Tagged and Released

Well, we’re smack-dab in the middle of another summer festival season here in Chucktown.  Right now, everyone who resides or works on the Peninsula is living the Hell that’s called Spoleto.  Spoleto is actually a very highly respected, long–running, and successful arts festival in Charleston.  It’s one of the largest of its kind, attracting artists, composers, writers, musicians, etc., from all over the world.  It also attracts boatloads of mentally negligible tourists, which is what can make it so infuriating for the locals.

Charleston is a jaw-droppingly beautiful town in the Spring.  You can stroll through gardens of beautiful historic homes, you can sample the freshest spring produce at any number of our outstanding local restaurants, or you can take a leisurely horse-drawn carriage ride over cobblestone streets that are hundreds of years old.  It’s amazing to see the beautiful homes, with trees covered in purple wisteria blossoms, smelling the jasmine and seeing all the flowers.  Absolute picture-postcard stuff.  Unfortunately, this beauty carries with it the support of a thriving tourism industry, the number one industry in the city.  There’s a slogan here, “Support tourism, it supports you”.  It’s true.  We love the tourists; they spend lots of money in the businesses that employ us.  It’s just that the same people that support us have an unwitting way of making life for the locals unbelievably frustrating at times.

People who don’t live in towns that are vacation destinations come to us in droves this time of year, and they're overwhelmed by sights that they don't see everyday like we do.  They don’t seem to understand that certain actions are frowned upon in polite society.  All the Antebellum splendor of our beautiful city seems to do something to their collective intelligence.  You can only watch so many out-of-towners, struggling to unfold a brightly colored map while lumbering blindly into a busy intersection, before you start to take a dim view. If they’re not about to unintentionally commit suicide by walking in front of your car, then they’re in the car in front of you sitting still at a green light wondering what earthquake washers are.  Don’t they have traffic lights where you come from?

We call the people clogging our streets during the Spoleto festival “Spoletians”.  It’s a dubious term of endearment.  I was with some friends the other day and one guy asked, “If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them?” A bit harsh perhaps, but funny.  I personally support "tag-and-release".

In culinary news, I’m headed to Boston this weekend for a big show at Fenway.  Been to Boston lots but never in the park.  Should be cool.  I don’t know how much free time I’ll have, but I’ve been given a list of restaurants to try by an oyster-shucker buddy of mine from Providence. He knows good food, and he really knows oysters.  I’m inspired when I can be around people that are passionate about practicing their craft, and this guy is good.  He’s taken a job that most people might see as undesirable, and turned it into an art form.  This guys travels around the country to be in oyster-shucking competitions, and wins them.  If you want to know the difference between a Malpeque, a Belon, and a Blue Pointe, he can tell you.  Passion is contagious. 

 I hope to have a report on Boston soon, where I’ll be the clumsy out-of-towner trying not to get run over.  Time for some chowder…

A ray of sunshine.

I had the opportunity to go to Florida last week for work, specifically Orlando.  Even with the chain restaurants, the humidity, and the throngs of fanny-pack wearin’, overweight, waddling, sunburned tourists, it was a great trip.  It rekindled a thought that I have been mulling over, on and off, for several years…  Is Florida considered a Southern state?  It’s a legitimate question, and it brings up lots of conflicting feelings.  Let’s have a look, shall we?

My first reckoning that Florida should be considered Southern is the University of Florida Gators football team.  What could be more Southern than college football in the fall?  Florida also has the distinct advantage of belonging to the SEC, which any beer-swilling redneck knows is the absolute MACK DADDY of college football conferences.  (My team, the Gamecocks, is also in the SEC.  I was in school there when we joined the conference.  We’ve actually beaten Florida a few times since then.)  A lot of people consider the Florida Gators to be the best college football team of all time.  Honestly, when I try to watch games outside the SEC, I’m lukewarm about it at best.  Who cares about those lunatics on the West Coast?  Oregon?  Washington?  California?  Crazy hippies.  Respect the SEC.  Respect the Gators.  I suppose those games out there must mean something to the locals, but WE have the SEC.  We’re the big boys.  There’s a saying in the South:  God, guns, and college football, not necessarily in that order.  Between the televangelist mega-churches in Orlando, the coked-out whackos in the southern part of the state, and the Gators, Florida has all three.

Another check in the plus column for Southern-ness is Daytona.  Daytona is home to the NASCAR Daytona 500, which is the Holy Grail of Motorsports.  A lot of people think of NASCAR as a bunch of toothless Cretins driving around in circles, and well, I guess they’re right.  But hey, it’s a bunch of drunks with the pedal to the metal in really loud, fast cars.  What’s not to like about that?  If you’re into auto racing, Daytona is your Xanadu, with the caveats that “dining on honeydew” tastes like a Nathan’s hot dog, and the “milk of Paradise” tastes like warm PBR in a plastic cup.

On the other hand…

The best example to say that Florida is not Southern can be summed up in one word:  Miami.  Miami is definitely not a Southern city.  Miami isn’t really even a city; it’s a freak show with a ZIP code.  Miami makes Larry Flynt look like Mr. Rogers.  When the Jim Rose Circus pulls into Miami, the performers get off the bus and say, “Man, this place is fucked up”.  Go to a nightclub in Miami, and they check you for guns at the door.  If you don’t have one, they let you choose one from the selection they provide to their unarmed guests as a courtesy.  People in Miami don’t honk the horn if you cut them off in traffic; they throw a brick through your car window, then pull you out onto the pavement and shoot you.  Where are their manners?  You can, however, get a pretty mean conch fritter just about anywhere in Miami.  A conch fritter is like a shellfish-flavored hush-puppy, and that’s a good thing.

So, is Florida Southern?  I’ll think it over while I watch the race.

Two Bellinis and a bicycle

This is a great week to say thanks and congratulations to my friends in the Charleston F&B scene.  Namely, the awesome servers and bartenders all over town who got WORKED last weekend.  We had two college graduations, and it was Mother’s Day.  What this means, if you’re a restaurant worker, is Amateur Night.  Much like Cinco de Mayo, Halloween, New Year’s Eve, or any other holiday when people that don’t regularly dine out flock en masse to restaurants and bars to terrorize the service staff.  If you work, or have ever worked, in F&B, you know what I mean.

“Hi, I’d like a water with extra lemons and some sugar packets, but no ice, I’m allergic to ice.  I’d like the filet mignon, well well well done, tell the cook to burn it if he has to, but please make sure it’s tender and juicy.  Also, I would really like a baked potato, but I’m allergic to potatoes, so I’ll just have the french fries, no salt, but please make sure they’re seasoned well.  I’ll think about some dessert later, but we’re in a hurry, so could you tell the kitchen to put a rush on that?  Do you have any non-alcohol wine with no sulfites?  I’m allergic to sulfites”.

This is obviously hyperbole, but these types of things are heard by our stalwart servers and bartenders almost every day.

I’m always impressed by the attitudes of the professionals that I know working in the kitchens of Charleston.  Almost all of them are passionate about food (as I am), and they are the most giving and sharing people you could meet.  Every time I go out, I talk to someone in the kitchen, and they’re always telling me about some new charcuterie technique they’re trying out, some new local honey they’re serving on the cheese plate, or whatever.  It’s amazing and comforting to see the passion and dedication of these young men and women.  It’s a foodie town, and it’s a great place to be.

Please be considerate when you dine out.  Look around, introduce yourself, get involved with your local food community and the people that support it.

As for the title of this blog post…  I was talking to a friend of mine that works in a great local Italian place.  He was telling me about some sort of graduation or Mother’s Day brunch they had put on.  Apparently it was a rough day, and he and the bartender starting hitting the Bellinis and Mimosas pretty early.  Again, if you work in F&B, you know it’s not uncommon for the staff to occasionally indulge in a snifter-full of the finest while at work.  (Unfortunately I’ve seen some servers that take it too far, but I can’t throw stones.  I’ve been there too).  The reality is that dealing with the crazy clientele on a busy weekend can be enough to make you want to “drain the bitter cup” as they say.  Anyway, the events of the day somehow led to my bartender buddy riding his bicycle home from work that night, carrying a Bellini in each hand.  I’m not even sure how that’s physically possible, but it happened.  I haven’t been back to that restaurant this week.  I’ll let ‘em sleep it off.

What's in a name?

I’ve had a bit of time on my hands recently, so I’ve been eating out quite a bit, and cooking lots too.  I’ve been thinking about some of the interesting “food words” that you see on menus and in recipes.  I was watching Jamie Oliver’s TV show a few days ago, and he had a recipe that called for some game birds to be spatchcocked.  Spatchcocked?  Sounds dangerous.

Southern food is filled with words that make our cooking sound fun.  Etouffée, piquante, maque choux, and my favorite, jambalaya.  I realize that the correct pronunciation of maque choux (mock shoe) sounds like a synonym for “imitation footwear”, but the word jambalaya sounds like a party.

“What’s happening this weekend?” 

“Gamecocks are playin’.” 

“Whatcha makin’?”

“Jambalaya.”

I’ll bring the beer.

I seem to meet a lot of tourists from the Northeast when I’m dining in my favorite places downtown, and I always have a great time explaining grits on the menu.  Although I find it baffling, I suppose that if you’re from New York or Boston or somewhere, it’s possible that you could grow up and never hear of grits.  They seem to struggle with the word “grits” itself, because it does sound a bit harsh and abrasive. Then I tell them about a Yankee word they’ve all heard:  Polenta.  If you’ve eaten polenta, you’ve eaten grits.  They seem taken aback because they’ll go to a great Italian restaurant in New York or Boston and pay twenty-five bucks for a fancy dish with polenta, but I can go to the Waffle House and get a bowl of grits for ninety-nine cents.

When I was growing up, my grandmother did what every other grandmother did when she cooked:  She made gravy.  Technically, she added flour to a pan of hot fat to make a roux, then she added buttermilk to the roux and made a classical French sauce called Bechamel.  She didn’t know a damned thing about roux or Bechamel sauce, she was just making gravy.  I like that.

If you want to see some really neat food, check out the websites for two of my favorite restaurants in the country:

Le Bernardin in New York

and

TRU in Chicago

You’ll see all kinds of “foodie” words like gastrique, salsify, quenelles, and foie gras.  The English translation of most of that stuff isn’t nearly as elegant as the French makes it sound.  Quenelles are dumplings.  Foie gras is the “fatty liver” from a goose that has been force-fed through a tube to give a it biological abnormality that we can harvest.  Doesn’t look or sound very good, but put it on a large white plate surrounded by Christofle Hotel flatware and some Reidel stems, and you can charge about fifteen bucks an ounce for it.

By far, the most unfortunate food word I’ve ever seen is “compote”.  I saw a recipe for some kind of rice and raisin compote thing in a recent issue of Food and Wine magazine.  That word is unfortunate to me because it kind of sounds like “compost”.  The official definition of compost is: a mixture of various decaying organic substances, such as dead leaves or manure, used for fertilizing soil.  I have a much more succinct definition of compost:  poo-poo.  That’s not something I’m gonna be eating.

A Good Egg/Restaurant Ramblings

Yesterday was Easter.  Great day.  The weather was perfect in Chuck-town, and I got my once-a-year chance to wear the seersucker (although I have been invited to a Kentucky Derby party being thrown by a Kentucky native.  Maybe we'll see some seersucker again there...).  I had dinner at an amazing place called Slighty North of Broad, known by the acronym SNOB to the locals.  One of my favorite places of all time, and easily the best charcuterie in town.  Head cheese rules.

I do have to bemoan the general state of dress that I saw yesterday.  Come on, people.  It's Sunday, it's Easter, and you're in the South.  You need to be dressed well.  For the guys, that means you need to be wearing seersucker, a bow-tie, and the white nubuck shoes, not some ratty-ass flip-flops.  For the girls, that means you need to be in a white or pastel colored dress with some cute strappy heels, again, not f---ing flip flops.  I only saw one other guy wearing seersucker, he was the doorman at another downtown restaurant I went to for my after-dinner bourbon.  I saw several women wearing black.  Who wears black on Easter?  Why don't more women like to wear dresses and skirts anymore?  I should also mention that I HATE, HATE, HATE seeing people downtown, at night, in restaurants, dining, wearing flip-flops.  Flip-flops are not evening wear, and they are not appropriate for most restaurant situations.  I f---ing HATE them.  They are the absolute epitome of laziness.  "Oh my gosh, I just put on my shirt and some pants.  I'm exhausted.  Now you expect me to put on SHOES too, after all that?"  Yes I do.  I dress myself in the morning, and you have to as well.  Be a Good Egg.  If you're wearing flip flops anywhere other than the beach, you're a lazy ass.  Sorry this has turned into such a rant.  End of sermon.

The state of the restaurant scene continues to be fantastic here in Charleston.  We really do have it all.  I had lunch during the weekend at a roadside fish shack called Fishnet Seafood, where all they do is deep-fried items in styrofoam takeout boxes with plastic forks.  They have a specialty there called "Jesus Crabs", which are like deviled crabs, but the business is owned by a Christian family, and they don't like the word devil.  They're good.  You can go from a place like that, out in the sticks, to any number of high-end fine-dining places offering what I like to call New Southern cuisine, and you can do it all in one day.  I've mentioned SNOB already, and there are plenty more.  HUSK is next on my list to try.  That place is getting all the buzz right now, and several of my foodie friends that have tried it are raving. I'm sure it's good, I'll have a report soon.

Enjoy your week, and take my advice.  Have a go at getting dressed up to go out every now and again.  It'll make ya feel better.  See y'all...

Sweet booze, ease the pain

Bourbon.

One of life's simple pleasures.  It's the Cognac of the South.  Bourbon is good when you mix it with soda water.  It's good when you mix it with Coca-Cola.  You can cook with it.  It's good on it's own in a snifter after dinner.  In short, Bourbon is just some good sh--!

All Bourbon is whiskey, but only a select bit of whiskey is Bourbon.  There are strict rules to determine what can be called Bourbon.  The mash must be at least 51% corn with other grains added for different flavors, although most Bourbon is more than 2/3rds corn.  There is no minimum aging requirement, but most Bourbon is aged for at least 4 years, in new, charred, American oak barrels.  The proof (alcohol content) ranges from a minimum of 80 to a max of around 160 (40 to 80% alcohol), but anything above about 100 is too "hot" for my taste.  Bourbon can be made anywhere in the US, but is most strongly associated with Bourbon county, Kentucky.

Jim Beam is the biggest name in Bourbon, and they make a range of premium spirits that are a good starting place to sample.  Basil Hayden, Knob Creek, Baker's and Bookers are all good.  My personal favorite right now is another brand, 1792.  Two fingers of this stuff in a snifter is all you need, no mixers required.  Check it out

HERE

and

HERE

A few nights ago I stopped in at one of my favorite restaurants, 39 Rue de Jean, for an after-dinner snifter.  My buddy Junior was working.  I told him I wanted some Bourbon.  He says to me, "Would you like a nice Bourbon, being that it's later in the day?"  I said "Of course".  I had some Knob Creek.  I didn't think anything about it at the time, but later I thought it was kind of quaint that Junior could entertain the notion that the quality of what you're drinking should be determined by what time of day it is.  It helps to understand that Junior, to quote Roy Blount, is the Redneck equivalent of whatever "more Catholic than the Pope" is.  I love him.  His philosophy makes a kind of perverted sense.  If you need to start guzzling Bourbon early in the morning, that's when you want the cheap stuff.

Bringin' home the bacon

Hey y’all!  I am Southern Food Boy.  I wanted to create this blog to have somewhere to share my thoughts and ciphering about one of the greatest cuisines in the world.  Some info about me:  I’m from South Carolina, I live in Charleston, and I had a Southern grandmother that made the best biscuits you could ever taste.  Looking back, I guess my love of Southern food came early on from her.  She’s gone now, and it’s only after growing up and traveling the world that I’ve developed the perspective and the appreciation for what she did.

I drink sweet tea out of a Mason jar, I’m picky about the consistency of pimiento cheese and a fierce advocate for using Duke’s mayonnaise in it, and I’m perfectly comfortable with the concept of using bacon as a “seasoning”.  I like Mountain Dew and boiled peanuts, and I’m happy to know that you can get boiled peanuts at McCrady’s in Charleston, which is not a roadside shack but one of the top fine dining restaurants in town.  I like the Gamecocks, I went to school there.  Catfish is one of my favorite things in the world.  I cook like a big dog.  I have some cred as a Southerner.

I got to see John Edge from Southern Foodways Alliance talk at the Charleston Wine and Food Festival a few years ago.  To paraphrase what he said, Southern Food is not necessarily about recipes, it’s about the stories, the people, the events, and the times that families and friends spend together creating them.  That’s what I’d like to celebrate here.

I’m fortunate to be able to travel the world (quite extensively) with my job, so I’ll be posting about that too.  I always try to make time to seek out the best food wherever I go.  Studying and sampling food is probably one of the most profound ways to gain perspective about another culture, and about your own.  I always bring back some new ideas and influences to spice up my own cooking.

I just got back from a seven-week trip throughout South and Central America and Mexico.  I was dreaming about what I was going to cook when I got back, because the food on that trip was truthfully kind of hit-and-miss.  You have to be very careful about what you eat and drink down there.  I did get to sample some amazing ceviche, and the beef and Malbec in Argentina were both out of this world.  When I came back I picked up a copy of Donald Link’s book Real Cajun, and the first thing I cooked was some seafood gumbo.  I’m pretty excited about the book and that gumbo!  

Click HERE for Real Cajun 

I’ve got some organizing to do, but I’m ready to contribute.  Keep checking back for more.

Y’all take care.