Southern Living January/February 2021

Jessica B. Harris NEW ORLEANS, LA Jessica B. Harris is a culinary historian and the author of 14 books, including those about the African diaspora (such as High on the Hog and Vintage Postcards from the African World) as well as the memoir My Soul Looks Back. In 2020, she received the James Beard Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Ann Taylor Pittman BIRMINGHAM, AL A Mississippi native, Ann Taylor Pittman is the author of the cookbook Everyday Whole Grains. For 20 years, she was an editor at Cooking Light magazine and is now a freelance food writer and recipe developer, combining her Southern sensibilities with a penchant for healthy eating. TOP TO BOTTOM: JOHN PINDERHUGHES; RANDY MAYOR…

FROM THE Blue Ridge Mountains to the deep blue sea, Southerners are captivated by this color. In 2014, South Carolina artist Caroline Harper was too. “I had this dream to visit Japan and learn a technique called shibori, which is like tie-dye,” says Harper, who lives in Columbia. “That landed me on a silk and indigo farm outside Tokyo. From then on, I was hooked on fabric design—mostly on indigo.” Coincidentally, the natural dyes had a long history in her adopted home state (Harper is originally from France). First introduced here in the late 1600s, indigo was once one of South Carolina’s biggest cash crops. It also relied heavily on the labor of enslaved workers. “I wanted to bring the natural back to dyeing,” says Harper, “but I also hoped to…

Closet Confidential Katrina Teeple, owner of Dallas’ Operation Organization, solves your wardrobe woes 1. Categorize Organize clothing by type and color, says Teeple. “For instance, arrange blouses from left to right, starting with white ones that are sleeveless first, then short sleeve, followed by long sleeve.” 2. Embrace Height Space might seem limited until you look up. She suggests installing either an additional rod, where you can hang purses from C hooks, or an upper shelf to hold your off-season apparel. 3. Avoid Crowds “It’s all about creating room between items,” she says. Consider using dividers. For hanging clothes, the golden rule is simple: Keep the pieces a finger’s width (or ½ inch) apart. 4. Make Them Match “The best investment for your closet is switching to coordinating hangers,” says Teeple. Wood ones are stylish and sturdy, but if…

I LEARNED ABOUT collard greens from two important women in my life, their lessons delivered decades apart. First was my paternal grandmother, who (with my grandfather) tended a 10-acre farm near Grenada, Mississippi. I realized by the time I was 5 that collards were my favorite. Unlike the pungent mustard greens and bitter turnip greens that unfurled in their garden this time of year, collards were milder and sweeter. I loved the chewiness of the cooked leaves and the heady-green fragrance that filled the kitchen as they simmered. Grandmama cooked hers for hours with a little bit of salt pork, water, salt, and pepper. She didn’t add sugar to the pot, nor vinegar, so the flavor I grew up on was pure goodness. If you wanted extra oomph, you could shake…

THIS PAST YEAR is not something we will soon forget, and I guess it should be that way. Southerners, as much as any people on earth, understand loss, conflict, ghosts. As 2020 ground painfully, even hauntingly to a close, the South—fighting itself like a bunch of cats tied up in a sack—was one of the most worrisome pandemic hot spots in America, and we were praying for this awful time to be over. As we staggered into the New Year, a vaccine offered hope, at least for our physical ills. As to the other ills, I believe we’ll go on fighting them for a long time. It’s practically our birthright here—that and kudzu. But for now, we will settle for a vaccine, a therapy. Maybe soon, all the signs that read “Curbside…