Boardwalk Walking

Francis Beidler Forest, S.C.

What a bright sunny day! I dropped off my little car for an oil change and new fan belt and had an early birthday brunch with my son at Sesame . This afternoon I walked down the new boardwalk at the Francis Beidler Forest in Harleyville. 

I love all the little hidey holes in the cypress knees. Doesn't it look like a secret door in the one below?
 

Let the season begin!

Sermet's, King St., Charleston, S.C.

Sermets Restaurant on King St. is joining in the Halloween fun. It makes me wish I had a couple of skeletons for my own yard. I need to plan a South of Broad walk soon to catch the usual Halloween themed properties. Check out my past entries to get the idea of what to look for: Halloween.

October afternoons

Charleston Harbor, Charleston, S.C.

Charleston has once again ranked highly in the Conde Naste Reader's Choice Best Cities listing - as it should. I use the list to see where else I still need to go.

In other news, here is an article titled, "In All the Ancient Circles”: Tourism and the Decline of Charleston’s Elite Families" by Jack Trotter giving another look at what tourism on such a successful scale has done to the lowcountry.

Heritage - Chef Sean Brock

Chef Sean Brock, Book Signing, Charleston, S.C.

Holding the book just like that it looks like the tattooed covered arms are around my neck! Tonight was the first book signing party for Chef Sean Brock's long awaited first cookbook Heritage and I was one of the first in line to get mine signed. The recipes look pretty complicated but there are a few I am willing to try and I know anything Chef Sean comes up with will be worth the effort. What an exciting day! Congratulations Chef!

Sean Brock is the chef behind the game-changing restaurants Husk and McCrady’s, and his first book offers all of his inspired recipes. With a drive to preserve the heritage foods of the South, Brock cooks dishes that are ingredient-driven and reinterpret the flavors of his youth in Appalachia and his adopted hometown of Charleston. The recipes include all the comfort food (think food to eat at home) and high-end restaurant food (fancier dishes when there’s more time to cook) for which he has become so well-known. Brock’s interpretation of Southern favorites like Pickled Shrimp, Hoppin’ John, and Chocolate Alabama Stack Cake sit alongside recipes for Crispy Pig Ear Lettuce Wraps, Slow-Cooked Pork Shoulder with Tomato Gravy, and Baked Sea Island Red Peas. This is a very personal book, with headnotes that explain Brock’s background and give context to his food and essays in which he shares his admiration for the purveyors and ingredients he cherishes.

Imaging that!

The power of the magnet!

I hosted a group of teenagers interested in careers in Imaging this evening. They got a glimpse of what the staff in MRI, X Ray, CT and Ultrasound do on a daily basis. A very patient lady let five groups of students see her baby on ultrasound.

Whenever it gets quiet in the MRI room I ask them to demonstrate the power of the magnet with a pair of scissor on a band just because I get such a kick out it. I learn something each time I do one of these career evenings. The staff in this area all seem to enjoy their jobs and each technologist thinks their equipment is the best. I suspect we sparked some career interest this evening. Thanks to the team in the Imaging Department at Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital!

Future health care professionals from Ft. Dorchester High School

Travel Tuesday - Iceland

Eggs in Happy Bay, Djupivogur, Iceland

On Tuesdays I allow myself a field trip and dip into old travel albums. How about them eggs! The outdoor sculpture of 34 stone eggs known as "Eggin i Gleoivik" (Eggs in Happy Bay) are by the celebrated artist Sigurour Guomundsson, They represent the thirty-four local birds found in Iceland. They are all the same size except for the single larger one. What a happy artistic surprise in a small village. 

More Murals

Murals at Avondale, Charleston, S.C.

I especially like it when real greenery tumbles and grows over painted murals. I don't have much time this evening so I'm sharing a quick splash of color! In fact, some bloggers feature a Mural Monday theme so it all fits.

I attended the city planning report on the future of my part of town - West Ashley, this evening. West Ashley has been left out of the revitalization that has been going on the upper peninsula and Mount Pleasant. They showed lots of fancy dreams and hope for the Citadel Mall area, the Bees Ferry traffic circle and Sam Rittenburg Boulevard. If a quarter of it comes true I will be pleased!

Rich in Love

Johns Island, S.C.

When my friend local author Josephine Humphreys' book Rich in Love was made into a movie, this sweet little octagonal cottage was part of the set. Instead of it being disposed of, she had it dismantled and put together on the bank of a marsh creek on Johns Island. The movie was made in 1992 and filmed in Charleston and Mt. Pleasant. It is already a little time capsule showing the old bridges and the former Wando High School campus. I love listening to Josephine's stories of the movie being filmed.

I had dinner on the dock at dusk last night watching the birds swoop down over the gold tinted autumn marsh. It was a perfect lowcountry evening. 

Running in the Hood

Avondale 5K, Charleston, S.C.

I am not a runner but I do have a habit of walking to runs and back. Surely that counts for something? I see the winner start, I watch the winner win, I walk through the murals behind the shops at Avondale, pick up the ingredients to make Holly Herrick's French Onion Soup at Harris Teeter and cram them in my back pack and I am home before the festivities end.The Avondale 5 K raised money for the Charles Webb Center.

Congratulations to the winners and participants!

Mud up or Shut up!

Nuthin' a little soap and water won't clean off!

My son once sent me a snippet of video from a mud bog and I shook my head in amazement so when I spotted a Mud Bog sign in Orangeburg County last weekend I couldn't resist handing over the $10 entry fee and paying a visit. Check the All About Mud blog for more info and truck photos. They had a tractor ready to pull the trucks out when they stalled in the mud which seemed pretty much expected, and the vehicles were clearly designed for the event. If you can see past the mud it looks like pretty clean family fun. 

 

 

 

Muddin' for the Cure

S.C Mud bog

Yes, it is October. Yes, his shirt says "Muddin' for the Cure" and yes, he is smoking. I'm not sure I need to say anything else. I will follow up with some fun Muddin' photos though!

Blue skies and sunshine

Ashley River, Charleston, S.C.

It is much too pretty to be cooped up working inside this week. I had a volunteer recognition event at the Charleston Rifle Club and as I do each year after this luncheon, I walked down the long dock to sniff the river before I headed back to the hospital. Not such a bad mid day break.

Carmella's Cafe & Dessert Bar

Carmella's Cafe & Dessert Bar, East Bay St., Charleston, S.C.

Next time you are in wandering around town and feel like a little sumthin' sumthin', don't have dinner reservations and don't need a full meal, pop into Carmella's Cafe & Dessert Bar for ice cream, petite sweets, meat and cheese plates and/or a glass of wine. I didn't get a picture of the ice cream because I was invited to the soft opening event and it was packed with happy people eating everything in sight. Thanks Brian!

Enough coffee for ya?

The Coffee Pot, Hwy 301, S.C.

I had spotted this coffee pot years ago when it was in terrible shape. Thanks to the Times & Democrat's 100 Things in 100 Days I spotted a recent image showing the refurbished coffee pot and steered a recent drive in the country in that direction. It has been fixed! Wow....the entire structure is freshly painted and clean. The windows invite you to snoop and the inside is some kind of doll museum. It made me wonder if the owners might be grandparents? Here is the scoop from the Times & Democrat's website:

The Coffee Pot: Before they opened the diner in 1950-51, British natives Fred and Emily Griffin had originally planned to open a tearoom. Deciding the busy highway needed a coffee shop instead, the Griffins opened the Coffee Pot Diner. Mrs. Griffin is said to have baked pies each night for the next day’s customers. A traveler could order breakfast and lunch and, of course, plenty of steaming cups of Joe.
Coffee may have been the American public’s beverage of choice for a caffeine fix, but in a nod to her British roots, Mrs. Griffin continued to partake of her afternoon tea at 4 o’clock every day.
The 1950s motored on, and the Griffins greeted their guests from near and far. But trouble was brewing on the horizon for the Coffee Pot Diner and other establishments like it.
In the mid-1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower brought home from World War II the idea of the interstate, a road system designed to move military equipment quickly, based on Germany’s Autobahn. South Carolina was to get three interstates: I-20, I-26 and I-95.
Begun in 1957 and one of the oldest interstates, it was I-95 that would slice through Orangeburg County, parallel to U.S. 301, sounding the death knell for countless motels, gas stations and mom-and-pop diners like the Coffee Pot.
The Coffee Pot poured its last cup in 1979

 

 

Chhchchhhhhh..changes!

King & Wentworth St., Charleston, S.C.

Every time I walk downtown I spot a change so here is an update from my walk this morning. There is a lot of activity at King and Wentworth. I was confused because the business is Vineyard Vines so I assumed we were going to have a new wine shop but apparently it is a preppy style clothing store. Check them out here: Vineyard Vines.

 

Amen Street Fish & Raw Bar, Charleston, S.C.

New mural spotted on Amen Street Fish & Raw Bar just off East Bay St.

Minero, Charleston, S.C.

Chef Sean Brock's new casual Mexican Restaurant Minero opened on East Bay St. yesterday. Check out the website and menu here. It looks affordable and yummy.

How about a picture of the picture?

Hopsewee Plantation, Georgetown, S.C.

I was enjoying my tomato pie and tater salad in the Hopsewee Plantation Tea Room last weekend when I spotted the painting below on the wall. I'm not sure what year it was done but I walked around to the river side to try to get the view the artist had in mind when he/she painted it. I'd need to be on a boat to get the matching view but it is pretty close. They have changed the roof color and trimmed the azaleas but it has been beautifully maintained.

Hopsewee Plantation: The house, still a private residence, is a typical low country rice plantation dwelling of the early eighteenth century with four rooms opening into a wide center hall on each floor, a full brick cellar and attic rooms. The house has a lovely staircase and there is hand carved molding in each room and random width heart pine floors are almost one and one half inches thick. Constructed on a brick foundation which is covered by scored tabby, the house is built of black cypress, which probably accounts for the fact that it is basically the same house the Lynches built 40 years before the Revolutionary War. It is furnished in eighteenth and nineteenth century furniture.

 

4th Annual Autumn Affair

The Spice & Tea Exchange, Charleston

The Les Dames d'Escoffier held their 4th annual Autumn Affair at Lowndes Grove at sunset on the banks of the Ashley River and they couldn't have chosen a more beautiful evening. Charleston weather is perfect right now and we are almost giddy with the sunshine and low humidity after a month of rain. Add delicious food, wine and music.

I can't pronounce the group's name so here is the official description: 

Les Dames d’Escoffier is the only organization of its kind: a world wide philanthropic society of professional women leaders in the fields of food, fine beverage and hospitality. The invitation-only membership, composed of 29 individual chapters across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, is highly diversified and reflects the multifaceted fields of contemporary gastronomy and hospitality.

The look I got right before I crashed my wine glass on the ground. Ooops!

Holly Herrick of the Permanent Tourist and busiest cookbook write in the county.

Wes & Devany Vickey (Sassy Spoon) Davidson

Two of our gracious hostesses

Meet me at the Bacon Candy table!

Lowcountry essentials

Hopsewee Plantation, S.C.

What a nice way to present the necessities after all the rain we've had in the lowcountry lately. They breed mosquitoes that can be mistaken for attack hummingbirds at Hopsewee Plantation. Ouchie!