upon further inspection clearly contains a basement.  This basement is not the typical Southern basement, but rather an English basement. The perimeter of it has been dug out to resemble a moat, albeit an empty moat, to allow ample light into the bottom floor.

Winter Place’s north house was renovated into apartments in the mid-twentieth century.  She held up-and-coming residents who would later become well known architects, attorneys, and revolutionaries. Winter Place remembers watching two bikini-clad German girls play badminton in the lawn while an Alabama Governor admired one so much that he later married her. A French teacher was giving lessons to F. Scott Fitzgerald in an upstairs room, and it is rumored that one day while descending the stairs he met his love, Zelda Sayre. 

Winter Place was witness to such historical events as the Voting Rights March in 1965 when the Alabama National Guard stood on one side of the crowd and the Ku Klux Klan on the opposite while a bullet whizzed by her. She saw one of the first Montgomery AIDS Outreach meetings and listened in on ideas about starting Montgomery’s first independent movie theatre, now known as The Capri Theatre in Old Cloverdale. She grimaced as Interstates 85 and 65 were installed, wisely knowledgable that this would be the end to her glory days.    

However, Winter Place was determined as she began aging gracefully, like a legendary, forgotten, and unloved denizen of Montgomery. The gatherings she held were the events of the year for that confident and lofty Montgomery crowd. A dear friend of a former inhabitant noted, “They were all Halloween parties in a way.”  Indeed, the Halloween parties were especially notorious, with the eery coffin in the English basement which purportedly cradled a skeleton from the Civil War.   

Winter Place became somewhat of a haunted legend when stories repeated of three children haunting inhabitants with sounds of their tiny footsteps and raucous laughter. Those stories told by the DJs of Montgomery’s African-American owned radio station, WPAX, dared the listeners to stay the night in the gloriously creepy Winter Place herself. The winners were awarded with some money, but certainly won many stories yet to be told.  

We’ve only just scratched the surface of the mountain of history in one of Montgomery’s greatest, yet most under appreciated, historical treasures. Winter Place is wearing her Halloween mask right now, waiting to be dusted off and prettied up.

A special thank you to editor-in-chief of New South Books, Randall Williams; author of A Sense of Place, Jeffery C. Benton; artist and teacher David Braly, and co-founder of Haunted Montgomery Tours, Jeremy R. Cromblin.

Commonplace: A Landmark Exhibition of Southern Photographers

WORDS Caroline Taylor

Commonplace brings together the work of four Southern photographers who represent a major turning point in contemporary photography – the use of color. William Christenberry, William Eggleston, William Greiner and Birney Imes each photograph common images, or their own surroundings. However, the images conquer the limitations of their subject and speak to a narrative of mystery, and a new sensuality through color. The photographs hold a tension of a disconcerting life of their own that may point to the verge of disaster, or perhaps a tremendous feat or glory. 

After becoming immediate friends in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1962, William Eggleston came across William Christenberry’s reference photographs taken with his Kodak Brownie camera. Eggleston was at the time shooting in black and white, but by the mid 1960’s had taken to color photography “snapshots.” The inherent imperfections and notions of chance came as an intoxicating change to the rigid and composed photographs of the reigning art photography of the time. Color pouring across his subjects grants a sympathy that stages a narrative – most notably the landscape of the American Dream. Eggleston became a noted pioneer of color photography as an art form, confirmed by his 1976 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Both artists are celebrated as grandfathers of color photography. 

Eggleston and Christenberry became major influences on a younger generation of photographers. A turning point for then college student William Greiner was an introduction to Eggleston on a spring break trip to Memphis. Greiner’s photographs included in Commonplace serve as a view of pre-Katrina New Orleans. Regarding this series, Fallen Paradise, Greiner states “The photographs comprising this series were made in or around New Orleans, between 1995 and 2005. The patina which veiled New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina, but lifted by this event, revealed a paradise which had already fallen. These photographs are a testament to that notion.”

Speaking in a visual language consistent with Christenberry, Eggleston and Greiner, Birney Imes works are the result of nearly twenty years of exploration of his native Mississippi, photographing people and places that otherwise exist only in Southern memory. The works included in Commonplace are part of his Juke Joint series – photographs that capture the nearly forgotten (and disappearing) juke joints of the Mississippi Delta. In these ordinary scenes, Imes’ images are rich with vibrancy and culture, yet simultaneously surreptitious and often strange. 

Featuring these renowned photographers and their important work, Commonplace is a landmark collection of American cultural and artistic significance. The fact that this work is brought together and unveiled in Montgomery, Alabama makes it all the more uniques. 

Commonplace opens October 8  and runs through October 31, 2014 at Triumph & Disaster Gallery. For information, visit www.triumphdisastergallery.com or the gallery located at 505 Cloverdale Road, Unit 102 at The A&P in Old Cloverdale.