Kerry Crawford says the founder/curator of Holly Springs’ Graceland, Too needs some help.
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Month: November 2013
What do you get when you cross a new mom with a knack for baking, who is seeking a creative outlet outside of her growing family?
You get cookies … and you get ideas.
“Baking kind of takes me to a happy place,” says Ebony Clark, who was pondering what to do while on maternity leave once she gave birth to her second child in 2011. She began researching a few recipes online and experimenting with flavors, and arrived at a few prototypes, including what would become her signature milk chocolate and white chocolate Tuxedo cookie.
She began offering her cookies to friends at game nights at her home, and word got out that Eb’s Cookies were pretty good – good enough that she started taking orders from within her circle. Around Father’s Day of that same year, Clark, who had worked as an accountant, decided to market herself as a business and created cookie baskets as gifts. “I got several orders, which I thought was pretty good for my first time in the business,” she remembers.
Things have only grown from there, and now cookie connoisseurs from all over the country can place an online order starting at a $10 half-dozen or $20 dozen of cookies, which she bakes out of her home in Cordova.
Flavors range from classic oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, and snickerdoodle to her specialty Sweet Potato Cookie that has a pecan crumble on top.If you order in town, she can even ensure a personal delivery if one so chooses.
Clark might be new to the baking world, but her cookies, boldly touted on Eb’s website as the “best cookies ever,” are not for amateurs.
“Even McDonalds and Subway have decent cookies – but my cookies are created with a lot of care – these aren’t just your average cookies for kids,” she says.
As far as longevity, Clark feels that she on the right track. She’s holding a pop-up event the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and is looking at opening up a stand-alone store by the middle of next year.
Her family assists with packaging and sales, and her 4- and 2-year-old girls are always offering to stir. “I have dreams of my daughters being cookie heirs one day,” she says.
Clark will hold a pop-up shop on Sunday, November 24th from 2 to 5 p.m., at 6373 Quail Hollow Rd Ste 102.
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Memphis Pounds Austin Peay, 95-69
Frank Murtaugh likes what he saw in the Memphis Tigers’ opening game against Austin Peay, Thursday.
- Larry Kuzniewski
- Ed Davis terminates a Tyler Hansbrough dunk with extreme prejudice. The Grizzlies are going to need more of this out of him.
The Grizzlies are going away for a while, and hopefully while they’re off on the West Coast trying to figure themselves out, they can manage to win a basketball game or two.
Honestly, at this point, sitting 3-5 after getting drilled by the Pacers in Indiana and the Toronto Raptors—returning Rudy Gay and all—at FedExForum on Wednesday night, is better than they deserve to be. There have been a lot of games that haven’t been very close, and there have been a lot of people booing the Grizzlies as they wrap up another 3rd quarter trailing by 20 (and, honestly, one can see their point), and a lot of crowds streaming out of FedExForum early because the Grizzlies are down big and not going to mount a comeback. The team, meanwhile, has looked good in one game (the win over Golden State) and bad in every other one, whether it’s the starting five wandering around listlessly, out of position, bricking jumpers, or it’s the all-bench lineups we’ve seen a little too much of, running down the court and passing the ball to a season ticket holder in the third row. They toughed out an overtime win over the Detroit Pistons, they managed to beat the Boston Celtics after trailing, and they came out, played an 8-man playoff rotation, and put the screws to the Golden State Warriors, who were on a SEGABABA and who are also just plain old bad at beating the Grizzlies because of matchups.
That’s a really long paragraph that actually doesn’t say much. Truth is, I have no idea why the Grizzlies are playing so poorly, and neither does anyone else, not really. Sure, you can point to specific things—turnovers—and specific players—Marc Gasol—and you can say it’s the fault of the coach—and he’s certainly not blameless—or the fault of the front office, who messed with the formula for the Grizzlies’ success by replacing Lionel Hollins with Dave Joerger. But not of those, in isolation, is the problem.
And so here we are. Watching a 3-5 basketball team that can’t hang on to the ball and doesn’t look much like they care, with a coach who thinks he can play a 12-man rotation, in a town full of people who just want to know why it can’t be the way it was.
[jump]
Nothing can ever be the way it was. Heraclitus said that, not me. Do I think there’s a segment of Grizzlies “fans” who are a little excited by the Grizzlies’ struggles, because they thought the front office was stupid for getting rid of Hollins? Yep. Are those people going to be able to fix this now, and does their Internet outrage make anything any different? Nope.
This is the team we have now, and this is the coach we have now, and the window on this team is closing, and closing quickly. You could make the argument that the time for this group of Grizzlies to win a championship has already passed, and you wouldn’t be crazy. I don’t agree with you, but it’s a sound argument. At any rate, that’s what they need to realize, and why they need to be playing hard. Because this might be the last shot they get. Tony Allen, Zach Randolph, Tayshaun Prince, and Mike Miller are not going to get younger. They’re in a position to contend right now. Marc Gasol is in the prime of his career—a prime that he will never get back. Mike Conley is still improving, but he will never get this season back. These Grizzlies are wasting time out of their short lives and shorter careers, jacking up jumpers and failing to rotate on defense and then sitting around in the locker room complaining about how they don’t know what’s wrong like they didn’t just sit out there and watch themselves get seal-clubbed by a crappy Eastern Conference team.
Obviously Dave Joerger is not innocent in all of this. The lineups and rotations haven’t made any sense yet. You can’t go through an NBA season with an 8-man playoff rotation, but you also can’t just keep throwing guys off the bench into lineups that haven’t ever played together before when you’re down because you’re “looking for a spark.” Be more intentional about substitutions. Find the guys who are going to play hard and play well and play them. Just because there are 12 guys on the team who can play minutes doesn’t mean all 12 of them should play minutes.
I don’t know what the problem is here, behind closed doors. I don’t know whether it’s a trust issue among the players on defense—that’s what Tony Allen said it was after Wednesday night’s loss—or if the team doesn’t buy into what the coach is doing—that’s what several media members were saying after Wednesday night’s loss—or if all of the Grizzlies’ veteran players simultaneously got too old at the same time—which has been floating around the NBA blogosphere for a little while now. It’s probably a little bit of all of those things.
- Larry Kuzniewski
- The Grizzlies are still waiting for Marc Gasol to return to his normal winning ways.
What I fear is a lost season. I’m not panicking yet, and I’m not ready to say pull the plug on this season and retool for next year, but I’m starting to study the maps for how to get there. Bring on the chaos, the change, the churn. Anything is better than watching the Grit And Grind Grizzlies go out and get their heads beaten in by bad basketball teams. I’d rather sit there and be like Philadelphia and watch Tony Wroten (gee, remember him?) rack up triple doubles on a team designed to lose as many games as possible than watch the Marc Gasol/Mike Conley pick and roll get beaten by 20 by Rudy Gay and DeMar DeRozan, who are like J.R. Smith without the field goal percentage or the MDMA usage. We’re not there yet, but don’t kid yourself: that is one of the possible outcomes here.
Which brings me to the road trip that starts tomorrow. I’m not looking for the Grizzlies to go 4-0 or 3-1 on this road trip that takes them through four games in six nights (that’s a FOGASINI, for those of you playing along at home) at the Lakers, Kings, Clippers, and Warriors. 3-1 would leave the team at 6-6 coming home, which feels like a bit much to ask at this point. I’d settle for 1-3 and a team that looks like it gives a crap about whether they win or lose basketball games, and that doesn’t get down big to a crappy team, spend a lot of energy to get caught back up, and then get blown out again (which seems to be the emergent pattern so far in the 2013-14 season).
Friday night’s game is at the L.A. Lakers, led by former Grizzly and Lionel Hollins favorite (he started in front of Tony Allen for longer than anyone but Hollins was comfortable with) Xavier Henry and former Grizzly—and what do we think of Pau now? Are we still mad at him?—Pau Gasol and a bunch of nobodies who are somehow 4-6 instead of 1-9. It’d be a great time for the Grizzlies to get back on track, and try to find some sort of an identity, but for that to happen, the groups of players on the floor are going to have to find some sort of cohesion, and they’re also going to have to be left on the floor long enough to do so. So far this season we’ve seen neither.
With any luck, the Grizzlies will win that one, that momentum will carry over into Sunday evening’s game against the Sacramento Kings, and from there it won’t much matter whether the Grizzlies beat the Clippers and Warriors before they head home so long as they look better. I’m still very much a believer in process over results this early in the season—and the Grizzlies look like they’ve yet to develop a process.
They’d better find one, quick, because you can’t step into the same river twice, and if they’re not careful, the Grizzlies are going to sink in this year’s Western Conference before they’ve ever had a chance to compete.
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Tigers 95, Austin Peay 69
Senior guard Chris Crawford pushed the basketball across midcourt, four gray-clad teammates sprinting ahead in transition after an Austin Peay turnover. Crawford delivered the ball to fellow senior Geron Johnson in the right corner. Johnson could have let fly a three-point attempt but instead swung the ball to yet another senior guard, Joe Jackson, on the wing. Jackson could have taken a long-distance shot, but chose to drive into the lane, where his shot bounced off the heel of the rim. But there to flush the rebound was freshman forward Austin Nichols. His dunk gave the Tigers an 81-50 lead and stirred a small (for Tiger basketball) crowd of 15,785.
- Larry Kuzniewski
- Geron Johnson
Each of those fans hopes the play — and the Tigers’ season-opener in general — is an indication of the abundance of options Memphis coach Josh Pastner has to call upon this season. The options will be needed, starting next Tuesday when the 13th-ranked Tigers travel to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to face the 8th-ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys.
Much has already been said and written about the Tigers’ rare quartet of senior guards, each expected to make an impression on a season of (once again) high expectations. For starters, tonight was quite a show:
• Jackson: 16 points, and 7 assists in 29 minutes.
• Johnson: 11 points, 10 rebounds, and 4 assists in 26 minutes.
• Crawford: 11 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 steals in 23 minutes.
• And making his Memphis debut, Michael Dixon: 15 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals in 24 minutes.
The guard-heavy lineup led a press that wore the visiting Governors down (22 turnovers) and created the kind of quick-strike opportunity the resulted in easy baskets like the Nichols follow-up dunk. Memphis led by 22 (51-29) at halftime and coasted over the game’s final 20 minutes.
In addition to Dixon and Nichols (6 points and 5 rebounds), two more freshmen made their college debuts tonight. Nick King came off the bench and scored 13 points in 15 minutes, while center Dominic Woodson converted a pair of baskets and grabbed three rebounds in 15 minutes. (Freshman forward Kuran Iverson served his one-game suspension for a summer-league violation of NCAA rules and will make his debut at Oklahoma State.)
Johnson was ho-hum about his first career double-double, saying “It’s good. I’m blessed. Hopefully I’ll get more. I’m glad I got 10 rebounds, but it’s about time.” He was more emphatic about his collection of teammates, and that goes beyond the senior “fab four.”
“We’re a unit,” said Johnson. “It just so happens we have four senior guards. Hopefully we’ll get better. Seniors and freshmen, we all have a lot to learn.”
Reluctant to sing their own praises, Johnson and Dixon were eager to applaud his teammate’s impact tonight in their first game together. “Michael brings leadership and intensity,” said Johnson. “He’s a versatile guard who knows the game. Did you see him out there? He was getting to the basket like [Derrick] Rose, and he’s 5’11”.”
And when asked about Johnson, Dixon was just as effusive. “He’s all over the floor,” said the Missouri transfer. “He brings so much energy to our team, deflecting passes, getting rebounds, cutting guys off. He’s one of the best I’ve ever seen at being on the defensive end, then getting to full speed on offense.”
Sophomore Shaq Goodwin (10 points, but only two rebounds and five turnovers) gave the Tigers six players in double-figures in the scoring column. Overall Memphis outrebounded the Governors 50-27. There won’t be that kind of edge next Tuesday.
But for tonight, a fast-paced win to open a long season with great expectations. “It was as fun as it looked,” said Johnson. He smiled when he said it. Briefly.
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“The Poor & Hungry” on DVD
The Poor & Hungry, the indie flick that started Craig Brewer’s rise to prominence, is now remastered and out on DVD. Greg Akers has the story.
Most days, The Parkview at Poplar and Kenilworth near Overton Park is just a cozy senior living center. But on Saturday, November 16th, the Mystic Krewe of Pegasus will transform the Parkview’s ballroom into a New Orleans Mardi Gras party.
The annual silent auction benefiting Friends for Life is themed “In Ol’ N’awlins,” and there will be plenty in the way of costumes, beads, and Cajun cuisine. The silent auction will include gift certificates, home decor, beauty products, jewelry, gift baskets, sports collectibles, and more.
Admission is $5. Bidding runs from 6 to 9 p.m. The Parkview is located at 1914 Poplar. For more information on the event, go here.
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Crosstown Project Wins $300,000
Although developers are still awaiting $15 million from the city to redevelop the Sears Crosstown building, some funds have been granted for improving the V&E Greenline and a state-of-the-art staircase inside the Crosstown building’s atrium. Bianca Phillips has more.
This Saturday, Homeless Organizing for Power and Equality (H.O.P.E.) will host their sixth “Know Your Rights” workshop at the Memphis Center for Independent Living. A program of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, H.O.P.E. is made up of people that have either formally been homeless or are currently homeless.
For the past four months, members of H.O.P.E. have been working with the Shelby County Public Defenders office and other lawyers to host a series of “Know Your Rights” workshops, in part as a response to the harassment and arrests citizens have endured for filming Memphis Police officers with their phones. H.O.P.E.’s Street Watch Initiative will have complaint forms available to document instances of police harassment and abuse, and members of the initiative will walk those in attendance through the process of filing a formal complaint against an officer.
According to a press release issued by the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, the H.O.P.E organization, The Bridge: Memphis Street Newspaper, and the Manna House have also had preliminary meetings with Colonel Russell Houston from the Memphis Police Department’s Crump Station. Those meetings have mainly focused on changing the negative relationship that exists between the homeless of Memphis and the MPD.
H.O.P.E.’s “Know Your Rights” workshop is Saturday, November 16th at the Memphis Center for Independent Living (1633 Madison Avenue) from 2:30- 4:30 p.m. For more information, call 901-300-0006.
- Justin Fox Burks
- Second Line, architectural details
Second Line, Kelly English’s much-anticipated sister restaurant to Creole-swanky Restaurant Iris is set to open later this fall.
English named the restaurant after the famous “second line” parades in New Orleans, explaining, “Basically, what we have at Second Line is a more casual, rowdy parade that’s following this more organized parade that we have [at Iris].”
Rowdy as in the andouille, crawfish, and pimento cheese fries, which appear on the “Eat These Things First” appetizer section of the menu. There, too, is a roasted beet and feta shwarma (!) and crabmeat and fresh corn hushpuppies.
Some of the names of the sandwiches in the “Poboys” section of the menu may ring a bell: We know already that Justin Fox Burks of the Chubby Vegetarian offered input for the Chubby Vegetarian Mushroom Debris, but what Chris Vernon did to inspire the Verno-braised Chicken Thighs & Swiss … ????
In “Plates,” there’s Fried Gulf shrimp as well as Mississippi Catfish Sauce Piquant.
Finally there’s the “Groceries” section, which features “Hot” Potato Salad, Fancy Ass Cole Slaw, stewed beet greens, and cheese grits.
You can check out the full “opening” menu yourself: secondlineopeningmenu.pdf