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Archive for October, 2009

Coffee Tree offers a sweet taste of home

Posted in Eats, Huntsville, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2009| 4 Comments »

Last week, I wanted beignets. More than that, I wanted to sit at the Cafe Du Monde with friends at 1 a.m., drinking coffee and chicory and listening to street musicians. I wanted to try to convince my husband that I really did need a tattoo, and have him remind me that I only say that after I’ve had too many hurricanes. (For better or worse, BTW, too much alcohol for me involves not that much alcohol at all.)

I spent approximately 25 years of my life within a couple of hours of New Orleans. Now the Crescent City is an entire day’s drive away, so spur-of-the-moment trips just aren’t happening anymore.

But I did find beignets. A Huntsville friend was kind enough to introduce me to the Coffee Tree Books & Brew, located at 7900 Bailey Cove Road. Every Saturday morning, they serve beignets until they run out – and they DO run out. And I’m talking authentic beignets, perfect in size and shape and coated in about three times as much powdered sugar as necessary.

Honestly, I had worried that I was dragging my husband out of the house before noon on a Saturday for a big plate of disappointment. Right after we moved up here almost three years ago, a seafood chain claimed to be serving real New Orleans-style beignets. And they may have been delicious if they hadn’t been coated with caramel-flavored syrup.

Powdered sugar AND syrup? That’s IHOP, not dessert.

The Coffee Tree did not disappoint, however. As a bonus, my friend knew the proprietors and had told them we were coming in just for the beignets, so they were extra eager to see how we liked them. That said, they seemed eager to be sure that ALL their customers were happy.

The used bookstore attached to the cafe area is lagniappe.

No chicory, no street musicians, but I persevered.

Good coffee, good conversation, and good beignets – really, other than that elusive tattoo, what more could a girl want?

UPDATE: I’m told that there IS chicory available if you ask. This just gets better and better

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The Tiles that Bind

Posted in Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2009| 5 Comments »

I’ve toured a couple dozen brand new bathrooms over the past couple of weeks. The Huntsville/Madison County Builders Association’s Parade of Homes gives renovating rubberneckers carte blanche to take a look at the latest and greatest in home design and decor, without that awkward “We’re not really looking to buy a house” moment that invariably occurs during the average Sunday open house.

I currently have a deconstructed master bathroom awaiting further action, so I need inspiration. If only beige inspired me, I’d be in business.

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The color: Every Bathroom in Town Beige. Nice tiles, and excellent installation, but so incredibly beige.

There seems to be an “offend no one” movement in the home decor business, with beige being the No. 1 non-offending element. I’ve never purchased a brand new house, so I’ve never had the opportunity to turn up my nose at walls that are just the wrong hue of olive, or kitchen cabinets that are too shiny. With any house over, say, 10 years old, you’re pretty sure you’re going to be redecorating anyway.

Which brings me to the tile dilemma.

I like color. Lots and lots of color. Tile is reasonably permanent – it’s not like paint, which can and should be changed on a whim. So I stand the chance of picking out something that will offend the delicate sensibilities of some beige-loving potential buyer down the road.

But in the end, how much of my decor should be dictated by some imaginary future buyer, especially when I have no idea how long I’ll be living in this house? Do I have to live with beige because it’ll make it easy to sell the house in three years? Five? Ten?

I’m looking at glass tiles now. They shimmer in the light, and the color spectrum is endless. I found two bathrooms on the tour that featured some fantastic examples of glass tile use.

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Still working the beige tiles, but a glass-tile design in the middle really gives it some flair.

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These blue circular tiles are more vibrant than they appear in this photograph.

There are plumbing and window-installation problems to be solved before I have to worry about the final tile decision, so I have plenty of time to stew over it. It’s going to be one heck of a shower when it’s all done, whatever the final color scheme turns out to be.

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Memories that don’t go up in smoke

Posted in Family, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 13, 2009| 4 Comments »

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A co-worker complimented me on my paperclip holder this morning.

It’s an ashtray.

My grandmother (father’s side) LOVED to smoke. She loved it like some people love their pets. It was her hobby.

When we were children, my brother and I would argue over who got to flick the Bic to light her Chesterfields, secondhand smoke be damned.

After her diagnosis of lung cancer/heart disease, she halfheartedly tried to quit. I remember looking outside one Thanksgiving and noticing smoke drifting up from the open driver-side door of her K-car. She may have sort of tried to take her doctor’s advice to quit, but she wasn’t taking any orders off of anybody.

After she died, I found secret stashes of Chesterfields all over her house, in handbags, dresser drawers and cabinets. They seemed like dirty secrets, and finding them made me wish that everybody had just shut up and let the woman smoke after her condition was diagnosed as terminal. Instead, she seems to have spent her last couple of years sneaking cigarettes only when she could get all the caretakers out of the house.

This is only one of the entirely awesome collection of ashtrays that I inherited from her. Most are very evocative of the ’60s and ’70s, and there’s not a plain one among them. Like her, they’re colorful and weird, and they don’t really go with anything.

She died in the fall when I was a college freshman. Every year about this time I realize that I’m becoming more like her as I get older (sans the smoking and multiple divorces), and we could have some great conversations if she was still around. We could have spent the last 20 years taking those crazy guided bus tours that she liked, smoking our way around the continent.

She would have been a blast on a cruise ship.

Instead, I’ve got the grooviest ashtrays you’ve ever seen. They may never see another cigarette, but they’re great reminders of a majestically weird lady that I wish had been around longer.

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As Pictured Below: Our House

Posted in As Pictured Below, Cats, Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 12, 2009| 1 Comment »

plumbingIt’s just not proper homeownership without holes in the floor and exposed plumbing.

Like zombies, renovation projects take on a life of their own.

Window leak + crappy bathtub = tear out the tub to fix leak. We were going to replace it anyway.

Ah, but the floor tiles should go down first to line up properly with the base of the new supershower. And if we’re picking out tile for the floor AND the shower, shouldn’t we be thinking about what the new countertop is going to be made of? And if we’re getting new countertops, we’ll have to have the cabinets refinished.

What? We’re not sure we have cabinet refinishing in the budget anymore?

HGTV, you magnificent bastard. We’re going to have a proper chat one day.

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As Pictured Below: View from the Top

Posted in As Pictured Below, Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 5, 2009| 3 Comments »

bricks

So what the real estate agent doesn’t point out when you’re buying a two-story house is the blatantly obvious: The second story is awfully far from the ground. Far as in go buy a 32-foot ladder far.

Luckily, the husband and I aren’t afraid of heights (these kind of heights, anyway), so we were able to caulk a leaky bathroom window this weekend. Tragically, it doesn’t seem to have been the leak we were looking for. To find that one, it looks like we’ll have to remove the bathtub from the master bath a few months earlier than planned.

The American Dream: It involves more drywall dust, cursing and soldering than you think.

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As Pictured Below: Danger Ducks

Posted in As Pictured Below, Huntsville, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , on October 1, 2009| 3 Comments »

ducks

To take a walk around Lady Ann Lake, I often have to make my way past the Guardian Ducks of the North Side.

The scary, scary Guardian Ducks of the North Side who are not content to eat bread tossed on the ground, but have to take it directly from your hand.

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