PORTFOLIO
These stories were published in The Crimson White and ALICE Magazine. "Following the Recipe" was a class assignment in Food Writing and Reporting.
INT. BIRMINGHAM - FILM INDUSTRY
A few days before she was due on set in Naples, Florida, Virginia Newcomb sat at one of the many tables in Birmingham’s Pizitz Food Hall, raking her chopsticks through a Poké bowl and settling in for her eighth interview of the week.
“This is probably the third thing today and the eighth thing this week where I’m talking about this kind of stuff,” Newcomb said. “It’s my world right now.”
ALABAMA'S UFO CAPITAL STILL HAS A STORY TO TELL
When Fred Works holds out his hands – palms down, thumbs together, index fingers touching – it’s his best attempt to approximate the shape of something he saw in the sky more than 30 years ago.
The corners were more rounded off, he said, but that’s the gist of it. A thick, charcoal-colored triangle flew through the night sky, with three lights shining back onto its undercarriage. From Works’s spot on a hillside back in February of 1989, he saw the craft glide toward him before flying overhead. And he isn’t alone.
FOLLOWING THE RECIPE
“If your hands aren’t wet, you aren’t doing it right, Mijita.”
My grandmother continued repeating herself as she dredged her hands through the speckled blue casserole dish that once belonged to my father’s father’s mother. The pan was heavy with toasted white bread and cornbread drenched in stock from the hen she had roasted. As she ripped the wet toast and broke the cornbread into granules, I dug my fingers into the cold, wet flesh of the hen, searching for the little bones that had softened and cached themselves as the bird cooked.
TUSCALOOSA LOCALS PROFILE THE STRIP IN NEW DOCUMENTARY
In 1865, with Confederate troops having deserted the University of Alabama campus, the Union Army set the place ablaze. That was more than 150 years ago, but Taylor Watson feels like that’s about as long as he’s been in Tuscaloosa.
“The Yankees had just left when we got here,” Watson said.