South Africa’s Shining Chenin

For spectacular summer sipping

By Robyn James

Talk to your average wine-savvy consumer about chenin blanc and chances are they’ll immediately reference the Loire Valley of France.  Truth is, since the 1600s chenin blanc has been the most widely planted varietal in South Africa, where they grow twice as much as in the Loire.  South Africa’s alias for chenin blanc is “steen.”

During the dark days of apartheid South Africa’s wine industry suffered deeply. Embargoes prevented them from ordering modern equipment, and American and European winemakers boycotted consulting with them. The government placed demanding, unrealistic restrictions on how much they could grow, where and what grapes they could plant. They were at least 50 years behind the rest of the world.

Chenin blanc’s potential was going unrealized.  It simply created a neutral-tasting bland base for inexpensive table wine and brandy. Post-apartheid winemakers began to experiment with the grape that many in our industry consider to be the most versatile.  They discovered the effects of terroir on chenin (meaning different flavors from different vineyard sites influenced by soils and climate). They tried fermenting some in stainless tanks and others in small French oak barrels, creating two completely different results. 

Winemakers formed a group called The Chenin Blanc Association.  Ken Forrester, owner of Ken Forrester Winery, is the current chairman of the group.  His winery produces five different kinds of chenin blanc, including a sparkling and a dessert wine.  His unoaked Petit Chenin Blanc is the most affordable at about $11.  Robert Parker of The Wine Advocate gave it 86 points, and says it: “Has lime flower, orange zest and just a touch of almond in the background.  The palate is well balanced with a fine line of acidity, composed in the mouth with a touch of bitter lemon and orange peel towards the finish.  You cannot argue at this price, as with all Ken Forrester’s ‘Petit’ range.”

The Mulderbosch winery is located in the famous Stellenbosch region and has been considered one of South Africa’s premier wineries since its inception in 1989.  American investor Charles Banks purchased Mulderbosch in 2011 and helped take the winery to a new level when he hired winemaker Adam Mason, who built strong relations with growers.  Now the winery is recognized to be Integrity and Sustainability Certified by the Wine and Spirit Board of South Africa.  Mason’s steen is 100 percent chenin and partially aged in small French oak barrels and stainless tanks. In The Wine Advocate, Parker describes the current vintage: “There’s a prevailing nuttiness to the nose and mouth of this Chenin, with assertive tones of toasted hazelnut and straw throughout.  Flavors of honeydew and baked apple unfold on the medium-weight palate, ending on a spiced orange-cream note.”

Another chenin blanc, Essay, is a play on words for the abbreviation of South Africa (SA).  At just under $10, it has 15 percent viognier blended in for touches of floral notes.  It’s unoaked and earned a Best Buy, 85 points from The Wine Enthusiast. Its description of the wine was: “Bright aromas of tart apple, melon rind and fresh chrysanthemum dance in the bouquet, while the lively, lightweight palate offers notes of white peach and citrus pith.  A subtle astringency graces the close.”

Be sure and check out a steen this spring. It’s the perfect warm weather wine.  PS

Robyn James is a certified sommelier and proprietor of The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines. Contact her at robynajames@gmail.com.

A Stitch in Time

Putting art in the palm of your hand

By Jim Moriarty   •   Photographs by Tim Sayer

With a plastic headband circling a shock of combustible red hair and a flip-down 5x magnifier in front of her eyes, Rita Ragan sits at a desk covered with what seems like a table runner of Sticky Notes and stitches art in the miniature. While it’s not exactly getting small in the way Steve Martin joked about it back in the ’70s, the road to these pieces — not much larger than your hand — stretches back at least that far. Ragan, now in her 70s herself, hasn’t exactly marched to a different drummer, she was the drummer in the band.

She was christened Nancy Marguerite Ragan but flip-flopped all of that by becoming a Buddhist after meeting the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, and becoming Rita after Ronald Reagan was elected president and the inevitable first lady name game grew tiresome. A decade or so ago she decided to go small while she was living in the biggest, broadest city America has to offer, New York. “I saw an ad for a miniature show and thought I’d go. I just fell in love with all the things that can be so tiny and wonderful, how you could take a whole world and, oh, look, it’s in the palm of your hand,” she says, extending one. “At first I was just collecting things. I always thought art was something you had to have this extraordinary special ability to do — to paint or sculpt or all those things. It just never occurred to me that I could do it — but here I am.”

Though patterns are available, Ragan makes her own, reaching back to the ’20s and ’30s for inspiration. “It was such an exciting time. The whole world of art just went topsy-turvy,” she says. She has reproduced designs created by Frank Lloyd Wright, a painting by Henri Matisse and other images discovered as she roamed around the internet. After locating her subject, Ragan transfers it to a paper grid of her own creation with a 12 to 1 ratio to guide the otherwise freehand needlepoint. The thread she uses is 100 percent Chinese monofilament that comes in 700 different shades. There are 48 stitches to the inch, 2,304 in a square inch. “I can probably do one in six or eight weeks without going bananas. If I spend all day on it, I just get my mind fried,” she says. “But I recommend it as a hobby to anyone who likes to immerse themselves in something, let the worries of the world go away and make something beautiful.”

Ragan is the older daughter of Sam Ragan, who owned The Pilot from 1969 until his death in 1996, a man who casts as long a shadow over journalism and literature in North Carolina as the tallest pine at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities where his granddaughter, Robin Smith, is executive director and his younger daughter, Talmadge, serves on the board as chair of the N.C. Literary Hall of Fame.

“He was a lovely man,” Rita says of her father. “He always was wanting to go somewhere to see something and do something, meet interesting people.”

In this respect, at least, the pine cone didn’t fall far from the tree. “Sam thought of Mom as an adventurer, a lover of life who saw the world with the tenacious curiosity of a child,” says Robin. “He thought her brave to go after what she wanted and found her optimistic spirit contagious. I believe they were kindred spirits.”

And spirited ones. Rita, née Nancy, entered the University of Georgia at age 15, at the time the youngest student ever admitted. It only lasted a year or so until she decided to run off to New York — her first time to live there — to become an actress. It may not have been the shortest run ever on Broadway but it was in contention. The trail led back to Chapel Hill and marriage and children, Robin and Eric, and, eventually, single life again spent mostly in Vancouver, as ethnically diverse and cosmopolitan a city as any in North America.

“That’s probably the place I’ve lived the longest,” says Ragan, who, in addition to doing design work for local publications including the Vancouver Courier, became a drummer in a pair of punk rock bands, Nash Metropolitan and A Merry Cow. “We weren’t all that good, but I got to know all the other musicians in the punk scene.” 

Ragan became a manager, sound technician and pre-Uber driver for the hard-edged music that crisscrossed the border from Seattle to Vancouver and back. One of the bands was The Dishrags. Though these things become a bit hazy in the long pull of time, The Dishrags were, if not the very first all-female punk rock band, in contention for the title. The group is sufficiently famous that the three band members have supplied memorabilia for a 2018 punk rock exhibit at the Canadian Museum of History in Hull, Quebec. “For some reason The Dishrags just will not die,” says their drummer, Scout (Carmen Upex), who remains close to Ragan. “We made many trips with her to Seattle,” says Scout. “We were 16 when we moved to Vancouver. She was the one who was the DD. She was responsible. She didn’t drink and she had the car.”

Let’s see, there was the vanilla colored Citroën and the blue station wagon with the push-button transmission. How many punk rockers can you get in a Rambler? “They’re usually pretty skinny, so five or six,” says Ragan. Plus gear. She also managed another influential Vancouver punk rock/new wave band called The Pointed Sticks.

In the mid-’80s and still living in Canada, Ragan was dating a guy who knew a guy (Glenn Mullin), who had lived in Dharamsala from 1972-1984 and written extensively about the Dalai Lama. In a 2015 New York Times Magazine story by Pankaj Mishra, Dharamsala is described as a rhapsodic stew of, “crimson-robed monks, longhaired travelers on motorcycles, Tibetan women in brightly striped chubas, Sikh day-trippers, Kashmiri carpet sellers and English, German and Israeli backpackers.” According to Ragan, it hadn’t changed much. Mullin introduced her to the Dalai Lama and she helped his main assistant enter speeches and other communication into an early computer, stayed about a year and emerged a practicing Buddhist. “What a charming man. At the time he was fairly young. He has a translator and he asks questions: Where are you from? How did you get here? What do you do? He’s just fascinated,” she says.

“Mom was always very independent,” says son Eric. “She’d decide she wanted to do something, she’d just pick up stakes and do it.” In the early ’90s, that included a return trip to North Carolina, where she lived in a houseboat on the Cape Fear River listening to the fish jump and the alligators chomp until it was destroyed in a hurricane. The storm blew her back to Vancouver.

Then, in her early 60s, Ragan pulled up stakes again and headed back to New York. “I’d always wanted to live there. Who doesn’t? Art. Music. People. It’s possibly the greatest city in the world,” she says. She studied graphic design at NYU and lived in an apartment on the Upper West Side at 84th and Columbus. It was an easy walk to Central Park and the Natural History Museum. “My very favorite place to eat was the buffet brunch in the spectacular Peacock Alley at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel,” she says. “It was fairly expensive, but the food was excellent, and there was always a scattering of semi-celebrities having brunch along with us regular folk.” Then the rent controls came off and, as Ragan says, “Here I am.”

In his 1986 volume of poetry, A Walk into April, Sam Ragan has a poem entitled “Nancy.” It goes:

You talked about bluebirds

When you were three—

And the bright bluebird

Winging into the sunlight

Always seems a part of you.

There was that song, 

“Nancy With the Laughing Face,”

Which brightened dark days of long ago,

And other sights and sounds

Flood the memories

Of someone very special.

It has been a wonderful journey,

And it’s the journey that counts,

Not the getting there.

Here at home the dogwood is in bloom,

And across the miles I am proud

That others share my pride in you—

The very special you.

It seems the gift of producing art in the miniature may be genetic.  PS

Jim Moriarty is senior editor of PineStraw and can be reached at jjmpinestraw@gmail.com.

Back to Bulgaria

A compelling and mysterious journey

By D.G. Martin

Asheville author Elizabeth Kostova will always be remembered for her 2005 novel,
The Historian, that became the fastest-selling hardback debut novel in U.S. history and the first ever to become No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list in its first week on sale. Her achievement was especially noteworthy because her book was literary fiction, a genre that does not often produce massive sales results.

The plot of The Historian followed a search by scholars for the origins of Vlad the Impaler, better known as Count Dracula. After research in libraries and archives in Amsterdam and Istanbul, the book’s main characters travel throughout Eastern Europe in search of Dracula’s tomb. When they find it in a Bulgarian monastery, it’s empty. Is Dracula still alive? Will they find him? Are there other vampires? On these questions, Kostova built her compelling and successful mystery.

Kostova’s second book, The Swan Thieves, was set in the world of art and made the Times bestseller list for 20 weeks in 2010.

In her third and most-recent book, The Shadow Land, she takes her readers back to Bulgaria, but this time there are no vampires. The villains are modern and very realistic.

Its main character is a young North Carolina mountain woman, Alexandra Boyd. On her first day in the country she meets a small Bulgarian family group — an older woman and two men, one in a wheelchair and the other a tall man of particular note.

Showing off her lyrical prowess, Kostova writes, “She saw that the tall man was dressed in a black vest and an immaculate white shirt, too warm and formal for the day. His trousers were also too shiny, his black shoes too highly polished. His thick dark hair, with its sheen of silver, was brushed firmly back from his forehead. A strong profile. Up close he looked younger than she’d first thought him. He was frowning, his face flushed, glance sharp. It was hard for her to tell whether he was nearer to thirty-eight or fifty-five. She realized through her fatigue that he might be one of the handsomest men she’d ever observed, broad-shouldered and dignified under his somehow out-of-date clothes, his nose long and elegant, the cheekbones flowing up toward narrow bright eyes when he turned slightly in her direction. Fine grooves radiated from the edges of his mouth, as if he had a different face that he reserved for smiling. She saw that he was too old for her after all. His hand hung at his side, only a few feet from one of hers. She felt an actual twinge of desire, and took a step away.”

He tells her his group is on its way to a beautiful monastery and suggests she consider visiting it, too. After they leave, notwithstanding Alexandra’s obvious fascination with him, it will be several hundred pages before she sees the man again, and we understand why he was described so completely. When his group departs in a taxi, Alexandra discovers she has a satchel that belongs to the Bulgarians.

A young taxi driver called Bobby befriends her as she seeks to find the satchel’s owners. In it is a wooden urn, containing ashes and inscribed with the name Stoyan Lazarov. She and Bobby report the incident to the local police, who seem suspiciously interested, but who don’t take possession of the urn. Instead, they give Alexandra an address where Lazarov lived.

Bobby suggests they rush to the monastery and return the urn to the Bulgarians, but when they get there the group is gone. Ready to continue their search, they find themselves locked in a room. Alexandra thinks, “nothing in her previous experience had prepared her for the feeling of being suddenly locked in a monastic room with a stranger five thousand miles from the Blue Ridge Mountains, holding an urn containing the ashes of another stranger. In addition to being tired and afraid, she was suddenly a thief, a vagrant and a prisoner.”

Though Alexandra and Bobby escape from the monastery, they cannot escape a growing awareness that they are being followed and their possession of the urn has put them in danger. The next day they go to the address the police provided. The house is empty, but photos and papers inside confirm the owners of the urn had, indeed, lived there. A neighbor sends them to another address in a different part of Bulgaria but, before going, they adopt a stray dog that would come to play a major role in one of the concluding scenes.

Kostova introduces other people, including an older, wealthy businessman-turned-politician named Kurilkov, known as “The Bear” who, running on a promise of “non-corruption,” is seeking to win the nation’s next election. There are growing and inexplicable dangers: vandalized cars, threats, murder and kidnapping. The urn’s secret and its dangerous value become the spine on which Kostova builds the book’s surprising and violent resolution.

On that same spine she attaches another story, that of the man whose ashes are in the urn. Stoyan Lazarov, a talented violinist, lover of Vivaldi, devoted husband and father, ran afoul of Bulgaria’s brutal Communist dictatorship following World War II. He was confined for many years in a torturous labor camp where work conditions and weather almost killed him, destroying his health and his prospects for a fulfilling musical career.

At the work camp, Lazarov met two men, one a friend and fellow inmate, and the other a guard who becomes a heated enemy. Both characters play a major part in the book’s dramatic conclusion. Kostova confesses that The Shadow Land is “very much a book about political repression — and suppression — and I’m glad to be bringing it out at this exact political moment.”

Her unforgiving description of the oppression Lazarov suffered is based on factual events. It is a disturbing reminder of the horrors of the Soviet methods of dealing with any failure to toe the Communist line.

Why has Kostova set another book in Bulgaria? Explaining her fascination, she writes about her first visit to “this mysterious country, hidden for so long behind the Iron Curtain,” and that she felt, “I had somehow come home.”

Kostova’s poetic portrayal of Bulgaria’s cities and villages, landscapes and people will make readers want to see for themselves the place she loves and describes so well. Another beloved North Carolina mountain author, Ron Rash, affirms the book’s importance. “In this brilliant work, what appears at first a minor mystery quickly becomes emblematic of a whole country’s hidden history. Lyrical and compelling, The Shadow Land proves a profound meditation on how evil is inflicted, endured, and through courage and compassion, defeated. Elizabeth Kostova’s third novel clearly establishes her as one of America’s finest writers.”  PS

D.G. Martin hosts North Carolina Bookwatch, which airs Sundays at noon and Thursdays at 5 p.m. on UNC-TV.

Reclamation Project

Sunken shapes of claw, paw, toe

betray those who trespass on the beach

when tide is out.

Shells, their chambered lives

destroyed by roiling waves,

spread detritus like chad.

Stones that shine with wet color,

bronze, gold, orange, onyx,

dull to grey as sea breezes

dry them out.

Evening tide awakens, reaches,

erases evidence of interlopers,

leaves the shore like a bedsheet,

taut, smooth, tucked in.

— Sarah Edwards

Almanac

By Ash Alder

In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.–Aldo Leopold

 

The mockingbird sings 100 songs. Ballads of honeysuckle and wild rose. Lady’s slipper. Skipper and milkweed. Plump strawberries. Cottontail and mophead hydrangeas.

June is here, he whistles, prelude to a queue of tunes about cukes and pole beans, creaky tire swings, hives full of honey. His morning song, syrupy as the last spring breeze, is interrupted by a string of sharp rasps. The tune tells how to scold a crow.

As fox kits scuffle in a pine-fringed wood, the sweep of a tail sends a troupe of dandelion seeds swirling into the dreamy green yonder. Summer is near, the mockingbird calls. We can feel the truth of it.

Cicada skin clings to the grooved bark of an ancient willow. On the solstice, a little girl finds it. The mockingbird watches her carry it home. Summer is here, the bird sings. The girl places the empty vessel on her
windowsill, hums a tune as sunlight washes over the golden amulet.

Evening unfolds. Fireflies dance beneath the sugar maple and a resident toad joins the cricket symphony. Mockingbird sleeps, yet the music swells
into the night.

Magic of Midsummer

The days grow longer. On Friday, June 9, a full Strawberry Moon illuminates the tidy spirals of golden hay dotting a nearby pasture. For Algonquin tribes, this moon announced ripe fruit to be gathered. Because the hives now hum heavy, the June moon is also called the Mead Moon. Honey, water and yeast. Patience. Sip slowly the magic of this golden season. 

Perhaps stemming from the ancient Druid belief that summer solstice symbolizes the “wedding of Heaven and Earth,” many consider June an auspicious month for marriage. This year, Solstice falls on Tuesday, June 20. Celebrate the longest day of the year with sacred fire and dance. Now until Dec. 21, the days are getting shorter. Sip slowly the magic of these golden hours.

When the sun sets on Friday, June 23 — a new moon — bonfires will crackle in the spirit of Saint John’s Eve. On this night, ancient Celts powdered their eyelids with fern spores in hopes of seeing the wee nature spirits who dance on the threshold between worlds. 

Lady’s Fingers

Some like it hot. Some like it cold. Whichever your preference, fresh okra is one of this month’s most delicious offerings. Also called lady’s fingers, okra is a member of the mallow family (think cotton, hollyhock and hibiscus). The edible seedpods of this flowering plant are rich in vitamins and minerals that promote healthy vision, skin and immune system. Because it’s an excellent source of fiber, okra also promotes healthy digestion.

Father’s Day falls on Sunday, June 18. Say “I love you” with a jar of pickled okra — local and, perhaps, with a kick.

Everlasting Love

When you send someone roses — the birth flower of June — the color of the petals tells all. Red reads romance. Pink for gratitude. White or yellow for friendship. Orange for passion.  PS

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.

–William Shakespeare, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Summer Sweet

Something decorative and delicious (and so very good for you)

By Jan Leitschuh

It’s not too late to plant sweet potatoes.

I know, right? 

You’ve got June harvests of summer squash, garden cabbage, cucumber, zucchini and the earliest blueberries and sweet corn on the brain — not sweet potatoes. You’ve harvested your spring-sown sugar snap peas, your kales and lettuces, your spinach and chards, your asparagus, dill, chives and green garlics. You have the tomatoes staked out in the garden, the first clusters already hinting at ripening next week, or the next. The peppers are promising. The okra went in the ground last month.

You could try planting sweet potatoes now. The vines can be quite decorative in a planter. And 150 days from now, in October, what will you harvest that will fill your bellies with a sweet, satisfying bulk, that will form the basis for a healthy, seasonal fall meal? Your area farmers began in May.  But since you are not counting on sweet potatoes to pay the taxes and mortgage on your farm, you can begin today if the fancy strikes you. 

Why not grow them in planters on your deck, taking advantage of the pleasant, cascading streamers of foliage? Come frost, you could just tip your planter over and harvest the fat tubers — decorative planter in summer, sweet potato ragout in fall. Don’t be confused by “sweet potato vines.” The white tuber ornamental sweet potato sold in garden centers is different from its orange-fleshed vegetable cousin, selected for foliage, not flavor.

Whether you use a planter or not, we live upon some of the best sweet potato ground in the world. The light, sandy loams of this area favor the production of sweet potatoes. The tubers expand readily in the light soils, producing good harvests.

In fact, North Carolina leads the nation in sweet potato production, growing over 45 percent of the U.S. supply.  It’s our N.C. state vegetable — for those keeping score at home — thanks to some fourth-graders who suggested it to the General Assembly in 1995.

Some call it a superfood, with its readily available forms of Vitamin A and C, and their generous potassium and B6 content. It is lower on the glycemic index than regular potatoes. Its plant chemicals help support your skin, fight cancer and cholesterol levels. I call it the world’s easiest side dish. Several times a week, my husband and I rinse off a tuber, slit the side, wrap it in a paper towel and microwave for a few minutes until soft. Simply open and top with butter, coconut oil, applesauce, salsa or your favorite sweet or savory. Bam! One of the “5 A Day for Better Health” knocked down in the time it takes to check your phone.

That’s ignoring all the good things like sweet potato fries, sweet potato bread, sweet potato stew, sweet potato pie, sweet potato chips, sweet potato noodle kugel, maple-pecan sweet potato mashes and so much more.

But this is summer, and we have summer things on our minds. So let’s return to the growing:

The sweet potatoes you find in stores will likely be Covingtons (developed in N.C.) or Beauregard, perhaps a Jewel or a Ruby. A sweet potato starts as a simple sprout. 

Do you remember suspending a sweet potato in a jar with toothpicks as a child? With half the sweet potato covered with water, and placed in the sunshine, it will produce several large leafy upwellings. In a month or so, that suspended sweet potato will have produced slim vines of 8 to 10 inches. Organic sweet potatoes are often best for this, since they have not been treated with a sprout retardant for long shelf life. My grandmother used to tuck one in a jar just for the pleasure of seeing that long vine grow and trail up her kitchen window.

Perhaps you have some older, unused sweet potatoes already beginning to sprout on their own. By all means, help them along. You can bury tubers halfway in a moist, warm bed of sand, lying on their side, to grow more sprouts. Local producers like to form neat, raised planting beds, prepping the soil with, say, an 8-8-8 fertilizer and adequate lime to make a neutral or slightly acidic soil.
I take my chances with a well-aged compost and lightly dig into a loose soil.

It seems impossible, but leafy sweet potato sprouts are tough, imbued with a strong will to take root and grow. As long as the soil is moist and warm, your sprouts will take root. If you grow your own on tubers, give them a twist at planting time to remove them from the parent sweet potato. Plant sprouts 8 to 10  inches apart, and water them in well. Keep your beds (or your planter) well watered until the sprouts begin to root, never letting them dry out that first 30 days.

In about a month, the shallow, expanding roots will demand another feeding. Side dress again with a little fertilizer or aged compost. Keep an eye on weeds that sprout among the expanding foliage. In time, the sweet potato’s leaves will cover the ground. I like to use simple garden scissors, weeding by snipping off the offender, not disturbing the shallow roots one bit. Keep up the watering and gentle fertilizing but be warned — deer love to nibble the tender sweet potato leaves. (Maybe a vote for a planter there?) Perhaps the third week in October or so, the first killing frost will come to the area and blacken the vines. It’s harvest time!

Either tip over your planter onto a tarp and pick out your tubers, or dig gently into the ground around your plants, exposing the crowns and following the roots downward to reveal your treasures. If you started early enough there will be big ones, and lots of small ones. Children, especially, love this part. If you carelessly stick a fork through a root, don’t be overly alarmed, they have the ability to form a skin over an injured area.

Remove your sweet potatoes from the field so that they are not exposed to the blazing fall sun. You’ll want to cure yours for the sweetest taste. Do this by spreading them out on newspapers in a warm dry area, airy, not exposed to direct sun. Your garage or shed or basement might just do the trick. Some of the starches will convert to that delicious sweet potato sweetness.

Some people wash their tubers off with a garden hose in the backyard. While that is satisfying — revealing the horde, in all its glory — it also starts the clock ticking on the possibility of rot. In our sandy soils, better to brush them off lightly, let them cure, then brush with a whisk for more cleaning. Commercial operations grade them, send them through a wash bath, then dip them in a fungicide to prevent rot. One of the advantages of homegrown is controlling exactly what chemicals go into and onto your food.

Store them in a cool, but not cold, place. Fifty-five degrees is about perfect. Place them in a paper-lined box, and put paper between the layers to better store your homegrown sweets. Rinse thoroughly just before baking. You’ll have sweet potatoes until Christmas, maybe longer if you took care during the curing and storing process. Or if you haven’t eaten them all up first.  PS

Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and co-founder of the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative.

The Jugtown Century

Turning fire and clay into works of art

By Ray Owen

Nestled in the northwest corner of Moore County in the early 1900s, Jacques and Juliana Busbee’s Jugtown Pottery elevated folk pottery into a broader appreciation of art and cultural heritage.  A pair of Raleigh artists initially viewed as “foreigners,” the Busbees traveled the back roads of Moore and Randolph counties like old-time politicians, introducing themselves and their goals while learning about pottery from those who made it. They collected traditional wares and studied folkways, lived among the country folks and wove themselves into the culture with dignity and personal warmth. The Busbees cared deeply about the plight of the potters, their long history and struggles.

Utilizing local materials and old-time turning and firing techniques, their own pottery provided a kind of visual nourishment that proved as timeless as its classical inspiration, and became the foundation for traditional pottery of the 20th century in North Carolina. The great gift of the Busbees’ revival was their aesthetically pleasing ware, a fusion of traditional and Oriental ceramic forms created under the watchful eye of Jacques Busbee. They found not only a new direction for the North Carolina pottery trade, propelling their community into the future, but also a means of sustaining a way of life for the Owen/Owens family of potters. And the couple grew to be the leading advocates for the trade.

The Busbees accomplished this transformation by cultivating a wider audience for folk pottery and, in turn, the Seagrove area came to embrace the Busbees as their own. This symbiosis proved not only important for marketing pots but for defining the identity of the potters themselves, helping to foster the survival of a craft that in most other areas had passed into the ages.

The arrival of the Busbees marks the turning point for a region that was looking to reinvent itself at the end of the era of the salt-glazed jug. While the locals saw pottery as another cash crop, Jacques and Juliana thought of it as something to be celebrated for its beauty. Their outsider’s perspective offered a broader view for the symbols of handmade pots and rural society, and over time the district’s residents began to see themselves through this lens. The old pug mill with the mule, and the treadle wheel and groundhog kiln, came to have new meaning and a source of community pride.

This vision of a new pottery that could breathe life into handmade craft would have been nothing without the willing hands of the potters. The craftsmen were ripe for engagement and served as the co-creators of Jacques and Juliana’s artistic undertaking. It should be noted that gifted craftsmen open to innovation were viewed as exceptional, or “different,” not unlike the early perception of the Busbees, whose pieces were at first described as “play” or “toy” ware. This view of the innovative potters’ exceptionalism likely resulted from their involvement with the newcomers in southern Moore County who where influencing their style and taste.

In the early years of the 20th century, Southern Pines and Pinehurst provided a market for pottery from the northern end of the county. The potters streamed into the settlements on schooner wagons with loads of utilitarian ware, only to find worldly resort dwellers more interested in urns, jars and teapots. The townsfolk began showing the tradesmen drawings and examples of the pieces they were willing to buy, compliant craftsmen began turning out new shapes, and sightseers began visiting their shops.

A new way for the potters was also provided by arts enthusiast Neva Burgess, who at the start of the 1900s began promoting regional arts and crafts at Lift-the-Latch Tearoom in the southern Moore County town of Pinebluff. This early sales outlet for traditional pottery offered lectures and exhibitions, set in a self-consciously rustic log cabin reminiscent of Jugtown. For several years prior to the Busbees’ arrival, potters were invited to give public demonstrations and to exhibit at the Sandhills Fair in Pinehurst, paving the way for their venture.

Jugtown represents a convergence of people who joined together with a common creative goal to make something successful happen. Beyond nourishing the pottery tradition, the key to understanding the Busbees’ vision is its connection through the generations. Sustained by teaching and sharing, such a lineage is a fragile thing, lost forever if the chain is broken. With a heritage so rich, perhaps all those who have followed in the Busbees’ footsteps have felt that nurturing the tradition was tied to a sense of being part of something greater than themselves, and that those before them kept the tradition alive under much harder circumstances.

Since 1983, Jugtown has been owned and operated by potters Vernon and Pam Owens, and their family. Vernon began turning pots at Jugtown in 1960, and his grandfather, J.H. Owen, was the first potter to successfully partner with the Busbees. Through the years, the pottery complex has remained basically unchanged, and the Owenses have carefully restored and preserved the facility.  Most remarkably, in a time when almost all traditional pottery buildings have disappeared, Vernon still turns pots in the original turning room, completely unchanged from when it was built, with a dirt floor and bare log walls.

Like the Busbees before them, the Owenses produce a hybrid of traditional and classic forms, ever careful in their transformation from old to new traditions. Older pots from the region remain an inspiration, just as Jacques and Juliana had envisioned. Decorative motifs reflect the natural world and agrarian setting, with incised sine waves, farm animals, and birds being common themes. The vessels carry evidence of the fire and earth from which they were made  — some slick like clay, others rough and volcanic, and others with slight finger grooves from the hands of their creator.

In some regards, the cares and concerns of today are not so different from the early 20th century — machines continue to replace people, as social upheaval and change persist — but Jugtown holds the same allure as when it was founded. In a 1991 interview conducted with Vernon Owens, reflecting on life at Jugtown, he said, “The more automated and the more things are done by a computer, the more important it is that this place, and any other place like this, stay the same. What you’re doing, you’re going back to a time when time didn’t matter that much, and that’s one of the things that draws people to a place like this.”

With its picturesque setting, Jugtown is the best-preserved pottery in the eastern Piedmont and one of the most significant traditional potteries in America. The complex consists of 12 rustic log cabins that blend seamlessly into the surrounding farmscape. The property embodies the Busbees’ belief in the civilizing influence of rural society, a throwback to a place closed off from the outside world where they had everything to do for themselves. The effect is one of being deep-rooted and unchanged over time, reflective of the values of thrift, modesty, plain-style tastes and homespun ways.

When you pass through the gates you encounter a cultural landscape, with a visceral, almost instinctive alignment with the past. There are those who have said it is haunted, that sometimes in the quiet of the old Busbee house you can hear the muffled sound of music drifting through the air. Stories of this apparition pre-date the current owners, with reports of the phenomena spanning decades. Whether or not one believes such accounts, the telling and retelling of these stories gives them a certain degree of life and meaning.

Jugtown is, and always has been, a shared experience. The Busbees’ vision permeates the site, and its distinctive and cherished aspects are as real to its residents and their patrons as its physical characteristics. It is a feeling that surrounds them and is held within, connecting with the invisible fabric of life.  PS

(Adapted from The Busbee Vision, with permission from the N.C. Pottery Center.)

The Arts Council of Moore County will present the exhibit, Jugtown Pottery:  A Century of Art & Craft in Clay, at Campbell House Galleries from June 2-30, 2017. The show also features jewelry by Jennie Keatts of JLK Jewelry and photographs by Angela Walker. The exhibit is free and open to the public on weekdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturday, June 17, 2 p.m. to 4p.m.

During the month of June, two free Jugtown events will be presented at the Southern Pines Civic Club at 105 S. Ashe St. in Southern Pines. On Sunday, June 11 at 7 p.m., the PBS film, Craft in America/Jugtown Pottery will be screened, followed by a panel discussion with Jugtown artists. And, Steve Compton, author of Jugtown Pottery 1917-2017: A Century of Art & Craft in Clay, will give a talk on Wednesday, June 14 at 7 p.m.

PinePitch

Sunrise Classic Series

On Thursday, June 8, at 7 p.m., the Sunrise Theater kicks off its Summer Classic Series with its first film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, about King Arthur and his knights on a low budget, obstacle-ridden search for the Grail. On Thursday, June 15, at 7:30 p.m., Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), about a boy who encounters strange adventures at a candy factory; on Thursday, June 22, at 7:30 p.m., High Noon (1952), when a marshall faces a deadly enemy with no help from his town. And on Thursday, June 29, at 7:30 p.m., Weird Science (1985) a sci-fi comedy about two high school nerds who attempt to create the perfect woman. Cost: $6. Doors open at 6:30. The Sunrise Theater is located at 250 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. (910) 692-8501 or sunrisetheater.com.

Carousel in Concert

On Thursday and Friday, June 29 and 30, at 7:30 p.m., the Sandhills Broadway Series and Touching Humanity, Inc., presents Carousel in Concert, a semi-staged theatrical event. With minimal sets, a cast headed by Broadway actors Tony Capone, Jennifer Swiderski, Zachary Prince and Elysia Jordan will enact the story of carousel barker Billy Bigelow and the naive millworker he loves. Things go awry, and he gets one heavenly chance to make things right. Together with an 18-piece orchestra, a Sandhills-based chorus and local youth talent, they will perform the entire inspirational score, including “If I Loved You” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” The show is presented at Lee Auditorium, 250 Voit Gilmore Lane, Southern Pines. Proceeds from this performance will help promote arts in the schools of Moore County. Info and tickets: www.touchinghumanityinc.org or (910) 692-6554.

Blues-n-Brews Festival

The 15th annual Blues-n-Brews Festival takes place on Saturday, June 3, at Festival Park in downtown Fayetteville. Mark McKinney & Co., an acoustic trio from Pembroke, plays the blues from 5 to 6:30 p.m.; soulful blues singer Tullie Brae on the main stage from 6:45–8:15 p.m.; and Elliott and the Untouchables will be jamming from 8:30–10 p.m. Over 30 breweries from all across the U.S. will be represented. Gates open at 4 p.m. for VIP and 5 p.m. for General Admission. All proceeds support Cape Fear Regional Theatre. Buy tickets online or at CFRT Box Office. (910) 323-4233. Festival Park is located at 335 Ray Avenue, Fayetteville.

Lunch with a Little History

The Country Bookshop is hosting Dr. Jennifer Ritterhouse at a speaking luncheon in the Cardinal Ballroom at The Country Club of North Carolina on Saturday, June 10 at 12 p.m. to discuss her new book Discovering the South: One Man’s Travels through a Changing America in the 1930s. The book explores the politics and culture of a crucial period in U.S. history by following North Carolina newspaper editor Jonathan Daniels on a sweeping tour of the South in 1937. Discovering the South examines a variety of interrelated topics including the impact of the New Deal; the literary and intellectual history of the Southern Renaissance; the race, class and gender dynamics of the Scottsboro case; and the planters’ and industrialists’ violent responses to labor organizing. Dr. Ritterhouse is a graduate of Harvard University with advanced degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of Growing Up Jim Crow: How Black and White Southern Children Learned Race. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased online at www.thecountrybookshop.biz or at The Country Bookshop.

Wildlings: Bug Hunt

Insects are some of the most numerous and diverse creatures in the world. Come out to Weymouth Woods on Saturday, June 24, and join a park ranger on a hunt to discover some of the insects that live there. The ranger will show you safe ways to catch, observe and release them. Wildlings is a new Exploration Series for Kids ages 6 through 10. Meet at the Welcome Center at 10 a.m. for the hike. Weymouth Woods-Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

Shakespeare in the Pines

How do you make two people who detest each other fall in love? Tell each that the other is in love with them! And if you want to see how much fun that can be, come see Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare’s witty comedy about the manipulations of matchmaking.

Pinehurst Parks & Recreation is sponsoring the inaugural production of the Shakespeare in the Pines Festival, presented in the outdoor intimacy of Tufts Memorial Park by locally owned Uprising Theatre Company. Owner Jonathan Drahos, associate professor and director of Theatre at UNC Pembroke, invites you to enjoy the performance for free, or purchase a VIP table for four near the stage at $300 that includes gourmet cheeses, crackers, prosciutto, a bottle of wine and a special meet and greet with the cast, including Natalie Graham and Caleb Kneip (whose credits include appearances with the Rubicon Theater Company in Ventura, California), the finest local talent and Dr. Drahos himself. Friday through Sunday, June 2–4 — VIP tables June 2 only. Opening at 6 p.m., show at 7:30 at 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. (541) 631-8241 or www.uprisingtheatrecompany.com.

The Sunday Exchange

The Town of Aberdeen and the Rooster’s Wife are joining forces to build community through the exchange of ideas, art and entertainment. The Sunday Exchanges feature free concerts, food trucks and community groups gathering on the green space adjacent to the Artists League of the Sandhills. The first Sunday Exchange takes place on Sunday, June 11, and features the band Ranky Tanky. This Charleston quintet has updated the Gullah tradition of the Georgia/Carolina coastal islands with gospel vocals, jazz trumpet solos and an R&B rhythm section. Doors open at 6 p.m. Bring your own cup to minimize single use containers for Southern Pines Brewing products, coffee from Swank and fresh water supplied on-site. One Nine Drive, the Goodie Jar and the Market Place will be on hand serving dinner. The Artists League is located at 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. For more information, call (910) 944-7502 of visit theroosterswife.org.

Who’s a Good Dog?

Is there something about your dog that is unique, clever, or just plain cute? Give it a chance to show off at the Walthour-Moss Foundation Fun Dog Show on Saturday, June 10. You can enter your dog(s) in one or many of the classes, which include Best Trick, Best Coiffed, Best Rescue, and Best in Show. There will be prizes and ribbons for each class. Come out for the fun of it and enjoy this beautiful nature preserve, which your $5 entry fee (per class) will help maintain. Registration at 8 a.m. or online during week prior. Show starts at 9 a.m. at Lyell’s Meadow, 225 Mile Away Lane, Southern Pines. For a list of classes and more information, call (910) 695-7811 or visit www.walthour-moss.org.

The Rooster’s Wife

More than a little bit of country and a lot of jazz and rhythm and blues, a rollicking good time awaits you at the Rooster’s Wife this month.

Sunday, June 4: Less is More JAZZ band members turn their versatile and virtuoso musical gaze on everything from Irving Berlin to The Cars, with bold arrangements that pierce the heart and pique the intellect. $15.

Friday, June 9: Side Car Social Club, a stylish and versatile five-piece jazz ensemble from Raleigh, performs speakeasy jazz, vintage R&B, real country and modern pop. $10.

Sunday, June 18: Instrumental group Sons of Pitches performs cowboy jazz. $15.

Sunday, June 25: The Jack Grace Band performs experimental country art rock with cowboy grit. $15.

Friday, June 30. Singer/songwriters Bill West and Abigail Dowd pair up on the stage to play some acoustic guitar and sing some bluesy songs. $10.

Doors open at 6 p.m. and music begins at 6:46 at the Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. For more information, call (910) 944-7502 or visit www.theroosterswife.org for tickets. Prices above are advance sale.

Remembering Our Past

This month’s Gathering at Given treats you to a spirited re-enactment of the Revolutionary War. Historical re-enactor Colonel Trent Carter, dressed in historical attire, will take you back in time as he describes major characters and events of the period. Trent, a retired U.S. Army colonel, is a frequent participant in re-enactments at the House in the Horseshoe and a volunteer at the Given Book Shop. See his performance at 3:30 p.m. at Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, or at 7 p.m. at Given Outpost, 95 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Free and open to the public. (910) 585-4820 or 295-6022.

Tight Squeeze

Not exactly the Flying Finn

By Renee Phile

Scene: June 2016. 4:30 in the afternoon. 80s. Humid. Kids and parents tired from traveling all day. Finally at our destination, an RV park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Second trip with our newest addition, Finn, a 33-foot 2016 Passport Ultra Lite Camper.

“You are at site 52, right by the pool,” she says, blowing her bangs out of her eyes, and handing me the map after circling our space with a Sharpie.

“Yay! The pool! Yes!” the boys yell, pretty much in unison. 

At first glance, I think there is no way we are going fit in site 52, right next to the pool. It just seems tight, and this will be only my husband, Raymond’s, second time backing the trailer into a tight place. 

The boys and I hop out of the truck, and Raymond drives around the campsite’s loop and then begins the test: backing the 33-foot Finn into site 52, by the pool.

My job is to direct him with little hand signals, and since we have only practiced this teamwork a few times, we don’t really “have it.”  Typically, I will wave one way or the other, and I can’t tell if he sees me, so I continue to wave one way or another, more dramatically wave-by-wave, pretending I’m one of those people who helps a pilot park an airplane. Then he nods and says smugly, “Yes, I see you. Got it.”

Anyway, back to site 52, by the pool.

Finn’s hitch creaks and pops, and the guy at Camping World said it would do that. He said not to worry, even though it will sound like a gunshot, and then a cow in labor.

Raymond attempts his first back-in. Too far to the left. He nearly hits the water spigot. Pilot error.

He pulls up and starts over. Still too far to the left. Pull up! Pull up!

Then again.

And again.

The other campers start to watch. The more experienced RV drivers. I feel the need to announce, “This is our second time, everyone! We are newbies! Can you stop staring?” But I wave my arms instead.

Some people smirk. Maybe they don’t, really. Maybe I just think they are. Actually, I just see one guy and he is smirking, for sure. He is sitting in a chair by the RV across the road, a Budweiser in his hand.

David, my then-12-year-old, decides now is a  great time to get out his juggling balls and juggle.

Kevin, my then-7-year-old, exclaims, “We have a lot of neighbors! Can I start visiting them, Mom?”

I feel sweat drip down my back.

Our truck and trailer are sprawled across the road, blocking all traffic. Raymond’s still trying. Creak. Snap. Pop. Time seems to slow.

A man driving a truck stops, waiting to pass. The man raises his hands in an exasperated manner and mouths something that looks like, “What the hell?”

At that moment, David glances up from his juggling performance and says, “That guy needs to calm down!” 

The man continues with the rude impatience, Raymond continues backing up and straightening up Finn, David continues juggling, and Kevin is now knocking on another camper’s door.

The smirky, beer-drinking guy from across the road walks over to our truck and says something to Raymond. The smirky guy then moves his own truck out of the way to give Raymond more room, or maybe out of fear. Raymond straightens the truck and drives Finn around the loop again, to start over. The impatient man passes, revving his engine as he does.

Then the smirky guy takes my place in site 52, beside the pool. He reeks of beer, and his words are slurring a bit. I have been replaced by this? He flaps his arms around and yells to Raymond, “Turn it sharper! Yes! Like that! Back up! Turn! To the right! Perfect!”

By this time, both boys are standing next to me.

“Parking these things is a bitch!” the guy says, half to us, half to Raymond.

Kevin clamps his hand over his mouth and looks at me, eyes big. “Mom,” he whispers loudly, “that guy said Dad is a bitch!”

“No, that’s not what he said. You heard him wrong. We will talk about it later,” I whisper.

Finally, Raymond backs Finn in perfectly.

“Your dad did a great job! It took me years to learn how to park these things,” the guy says, less smirky.

“It took him forever!” Kevin exclaims. David juggles.

“We are new,” I say to the guy.

“Yeah, I figured!” the guy says and laughs, slapping his knee.

The drunkish smirky guy stumbles back to his campsite.  Kevin thinks, in site 52, by the pool, the language gloves are off. The Finn adventures have begun.  PS

Renee Phile  loves being a mom, even if it doesn’t show at certain moments.

Ahhh-Choo!!!

The sneezin’ season turns summer into suffering

By Deborah Salomon

Spring-fling-April-showers-May-flowers-June-moon-birds-and-bees-and-trees . . . and hay fever.

I do not welcome spring/early summer. I dread it. All that chirping and buzzing means misery. While others are frolicking in the meadow, rolling in the grass, picnicking in the woods I am either binge sneezing or stoned on antihistamines.

That first ominous tickle appears in April, this year earlier, when trees begin budding. I can’t name which tree or grass or weed because it doesn’t matter; I’m allergic to them all. The tickle feels like centipedes doing the hokey-pokey inside my nose. Rubbing only aggravates the dance. Then sneezing commences — consecutive loud ones, eight or nine without a breather. At 10 I get dizzy. Fourteen or more and I’ve been known to faint.

This leaves my besieged nose red, raw and irritated. Years ago, a fellow-sufferer advised against using Kleenex because the fluff further inflames, causing more sneezing. Men’s hankies, she said, only ones that are 100 percent soft cotton. I have dozens but still run the washing machine almost every day, in season.

About the season: Used to be, hayfever would abate in June, return in September, just in time for school, and last until a hard frost killed the leaf molds. What could be more embarrassing than having to flee the classroom consumed by sneezes? I remember some mean kids that, during a grand mal episode, counted them down until I fled, in tears.

Tears? Who could tell, since my eyes commiserate with my nose?

Every region is different, according to the flora. My hayfever is awful in Manhattan, where there’s little, but better near the ocean. I thought the Sandhills would be OK, since I’m not allergic to that gold dust emitted by longleaf pines. Bad guess. Not only is it present, but unpredictable, since plants never really die here. Last year I suffered bouts into December.

Oh, you’ve just got a cold, an allergy-free friend said, not understanding the telltale tickle.

After a few weeks of sporadic attacks comes sinus involvement, when turning my head side-to-side pains more than walking on red-hot stones.

Do something, Deb!

As a teenager I took then-popular Chlor-Trimeton, which worked OK until I became immune. One year I had shots, twice a week, all winter, with minimal results.

Since then I’ve tried every new “non-drowsy” OTC remedy. They calmed the sneezing and, as advertised, didn’t make me drowsy, more like comatose — awful, since my job requires putting one word in front of another. At least I’m not a cat burglar. Or a neurosurgeon. And, I’m equipped to play either Sneezy or Dopey for Walt Disney.

Recently the doctor prescribed a nasal spray that would treat all my symptoms without inducing stupor. Which it did, for a few glorious days, followed by blurred vision and headaches — two possible side effects listed in the tiniest print on the package.

Look, hay fever isn’t serious or life-threatening; maybe life-altering, but not enough to live in Arizona. There’s no magic pill or abracadabra spray. I overreact to insect bites but don’t have food allergies, thank goodness. Best of all, I was excused from the 10th grade botany class wildflower field trip.

But if you plan to invite me to a garden party, a lawn wedding or a picnic, please wait until January.  PS

Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.