Streaming Live from Wines Down South!

Welcome to our first broadcast of webcasts from Wines Down South. Our very own Sheila Brewington had a chance to sit down for a quick interview with Abby Jackson from Blackhawk Fly Fishing at the North Atlanta Trade Show's Great Southern Fishing Show this weekend!!

Watch live streaming video from winesdownsouth at livestream.com

Queen of Southern Cuisine

Paula Deen Opens Restaurant At Harrah’s Cherokee

By Doc Lawrence

     CHEROKEE, NC—No rightminded Southern boy would turn down an invitation to be with Paula Deen. I left the snow and ice of Atlanta, headed to the Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina, entering the ancient land of the Cherokee to join an auspicious celebration, a ribbon cutting ceremony for the historymaking opening of Paula Deen’s Kitchen in the $630 million Harrah’s Cherokee expansion. There was some icing on the cake: I was able to dine there and even appear onstage with her.

     After an earlier event with the ebullient Paula last summer in Atlanta, I began to believe that she and country music star Dolly Parton were meant to be sisters. Both have a magnetic stage presence, audiences connect with them immediately and they are talented daughters of the South who embrace their heritage. Their naturalness, easygoing manner, good-natured humor, songs and food bring joy to the masses. What you see, hear or eat is precisely what you get.

     The ceremonies began with Michell Hicks, the eloquent principal chief of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation joining Ms. Dean in a press conference welcome with his overview of the Harrah’s expansion and the opening of what already is one of the most popular restaurants this side of Nashville and Atlanta. “We believe in risks,” said Chief Hicks, “and our belief in where we wanted to go is right here with us today.”

THE YOUNG MAN FROM ATLANTA

HORTON FOOTE’S MASTERPIECE

 By Doc Lawrence

I was riveted to my seat. It was much more than another meaningful play; it was my home in Decatur, Georgia during my adolescence. My parents, our occasional domestic help, our religious practices and within a short time, the death of my brother and the crumbling of my parent’s marriage. Even today, I look away from mirrors in the morning, preferring to avoid the pain of seeking answers. Horton Foote’s masterpiece garnered a Pulitzer, but it is more than an acclaimed drama. A revelation would be more appropriate. It runs through February at Theatrical Outfit at Atlanta’s Balzer Theatre. There will be no finer production of a wonderfully told story anytime soon. Tom Key, who heads Theatrical Outfit and shines as Will Kidder in the play, offers this insight you will find stimulating.

What is the measure of a great play?  Is it commercial success, critical raves, winning a Tony or Pulitzer?  As powerful as those standards appear when achieved, one is sobered to read the long lists of award-winning “hits,” of which only a comparative few are actually familiar.

My own measure of a great play occurred on my first visit to London.  As I crossed the River Thames on the Waterloo Bridge toward The National Theatre, I saw an enormous marquee displaying the programming of the day:  Hamlet by William Shakespeare that afternoon and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams that evening.

I was struck with how amazed either playwright might have been to realize that years after their lifetimes, their scripts were still being produced and thousands were seeing their works.  Such longevity and relevance over the course of time and place surely is a mark of greatness.

Even though many of those National Theatre ticket buyers that day knew Hamlet would die by the end of the play and that The Gentleman Caller would not be a good date for Laura, still they came, with the trust that the story would move them.