Small Town America

Small Town America

This past summer, I decided to pull up stakes in Portland and move closer to my chosen field in the wine industry. I found a very affordable house within a mile of historic downtown McMinnville. It wasn't just the commute that was pulling me away from Portland. Somehow the Hipster Disneyland of the U.S. had lost its appeal, or maybe I just wasn't cool enough. I was frustrated by the quagmire of traffic, compounded by the bad manners of cyclists, but also by a slow disintegration of the city's soul. Having moved to Portland in 2008, I'm sure I was part of this slide; regardless, it felt like a good time to move.

I also found it interesting that a friend moved back south to Athens, Georgia, and another acquaintance moved back east, outside of Burlington, VT.  Two years prior, a friend moved to Telluride, Colorado. There was also a move to London and Lausanne, Switzerland, but those are outliers in this discussion. It seems to me there's a trend to move to small town America. The children of Suburban America, who grew up in strip malls and sprawl, we yearned for a sense of place, an ease of public transportation and food that was made with intention. But once we got there, we we missed the affordability of a home with a porch and with neighbors and friends close by. Where we didn't have to wait 2 hours for Sunday brunch or snarled in traffic to get to your friends' houses that lived on the outside of the other side of town. We wanted both. The answer is in small town America.

After retuning from the holidays in the South, where I visited Charleston, Atlanta and Athens, I found  a kinship between the large cities and small towns of the South and the Pacific Northwest. An argument could certainly be made for small towns outside of those two regions, but I have no authority to speak to those.

McMinnville, Oregon, naturally enough, was named for McMinnville, Tennessee (population 13,620)Linfield College. I am lucky enough to live close by and enjoy the lovely campus, which hosts our wine industry's annual International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC).

Linfield College's IPNC

by William T. Newby after his hometown in the South. He also later donated the land for the local institution of learning, McMinnville College, which was later named

McMinnville, Tennessee: McMinnville, like many smaller American cities and towns, has gone through a revitalization of its downtown area. "Main Street McMinnville" serves as the city's non-profit revitalization organization funded by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Tennessee's own Main Street Program.^{[10] (Wikipedia)}

McMinnville, Oregon: In the days of strip malls and big box stores, there is a place within the heart of Oregon wine country where the 1800s meets the 21st Century. While in communities around Oregon historic downtowns are struggling, along East 3rd Street in McMinnville, the downtown isn’t just surviving, but flourishing. (Oregon.Com)

Community Plate's Lavender Latte

As I was driving to Athens, GA, from Atlanta, I was struck by the similarities of the drive from Portland to McMinnville. The miles of sprawl outside the city, the traffic signals becoming slightly farther apart until they disappear altogether. Then there's just farmland and forests and the feeling that life is slowing down and becoming somehow easier. Now Athens is a college town and McMinnville is more like a wine town, an infant Napa or Sonoma. But they both have great downtowns with good food, drinks, shopping and an ease of walkability. The brick architecture and the craftsman, bungalow style homes echo each other. I enjoy good craft beer, breakfast, coffee, cocktails, food in both places. Athens takes a point for best breakfast and McMinnville takes a point for best coffee and wine lists. The Pacific Northwest has outstanding breakfasts, but it just can't beat the South. No grits? No fluffy biscuit? No cigar. If we could just combine the power of The Community Plate's Lavender Latte in McMinnville and the allure of the biscuit and Bird's Nest of Big City Bread. 

BIRD’S NEST 4.00
FRIED EGG IN SLICE OF SOURDOUGH TOAST WITH FRESH HERBS & GRUYERE CHEESE 

Big City Bread's Bird's Nest

As I was looking for information on the McMinnville's, I came across this Parade Magazine contest for best Main Streets in America. The winner was in Tennessee, the runner up was McMinnville, Oregon. You can't make that up! Even Parade Magazine sees a correlation between small towns in the south and in the Pacific Northwest. Congratulations to winner Collierville, TN, located outside of Memphis and my new hometown Finalist, located 35 miles south of Portland. 

My next correlation comes from McMinnville's annual UFO festival. It's the second largest one, falling behind Roswell, NM. 

The festival began as a way to honor the famous 1950 Trent sighting in which two local citizens witnessed and photographed a UFO, said to be some of the most credible images of UFOs to date.

Here's the complete history of the UFO sighting, but basically a woman went out to feed the chickens and saw a flying saucer. She ran back to the house, yelling for her husband to get a camera. Now, we Southerners know about the stereotypical perception Yankees have about us with regards to aliens. Nothing supports this more than this absurdly hilarious Yahoo! questions comment:

Anyone notice the uneducated south are the only ones who see UFOs?
I was reading about yet another UFO sighting in the south. Us in the north LOVE these stories because it blatantly points out the education difference between the north and south. One guy was quoted as saying: "You hear about big bass or big buck in the area, but this is a different deal" That's HILARIOUS! All they know is huntin' an' fishin'. It's amazing how backwards and uneducated they are! Agree or disagree? 

I strongly urge you to go the link and see how and who agreed or disagreed. But my point has been made. I think I searched Google for "aliens South believe" and that link came up in the top 5. Folks out here in small town, rural Oregon are pretty darn into huntin' and fishin' and spotting them UFOs too. I can't wait for my first UFO days in McMinnville this summer! And I guess I'll fit right in.

Go Dawgs! Georgia fans in Oregon

We find each other everywhere! This note was found on my car in the Ikea parking lot during the 2015 Labor Day Weekend rush. Shortly after, I was immersed in the intense and frenetic world of the grape harvest in Dundee, Oregon. I was unable to listen to or watch the Georgia Football games. I was there in spirit and would check my Yahoo Sports app on a regular basis for updates. I was quite sad to hear about Nick Chub's injury and to see the Dawgs drop out of the top 25. Also sad about the fallout with Mark Richt. I thought he was a great coach.

I also received a random email about my blog post in watching Georgia football at the Brooklyn Park pub, but I was so busy that I don't think I ever responded. I'm glad that the word got out though! Go Dawgs!

Life's a...Coast?

Native Southern Idea of Beach

Recently I've come across quite a few quizzes on Facebook and such about "Which Beach Town Should You Move To?" These quizzes are a bit silly, but they also reveal something about our nation's preconceptions, simplifications and regional predilections. I, who live on the West Coast, took the quiz and my results said I should live in Wrightsville Beach, NC. My mom, who lives in Coastal South Carolina, and has always said that the beach was on the wrong side on the West Coast, got Carpentaria, California. I highly encourage you to Which Coast town should you live in? yourself and see if you agree with your results. 

I've just gotten back from a weekend camping at Beverly Beach State Park, and I'm also watching all the updates from my Southern friends playing at their respective beaches. Virtues about but they're mutually exclusive.

As a Southerner, I have to talk about this Beach vs. Coast terminology. And not just that, but the behavior that goes along with those terms. They are not exchangeable. The Pacific Northwest and the Southeastern interchange between land and ocean are so dramatically, drastically different. We cannot apply the same mores to each one. Indeed, we need to acknowledge them for the delightful and attractive attributes each can lay claim to. PNW it's the coast; SE it's the beach. 

Water Temperature

The Pacific is cold. One only gets in the water when one has on a wet suit. Little children, oblivious

Yeah, that's cold. It's August. 

to irrationally cold temperatures will delight in the tide pools. Their sweet mamas and papas will wrap them up in a warm blanket before too long. 

In the summer months, the Atlantic is bathtub warm. It's so darn hot, that that bathtub temperature alleviates the hotness of the air. It's wet, and one can dive beneath the surface or splash oneself on a float whilst drinking a cool libation. In a coozie. In fact, staying in the water from shortly after breakfast all the way until sundown is more or less the sign of a well tempered day. There may be a break for lunch, but not necessarily. 

Inland Ambient Coastal Temperature

My family lives on a tidal river in South Carolina. It's hot in the summer, and one can go down to the dock and just lay in a raft in the river all day. But when we really want to cool off, we take a trip to the beach. We plan week long stays at the beach. Growing up in Atlanta, going to school in Winston-Salem and Athens, living in Charlotte—what did we do in the summer when it was hot? Go to the beach. Where it was only slightly cooler. The first beach houses I remember staying at on Edisto Beach did not have air conditioning. We packed big window box fans in the car and put them in the windows at night. I can still remember the sound of rustling palm tree branches and the whirr of the fan. Somniferous. We were sunburnt and kicked the top sheet off, exhausted from the day's exertions we slept. 

Honestly, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to wrap my head around. It's just so contradictory for me. I drove from Carlton, Oregon, (in the confines of the Willamette Valley) to Lincoln City—about an hour and half a way. The temperature dropped by 40 degrees. No kidding. I was cold. I had to put on long pants and ... no, I had to put on almost all the clothing I packed with me. It was 55 degrees and I bought two bundles of firewood. I went out on the beach to watch the sunset, and I had to leave fairly quickly as the golden orb approached the horizon. I've worn the same manner of clothing in February at the beach as in August. Does not compute in my Southern brain. This is a COAST not a BEACH.

Coastal versus Beach Activities

That's some beauty (with sweaters in August)

Maybe it's my Southern superiority coming over me. I don't know. I want an Oregonian to explain this to me. Why, when it's 63 degrees and party cloudy, pretty much misty, are children, teenagers, grown adults wearing bikinis and bathing suits, playing frisbee, in general gallivanting as if it's warm and they're not uncomfortable? You don't need sunscreen! There's a layer of coastal fog hanging over the coast that's impenetrable. Bathing suits should be banned from the Oregon Coast. They don't belong. You can't get a tan and you're not bathing. Period. 

Beach combing is an activity that I condone for both coasts. In the South we find fossilized bones, shark's teeth and lovely shells. In the Pacific Northwest, we find gorgeous stones, drift wood and sedimentary fossils washed down from the cliffs. 

PNW has the unsurpassed awe inspiring beauty of the Pacific Ocean. The ability to build and enjoy a fire in humidity-free peace also endears me to the left coast. However, I will continue to have my feathers ruffled when folks out here say they're going to the beach. No. You're going to the coast. (Northerners can have their own opinions of The Shore—whatever that means). Maybe I'm just feeling a little homesick. I'd sure like to be sitting in a lounge chair, smelling of sunscreen, drinking a coldie and reading a good book. At any moment I'll rise up, stride to the surf, lounge back in the salt water and feel buoyed up by the salty embrace of the Atlantic Ocean. 

That's a salty, loving embrace at Edisto Beach, SC. My Grandparents are awesome! 

Southern AND Sustainable?!

I first heard of Dan Barber's book The Third Plate on NPR the other day. The fact that Southern food was singled out as the only truly sustainable American way of farming and eating was exciting. No, not the Foodtopia and epicenter of sustainable everything in the Pacific Northwest. Yes, The South. I have yet to see Hoppin' John on a menu west of the Mississippi.

In the American South, it was beans, collards and some ham. "In a dish, you had everything that supported that ecology," he says.

i

A view of Dan Barber's Stone Barns Center field and barns in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.

Nicole Franzen/Courtesy of Blue Hill Farm

But American tradition has fallen out of touch with the land. "There's no cuisine you can point to that has a 12-ounce center cut protein for dinner. ... That is an American phenomenon," Barber says

From an article in The Atlantic, I read Dan Barber's explanation of how farm-to-table practices in America aren't enough to be truly sustainable. The only place within the United States that has actually had a cuisine that fit the ecology of place was in the South.

That meat-centric plate is a great disservice to our soil, and to our ecology. It’s also a disservice to the rest of the world—because we’re exporting that model in a way that, in the truest sense of the word, is unsustainable. But we can find an alternative—what I came to call the Third Plate.

You find that in Southern cuisine, too. Hoppin’ John—a quintessential southern dish—is rice, but it’s also cowpeas. That leguminous crop was so important in the south, because it allowed the southerners to preserve their soil well enough to get them rice. Then, they mixed in collard greens, because collards helped desalinate the soil. (And some bacon, because pigs were also part of the agriculture.)

Last weekend I read a review of the book in the WSJ in Eugenia Bone's article "The Future of American Eating." Of course, it being a newspaper based in New York (damn Yankees), it doesn't mention this Southern connection. But what he does mention relates to my life in wine country. In the first of four sections in the book, "Soil"

Explores how some farming practices deplete the soil of nutrients by killing microbes and how others build healthy soil by feeding microbes. He compares industrial versus organic approaches to weed control and explains the role of grazing animals in soil health. 'How soil is managed,' writes Mr. Barber, 'and how a farmer negotiates weeds and pests, is the single best predictor of how food will taste.'

I've recently started a new job at Omero Cellar's in Carlton, Oregon, and I interviewed our new winemaker, Mr. Chad Stock about his winemaking philosophy in order to write a press release. What he said deeply related to what Mr. Barber is saying.

Stock explains that transparent winemaking, “allows wines to speak for themselves in a pure and true fashion. Pinot noir is all about nuance and it’s extremely adept at showing the subtleties of place.  Personal style preferences and winemaking additives blur the natural expression of the vineyard.“

Organic, and more importantly, biodynamic principles are important to Stock and the trajectory of Omero wines. He clarifies the joint importance of farming organically and implementing biodynamic principles in the vineyard and winery: “A vineyard is above and below the earth, so we want to farm the soil. We seek to show the significance in soil types and express the soil differences in the Willamette Valley. I’ll show you what your vineyard tastes like.”

By working without additives, using organic and biodynamic principles, Stock and Omero seek to create wines with distinctive character, authenticity and aromatic complexity.

While I am relatively new to the biodynamic farming and winemaking philosophy, I'm really eager to learn more. Like the John Muir quote that originally inspired Barber,  I find that everything is connected, from ideas to dirt:

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Drinking Like Our Founding Fathers

I'm a little behind the times in documenting yet another cross over between my Southern roots and my Pacific Northwest presence in wine country. Turns out Southerners, including our Founding Fathers, liked vintages such as Sherry and Madeira.

At a recent blind wine tasting, Madeira was on the menu. I brought my trust copy of Garden & Gun from October-November 2013. This edition included the article, "Southern Vintage: Making the case for Madeira, Dixie's original drink" by Jonathan Miles. 

Just the introduction sucks a good Southerner in:

Not until distillers in Kentucky and Tennessee perfected the process did the link between the South and whiskey—especially bourbon—take hold. No, the South's original drink—the first beverage that pro to-Southerners embraced as their own, and the first to become associated with the region—was a wine (yeah, a wine) that you may never have tasted (but should, immediately): Madeira.

The qualifying parentheses and italics is spot on. I can just hear Southern family and friends clamoring the absurdity of claiming that a wine is a Southern drink.  Just another reason I love this magazine. It urges you to read on and be convinced or repulsed.

Unlike, say, red table wine, Madeira tastes refreshing in the tropical heat, and doesn't suffer from sweltering storage. Mitchell credits the wine's high levels of acidity and sugar for that refreshing quality, which might also explain its affinity to the Southern palate—acidity and sugar, of course being the defining characteristics of the later blockbuster Southern drink, cola.

But we all know Mr. Miles is referring to Coca-Cola. According to Bufford Calloway, that's Sweet Dixie Champagne.

Back in February at the wine tasting I attended, we tasted seven different Madeiras, including two of the three mentioned in the G&G article. Not surprisingly, we missed the $150 bottle suggested from 1971. Even with the wholesale price tag, that's too spendy for a weekly meeting. The Broadbent 10-Year Malmsey and Historic Series Savannah Verdelho were all around favorites, however. Good suggestions G&G! Not only that, but I may have upped your readership in the Pacific Northwest.