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Thu
9
Jul '09

Foodie Vacations: Great Places to Enjoy Gourmet Food in Charleston, SC

Delicious Pulled Pork Barbecue!

Delicious Fried Whiting and HushpuppiesAre you in the mood for a culinary roadtrip? Do you enjoy eating delicious regional food served by award winning chefs, visiting palm tree lined beaches, enjoying local history, going boating and fishing, as well as viewing majestic live oaks draped with Spanish moss?

If so, then a relaxing foodie vacation in Charleston, South Carolina may be just what the doctor ordered.

The cuisine of Charleston, SC is an addictive combination of such classic Southern and Lowcountry foods as pulled pork barbecue, shrimp and grits, red rice, she-crab soup, roasted oysters, fried fish, cornbread, biscuits, hoppin’ John, boiled peanuts, and red velvet cake.

In 2008, Travelocity named Charleston one of the world’s 10 Best Delicious Destinations for Foodies. Top Chef Judge and cookbook author Tom Colicchio lists Charleston as one of his favorite eating destinations, praising the flavor of its fish as well as the rough sensual delights of its local oyster roasts.

With such Charleston area James Beard Award winning chefs as Mike Lata of Fig and Robert Stehling of Hominy Grill, as well as James Beard winning cookbook authors Nathalie Dupree and Matt and Ted Lee (The Lee Bros.), Charleston is also home to a wide variety of locally based gourmet stores and specialty food shops which help provide inspiration for chefs of every stripe.

Whether you’re planning to visit Charleston (or are lucky enough to live here), below are the addresses for 13 interesting local gourmet shops, markets, specialty delis, bakeries, and more you might want to visit.

Enjoy!

(Listed in Alphabetical Order)
  • Charleston Cooks
    194 East Bay St.
    Charleston, SC
    Cooking classes from world class visiting and regional chefs. Also has a kitchen store.
  • Cupcake
    433 King St.
    Charleston, SC
    A cupcake-riffic bakery, with everything made from scratch.
  • Doscher’s Supermarket
    1133 Savannah Highway
    Charleston, SC
    An old fashioned Southern style supermarket featuring regional cuts of meat.
  • Earth Fare
    74 Folly Rd.
    Charleston, SC
    A large Southern based supermarket featuring such health foods as organic produce, bulk grains and spices, and more.
  • Euro Food
    1727 Ashley River Road
    Charleston, SC
    Sells Eastern European and Russian food.
  • H and L Asian Supermarket
    5300 Rivers Ave.
    Charleston, SC
    A giant Asian supermarket with a large variety of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other Asian foods and spices.
  • The Moon Pie General Store
    48 North Market St.
    Charleston, SC
    Sells a variety of Southern goodies (and yes) moon pies.
  • Nelli Indian Grocery
    1901 Ashley River Road (Highway 61)
    (West Ashley) Charleston, SC
    Sells Indian and Pakistani foods and spices.
  • The Olive Oil Shop
    316 King St.
    Charleston, SC
    Sells specialty olive oils pressed from all over the world, balsamic vinegar, rubs, spreads, and condiments.
  • Ted’s Butcher Block
    334 E Bay St.
    Charleston, SC
    Specialty butcher shop and gourmet market.

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Wed
13
May '09

Ashes and Oyster Shells: The Bowen’s Island Restaurant Fire

Ashes and Oyster Shells: The Bowen's Island Restaurant Fire

Book Excerpts and Food Articles by Doug DuCap

On a cool October evening several years ago, a very peculiar and very particularly Charleston institution took fire.

Bright flames illumined the marshes along Sol Legare Creek with the brief flare of vanishing history; the smoke that rose from the Bowen’s Island Restaurant fire took with it sixty years of accumulations, accretions, and thoroughly personalized accoutrement.

Visually, it was the kind of place you either loved or loathed; no one was indifferent to the bizarre amalgam of mismatched furniture, superfluous objects (e.g., stacks of dysfunctional TVs and radios), and decade upon decade of graffiti that grew like a fungus on literally every surface. The walls, ceilings, doors, and every ramshackle stick of furniture were covered with it, as were the windows, the lightbulbs, and the ancient wheezy jukebox.

(To see what the restaurant looked like before the fire, see Cramer Gallimore’s excellent photos here.)

The Ruins of Bowen's Island Restaurant, Charleston, South CarolinaDespite the polarizing effect of the alarmingly chaotic decor, there was no disputing the fact that Bowen’s Island served some of the freshest and finest seafood in the Carolina Lowcountry. The bountiful rivers, marshes, and creeks that surround the island are home to the fish, shrimp, crabs, and oysters that made up the menu. The firm, flavorful boiled shrimp and the crisp fried fish were hailed as marvels of simplicity, but it was the incomparable roasted oysters for which Bowen’s Island was most well known.

Eating in the Oyster Room was a full-body experience: you sat on rickety, graffiti-covered chairs at newspaper-covered tables, oyster knife (or butter knife, or screwdriver) in hand, de rigeur saltines and hot sauce at the ready, and waited. The oysters, so recently stirred from their pluff mud beds, were covered with wet burlap sacks and “roasted” on a wide sheet of hot metal in an open hearth at one end of the room.

Soon, the oyster man would literally dump a huge coal shovel load of steaming hot oysters onto your table. And that was it: dinner was served. Then began the prying open of shells and the slurping of hot briny oysters. Empty shells were tossed in a bucket (to be “recycled” into exactly the sort of underwater habitat that new oysters love to grow on), and before you were done with your first shovelful another would be dumped on your table, an action that would be repeated until you cried uncle.

So wondrous was the seafood at Bowen’s Island that the restaurant, in spite of its casual manners and exceeding quirkiness, received a 2006 James Beard Foundation Award as one of eight “American Classic Restaurants” that “boasts timeless appeal and quality food that reflects the history and character of its community.” Robert Barber, grandson of founder Sarah May Bowen, became something of a hero to many Lowcountry watermen when he received the award wearing a tuxedo and the locally-favored white rubber shrimping boots.

The restaurant is back in operation, though in a somewhat different form. Covered, semi-outdoor spaces (with plastic chairs and tables) on the creek have replaced the warren of rooms that served as the original restaurant. Many people now come to Bowen’s Island for the fundraising events (mostly outdoor oyster roasts) that are held here, and there’s a long dock where boats can tie up and where boatless fishermen can sit in the sunshine and “drown some bait” for a small fee.

But if no one is watching (and vigilance is not exactly ‘job one’ here), you might be able to slip around back and explore the truly remarkable ruins, where thousands have left their mark and where the unique character of a legendary gathering place, accrued over the course of six decades, survives (as Shelley phrased it) “stamped upon these lifeless things” and is not easily erased.

Not even by fire.

The Aftermath of the Bowen's Island Restaurant Fire
*

(Photo Credit: Playing With Fire by Cobalt123.)

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Wed
6
May '09

75+ Recipes From James Beard Award Winning Chefs

75+ Recipes You Can Make By 2009 James Beard Award Winning Chefs

With the majority of this year’s James Beard Award winning chefs and restaurants being based in New York City, it can be challenging for those of us who live outside of the NY Metro Area to enjoy the culinary skills of many of the 2009 honorees unless we’re planning a foodie vacation to the Empire State.

Luckily, all is not lost!

Below are 75+ recipes from many of 2009’s James Beard Award winners, to make it easier for you to enjoy and recreate some of their meals and tastes in your own home.

Enjoy!

California James Beard Winners’ Recipes:

75+ Recipes from James Beard Award Winning Chefs of 2009Rising Star Chef of the Year James Beard Award Winner: Nate Appleman, A16, San Francisco, CA

Best Chef/ Pacific James Beard Award Winner: Douglas Keane, Cyrus, Healdsburg, CA

Maine James Beard Winner’s Recipes:

Best Chef/ Northeast James Beard Award Winner: Rob Evans, Hugo’s, Portland, ME

Minnesota James Beard Winner’s Recipes:

Best Chef/ Midwest James Beard Award Winner: Tim McKee, La Belle Vie, Minneapolis, MN

Mississippi James Beard Winner’s Recipes:

Best Chef/ South James Beard Award Winner: John Currence, City Grocery, Oxford, MS

Nevada James Beard Winner’s Recipes:

Best Chef/ Southwest James Beard Award Winner: Paul Bartolotta, Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare at Wynn Las Vegas, NV

New York James Beard Winners’ Recipes:

Outstanding Chef James Beard Award Winner: Dan Barber, Blue Hill, New York, NY

Outstanding Restaurant James Beard Award Winner: Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Jean Georges, New York, NY

Best Chef/ New York City James Beard Award Winner: Gabrielle Hamilton, Prune

Ohio James Beard Winner’s Recipes:

Best Chef/ Great Lakes James Beard Award Winner: Michael Symon, Lola, Cleveland, OH

Pennsylvania James Beard Winner’s Recipes:

Best Chef/ Mid-Atlantic James Beard Award Winner: Jose Garces, Amada, Philadelphia, PA

South Carolina James Beard Winner’s Recipes:

Best Chef/ Southeast James Beard Award Winner: Mike Lata, Fig, Charleston, SC

Washington James Beard Winner’s Recipes:

Best Chef/ Northwest James Beard Award Winner: Maria Hines, Tilth, Seattle, WA

Enjoy!

(Photo Credits: Green and Orange by Kuyman and Dining Out by Brungrrl.)

Hugging the Coast Blog Fast ForwardPlease join us tomorrow to enjoy our newest recipe on HuggingtheCoast.Com, Red Velvet Cake Pancakes With Brandied Cherry Butter, just in time for Mother’s Day.

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Tue
5
May '09

The 2009 James Beard Winners Are Announced!

Flickr: Dining Out

The James Beard Foundation has just announced the winners for the 2009 James Beard Awards which honor some of America’s most respected restaurants, chefs, food authors, journalists, and restaurants. This year’s winners were chosen from an overall pool of over 15,000 entries from across the country.

Below are selections from the list of 2009 winners of the James Beard Awards which were held at Alice Tully Hall in New York City.

We’ve organized the list by state to make it easier for you to discover James Beard Award winning gourmet restaurants and professionals in your area and the places you visit on your foodie vacations and culinary adventures.

What If There Aren’t Any 2009 James Beard Award Winning Restaurants in My Area?

This year’s finalists and semifinalists represented every state in America, so feel free to enjoy this list of 2009 James Beard Award Nominees instead.

You Might Also Want to See Our Special Feature:

75+ Recipes from James Beard Award Winning Chefs.

The 2009 James Beard Foundation Awards Winners

Alabama:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Arizona:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Arkansas:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

California:

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Rising Star Chef of the Year James Beard Award Winner: Nate Appleman, A16, San Francisco, CA

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Best Chef/ Pacific James Beard Award Winner: Douglas Keane, Cyrus, Healdsburg, CA

Colorado:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Delaware:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

District of Columbia:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Florida:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Georgia:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Hawaii:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Idaho:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Illinois:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Indiana:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Iowa:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Kentucky:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Louisiana:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Maine:

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Best Chef/ Northeast James Beard Award Winner: Rob Evans, Hugo’s, Portland, ME

Maryland:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Massachusetts:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Michigan:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Minnesota:

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Best Chef/ Midwest James Beard Award Winner: Tim McKee, La Belle Vie, Minneapolis, MN

Mississippi:

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Best Chef/ South James Beard Award Winner: John Currence, City Grocery, Oxford, MS

Missouri:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Nebraska:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Nevada:

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Best Chef/ Southwest James Beard Award Winner: Paul Bartolotta, Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare at Wynn Las Vegas, NV

New Jersey:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

New Mexico:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

New York:

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Outstanding Chef James Beard Award Winner: Dan Barber, Blue Hill, New York, NY

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Outstanding Restaurant James Beard Award Winner: Jean Georges, New York, NY

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Best New Restaurant James Beard Award Winner: Momofuku Ko, New York, NY

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Best Chef/ New York City James Beard Award Winner: Gabrielle Hamilton, Prune

North Carolina:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Ohio:

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Best Chef/ Great Lakes James Beard Award Winner: Michael Symon, Lola, Cleveland, OH

Oregon:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Pennsylvania:

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Best Chef/ Mid-Atlantic James Beard Award Winner: Jose Garces, Amada, Philadelphia, PA

Rhode Island:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

South Carolina:

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Best Chef/ Southeast James Beard Award Winner: Mike Lata, Fig, Charleston, SC

South Dakota:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Tennessee:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Texas:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Vermont:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Virginia:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Washington:

James Beard Award Finalist Nominee!Best Chef/ Northwest James Beard Award Winner: Maria Hines, Tilth, Seattle, WA

West Virginia:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Wisconsin:

Alas, there were no 2009 James Beard Award Winners for this state.

Red Carpet Video From the 2009 James Beard Awards: An Interviewer Asks Laurent Gras, Emeril Lagasse, Gavin Kaysen, Paul Liebrandt, Alain Ducasse, Aaron Sanchez, Daniel Boulud and Tom Douglas What They Ate For Breakfast on the Day of the 2009 James Beard Awards


(Photo Credits: Dining Out by Brungrrl.)

Hugging the Coast Blog Fast ForwardPlease join us tomorrow to read our newest food article, Recipes From James Beard Award Winning Chefs.

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Sat
18
Apr '09

Weekend Video Spotlight: 2 Salmon Video Recipes From Chef Jacques Pepin

Weekend Video SpotlightKQEDondemand has made available several videos featuring Chef Jacques Pepin sharing quick and easy gourmet recipes from his current public television show, More Fast Food My Way.

Now in his 70’s, Pepin is an amazing chef who grew up cooking in his father’s restaurant and later went on to cook for France’s Charles de Gaulle. Offered an opportunity to become the Executive Chef of then President John F. Kennedy’s White House Kitchen, he went on to create a series of critically acclaimed cookbooks and James Beard Award winning cooking shows.

Below are a two brief salmon video recipes that are sure to be a hit at your next party or gathering. enjoy!

(Also, here’s a page that features 49 more of Jacques Pepin’s recipes which you can download free of charge in PDF format.)



You can see other recent Weekend Video Spotlight Videos here.

You can also see HuggingtheCoast.com’s growing collection of food, cooking, and travel videos here.

Hugging the Coast Blog Fast ForwardPlease join us tomorrow to see this week’s Hugging the Coast.Com Week in Review, an overview of last week’s special food features (as well as selected previews from the week to come).

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