All the Greens in Jackson, TN

I probably wouldn’t have decided that 2019 was the year I was going to eat all the greens in Jackson if I’d grown up in the South, but I’m an adult convert, someone who moved here twenty years ago, tried greens for the first time, and decided they were brilliant. Good greens bring flavors together in ways few other foods do; they’re salty, sweet, bitter, savory, and often smoky and meaty, and they embody the sorcery of cooking: homely plants that taste like grass clip- pings, with a mouthfeel like eating stiff construction paper, are transformed into something unctuous and satisfying and harmonious.

Striking Oil in West Tennessee

On the corner of Carriage House Drive and Wiley Parker Road sits a white building with the words “Madison Place” in big, bold letters over a series of black panel windows. I would assume that if you walked up to most anyone you know that frequents Jackson, Tennessee, and mentioned Madison Place, they’d say, “Oh yeah, that’s the place with the hair salons in it.” Well, friends, business owner Jensen Vinson wants you to know that Madison Place is not just hair salons. “Madison Olive Oil is Jackson’s best-kept secret!” she tells me, and she’s right.

A Metamorphosis of Imagination

The baby carrier weighs heavy on my forearm as I knock on the door of the Pflasterers’ century-old home. It’s Valentine’s Day, and it just so happened that the family had some free time to sit down with me to discuss their most recent creative endeavor, Mariposa Pictures. In a few short hours, we’ll switch places as the five of them trek over to my home to watch our baby while my husband and I go out for our first official date night in our five months as new parents.

Summer Oasis

There’s a piece of land on the north side of Jackson that looks pretty much any other open lot. It sits at the edge of town just beyond an abandoned golf course and right behind VFW Post 1848. You could walk on that open lot and never have any idea that underneath your feet lay broken pool tiles, aqua blue concrete steps, maybe a piece of an old diving board—remnants of bright summer days, now covered in dirt and twelve feet below the surface.