Barbecue Joint Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
My sister, me & Dad at our gathering in Half Moon Bay, CA this year. We were honoring Mom on the 4th anniversary of her death. Note Dad’s Laphroaig hat (story below).
Facebook memory from the day before Mom died. October 18, 2018.
Facebook memory from the day Mom died. October 19, 2018.
Mom in various Easter hats. Kingsport, TN.
Nonnie and Mom in their hats, Easter 1959. Mom looks about 40 but she would have been maybe 17?
My Reed grandmother in an AMAZING hat in front of our family home on Watauga Street. Kingsport, TN.
Mom in an ADORABLE fascinator at Uncle Frank’s first wedding.
They tried to stick a hat on me but I was NOT INTERESTED! How the times have changed! I think this is at our old house in Carrboro, NC or maybe Jerusalem?
At Fripp Island in the 70s. Love Nonnie’s beachy straw hat! Feels very Gilligan’s Island.
Me in misc. ridiculous hats over the years.
Me in my junior high bedroom. The hat above me with the blue tulle is the first hat I ever made. (And didn’t everyone have blue china in their teenage bedroom? And a creepy doll? ha ha)
My sister in my teenage bedroom wearing a jaunty hat!
Photo I took of Dad in his hat in Venice. 1988.
Hats on my wall in my junior year college apartment. Photo taken by my mother, I think, since I am in it on the left?
In my element (not). Me looking natural at a RISD Painting Dept. cook out. Providence, RI. 1994. Interestingly, that is international art star, Do Ho Suh on the left. He’s a sweetheart.
Me in my charity shop hats from England that have now been upcycled into Demolition Derby Hats.
The California granddaughter and the Texas granddaughter, my niece and daughter in Austin. Maybe 2008?
Mom and my daughter in 2006-7 in Austin. Mom and my daughter in 2017 on the Queen Mary 2. (There was a Roaring 20s theme and Mom made her headpiece.)
Dad in a top hat at the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden, England. 2012. A stuffed cat with a top hat in a fancy hat shop on Jermyn Street in London. Dad and I went in to buy him a boater hat. (Did you know that the official hat to wear with black tie in the summer is a boater hat?)
Mom loved to dress her granddaughters. Here are Leah & Luca on the Queen Mary 2. With my father on the right. 2014. The little girls killed with the QM2 crowd, everyone loved them.
My husband and me on the Queen Mary 2 before the Royal Ascot Ball. 2014. There was a fascinator making workshop - kind of like a Project Runway Unconventional Materials Challenge - I made this hat out of cards, felt, markers and glue.
Mom and Dad at a Kentucky Derby party. Maybe 2017? Mom made her hat. The ribbon had the music from “My Old Kentucky Home” on it. Dad in his boater from London. Chapel Hill, NC.
Me and my husband in the hotel room before the Kentucky Derby. Louisville, KY. 2022
Me with my daughter and niece at Mom’s funeral. I made sure to wear a fascinator. The Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill, NC. 2018.
I’m writing from California. My dad and I flew out on Tuesday for the fourth anniversary of Mom’s death. As I mentioned in my last post, we like to get together each year to celebrate her. So, what did I end up writing for this occasion? A big, fat nothing. I was stumped. Instead, we went through my huge file of photos and my sister’s letters from Mom and we told stories by the fire at Half Moon Bay. It was perfect.
Last night my sister and some of her baroque colleagues gave a presentation on the Viola da Gamba at her daughter’s school in Berkeley. It was really interesting to hear about this genre with fresh ears. The music has kind of always been in my periphery but I, honestly, never really thought much about it. They played several selections, one of which was William Byrd’s Ye Sacred Muses, a piece that Mom picked for her funeral. Last night it was sung by a wonderful soprano, Jennifer Paulino. For Mom’s service four years ago our amazing friend, Cassie Webster, flew across the freaking country from Victoria, Canada to sing it. Oddly when I googled it (for the link above), the one that popped up was by countertenor Matthew White who is, coincidentally, Cassie’s husband. Small world. It was a little heart wrenching for me to hear the song again. It’s an elegy written by Byrd for his teacher Thomas Tallis after his death. The words are:
Ye sacred Muses, race of Jove,
Whom Music's lore delighteth,
Come down from crystal heav'ns
To earth, where sorrow dwelleth,
In mourning weeds, with tears in eyes:
Tallis is dead, and Music dies.
“And Music dies”. Yup. I had never heard this piece of music until my mom’s funeral. At the time the last line was a kick to the gut, something I felt again, although less aggressively, last night. Music did die in a certain way with Mom. I talked in a previous post about recently bawling my eyes out to Elvis. It’s the music of my childhood. My sister mentioned that she doesn’t listen to old music that often anymore because it makes her too sad. I get that.
My brother-in-law, Andy, emceed the event last night. He referenced the “Cult of Melancholy” that was popular around the time of this music. That term amuses me because, as a former goth, it definitely resonates. There is something kind of delicious about wallowing in dark feelings.
But, enough of that!
My dad told me a hilarious and very “Mom” story when I complimented him on his Laphroaig hat the other day. Back when I used to drink, Laphroaig was my favorite scotch. It’s basically liquid smoke. The writer Nancy Lehmann has a line that “Southerners need carbonation”. (Agreed.) I’m going to hijack that quote and proclaim that “Reeds need smoke”. I mean, my parents spent decades researching BBQ and wrote a book called “Holy Smoke” for chrissake! I’m not sure where Dad got the scotch baseball cap but when it arrived it had “Laphroaig” embroidered on the front and “Drink Responsibly” embroidered on the back. The latter did not sit well with Mom. Don’t tell Dale Reed what to do! So, Mom took her handy dandy little seam ripper and picked out each stitch of “Drink Responsibly”, leaving no trace of the bossy message. That is SUCH a Mom thing to do.
Mom was constantly doing detailed little projects, whether it was taking the coffee stains out of my black and white polka dotted skirt with Clorox and a Q-tip or painting a tobacco colored border on the seagrass rug in our breakfast room after my Dad’s friend’s dip cup spilled and stained the carpet. (If you don’t know what a dip cup is, lucky you.)
After attending the Kentucky Derby this past May I decided to make hats. At my daughter’s suggestion I ended up at Austin Creative Reuse looking for materials, it’s a treasure trove of cheap craft supplies. I started by retrofitting existing hats of mine and then moved on acquiring secondhand hats to embellish. Every time I made a hat I would post it to a thread I have going with my dad and sister. Early on Elisabeth proclaimed, “Mom would LOVE THIS!” And, you know what? I think she would have. (If you’re interested you can see some of the hats here. And, Austin Creative Reuse actually did an interview with me about the hats which you can read here. I didn’t necessarily inherit Mom’s intense attention to detail but I think I did get some of her craftiness.
It was bittersweet reading the letters that Mom had written to my sister over the years. Since Elisabeth went off to boarding school in the 9th grade, she had decades of correspondence, some from the very early days. Mom frequently wrote her postcards updating her on our life without her in Chapel Hill. In one note Mom mentions a still-life painting of mine that I had brought home from school. She thought it was the best thing I had done to date and hoped that I would put together a portfolio to apply to the NC School of the Arts. (I did and I attended for 11th and 12th grades.) Mom was always really paying attention to us. And, as Elisabeth remarked, she was really pretty selfless by putting our needs ahead of her maternal emotions. As an involved mother it must have been tough for her to send both of us off to school early but it truly was what we was best for us at the time. Mom knew that.
In another letter Mom mentions going to pick up my new violin. She was downright giddy about it! This violin was way nicer than I probably deserved, a gorgeous antique Austrian instrument, but Mom just couldn’t help herself. She just wanted the best for us.
My time with my father and sister is coming to an end. Dad is leaving tomorrow and I follow suit on Sunday. I find it sweet that everyone still wants to gather on October 19th of each year. Who knows where we will be next year? I was looking for something smoky and Reed-like in Mom’s recipe files and came across this brussels sprout recipe. In another recipe from The Barbecue Joint one of my parents wrote: “The Barbecue Joint is Chapel Hill is a nouvelle barbecue place that we view with mixed feelings on cultural grounds, but there’s no question that they serve some great food.” Ha ha. Burn.
BARBECUE JOINT BRUSSELS SPROUTS (OR GREEN BEANS) WITH BACON
Damon Lapas, co-owner of Chapel Hill’s Barbecue Joint, shared this decidedly untraditional recipe with the News and Observer. To do it right you need bacon like his place makes and sells, which is brined for a week in water, salt, molasses and brown sugar, then cold-smoked for twelve hours, but you can get the idea with any good thick-sliced country bacon.
1 pound fresh brussels sprouts (or green beans)
½ pound bacon, diced
3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper, to taste
Blanch brussels sprouts (or beans) in salted boiling water about 5 minutes until tender. Drain and plunge into ice water to stop cooking. Slice brussels sprouts very thin (about 1/8 inch) and set aside. (Leave green beans whole.)
In a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat, cook bacon 8 to 10 minutes until crisp. Remove bacon, leaving rendered fat in the pan. Add garlic and saute until lightly browned, being careful not to burn. Add brussels sprouts (or beans) and heat through. Toss in diced bacon and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serves 6.
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