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It’s an election year, which means it’s time for me to lodge my quadrennial complaint against the term “trudging down to the polls”, which we are all about to hear ad nauseum between now and November. Curiously enough, about the only time Americans seem to trudge anywhere they are on their way to a polling place, and, equally curiously, no one ever seems to get to the polls in any other way but trudging. No one trudges to the store for a gallon of milk, or trudges off to get their hair cut. And, no one seems to breeze over to, drop by, stride proudly toward, nor dash out to the polls (dashing out is reserved for getting milk, I think). Ho, hum. Trudge, trudge. Gotta vote again. What a chore . . .
Okay, so that’s off my chest for another four years.
Now that I’m starting to write more and more about restaurants, and read far, far more restaurant reviews than I used to, I’m starting to notice another phrase that seems almost as much of a journalistic reflex as “trudging down to the polls”. I’ve used it myself at least half a dozen times in the past few years. Have you noticed that no fewer than half of our local restaurants are “tucked away in a strip mall?” They are. Check out the online review archives in our various local outlets.
And it’s not just in Charleston, either. Google the phrase and check out how many restaurants show up. And then count web pages and see how many places tucked away in a strip mall are NOT serving food or beverages. Very few, for some reason. I mean, conceivably, a bookstore or a barber shop could be tucked away in a strip mall just as easily as a restaurant. But they never seem to be.
What is it about strip malls that make them such convenient places for tucking away cute little eateries? And, while we’re at it, what’s so damned remarkable about a restaurant being located in a strip mall in the first place? Something must be, for restaurant reviewers (myself included) regularly make a big deal out of the fact that we actually found something edible in a strip mall location: “You might find it surprising from a little cafe tucked away in a strip mall off of Highway XYZ, but Alfonso Junction actually has some remarkably tasty sandwiches.” As if you have to be in some refurbished brick-walled warehouse or an old converted mansion in order to know how to fry up a steak.
No more for me. When you think about it, why wouldn’t there be good food in strip malls? In this day and age, except for old downtown areas where you actually have classic storefronts, where else would you expect to find a restaurant?
The next time I go downtown and write about one of those high-falutin’ places that are always showing up on the awards lists, I swear I’m going to start the piece off like this: “You might not expect it from a cavernous restaurant in an exquisitely restored 18th Century warehourse in the heart of Charleston’s historic district, but [insert name here] actually has some pretty good food.”
Just watch me.
Jeff Allen is up in New York City covering the James Beard Awards (or at least eating his way through Manhattan). Check out the latest over at the Eat blog, and let’s root for the hometown boys–Mike Lata of FIG and Robert Stehling of Hominy Grill, both up for Best Chef - Southeast, and Sean Brock of McCrady’s, up for the national Rising Star award.
I’m undertaking a little project to delve into the subject of She-Crab Soup, one of Charleston’s indisputed culinary classics. I’m well underway on my sampling tour of the city’s restaurants, but there are hundreds of candidates to choose from, and I’d hate to miss out on a really good bowl.
So, I could use a little help. What restaurants do you think serve the best She-Crab Soup in town?
Feel free to pass along any other tips, memories, preferences, or anecdotes that would help, too.
And what better month than June for a nice steamy bowl of cream-based soup?
These days, as I’ve been looking more and more into the old-school classics of Lowcountry cooking, I find myself eating pilau a lot. In Charleston, that’s usually pronounced “per-low” or “per-loo”, but it is related historically to the Middle Eastern rice dishes that are more frequently called “pilaf” outside of Charleston. Made incorrectly, pilau can be a dry, boring rice dish. Put together just right, it’s a tender, steamy delicacy. I can’t say I’ve completely mastered the pilau yet, but I’m getting closer.
For this recipe, I started with the version from John Martin Taylor’s Hoppin’ John’s Lowcountry Cooking, which I’ve found to be one of the best sources for classic Lowcountry recipes. One thing was noticably missing from Taylor’s version, though: bacon. Bacon shows up in almost all of the 19th century pilau recipes from South Carolina, so I added in a slice or two once I hit the step where you sautee the vegetables (after all, bacon is essentially just an extension of the vegetable food group, right?)
Here’s how it goes:
1. Cover a whole chicken (or the parts from one chicken) with water (about 2 quarts), bring to a boil, and simmer for a half hour.
2. Remove chicken from the stock and reserve the stock. Allow chicken to cool, then remove the meat from the bones.
3. Melt a bunch of butter in a dutch oven or similarly large pan. Don’t be scared–used a whole stick.
4. Add a diced onion, 2-3 ribs worth of diced celery, and 2 slices worth of minced bacon. Cook till the vegetables are just starting to brown. (I snapped the photo below just before remembering I needed to add the bacon!)
5. Toss in a diced tomato along with salt and pepper and some fresh thyme (about a tablespoon if it’s fresh, a teaspoon if you only have dried). Add two cups of rice and the chicken and stir till well coated in the butter. I prefer to use Carolina Gold rice for this dish, though you could use plain old long grain rice, too–it just won’t have quite the dense, chewy texture of the original.
6. Add 4 cups of the reserved chicken stock. The ratio of rice to liquid is important here, so measure!
7. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat till the liquid is just simmering (medium low on my electric stove). Cover and cook undisturbed thirty minutes.
When it’s done, remove the lid, fluff the grains of rice with a fork, and serve. It’s rich and filling and a classic of the Lowcountry.
So, one day after my post on the Golden Ratio for margaritas, I open up the newly-arrived July issue of Saveur and see that Robb Walsh has an article in it on great Lone Star State margarita joints. And, he provides his formula for the “classic shaken margarita.” (Recipe here.)
Ordinarily I would shrug off any competing ratios (for what can beat the elegant simplicity of 3 to 2 to 1?), but this is Robb Walsh we’re talking about–a masterful chronicler not only of the history of the margarita but also of Texas barbecue. I mean, what would you do if you’d just published a long treatise on quantum mechanics and found out the next day that Max Planck had just published his own article on the same topic in a competing journal? (Okay, Wife, you can stop doing that whole making-an-L-with-my-fingers-on-my-forehead thing already.)
So, even though it was ten o’clock on a work night I felt in the interest of science I had to give it a try. The margarita recipe, that is.
Walsh’s ratio lacks elegance: 4 parts tequila to 1-1/2 parts lime juice to 1 part Cointreau and 1/2 part simple syrup. Parts, in his case, is ounces. So, if you were to try to make it more elegant, you could do 8 to 3 to 2 to 1, which is still complicated as heck. Good luck remembering that one when shaking up the third round.
I do have to give him one thing: I think the addition of simple syrup actually works in a margarita made with Cointreau, which lacks a little of the sweetness of Triple Sec.
But I do have a bone to pick. If you follow Walsh’s recipe step by step, you’ll start off with four (4!) ounces of tequila in your shaker, which seems like an awful lot for a weeknight. But, in the interest of science, one does want to follow to formula to the letter . . . and then you get to the last line it says, “pour into 2 small ice-filled tumblers.” Now, since when did you ever hear of cocktail recipes that make two servings? That tomfoolery may have worked on the coeds down at UT Austin, Walshy, but I’m not falling for it!
It may still be Spring elsewhere, but it is full on Summer here in Charleston. The mercury got up in the 90s this past weekend and the neighborhood pool was packed. And that can mean only one thing . . . Margarita time!
Last Memorial Day I expounded on my theory about the Margarita’s Golden Ratio, and I’ve been trying to validate that through rigorous empirical research. Lots and lots of rigorous empircal research. (Hey, somebody’s got to do it!)
So far, my formula still holds up: 3 to 2 to 1. That’s three parts tequila to two parts triple sec to 1 part lime juice. No sugar or blender required. Just shake vigorously with ice and pour over the rocks.
This time around I invested in a bottle of Cointreau to take the place of the triple sec, and I think it improves things nicely.
Bring on the summer heat. I’m ready.
The Chowhound message boards have a thread about Lowcountry cuisine that offers some good descriptions and definitions.
I had dinner at FIG Saturday night. For an appetizer, I ordered the local radishes with Vermont butter and fleur de sel. This was one I hadn’t tried before, and I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting–some sort of dressed salad kind of thing, I guess. Instead, the plate came out with food in three sections: a small pile of pink radishes on the left–cleaned and sliced in half but otherwise completely raw and unprepared in any way–along with an egg-shaped scoop of yellow butter in the middle and a small pile of coarse, flaky salt on the right. Hmm, I thought. I surveyed the plate with a sinking heart. Looks like someone forgot to put the thing together.
I looked enviously over at The Wife to my right, who was busy tucking away an insanely delicious-looking warm potato dumpling concoction with a creamy sauce and bits of green onion and herbs all over it, and then to my friend on the left who was forking into two of the largest stone crab claws I’ve ever seen. I put on a brave face, smeared a radish half with some of the butter, and dabbed it in the salt and . . .
It was good. Unbeliveably good. Crisp and spicy radish with the creamy artisinal butter and the zip of the salt. In fact, it’s hard to think of what cooking or marinating or other preparation could have possibly added to the combination.
I guess one could make the argument that this isn’t really cooking: it’s just someone shopping for you. But I don’t care. It’s sort of like those rubes who look at Abstract Expressionist art and say, “hell, my ten year old could paint that!” Yes, he probably could. But did he paint it? Would he ever think to if he didn’t have a Jackson Pollock version to imitate?
Now, coming fast on the heels of my having a phenomenal “Spring Radish Puree” soup at Soif a few weeks ago, I am in danger of developing a full-on radish obsession. Now if I could just get Mike Lata to spill the beans and tell me where he gets those local radishes . . .
Awards & Notices
The Charleston Food + Wine Festival made Forbes Traveler’s list of Best U.S Wine & Food Festivals. Not bad for an event that’s only three years old. (Maybe now they’ll finally be able to afford that ampersand.)
Slightly North of Broad was just inducted into the Nation’s Restaurant News’ Fine Dining Hall of Fame.
Chefs on the Move
Charles Arena is moving from the Boat House at Breach Inlet to the Library Restaurant at The Vendue Inn.
David Szlam, formerly of the departed Cordavi, has taken on the chef’s spot at Uno Mas.
Chefs on the Road
Mike Lata from Fig will be the featured chef at Blackberry Farm in Walland, TN, June 22nd to June 24th.
Marc Collins of Circa 1886 is traveling up to Hartford on June 6th to be one of eight guest chefs in the Connecticut Culinary Masters Classic fundraiser.
Openings & Closings
Caviar & Bananas, a “gourmet market and cafe” has opened at 51 George St. downtown and offers gourmet groceries (including charcuterie, cheese, and sushi) as well as a range of prepared foods for eating in or taking out.
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