Garden & Gun December/January 2022

EDITOR’S LETTER Mountain Get-Together REVELING IN GREAT FRIENDS, FOOD, AND THE OUTDOORS DURING OUR ANNUAL GARDEN & GUN SOCIETY WEEKEND DAVID DIBENEDETTO Senior Vice President & Editor in Chief PHOTOGRAPHS BY MAGGIE BRAUCHER My kids started trying to track Santa with eighty-three days left until Christmas. I can’t say I blame them. I’m ready for a good jolt of holly jolly myself. Despite a large chunk of 2021 feeling a lot like 2020, this fall when I was putting the winter greens in the garden boxes (heavy on the collards and bok choy), the country seemed to be finally gaining a slight leg up on COVID. Not long after that, I pointed my vehicle northwest toward Cashiers, North Carolina, where along with G&G’s CEO and cofounder, Rebecca Darwin, I hosted…

Pretty Pup! And the winner is... Roger Lowe Say hello to Goose, a golden retriever from Atlanta and the overall winner of the 2021 Good Dog Photo Contest, chosen by G&Geditors. Her owner, Holland Cox, snapped the picture while vacationing on Isle of Palms, South Carolina, as the puppy had her first encounter with a ghost crab. (Happily, the standoff ended in a truce.) Thanks to all readers who took part; the nearly six thousand adorable entries made our job of picking the top dog wonderfully difficult. To see more editors’ picks and the readers’ choice winners, visit gardenandgun.com/gooddog2021.…

CONTRIBUTORS Lauren Galyean “You say bonjour to everyone in the shop. That feels very Southern to me”—Jessica B. Harris, who writes about her annual winter trip to Paris on page 140 Fredrik Brodén PHOTOGRAPHER “Swedish photography is inherently very sparse, as with most things Scandinavian,” says Fredrik Brodén, who was born in Sweden and now resides in Dallas. “That lives in me to a certain extent, even while working mostly in the United States and the South.” For both this issue’s cover and the twelfth annual Made in the South Awards (p. 87), Brodén worked his minimalist magic, accenting products with shadows and simple backgrounds. But living in Texas has also influenced the photographer, who has shot for publications including the New York Times and GQ. “I have photographed things…

LETTERS “I have never seen a more handsome animal. You should have made Calvin a centerfold” SKY’S THE LIMIT Latria Graham’s poetic descriptions of visiting a dark-sky site in North Carolina (This Land, October/November 2021) remind me of why we must preserve the sky above as well as the earth below. It is estimated that one-third of humanity cannot see the Milky Way because of light pollution—and that includes four out of five Americans. What the world needs now is more looking up and less looking down, and Graham’s article is a good start. Philip Groce Macon, Georgia The article by Russell Worth Parker on Jonathan Wilkins’s search for his authentic self (“Expanding the Field,” October/November 2021) was moving. It compels one to consider how we, too, might live more…

Social Chatter GARDENANDGUN.COM AND BEYOND WE ASKED... How many times should you chew an oyster? In our Talk of the South newsletter, readers told us how—or if—they bite into the bivalves. Zero! You down it in one sloppy gulp. Wanda W. Two. Just the right number to savor the brininess of the oyster with the silkiness of the mignonette sauce. Jim C. One light chew if slurping from the shell. Two medium chews if it’s resting atop a saltine cracker. Jere B. Half of a chew. Just enough to crack the flesh of the oyster and get the full flavor of its origin. Dennis M. As many times as you want until you hit a pearl. Joe D. The large ones from the Northwest might require three or four…

INTERVIEW Taking Care of Business SUCCESSION SCENE-STEALER J. SMITH-CAMERON MAKES ALL THE RIGHT MOVES By Allison Glock Wardrobe styling by Cat Pope for the Only Agency; hair and makeup by Liz Olivier for Exclusive ArtistsPHOTOGRAPHS BY NIGEL PARRY J. Smith-Cameron belongs to that very small cadre of actors about whom every time you see them on-screen you inevitably mutter, “Ohhh, I love her.” Now sixty-four, the Kentucky-born, South Carolina–raised performer has found herself on the receiving end of fresh, feverish appreciation thanks to her wry turn as corporate attorney Gerri Kellman on the dark-sided HBO hit Succession, back for its third season. With every smirk, purse of the lips, and swallowed sigh, the Tony-nominated stage veteran telegraphs what those of us raised in the South recognize as hallmarks of seasoned…