The art of the letterpress

Presses stop me. When I worked at a newspaper, on breaks I used to go down to the press room and watch the huge rolls whir through. My favorite is the sights and sounds of letterpressing – the hands-on spinning of wheels, the metal plates and the wet ink, the impressions in the paper.

In Charleston, Courtney Rowson, Amy Pastre and Virginia Gregory of Sideshow Press create pieces one by one, designed with all sorts of graphics and type – of insects, antlers, flora, dress patterns, topo maps, tool guides, and more. They’ve got a new website, and I’m so pleased that they included some of my copy:

The idea is simple – to press type into paper.   The machinery is outdated, replaced in the mid-20^th century by offset – and eventually digital – presses.  But for design purists, no other machine gives artwork and letters such a distinct tactile quality, mechanically pushing metal plates into the fibers of each sheet.  You can feel the type.

In the last decade or so, there’s been new interest in the old machines across the country, with vintage letterpress equipment put back to use by designers looking for creativity away from the computer.  In Charleston it took three women to bring one of the iron and steel contraptions to town, to figure out how to use it, ink it up, and start printing. Together they are Sideshow Press.

- Sandy Lang, December 2009

Mississippi morning

Last week in Mississippi, there was frost in Oxford two mornings in row. On a drive south and east of town, most of the fields were well-picked, with bits of cotton edging the roads where truckloads of the tufts must have rumbled past. Then there was this field, still bursting with white.

- Sandy Lang, December 2009

Farm fog

On that November Maine trip, I played with an old plastic Diana camera. Here are two favorites – of belted cows and a barn on State Route 46, and of the foggy harbor between Bucksport and Prospect. That’s the mid-1800s Fort Knox in the distance.

- Sandy Lang, December 2009

Sauerkraut and Belon

On a November drive on the Maine coast north of Portland, we stopped in at Morse’s Sauerkraut for a quart of their brined cabbage. I love the sour crunch, hot or cold. We met one of the owners and learned that the sauerkraut-making and farm had its beginnings back in 1910, and its farm store now includes a well-stocked German-Euro deli with a tiny restaurant in the back -  the  “Little German Cafe,” with specials like goulash and sauerbraten. In the deli, they had some just-sliced local pastrami from Bisson’s right down the road in Topsham… so cool, where else do you see local pastrami? We had to have some of that. Later at the cabin we’d make hot sandwiches, but in the car, we pulled out strips of the pastrami to try – simply dried beef with good saltiness, and not too peppery. It was delicious.

On that Thursday afternoon we had no particular schedule, which was pretty amazing in itself. But it was also a clear, cold Maine fall day. In the bright sunshine we drove the curving, rising two-lane road to the honor stand at the Glidden Point Oyster Sea Farm. Past farm fields and spruce woods, stood the small and tidy building – maybe 15-feet across – beside a house where several wetsuits were hanging over the porch rail near the back door. (They dive for the oysters in the Damariscotta River below.) You pick out the oysters you want and leave your cash in a wooden box. One by one, we counted out a dozen each of the icy Damariscotta singles that are known to be clean and sweet tasting (they definitely were); and of the flatter, rounder and more iodine-tasting Belon oysters. (I’ve been learning about these, the French-Euro oyster that Julia Child wrote of eating in Provence, and that was introduced in Maine waters in the 1950s.) An elder Mainer pulled in just after us. Wearing a flannel shirt and walking slowly with a cane, he made his way over to the coolers to choose three of the “jumbo” singles (big as my hand) that go for $1.50 each. He didn’t look up for talking, but as he counted his change into the cash box, I said hello and asked how he’d eat the big oysters. “I eat ‘em with a spoon,” he said, “like any other oyster.”

At the cabin the next day, we got into the sauerkraut and pastrami for an early lunch – made a Reuben version – and a few hours later, we iced down and pried open the Belons to eat on the half shell with lemon, followed by sips of Madeira. By then, the temperatures were in the mid-thirties and I had a fire going in the woodstove.

- Sandy Lang, December 2009  (images by PFE)

Oyster season is on

No, it’s not that you get a mouthful of pluff. It’s more like when you swim in a saltwater creek and can lick the saltiness from your lips. That’s the taste of our oysters, what we can pull from the Folly River now that the weather’s cooled down. Some people say they’re too much trouble, but I’m partial to the Lowcountry clusters. Every fall I can’t wait for the season to start, for the backyard fires and the oyster knives, the whole cold weather scene.

On an assignment in Georgetown, SC the other day, I stopped again at Independent Seafood. I had my camera along, shot the scene above. Back in Charleston, here’s Chaz Green at Stella Maris Seafood pulling out some local singles and clusters. And at the outdoor sink at home, some Folly River oysters, just before getting steamed for dinner.

- Sandy Lang, November 2009

Beers with the supper club starter

I’ve been back on the underground supper club beat again, and wrote a profile of jimihatt for the new “people” issue of Charleston Magazine, just out. Here’s an excerpt:

Meeting at James Island’s Zia Taqueria over tacos and beer, “jimihatt” arrives wearing camo pants and a T-shirt, his Burmese python tattoo snaking down his left arm to his wrist. “I once lived in a house with at least a dozen reptiles,” he says and then adds, “all non-venomous.”

His real name is Jimi Cooper—but the lowercase “jimihatt,” a kitchen nickname, is how he’s known to most. He’s the dinner-party-throwing, art- and music-loving, charity-supporting, conversation-starting, back-yard-hen-raising, local-produce-buying cofounder of Guerrilla Cuisine, the underground supper club that celebrates its second anniversary this month…

He’s worked in kitchens for most of his professional life, and he’s got stories. Like the night chef Sean Brock called to say David Chang (chef-owner of NYC’s Momofuku) was in town and wanted to meet “the Guerrilla Cuisine guy.” They ended up having a late night at The Griffon on Vendue Range. Years earlier, Jimi got his start in the kitchen with stints at Capt. Don’s Hot Fish Shop on Savannah Highway and the original Med Deli in South Windermere, “both back when I was a hippie kid with dreadlocks”…

You can read the complete piece here. (Image by Jonathan Stout.)

- Sandy Lang, November 2009

Pumpkin farm stop

Before he switched over to planting patches of pumpkins, squash and peas, Mr. Billy Lineberry grew long rows of tobacco. “He was a tobacco farmer, until all that ended,” his wife said, then leaned down to pick up their shivering chihuahua-feist, Spanky. It was a chilly morning, and Mr. Lineberry was several yards behind her, propping up the scarecrow on the hay bale.

The couple had come out of their tall farmhouse about 50 miles south of Chapel Hill, NC to mind the sideyard display of pumpkins and squash they were selling – gooseneck and Hercules’ Club gourds, orange pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns, and old-fashioned pie pumpkins with lighter, almost pinkish skin. Mr. Lineberry explained that they only ever meant to grow Halloween pumpkins one year, but as soon as they did, people said, “we’ll see you for our pumpkins next year.”

It was great to meet this fine couple (and Spanky), and when Mr. Lineberry saw that we admired his climbing okra plant, he sent us home with two of the long okras, so we could dry them for seeds to plant. I’ll have to report back on how they grow.

- Sandy Lang, October 2009 (images by PFE)

Green days, Campari nights

Typically I’m not much of a lush, but last weekend I got pretty well intoxicated by Greenville, South Carolina. The premise was an assignment about the city’s food scene, and we spent the better part of two days along the leafy Main Street lined with café patios.

I’ll write more soon, but for now, here are a few images by PFE… at a bar known for its Limoncello and Campari cocktails (even George Clooney has stopped in, they say), an afternoon by the Reedy River, and the line-up of Bordeaux wines at a Friday testing. (I loved that Château de Fieuzal, Pessac-Léognan 2005.)

- Sandy Lang, October 2009

A classic beauty

I just walked around my house and found old copies of Gourmet in four different rooms. We don’t throw them away. The Paris issue, one with a John T. Edge piece on barbecue, this cover shot by Martyn Thompson of a Sicilian-inspired table, and so many others. I really don’t want to face the truth that November will be the final issue in print.

Last fall I had a chance meeting and some over-sized fried chicken wings with Jane and Michael Stern when they were doing research in the South for their Roadfood columns. (Somehow we got into their stories of tattoos and motorcycles, the old New York food scene and dinners with James Beard.) The summer before, I’d assisted Peter Frank Edwards on a photography assignment for Gourmet that involved handmade tortillas and plates of chicken mole in Chapel Hill, NC.

I’ve loved having even these small connections to Gourmet. This is the magazine that makes me dream. To the contributors and everyone on staff, thank you. Your work will live on.

- Sandy Lang, October 2009

Hot wheels… mybikelaw launches

The new mybikelaw website is now online, and I had a great time being part of this launch. To develop the copy, I worked with Charleston-based lawyer Peter Wilborn, a cycling advocate and founder of mybikelaw. HOOK created the logo, and Blue Ion put together the site design.

Just before launching, mybikelaw hosted a party in the warehouse-sized space of a former furniture store on upper King Street in Charleston. Everyone rode bikes in big loops around the space that night, while Peter Frank Edwards made portraits of every cyclist. His shots became the key art on the home page. Very cool. Here’s another, with the opening copy:

Tooled for anyone who rides a bicycle, mybikelaw is dedicated to promoting and protecting the rights of cyclists in the Carolinas, and beyond.

Road cyclists. Commuters. Weekend riders. Randonneurs. Urban fixies. Student pedallers. Cycle tourists. Neighborhood cruisers. Teams. Cycle chic-sters. Triathletes. Club riders… all our wheels are round.

The bike lawyers of mybikelaw are advocates for bicycle safety, and we stand up for cyclists’ rights on the roads and in court. Like you, we ride.

- Sandy Lang, October 2009

Fall’s backyard and breakfast

Fall’s coming and the eating is fine. Last night we ate hot forkfuls of smoky orange-yolk eggs, gathered in the backyard and fried with butter and chopped basil. The grill is set under the pecan trees, and we broke pecan twigs onto the coals, then sat at the picnic table to wait and watch the fire.

This morning, something sweet. I’ve been making yogurt for a couple of years, this latest batch completely rich with whole milk and heavy cream. On the bread is the last of the raspberry jam from a Maine farm visited one rainy morning in July. I tasted the fading summer with every bite.

- Sandy Lang, September 2009 (images by PFE)

Inshow-o-rama: check it out

Since mid-summer, I’ve been collaborating on a project with Stitch Design Co., and the first pieces are now in print and online. The materials are for the 2009 InShow, the AIGA of South Carolina’s annual design awards. The website is up, and this week the printed call-for-entries was mailed to designers across the state.

We’re having a lot of fun with this project. Everything has a retro-grocery look, and the remaining pieces include an invitation to the Grocer’s Gala in November (the awards party). I’m hoping there will be dancing in the aisles.

- Sandy Lang, September 2009