I’ve always thought the phrase comfort food as utterly redundant, and anyone who’s spent a modest amount of time around me can testify to my love of all things edible. But Keifer’s is, to me, extra comfortable food. Before I lived in Jackson, I knew about Keifer’s. Coming to visit friends or volunteering a week at Camp Bratton-Green just north of Canton, Kiefer’s was a place I could always count on seeing while in town. While I was a Millsaps student, the restaurant offered a nearby escape from the bubble of academia and non-academia that filled so much of my time. Few things are better than a table on the restaurant’s wraparound porch. Add to that hypothetical table a group of friends, several plates of food, a few pitchers of beer, and the carefree laughter that a good meal can produce. Keifer’s was my first experience with humus, and I had never seen fries quite like their cottage fries.

And the feta dressing.

The Feta Dressing.

I fancy myself proficient in the kitchen, but I’ve never been able to recreate that stuff. Friends who have moved away from town wax poetic about dunking their cottage fries in it. I’ve even handed a container of the salty ambrosia, on ice, off to a former Jacksonian living in Birmingham as I drove through to Atlanta.

When I heard that the house the restaurant was in was being torn down to make way for The Belhaven building, I was a little concerned. Despite assurances from the staff that the new building would be almost identical, I was still unconvinced that the new digs would have the same raffish charm of the old place. As is often the case, I was wrong. The new location, literally across the street from its predecessor, is almost a mirror image of the old one with a few improvements. It’s easier to move around, for one, and I’m not worried that my girth will be too much for the old hardwood floors. It’s a touch cleaner, but still comfortable. Kind of like an old high school friend whom you haven’t seen in years, Keifer’s is still the same, if a bit more mature. And if you see me there, on the porch with a smear of feta dressing in my beard, hand me a napkin.

Written by Jamie

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!

My spiritual home is the cathedral of St. Andrew’s Church which is built from the floor to ceiling to represent an upside down boat.  It was where all my children were baptized in the mid 70’s and where Hinky and I continue to worship and share in its communal life.  I am proud of its rich history, especially in the 60’s, when it stood tall and strong in the move toward racial reconciliation.  It continues that tradition as we join other groups and people in a new program called Growing Together Jackson, to revitalize and re-energize our beloved city.  It is a place where it is safe to question anything and celebrate the great mysteries of life.

Written by Pat

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!

The following is an excerpt from Madison County Magazine.

Lemuria embarked on a bold endeavor a couple of years ago when John Evans suggested to photographer Ken Murphy that they create a book on Jackson in the same classic style as Ken’s previous books: My South Coast Home, Mississippi, and Mississippi: State of Blues. Lemuria had never published a book before, but we wanted to contribute to our community. What better way than to publish a book? When Ken began submitting photographs of downtown Jackson I could not help but remember Eudora Welty’s recollection of the first time her family went to the top of the Lamar Life Building:

 “When the new Lamar Life Building was going up, I remember my father, who in those years was General Manager of the company, taking the greatest pride and a daily exhilaration in the workmanship of it. No wonder he was proud of the beauty of what was happening. I think he felt its climax was the clock; but all the way up to that tower he personally loved and endorsed every stone that was laid, every gargoyle that peeped forth from the various stages . . . My father led the whole family by the fire­escape, a romantic climb; and it was lovely and worth every step to stand on the roof where the tar was just hard enough to receive our weight, and the clock just as close as your hand, and to look out at the wonderful and unfamiliar view of Jackson, seen for the first time as a whole, in one sweep.” -Eudora Welty from “A Salute from One of the Family” Lamar Life Insurance Company, Tower of Strength in the Deep South: 50th Anniversary 1906­-1956.

Even if our contribution is not as grand as the Lamar Life Building, we know the pride that grows when we contribute to our community. Whether it be the St. Paddy’s Day Parade or Fondren Unwrapped or familiar neighborhood hangouts, like Bully’s or Brent’s, these scenes come from the hard work and creativity of Jackson’s people, who make it a wonderful place to live. Put yourself on the page and support Jackson’s culture through your time and your patronage to our many local businesses, museums, landmarks and parks. While our homes are scattered across the metro area, our support of each other will grow the vibrancy of the entire region.

Please join us on August 5 at 5:00 at Lemuria as we launch Jackson: Photographs by Ken Murphy.

Written by Lisa Newman

Madison County Magazine is Madison County’s only lifestyle publication covering the arts, culture and entertainment and covers events and areas all over the state of MIssissippi. 

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!

FRAUD ALERT!

FRAUD DETECTED!

I know people don’t like outsiders. I know there is something to say for the whole “born and raised” thing, but I have to admit, I was neither born, nor raised in Mississippi. Mississippi was so far down the list (#50) in places I thought I would end up after college that doing something like writing a blog to describe how I feel about the city of Jackson is a very surreal experience for me. I have been living among you Jacksonians, I have learned your ways…I must attest however, that I am a fraud.

Or am I?

If you thought for some reason I was going to get around working Cloud Atlas into this blog you are sorely mistaken.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is in my top 5 books of all time. OF ALL TIME. I came to Lemuria bookstore for the first time to purchase a copy of the paperback and was completely blown away to find a bookstore like Lemuria existing in such a weird, unlikely place. From the moment you walk up the steps and see the store, you are greeted by something pretty magical. The bookstore put Jackson up one notch in my book. It was now at notch one.

After a while, more and more of the city began to reveal itself in strange and amazing ways. Fondren was the main selling point in my agreement to move here, but the people are what kept me around. It’s very easy to make assumptions about a place, or group of people you absolutely know nothing about. I think that may be the biggest reason the perception of Jackson is all “PRAY FOR JACKSON” or “I WENT TO JACKSON AND GOT REKT.” I was guilty of this thinking, but then I left my house. I did what John Evans and Ken Murphy, and all of us at Lemuria are proposing with Jackson: Photographs by Ken Murphy– I experienced the city that is just waiting for people to take the time.

What makes a person “from somewhere”? Some people will start the conversation with, “You need to have been born there.” If that is their argument, then yes, I am a Jacksonian Fraud. I should say that I think they are absolutely wrong before I go any further. You see, I was born in the city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but nothing about that city feels like home to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love the city and it has come a long way in my 24 years of existence, but it has never really resonated with me. I’ve spent significant portions of time in New Orleans, LA, Berkley, CA, and St. Louis, MO and I feel like those cities are much more responsible for shaping me into who I am, and will eventually become. Now I am a resident of Jackson, MS. Four years ago I came to Jackson for a girl, and she was convinced the city would grow on me, and for years she was wrong. Today, she is absolutely correct. I’m here because I want to be, and this city deserves people that want to be here regardless of where they come from, or where they want to be.

There is plenty to love here in Jackson. Lemuria has made it pretty easy for everyone to get started with this book. So…

FRAUD AVERTED?

Written by Andre

Jackson: photographs by Ken Murphy is available now for purchase. To order a copy, call Lemuria Books at 601.366.7619 or visit us online at lemuriabooks.com. Please join us in celebrating Jackson on August 5th at 5:00 in Banner Hall!