Choose Charleston

So the thrills of opening presents are over.  Maybe you completed a long drive back to Charleston, SC. to see your friends and family.  After stuffing yourself with way more than you should ever eat (and maybe drinking more than you should ever drink?) you start to get frustrated with those lovely friends and family. 

It is late Saturday night and you are thinking, how much more can I take?  My sister’s new boyfriend is really getting on my last nerve!

You need to get out of the house and explore Charleston again!

Maybe you should check out some of my recent articles such as Charleston- Things to do.  If you grew up in Charleston, you probably cannot stand the Charleston carriage tours but your kids will love the experience it provides!

If you have no kids to hold you back, check out the Charleston nightlife scene. You could visit one of the new clubs or check out one of your favorite college hangout spots!

Lastly, if you have been really nice this year….maybe you could get your mom to whip up some Charleston Shrimp and Grits!

Happy Holidays to all!

Music fans yearning for some soulful songs about the South Carolina Lowcountry can skip on over to Morgan Creek Grill tonight on the Isle of Palms. Carroll Brown and Clay Rice will be on the upstairs deck (enclosed) starting at 7 p.m.

Seafood, ribs, and songs over the water. That ought to do you for a Friday night.

The whole downtown medical district gets a-buzzing when the Roper-St. Francis cafeteria has smoked turkey legs on the lunch menu.

Big juicy smoked turkey leg and some sweet tea - you might as well be walking the midway at the county fair. Not that walking is the thing to do in this kind of heat. Man, that sunshine just pushes you down and makes you say, “Uncle!” And that’s just from crossing the street. Can you imagine what the construction workers are feeling right about now?

On the subject of Roper-St. Francis Healthcare, kudos are due. Health Imaging and IT Magazine recently named RSFH as one of the top 25 connected healthcare facilities.

Accurate information and the ability to access that information in a timely manner are vital to patient care, as we all know, and RSFH is just as pleased as a peach at the way their people consistently keep them on the leading edge, technologically speaking.

Now, everyone go hug someone from hospital IT. They’re the behind-the-scenes heroes keeping the information flowing, after all.

It was busy, busy, busy and hot, hot, hot this weekend.

Waves of heat and an occasional shower hit Folly Beach but that did not dissuade the crowds gathered for the Governor’s Cup of Surfing. The Post & Courier has a nice gallery of images from the event here.

Then, I was out late Saturday night covering the photography chores at a spectacular anniversary party.

Crowds were just beginning to fill in along Market and East Bay by the time I was heading home. Big waves of folks rolling in to party at City Bar, et cetera. It was still hot, even with the sun long gone, but the young folks of Charleston were lined up all the same ready to cut the rug, trip the light fantastic, whatever they’re calling it these days.

Me, I was the old dude lugging camera equipment up the steps of the parking garage, old bones creaking, dogs barking, ready for a few hours sleep.

Award-winning food writer Holly Herrick, perhaps best known locally for her work with The Post & Courier, has long been an advocate for local, seasonal food choices - fresh from the farm fare that only travels a few miles down the road from where it was grown to where it is sold at farmers’ markets.

Those interested in hands-on, close up and personal, instruction in the art of orchestrating showstopper meals from ingredients selected at the Charleston Farmers’ Market on Marion Square can now sign up for small (limited to four students) Saturday morning classes with Holly.

Now only do students get a slow walk through the entire process, from choosing the freshest in-season products to top flight cooking techniques, the class culminates in a savory meal complete with wine pairings.

Information on registration for classes is available online or by calling (843) 720-3109.

It’s the big two-double-oh for the City Market, one of the top destinations in town for tourists.

To say that Market Street has a storied past is an understatement.

Longtime Charlestonians recall the days when wandering into the Market was a rather dicey proposition. When the chain supermarkets first hit the area, the former go-to place for fresh food withered and went wild with weeds, so to speak. Lots of flies and buzzards circling in the skies are some of the visuals with which oral historians pepper their tales of those days.

Luckily, King Joe and like-minded preservationists were coming into power back then. The Market did an about face in step with the rest of the slightly North of Broad Street area.

Today, it is vibrant and bustling with activity. Everything from artisan sweetgrass baskets to art prints, kitschy t-shirts, candy, and keepsakes are sold in the Market these days.

Market Street is also a good jumping-off point for just about anything else you might choose to do while touring the peninsula.

Wild Wing Cafe and Tristan are just two of the many eateries on Market Street. Charleston Legends and Lore Ghost Theatre is a short walk down Church Street from the Market. The Shops at Charleston Place are just across Meeting Street, FIG and Jestine’s Kitchen are within walking distance, as is King Street shopping.

Local is the big buzz-word in food these days, outpacing organic by a long chalk.

The “old” food distribution system (which, of course, is still very much in effect and still moving the vast majority of food) always was a head-scratcher for me, personally.

How exactly is it more economical to ship shrimp from Southeast Asia all the way to South Carolina when we already have had shrimp fishermen aplenty harvesting local waters?

Crazy as it sounds, it is actually the truth of the situation: It’s cheaper to buy product that has been hauled halfway around the globe than to buy from the farmer who lives next door. Please explain the logic.

The simple answer is that the system is just set up that way. It’s all about planes, trains, boats, and big rigs, contracts and warehouses, economics and business as usual; you know - the system.

None of which has stopped a growing number of consumers from trying to draw attention to the fact that, in the United States, small farms and local producers have been slowly going the way of the Dodo for quite some time.

Some shrug it off as “just the way it is.”

Others choose to make it known that they support small farms and local producers. With the launch of the Certified South Carolina effort, there is now a way to at least know which apple is local and which is from far away.

The beginning of a new (well, really, a return to an old) way of thinking about food or a final show of support before the last few traditional family farmers are forced to retire the John Deere and take jobs in middle management like everyone else? We’ll see in time.

We ventured out into the heart of the sightseeing crowds Wednesday afternoon, mostly because there are some top-notch restaurants in the area and also because, hey, it never hurts to renew your sense of what is changing, what is staying the same.

We avoided the worst of it by staying off of Market Street. But Meeting Street - in the vicinity of Charleston Place, Hyman’s, and Sticky Fingers - gathers its own crush of pedestrians ’round about suppertime.

Our reservations were actually at another restaurant - FIG, one of my favorites. But we had a bit of spare time, so we ambled along the storefronts, playing tourist in our own town, as it were, and even strolled through some of Charleston Place. We passed a young gentleman fussing with the staff of Waldenbooks over their return / exchange policy and then we ambled into Brookstone to sample the massage chairs.

On our way back down Meeting Street, we got called over by one of those folks who sell tour packages. Mind, I said that he called us over, not that we accepted his offer to stand there while he launched into a sales pitch - we made no response other than to laugh when he asked what we were doing while we were Charleston. Hmm, let’s see, while I’m “in Charleston,” I tend to eat, sleep, work, watch TV, read, commute, put gas in the truck, get oil changes, shop for groceries, mow the lawn, take the garbage to the curb on Monday and the recycle bin to the curb on Wednesday, and basically do all of the things one does when living in a town.

For Pete’s sake.

I really dislike that particular street vendor tactic - shouting out to passersby to try to sell tour packages - and, if I’m not mistaken, the city has asked the tour companies to stop doing this on numerous occasions. It’s tacky. It makes you feel like you are at a carnival.

I don’t blame the kids who are doing it - they are just following their instructions so that they can earn extra cash to help offset skyrocketing tuition costs. I just feel that it is a flawed sales theory. Any additional sales that are made are bound to be offset by sales lost from those who are offended by the tactic.

Sunday, July 8, from 6:30 - 9:30 pm in the grand ballroom of Charleston Place, a who’s who of the best chefs in Charleston will be contributing to a $150 per plate fundraiser for the nine Charleston firefighters who recently died in the line of duty.

 Not only do all proceeds benefit the families of the firemen, but those who attend will be in for an amazing night of culinary and musical delights. The 41 featured restaurants nearly run all the way through the alphabet: from Al di La to the Woodlands. Quentin Baxter & Cool John Ferguson will be entertaining. Need more? How about a live and silent auction replete with fine incentives to bid away?

 Reservations can be made through Table Maestro (843) 329-4918.

Shall we dine? 

Breaking bread is a time-honored means for folks to get to know another. It also works quite well as a way to become better acquainted with a city or region.

Charleston has been a diner’s delight for as long as history has been recorded and even a bit before. If prehistoric shell rings serve as any indication, native peoples were enjoying the plentiful oysters, clams, and conch in these coastal waters long before the first brick was placed in the foundation of Charles Towne. A great example of a shell ring (also known as a shell midden or mound) can be viewed just shy of Awendaw on a nature trail off of Doer Road.We’ll talk about that a bit more when I discuss the lore and legend of the Sewee.

That’s called a teaser, so stay tuned.

It should surprise no one to learn that seafood remains a large slice of the local fare. But what might raise a few eyebrows is that fact that a great deal of the seafood supped upon in local restaurants is not harvested from local waters. It may seem counterintuitive to think that frozen shrimp from Asia can be purchased in bulk for less money than it costs to buy from a local fisherman whose boat is docked just a few yards down from the restaurant doing the buying, but that’s just the world we live in.

Many folks are doing their part to support the local fishermen and farmers, however. Choosing foods harvested in South Carolina has become an increasingly popular form of activism. There are good reasons, in terms of supporting the regional economy, for making local and sustainable choices, but mostly, I think, people just like it because it feels better, being able to put a face to the name.

That’s the philosophy of one of our top local (not to mention James Beard Foundation nominated) chefs, Mike Lata of FIG, who can tell you exactly why the kale, beets, or triggerfish on your plate tastes so good. He knows the name, methods, and reputation of the man or woman who grew or caught it before it was delivered to his restaurant.

There’s an enormous amount of pride in Charleston cooking. We do love our rice – any rice, really, but especially we love the rice with a local history, like Carolina Gold.

We love our sweet tea. It pains us when we travel and are offered, in far-away restaurants, unsweetened tea with a couple of sugar packets to the side. It is simply not the same.

We love our shrimp and grits, Carolina Gold, and sweet tea as well as we love our fried chicken, drop biscuits, and greens but we are also becoming more and more open to other influences and culinary styles as well. Today, downtown Charleston features a wider array of ethnic and experimental restaurant choices than ever before.

We adore our pastry chefs. May I have an afternoon just to sing songs in their honor? Sweet things, only know that if we foodies had our way, statues of each and every one of you would be on pedestals in Marion Square.

So that’s it, right on the table, in a nutshell. Dining in Charleston isn’t supposed to be a means of filling up before rushing off to the next attraction.

Child, dining in Charleston is the next attraction. So, slow down and savor every bite of it.