Ever wonder where top chefs like Anthony Bourdain, Thomas Keller, and Tom Colicchio like to go on vacation, area restaurants they can’t resist, what their guilty culinary pleasures are on the road, and more?

Then you’ll enjoy this series of interesting pieces from Fodors which features 14 top chefs including Alice Waters, Anthony Bourdain, Thomas Keller, Tom, Colicchio, Ming Tsai, Suvir Saran, Lidia Bastianich, Govind Armstrong, Michelle Bernstein, Gavin Kaysen, Bobby Flay, and Suzanne Goin, sharing their favorite foodie meccas (excerpts below):

Anthony Bourdain on New York:

“What do we do in New York better than anyone else in the world?’ The answer to that question is deli…It’s the food that I miss when I’m away, no matter how well I’m eating. Even in places with fantastic food — Singapore, Hong Kong — the food that I miss first is deli.”

(You can read more from Anthony Bourdain on the subject here.)

Thomas Keller on the Napa Valley:

“When I think of lunch in Napa, I think of something quick that’s kind of comforting. And one of the places I like is Taylor’s Refresher. They have great hamburgers and fish tacos and you can sit outside in the beautiful weather because they have a big lawn right behind it. One of the things about Napa Valley, which is so unique, is that all of our restaurants are really good…People come to Napa Valley primarily to eat and drink, so we have great wine and great restaurants.”

(You can read more from Thomas Keller on the subject here.)

Tom Colicchio on Charleston, SC:

“What’s great about the South is that the idea of hospitality is second-nature. One of my favorites in Charleston is Hominy Grill. It is just the epitome of Southern casual dining. Breakfast, lunch, dinner — every single meal is just wonderful. Usually when I go to Charleston, I go right from the plane to Hominy Grill. I try to get there for breakfast — they do shrimp and grits and different egg dishes. Whatever they serve is usually seasonal, wonderful, delicious. Last time I was there I had shad roe and scrambled eggs for breakfast…

For me, going to South Carolina, it’s not so much about the beaches, it’s about the marshes. It’s just wonderful to get a kayak and go through the marshes. You see everything from redfish to alligators to dolphins. It’s amazing — the amount of birds and wildlife…

There are so many little fish shacks around Charleston. There’s a little place called Bowen’s Island, an oyster grill where you sit at a picnic table, and the guy comes by with a shovel full of oysters that come off the grill and just puts [them] on the table on top of newspaper and they’re kind of steamed open from the grill — and that’s it. You dip them in butter and that’s all they serve…”

(You can read more from Tom Colicchio on the subject here.)

Also, you can see photos of Bowen’s Island on our FlickR Photoset here as well as read the full series of top chef interviews here.

Planning to do some serious hiking, biking, or backpacking and need a simple way to make nutritious meals on the run using a minimum of dishes and cooking equipment? Then thermos cooking might be for you.

For most meals made in a thermos (you’ll need a fully stainless steel-lined 1 quart thermos with a small-medium sized opening like the Aladdin Stanley, not those wide-mouthed, styrofoam insulated cheapies that the kids take to school) all you’ll need is a good thermos, the ingredients you plan to cook, some hot water, and a little patience.

Plus, if you’re camping, boating, etc. and don’t have easy access to boiling water, simple hot water will do…however be prepared for the cooking process to take a bit longer. (For many, thermos cooking can also be a good technique to know in the event of an extended power outage.)

The best way to get started with thermos cooking is to read this thread about it which has tips and recipes for successful and easy thermos cookery from people who do it for a wide variety of reasons.

There’s also another good thread here where the author compares his experiences cooking steel-cut oats, grits, stew, pasta, etc. on a conventional stovetop with those he had cooking in a thermos.

When you go on a fishing trip or go camping in the mountains, do you enjoy celebrating the pleasure of the great outdoors with a gourmet meal cooked on an open fire?

Fans of outdoor cooking at its finest (as well as gourmet food in general), won’t want to miss the four Redwood Creek Campfire Classic events taking place across the country throughout the spring and summer to kickoff the 2008 camping season.

The most recent event will be held on May 17th, 2008 as part of the Food and Wine Festival at National Harbor in Maryland and will feature the semi-final competitions for the contest for already selected competitors from both the North and Southeast (with Hugging the Coast’s own Doug DuCap competing in the Southeastern Division!).

In addition to the Redwood Creek Campfire Classic cookoffs, the Food and Wine Festival at National Harbor will also feature demonstrations by Michel Richard, the critically acclaimed chef of Citronelle and author of Happy in the Kitchen as well as lectures and samples from dozens of culinary experts from around the country.

Two other Campfire Classic semi-finalist cookoffs will be held in Seattle, WA on May 31st as part of the Pike Place Market Street Festival and in Chicago, IL on June 7th as part of the Chicago Botanic Garden Wine Festival which will determine the finalists from the Northwest and Midwest divisions. (The finalists from the Southwestern division were chosen on May 3rd at Mayfest in Fort Worth, TX.)

Winners of the Campfire Classic Semi-Finals will be awarded $1,000, plus an all-expense paid trip to New York City to compete during the first week of summer for a chance to win a $10,000 Grand Prize. The finals will be judged by Redwood Creek winemaker, Cal Dennison, and Bob Blumer, host of the Food Network’s Glutton for Punishment and The Surreal Gourmet.

Like the poster above? You can get it free here. Also, please see the 2007 Campfire Classic Finalists’ Recipes below to help inspire you on your own culinary campfire adventures:

• 2007 Grand Prize Winner: Coal-Roasted Chuckbox Pozole-Stuffed Onions by Leah Lyon of Ada, Oklahoma

• Chincoteague Scallops by Julia DeCastro of University Park, Florida

• Rocky Mountain Pinon Paella by Paul Heitzenrater of Denver, Colorado

• Down East Lobster Scampi a la Campfire by Brian Mulligan of Bath, Maine

• Lost in the Woods Pork Tenderloin by Kim Wittmers of Minneapolis, Minnesota

Don’t let a bout of seasickness ruin your fishing trip or cruise! According to Seaworthy Magazine (published by the Boat Owners Association of the United States)…

“Whenever he encountered a seasick sailor, Admiral Nelson, the 19th century British hero at Trafalgar, suggested his own fool-proof remedy: ‘You’ll feel better if you sit under a tree.’ Nelson, who made a few trips to the rail himself, was obviously a funny guy but not everybody shares his sense of humor about seasickness. The same motion–up, down, up, down–that reminds some people of Joseph Conrad reminds others of what they had for lunch. In the almost 200 years since Nelson met his Waterloo, modern medicine hasn’t been able to improve on his tree remedy, but they’re working on it.

For anyone contemplating a bumpy voyage, there are various pills and patches that have been concocted–Dramamine, Marezine, Bonine, Scopolamine (ear patches), etc. These anti-motion drugs all affect the inner ear, which is where seasickness originates before it drops–thud–into the stomach. While some people swear by one or the other of these remedies, there is no one drug that has proven to be ideal for everybody. None of the pills work immediately and all must be taken well before symptoms occur. There is also something called Phenergan, a suppository that is said to be effective when someone is already seasick.

If you are going to try one, you might want to start with Marezine, since it is the least likely to cause drowsiness. Scapolamine is probably the most effective and its effects also last the longest, about 72 hours. It can have some strange side effects, however, and requires a doctor’s prescription. Marezine, Dramamine, and Bonine are antihistamines, which means they can be bought over the counter. Phenergan can also be purchased over the counter.

Many people think of pills or patches as a last resort to fighting motion sickness. One alternative is ginger root powder, which is a seasick remedy that was first brought to our attention by an enthusiastic BoatU.S. member in Washington State. Ginger root powder settles the stomach and has gotten some good press, including a recommendation in Lancet, a well-regarded English medical journal. Ginger root powder capsules are available in health food stores.”

You can read more of this highly informative article here.

In his book The Human Body, Isaac Asimov related the anecdote about a seasick passenger whom a steward cheerfully assured that nobody ever died from seasickness. The passenger muttered, “Please–it’s only the hope of dying that’s keeping me alive.”

Here’s a YouTube video performance by bluesman Seasick Steve who says he earned his name every time he went out on a boat.

May’s Free Cookbook Preview…

Been to Google Books lately? Google Books has been gradually placing the full text of thousands of books online, many of them free full previews of culinary books that are either out-of-print or have been added online with the permission of their publishers.

One of the latter gems we’ve recently stumbled upon is Cruising Cuisine for Home Entertaining: Hors D’Oeuvres and Appetizers, a 140 page book of interesting recipes inspired by cruise vacation meals written by Elena Vakhrenova.

A former cruise line manager with experience in food and beverage, Vakhrenova’s book features hors d’oeuvres and appetizers selected for their interesting presentation and easy preparation. Elena has added personal stories and impressions to help the reader experience how the recipe was first discovered and what makes it special.

You can read the whole book for free on Google Books here…enjoy!

You can also order the book from Amazon here.

There is nothing quite like an oyster roast. Standing elbow to elbow with fellow oyster lovers we await the bounty about to be served; oyster knives at the ready, shucking gloves tucked in our belts, bowls of crimson hot sauce scattered across the rough-hewn tables.

A popular coastal tradition, the best oyster roasts are both sacred and informal celebrations of the natural flavors of the sea that ideally take place not far from the waters from which the oysters were taken.

If you’d like to hold your own oyster roast, you’ll have to order several bushels of oysters from your local seafood supplier, but it’s much better to harvest them yourself if you’re lucky to live in an area with an abundance of oysters. There’s a nice article here about the finer points of gathering oysters and running a traditional oyster roast.

If you prefer to grill your oysters instead, Coastal Living has some good tips and recipes here.

According to Charlestonlowcountry.com, oysters are an excellent source of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, C, and D. Four or five medium size oysters supply the recommended daily allowance of iron, copper, iodine, magnesium, calcium, zinc, and manganese. Charlestonlowcountry.com also has some nice in-home recipes here.

After you’ve held your roast, don’t forget to recycle your oyster shells so that they can be used to form new oyster beds for the next generation of oysters. South Carolina residents can recycle their oyster shells at various DNR oyster shell recycling locations. North Carolina also has an excellent oyster shell recycling program.

(Here’s a photo we took of an oyster bed vista in McClellanville, SC.)

Also, below is a taste of a few of the many photos we took at Pethelpers’ 2008 Sucking It Up to Save Lives Oyster Roast at Bowen’s Island in Charleston, SC. The event raised over $13,000 to benefit the new no-kill animal shelter.

While we were at the oyster roast, we were fortunate enough to come across something small and hard in one of our oysters…a pearl!

Alas, unlike Florida’s George and Leslie Brock who were lucky enough to come across a really valuable purple oyster while eating our Apalachicola Selects, our “Pethelper Pearl” is small and rough textured; a rare specimen mainly remarkable for its extremely high sentimental (if not financial) value.

By the way, if you’re curious about how oysters make pearls, click here.

With its sleek modernist lines reminiscent of Bauhaus architecture, South Carolina’s Sullivan’s Island Lighthouse may be less charming than its neighbor, the Morris Island Lighthouse, however it still provides a useful service.

According to the Sullivan’s Island Lighthouse Page at LighthouseFriends.Com:

“When erosion threatened the Morris Island Lighthouse, located south of the entrance to Charleston Harbor, the decision was made to place a replacement beacon on Sullivan’s Island, north of the harbor’s entrance. Although the triangular tower, built of concrete and steel and clad in a skin of aluminum, doesn’t have much Southern charm, it does have some redeeming qualities. Inside the tower, the keepers of the light are treated to air conditioning and an elevator that can quickly whisk them skyward. After the elevator ride, it is still necessary to scale a small staircase to reach the lantern room, where a powerful light source is housed. Originally, the light produced an amazing 28 million candlepower, but this powerful beam proved dangerous and was downgraded to a light of just over a million candlepower that has a range of twenty-six miles.”

By the way, with the exception of Boston Light, the oldest station in America, all lighthouses in the U.S. are fully automated, although some properties may have on-site caretakers to help prevent vandalism or to run tours through the facility.

You can read some interesting lighthouse trivia here. If you’re interested in learning more about the historical role played by lighthouses in both South and North Carolina, you can read excerpts online from Terrance Zepke’s book, Lighthouses of the Carolinas: A Short History and Guide.

Want a taste of what it’s like to live in a lighthouse? Below are 3 cookbooks full of recipes from lighthouse kitchens,

• Cooking Lighthouse Style: Favorite Recipes from Coast to Coast by Fred Stonehouse

• The Lighthouse Cookbook by Anita Stewart

• Horton Point Lighthouse Cookbook by The Southold Historical Society

Charleston, SC’s too big to have made this list of The Best Fishing Towns in America from Field and Stream. (The places on this particular list all have less than 100,000 residents. Charleston has almost 119,000.) However, scenic Beaufort, SC did make #17 on the list.

Charleston was named one of the best fishing spots in the South on another F&S list that was mentioned in a previous post).

Here’s the full list of notable fishing towns…

1. Glenwood Spring, CO
2. Mountain Home, AR
3. Traverse City, MI
4. Bozeman, MT
5. Minocqua, WI
6. Apalachicola, FL
7. Nantucket, MA
8. Bend, OR
9. Guntersville, AL
10. Morehead City, NC
11. Missoula, MT
12. Ely, MN
13. Page, AZ
14. Driggs, ID
15. Jasper, TX
16. Tahlequah, OK
17. Beaufort, SC
18. Eufaula, AL
19. Redding, CA
20. Montauk, NY

Here’s a great South Carolina video from E.M. Skidmore that will give you a sense of how those delicious shrimp end up on your table.

Are your first words when arriving at a meeting or lunch date, “I’m sorry I’m late”? Have you ever been left at the dock while your fishing buddies have been off catching fish for hours?

Wakerupper.Com is a free service that will send an automated wakeup or reminder voice and/or text message to your phone so you can arrive in time for any event, remember an important event, or notify you when it’s time to do a particular task, remove the bread from the oven, or even take your daily medication.

The service works with any phone in the U.S. or Canada (including the iPhone).

You can schedule a free automated reminder here. (There’s also a handy FAQ here.)

Here down South (especially in Charleston), we’re lucky for much of the year to have access to fresh local seafood. However, other parts of the country are not so lucky.

As it says in an article on AirCargoWorld.Com…

“In order to dine upon day-old Copper River salmon in a trendy New York City bistro or freshly farmed shrimp in the comfort of a Manhattan, Kansas, household, air cargo shipping is necessary to ensure quality of fish and shellfish…

According to the National Fisheries Institute, Americans eat 16.5 pounds of seafood annually per capita, 74 percent of which is of the fresh and frozen variety…

Alaska plays a significant role in transporting fresh Alaska seafood, flying more than 26 million pounds of it to the lower 48 states and beyond each year.”

You can read more of the article here.

• What is the difference between Atlantic and Pacific Salmon? from Wisegeek.Com

• What types of salmon are there? From Virtual WeberBullet.Com

• How do I choose between various types of smoked salmon and what do they taste like? from The Nibble

• How do I smoke my own salmon? from What’s Cooking America

• Since some fishing licenses granted require me to limit my catch to a particular type of salmon, how can I identify the salmon I have caught? from Ezinearticles.Com

• Where can I find photos of all the kinds of salmon to make it easier to identify them? from King County DNR

What about a recipe?

How about Mustard-Broiled Salmon With New Potato Salad from RealSimple.Com?

If you regularly enjoy boating, fishing, or surfing it is essential to keep an eye on the tide. Here’s some handy tools and websites for the purpose:

Sciway.net has some free online tide prediction tables here that cover from Wilmington, NC to the entrance of the Savannah River as does the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

If you have a Palm OS PDA handheld, Tide Tool displays the tide and current graphs and tables for 6,900 locations worldwide. It also displays the times of sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset, and the moon phases until the year 2031.

Tide Tool is free software. You can download it at http://www.tucows.com/preview/34687.

If you have a Windows OS PDA handheld, NavStation Tides from Woodpecker Software is available for $40. You can download a free trial version of the software here.

This is a nice video homage to Charleston, SC by Robert L. Payne with some good shots of the coast, beaches, and palm trees for those of you who haven’t had the luck to visit here (yet).

Long considered a delicacy in Japan for their purported aphrodisiac qualities, the red sea urchin is a popular fixture on the menus of many British Columbia sushi restaurants. Sea urchins both red and the more common green are also used in Italian and Greek cuisine.

According to BC Seafood Online, the porcupine-like red sea urchins are still harvested by hand the traditional way using stainless steel rakes to pick the urchins from the rocks or via deep sea diving. However, on the East Coast, trawlers are often used.

Here’s a great photo blog that shows more information about urchin harvesting.

Chow.Com states that the red sea urchin is found throughout northern Europe and the Mediterranean. Red, green, and purple sea urchins are harvested on the American Pacific coast. Green sea urchins are commercially harvested on the American Atlantic coast. The largest American producers are California for red urchins and Maine for green urchins. Peak season for red urchins is October to May; peak season for green urchins is November to March.Fresh urchin roe and whole urchin are available year round with a peak period of September to April. Urchin roe is also available frozen year round, especially in Asian supermarkets.

A few sea urchin recipes…

Oyster and Sea Urchin Stew

Salmon Fillet with Sea Urchin Risotto

Spaghetti With Sea Urchin Roe, Lemon and Field Balm

Sea Urchin Bruschetta

Baked Sea Urchin With Sea Urchin Butter

Check out this YouTube video slideshow that showcases a few of the many pleasures of fishing and boating in South Carolina.

Spotlight on a good cause…

Help preserve South Carolina’s beautiful Morris Island Lighthouse by purchasing the rare, limited edition print pictured above or by making a donation to Save the Light.

“Save The Light is pleased to offer Jim Booth’s print, “Carolina Legacy”, a homage to the importance of the Morris Island Lighthouse to South Carolina and Charleston, and was created to help support Save The Light’s goal to protect and preserve this irreplaceable historical landmark.

Jim’s painting depicts the Morris Island Lighthouse as it looked in 1896. This venerable tower still stands to remind us of the noble legacy of our treasured maritime history. The sales of this new print will enable Save The Light to begin the Protection and Preservation Project.

The Save The Light Edition of “Carolina Legacy” is signed and numbered with an edition size of only 400 prints.

All sales will be through the Jim Booth Art Gallery. Payments by cash, check, or credit card will be accepted. Please let the gallery sales people know that you are a member of Save The Light when you order. The cost of the print is $200.00 plus $2.00 for protective shrink-wrapping and $10.00 for shipping if necessary. Please call the Jim Booth Gallery at 1-800-696-5772 or access his website, www.jimbooth.com, to purchase your print.

The Save the Light edition of the last print sold out in two weeks, so we urge you to act quickly if you would like to reserve prints.

The sales of the first print Jim Booth released for Save The Light in 1999, “First Light”, raised the funds necessary for us to purchase the lighthouse from a private owner and donate it to the people of South Carolina.

We are very excited to begin the multi-phased project to preserve this, the most beloved symbol of South Carolina’s maritime heritage.”

You can find out more about artist, Jim Booth here. Memberships in Save the Light are available for as low as $25 and entitle you to receive a variety of great lighthouse related memorabilia.

More Related Links:

• Morris Island Lighthouse Webcam
  
• Lighthouse Friends Morris Island Lighthouse Page
• Flickr: Morris Island Photos