Hey Y'all! Here's my Undiscovered Charleston April menu. Are you coming to visit Charleston, SC, want to take a food tour and are passionate about food and history? Then read on! What a fantastic April we've had on our Undiscovered Charleston food and history tour! We had great guests joining us from Toronto, the San …
Of Loquats & Larceny
Many visitors (and more than a few residents "from off") are no doubt wondering this week what EXACTLY are those orange bobbles festooning nearly every other tree in the Lowcountry right now. They're loquats of course, or Japanese plums. In the Lowcountry they're synonymous with the beginning of Spring proper. Though not native to the …
An Ode to Green Garlic
“Provençal cooking is based on garlic. The air in Provence is impregnated with the aroma of garlic, which makes it very healthful to breathe. Garlic is the main seasoning in bouillabaisse and in the principal sauces of the region. A sort of mayonnaise is made with it by crushing it in oil, and this is …
O Rye The Hell Not?
The Wednesday New York Times included a fantastic article on a resurgence of rye, but failed to mention the restoration of Seashore Black Rye. The comments section was robust, and I weighed in accordingly: As a South Carolina Chef Ambassador, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the incredible Restoration efforts going on now throughout …
Christmas Day, 2016
Merry Christmas y'all; I've been away. As is so often the case with a new job, I've been down the rabbit hole working hard to build a world class team and culture. Many trials and tribulations, lots of fodder for new stories from Wild West of the F&B frontier. Among other things, I was tapped …
Remembering Verta Mae
I was saddened to learn of Verta Mae Grovenor's passing over the weekend. I wrote this post a year ago recalling the time my wife and I got to meet her at a Southern Foodways event at McCrady's. She was a Space Goddess! I met a lady named Vertamae Smart- Grosvenor once at a …
Rock me Like a Hurricane
Everyone's heard about the devastation wrought by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, some of us remember it. As Hurricane Hermine Matthew Irma Florence Dorian bears down on the Lowcountry, I wanted to touch base since many of us in F&B, as well as our Undiscovered Charleston guests, come from off and may not have ever experienced …
Frank Lee Speaking
"If you're really going to be creative, you're going to have to have your shit together." Chef Frank Lee https://youtu.be/2XUc-f8lCqQ Still learning from this man. As long as I've known him, Chef has always had this fantastic repertoire of aphorisms that continue to knock around my head. The rhythm of mis en place. Strike while …
Lowcountry 2.0: Reimagining a Cuisine
Cuisine: a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques and dishes, and usually associated with a specific culture or geographic region. Glenn Roberts talks about SC's culinary history Here in the South Carolina Lowcountry, our very well documented cuisine has deep roots that pre-date First Contact. Our shared cuisine has overcome Diaspora, wars, disease, …
Arrival
"should be interesting to see how this picture progresses in the future…" sb In the daily miasma of operations, occasionally things get stuck in your head. This is from the first post by Sean Brock on his blog Ping Island Strike, back from when he first arrived at McCrady's in 2006. This post in particular …