Collard Greens
You know. Just a Sunday afternoon family hang.
Taken in the living room of the 126 Mallette St. house. Love the upholstery on that Empire sofa. PS I’m not sure why I didn’t want black in my room when I redid it in 7th grade. You can see I clearly embraced it later.
Christmas Eve Dinner in the early 2000s at the Mallette St. house. This photo sums up Mom’s collecting perfectly: Empire sideboard with knife boxes with a Mulberry china platter, low country South Carolina seagrass bread basket, Mid-Century Russel Wright serving dishes, cut crystal water pitcher, Taxco Mexican Silver candle holders, and (by Elisabeth) a Majolica green leaf salad bowl.
At the holidays Mom liked to drape beads and glass ornaments around the house. That gold boot on the sideboard is exactly that: a boot painted gold. We inherited it from my Reed grandmother and it would make a festive appearance from time to time.
My sister’s bedroom with antique sleigh bed, secretary, and bookshelf. Also featured are Mom’s circus paintings.
This Jenny Lind bed was in my room when I was a kid. It broke when you jumped on it. Oops.
Viewing the living room from the music room at Mallette St. Mom and Dad collected a lot of the Empire furniture early in their marriage in New York. In the back of the photo is the harpsichord that Mom built and gold leafed by hand.
The breakfast room at 126 Mallette. That’s the bay window that I drove the car into. I’m actually writing this post from that daybed, which is now in my studio. It was made on one of the family farms. The wood stove on the right was one of three that Dad restored for our house.
Me in the mid 90s in my fave room at 126 Mallette, THE LIBRARY! That red is the perfect shade.
Washing dishes at Mallette St. in the mid 90s. My Nonnie is on the left and my boyfriend, Devin, is behind me. You can see some of Mom’s pretty things and I love that her kitchen was also totally functional. She was doing open shelving way before the hipsters were. This photo was taken after our kitchen remodel where they doubled our kitchen size. It’s worth noting that they were able to match the existing kitchen floor with planks taken out of our church, The Chapel of the Cross, when the church redid their floor in stone.
Dad working on the Mallette St house before staining the floors dark brown. Mom and Dad loved dark floors. They also got them at their Carolina Meadows place. This is what I was rebelling against with my junior high wall to wall carpet!
Mom and Dad started collecting early. They actually used to push us around in this thing! On Christmas morning, Mom would load up the carriage with gifts from the tree in the breakfast room (where we rarely had breakfast) and roll it into the living room so we could open them in comfort.
Mom and Dad were always into old, cool things. This is the Kitzmiller House in Gray Station, Tennessee. Mom and Dad tried to buy it but it got torn down. My grandmother painted a picture of it which hung in our dining room for years.
Wallpaper from the Kitzmiller House. HOW FAB IS THIS?
SOMEWHERE there are photos of my teenage room, but I can’t find them at the moment. So, my 80s music camp dorm room will have to suffice. Lots of Tom Cruise, the Soloflex poster, ESPRIT ads, etc.
Sorry for the barrage of photos. There was just TOO MUCH EVIDENCE to support my thesis: my parents loved antiques. They loved them. And, I didn’t. I just wished we had a sofa that did NOT have a slab of hard wood mid-shoulder height on which to watch TV. It was that simple. Maybe that’s why, when given the chance, I took an X-acto knife to the upholstery on said sofa. This story really is bizarre as I didn’t plan it, didn’t feel bad doing it, and didn’t have much remorse for it afterward. It was purely a tactile experience for me. You see, Mom kept an X-acto knife around for various craft projects and one day she just casually left it on the table next to the library sofa. I was old enough to know better, maybe eight or so, but I remember grabbing it and slicing very exact slices into the the Empire sofa’s black leather upholstery. I slowly made an incision and then pulled the stuffing out. Repeat. Sliced and pulled. Sliced and pulled. I left behind maybe 8 vertical lines on the sofa’s armrest. I don’t remember getting caught but I’m sure there was no doubt in anyone’s mind as to who did it. I think Mom simply said something like, “well, I shouldn’t have left the knife out”. That’s not true. I shouldn’t have done it. But, all of my senses were overcome at the time! I’m betting that Dad wasn’t so chill about it.
When I was in Elementary School, Dad took up a surprising hobby, he started restoring wood stoves. I really don’t know why, but it was preferable to his other hobby which was playing the Irish penny whistle. (He would practice early in the morning on weekends. Ugh.) I think he enjoyed the wood stove hunt and maybe working with his hands. I’m not sure where he found them but it was probably estate sales or antique shops. They were pretty rough. Dad would clean them up, repair them if needed, paint them, and figure out a way to tap in to one of our house’s chimneys. I remember him cutting mica for the window of the stove that wound up in our breakfast room. Now, it just so happened that my room had chimney access. I’m not sure if I was asked if I wanted a wood stove, but I sure got one! Smack dab in the middle of my room. We had to reconfigure the room’s layout, moving my bed to the other side. I think it was kind of a novelty at first, but then I realized making fires was a pain, they were hot, and they made a mess. I quickly grew to resent “The Wood Stove in the Room” (the new “Elephant in the Room"!). I remember stating my case to get rid of it. Dad had put a lot of effort into the installation, so he wasn’t easily swayed. Eventually, I got my way and - not only that - I got a much coveted bedroom redo!
This happened in 7th grade, my first year of junior high. I was making new friends and wanted to redefine myself. This meant no more grape purple bedroom with antique Jenny Lind bed (see above photo) and wood stove. I once had loved that bed. When we came home from a year in England in 1978, I went running to my room, ready to hop into the comfort of my old bed and ……. the bed wasn’t there. The renters had broken it. Distraught, I asked my mom what had happened. She told me a very convincing story that a very fat man had seen my bed and said, “Oh, what a beautiful bed!” and had lept enthusiastically on it, breaking it. I totally bought it. It occurs to me now that that is very specific and probably not true. Most likely it got broken by college kids shagging on it. But, good on Mom for spinning it so I wouldn’t be upset.
But, what did I want in 7th grade? I wanted ALL THINGS MODERN. You know what signified modern to this 1980s Carolina girl? Wall to wall carpet. Talk about sophisticated! [VIRTUAL WOLF WHISTLE] Mom and I went to Lowe’s and picked out some gray, low-pile carpet. We painted the walls white like a loft. (At that point I was going to bed clutching a book on New York City, reading about the different neighborhoods and ultimately concluding that I would like to live in SoHo which was still called the “Cast Iron District” in my outdated volume.) For furniture, Mom took me to the only futon store in the triangle area. It’s funny that we now think of futons as tacky college kid furniture. When they first came out in the 80s they were cool AF! We purchased a twin futon loveseat that was to unfold for sleepovers. It was covered in the chicest mod fabric, kind of a speckled dark gray with green and peach accents that matched my peach bedspread and gray carpet. Gray and peach were super 80s. I now think of them as doctor’s office colors but at the time they were rad. For some reason, I didn’t want any black accents in my room. I find that entertaining now, as I soon descended into goth-land, but this particular incarnation of my aesthetic included lots of grays. To my parents’ credit, they made it happen! Dad built a twin platform bed that tied into my existing bookshelves, my futon acted a sofa and occasional bed for friends, I had large colored floor cushions, a cool drafting table and chair, white flat pack cabinets for my stereo and cassettes, and Esprit & Benetton ads ALL OVER the walls. It was 1980s teen heaven. My new room got its debut when I had a new friend coming home for a sleepover after a school dance. When I left for the evening, we hadn’t finished the cushions on my window seat. They had been purple floral in my previous life and I wanted them clean, industrial gray. Well, don’t you know that poor old Dale Reed sewed like a maniac to get them done in time to pick me and my friend up. My room looked perfect and I felt cool. Bless her.
My room basically stayed this way until I went to college and then Mom took it back, threw out the carpet, reclaimed the floors, painted it a shade of her beloved yellow, and put English chintz EVERYWHERE. Fair enough. What is interesting to me now is that as much as I was annoyed by my family’s uncomfortable antiques, they clearly got under my skin. When I was 24 and lost career-wise, I ended up studying at Sotheby’s to become a, you guessed it (or didn’t), ANTIQUES DEALER. That ultimately could’ve have been interesting but I ended up getting swayed by an exciting Damien Hirst show that I saw in SoHo (see! I got there eventually!) and ended up in the business side of Contemporary Art for a decade or so.
When thinking about a recipe for today, I decided to share a vegetable. A friend recently commented, “How did you mom stay so trim by eating all of this food you are describing?”. True, she enjoyed some comfort food, but we also ate vegetables with every meal and they are, sadly, underrepresented on this blog. What’s my favorite vegetable? Well, I do love me some greens. So, I’ll share a few versions below.
COLLAGE GREENS
(Courtesy of Julia Reed)
My best friend, Jessica Brent, has come up with a healthy way to prepare them that is so good it satisfies even die-hard traditionalists like my father. She puts three or four bunches of cleaned and stemmed mustard greens in a big pot with a half cup of olive oil and two cups of dry white wine (and salt to taste) and steams them until they are tender, about 20 minutes.
VEGETARIAN COLLARD GREENS WITH BROWN BUTTER
(Courtesy of Deborah Madison)
The vegetarian chef Deborah Madison braises collards or turnip greens in brown butter and does a wonderful recipe of 12 cups of mixed greens sauteed in olive oil with garlic, a cup of chopped parsley, a cup of chopped cilantro and two teaspoons each of paprika and ground cumin.
Info on how to make brown butter here: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/how-to-brown-butter/
BRAISED COLLARD GREENS
(Courtesy of Robert Carter)
1 pound collard greens, cleaned and stemmed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup (about 3/4 ounce) country ham, cut in thin strips
2 tablespoons minced shallots
1/3 cup aged sherry vinegar
1/3 cup tupelo honey
1/2 cup Smoked Pork Stock (recipe below)
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup butter.
Cut collard greens into chiffonade about 1/2-inch wide and blanch in salted boiling water for 10 seconds. Drain, refresh in ice water and squeeze dry.
Heat oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Saute ham and shallots.
Deglaze pan with sherry vinegar and stir in honey. Add stock and bring to a simmer.
Add collard greens and cook at a healthy simmer until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove greens to a bowl using a slotted spoon. Heat cooking liquid and boil until reduced to about 1/4 cup. Taste and adjust seasonings. (You may want to add a little more honey or vinegar.) Add butter, stirring constantly until it melts. Return greens to pan and toss to coat.
Yield: 6 servings.
SMOKED PORK STOCK
2 pounds hamhocks or a 2-pound piece of Smithfield ham or other cured country ham.
Rinse the hamhocks or ham, and set in a large stockpot. Add 1 gallon of water. Cook, covered, at a full simmer for at least 2 hours, or until stock develops a strong flavor. Strain and discard the meat. (Or use the meat to make ham salad or to flavor soups or beans.)
Cool stock completely and skim off all the fat. (Hamhocks will produce more fat.) Stock may be refrigerated for up to a week or frozen for six months.
Yield: About 9 cups.
BACON-BRAISED MUSTARD GREENS
(Adapted from Donald Link, Herbsaint Restaurant)
2 or 3 bunches of mustard greens (about 3 3/4 pounds total; 16 cups trimmed)
8 ounces thickly sliced lean slab bacon, diced
1 large onion, diced (2 cups)
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon hot red-pepper flakes
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup apple-cider vinegar
1/2 cup chicken stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
Rinse greens well. Cut out stems and thick veins; tear leaves into 4- or 5-inch pieces.
Cook bacon in a large saute pan until fat starts to render and bacon begins to brown. Add onion, garlic and pepper flakes and saute until onion is soft, about 7 minutes. Add sugar, vinegar and chicken stock. Heat to boiling, add greens and cook slowly, stirring often as the greens begin to release their own liquid.
Reduce heat and simmer greens until tender, 10 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings.
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