"MY AUNT LINDA used to tell me, 'Nobody has to make a basket. It's a want, and if you want to make it, you're going to have to make it right.' I was 5 or 6 years old, but I was determined. I wanted it bad," laughs Andrea "Annie" CayetanoJefferson, a sixth-generation Gullah sweetgrass artist who lives in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
Basket weaving is one of the oldest African art forms still practiced in the United States, says Cayetano-Jefferson, and it can be traced back to enslaved people. "Because of our ancestors' knowledge of rice harvesting, they already knew how to make baskets when they came here, so they just used materials similar to what they'd found in Africa's rice-growing regions," she says. In coastal South Carolina, that meant using a combination of bulrush and split oak. Bulrush (which is pulled from the marsh) still makes up the vessels today, along with sweetgrass, palmetto fronds, and longleaf pine needles.
This story is from the June - July 2024 edition of Southern Living.
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This story is from the June - July 2024 edition of Southern Living.
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When Jay Mallinckrodt pitched the idea of crafting cast-iron cookware to his wife and business partner, Heather, in 2020, she was hesitant. I immediately said no, she recalls with a laugh. But I finally agreed as long as we made something that we would actually want to use ourselves. Like many others during the initial throes of the pandemic, their multigenerational family operation, Heartland Enterprises (which specializes in machining parts for jet engines and gas and oil equipment), was seeing a lull. “No one was flying; no one was drilling, says Jay. So we had time to try something different.
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Oktober Feast!
While I respect your right to serve spooky food in October, you won't find any gory grub at my house this month. Instead, I'm hosting a gathering that's inspired by biergartens across the pond. The focus of the menu is a fondue made with Gruyère cheese and crisp Riesling-like beer-cheese dip but more elevated. It's served with a smorgasbord of dippers such as smoked sausage, grapes, apples, and a few amped-up store-bought snacks, like Mustard-Glazed Pretzel Bites and Smoked Paprika Potato Chips. (Just one taste, and you'll want to add this spice to every bag you open.) Pour yourself a Cider Shandy, and get ready for a good time. Prost, y'all!
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