Tastes of Charleston

We had arranged two major food pilgrimages on our trip to Charleston – one was to visit Husk, the by

now southern mecca for new southern cuisine, and Grill 225, the southern mecca for representing

the traditional steak house.  My own bets, based on so much reading of the hubbub over the new, were placed down on Husk as the more likely of the two to be one of those places you have to be prodded away from the table.  Yet it was 225 that took the jackpot.  Located at the tail end of the open air city

market at the norther end of East Bay, 225 started us out with dangerously unique Nitrotini,

a blended martini infused with dry ice.  Nitrotinis are to be served by bartenders with certificates for pouring the concoction that cannot be drunk for at least three minutes because of its 320 degree temperature (the waiter said it might scratch the throat a little bit if you sipped it right away). The waiters, in white jackets, come out of the kitchen in tandem to serve and bring your eventual entrees out on steak carts.  Janet got the Oscar Filet, Julia an 8 oz. Mignon, and Carly and I

split Lamb Chops that were the best – possibly the best red meat – I had ever had.  Old school table portions of spinach and mashed sweet potatoes rounded out the main course while Sinatra bellowed in the corners of the dining room as if he were walking the room in person.  To lure us ever closer to favoring the old to the new was a chocolate mousse cake that I am fairly certain was picked up at one point inside Carly's palm and smashed into her mouth. Little Sweet Tooth couldn't get enough.  There are steakhouses, and then there is The Grill 225.

Where the Grill oozed southern formality, Husk offered waiters in Levis plaid and modern day haircuts, friendly, laid back and helpful with Julia's no-lactose needs.  We started with the best oysters on earth, shucked, but recapped, and broiled with a sauce simmering inside; a plate of mussels and bread as soft as small pillows.

It was at Husk that Julia out-did another night's courageous order of Ratatouille by eating pig's ear lettuce wraps... loved them.  I tried the quail; Jan fried catfish; and Carly simple chicken.  Located in the heart of what is called the French Quarter, Husk was a romantically exciting and innovative experience.

Built-in jar preserves cupboard outside bathroom at Husk

Charleston is American history itself.  The restaurant scene in the city right now is not so much a clashing of the old and the new but a fusion that feels like new history being made as you eat.

Tastes of Charleston

We were glad our tour guide Denny Stiles knew the City Hall armed guard at the entrance.  It was our first morning in Charleston and we took a great leap in booking a tour guide

who, thankfully it turns out, said he didn't really dumb down his tours for kids.  Denny was
an ex-Air Force Pilot, a poet, an historian, a dad of five himself, and gave it to you straight.  So we found ourselves in places like the upstairs of the temporarily vacant city hall  

Washington portrait in between two white wall statues

chambers (the guard gave us the keys...she loved Denny) where we were able to stand, alone, inches away from an original Trumbull painting of George Washington, who had visited the city in 1791 with an enormous entourage as part of the very first of its kind American Presidential Tour.  Washington visited local dignitaries (several original signers of Declaration of Independence from Charleston), dined, drank and worshiped in the Church box of the then Royal Governor (visitors can touch the wood Washington sat in).

View of the Pulpit from church box Washington visited, Tiffany stained glass in the background

We went on to learn why the city was called the Holy City (a massive hodge podge of world religions congregated here including the countries largest synagogue), about its eclectic and often colorful architecture,

its pirate legacy (Blackbeard once patrolled the harbor), its slave-trading past, and its unprecedented importance in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars (first shots of Civil War shot in Charleston!).

As we finished our tour at the historic Battery Park,

which stands on the peninsular end of the city overlooking the harbor

we took Denny's recommendation for the best lunch in town, ducked down to the end of the park for a quick cool down near Vendue St.,

and onto SNOB, the wise-cracking title that stands for "Slightly North of Broad" (making fun of a street name often associated with food a little less than savory north of the line)

and sat down for what we decided later that week in our room at Restoration on King, our
greatest and most memorable find of where the locals eat.

The Tao of Food

"Trees in winter lose their leaves.  Some trees may even fall during storms, but most stand patiently and bear their fortune."












The recipe called for a Cornish game hen, split apart by kitchen shears, seasoned, then laid down on a roasting pan to heat.  The game hens at the store were still rock solid frozen and would likely take upwards of 30 minutes to defrost in a sink of lukewarm water.  Even then, often the middle cavity of the small hens are still cold and crystallized and a chore to cut.  I seasoned six drumsticks and two split breasts instead, pan fried them to brown and sear the seasoning onto the skin (roasting does a wonderful job cooking interior meat slowly, but does not do the browning itself).  Over the top,

I laid down long slender slices of yams and cucumbers – cutting each of those the long way into eights or even skinnier depending on the size of the original vegetable.  The steam from the chicken batch rose up to steam the vegetables, which came out tender, colorful, and good for you.  Carly ate four drumsticks, Abby looked over the edge of the pan for more cucumbers.

Kiwi at the Lab

Common Kiwifruit from the species A. Deliciosa

As every sweet tooth who has ever been scolded by the authorities (parents) that maybe those teeth won't be around much longer if you continue to dissolve them daily in sugar knows, sometimes you have to seek out sweet alternatives when given the opportunity.  Our Carly is just such a mastermind    

Good Earth Chocolate Chip Cookie, Galleria, Edina

sweet tooth who, if not watched literally with a 'sweetsie' camera will do such things as: Exhibit A.) sneak an enormous batch of Halloween candy from a sister, eat it in her own room, then plant the wrappers in said sister's room, only to later deny all charges; Exhibit B.) pop a candy mint in the mouth before bed at night after brushing her teeth, claiming "it makes my breath good;" Exhibit C) in the morning, when dad isn't looking, the sweet tooth sneaks a Hershey's candy bar into her day's lunchbox.  And so, needless to say, with such accumulated evidence against the culprit, the authorities have to try to dig up little adventures that might emphasize things like fruit, that old-fashioned source of sugar needs.  We found such a place a few weeks back close to home which we think provides the sufficient illusion of healthy eating by offering a variety

of fruit-based  yogurts and sweet-to-sour toppings.  The new Yogurt Lab is located by Panera in Onalaska and displays its flavor selections as letters on a chemical table, which we figure has got to be  

much better for  you than other kinds of dessert labeling.  As Carly hovers over the hundreds of sweet toppings for her fruity yogurt, she has found out that kiwi chunks have astonishingly similar properties to Starburst Candies and, because it is indeed fruit (although 8 grams of naturally occurring sugar per

dose!), the authorities have been known to let her heap it on over lime or peach yogurt, creating, in name anyway, one of the healthiest bowls of yogurt known to Childkind.

Weeknight Recipes

The Simple Art of the Medallion

Quarry Lane wrote about the beauty of the pork loin in a previous post a couple of weeks back – that ready-made tube of meat that needs little more than a browning, an oven roast, and then a final slicing to create those pork discs everybody likes.  Well, there is one more step to take in the final evolution of the art of pork loin cooking.  To 'medallion,' in the case of the loin, is to cut it into the desired discs first, then apply whatever cooking process the recipe calls for.  For 'Pork Medallions with Roasted Nectarines,' out of the Williams Sonoma One Pot of the Day Cookbook, the recipe picture above

shows to cut the medallions into 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch discs, lay those first in pan heat, 4-5 mins. per side, then let 'em sit while you work off of the pan juices and bits.  Now, I learned that I do like to play around with recipes these days, either by choice or by the fact that I just don't have all the stuff in the house.  This ingredient list wanted me to add some hard cider to the pan juices, drop some rosemary in and eventually top it all off with 'grainy mustard.'  The problem is nobody here digs hard cider. Rosemary is, as far as I'm concerned, an adult herb, and grainy mustard tends to go over with a sour face.  So I found some little apple juices in the fridge and let that reduce in the pan, allowing it to pick up some of the fruit that I knew the recipe was going for...the roasted nectarines,

I also decided to play with the cut size of the meat a bit.  I've had medallions at restaurants that are very thick and pink, oozing up with the properly heated juice through the center, so I cut our loin, for fun, to around 2 1/2 inches, browned those, then roasted along with the nectarine slices for an amount of time that has to be tested.  I had already baked some Yukon Golds, smashed those up, skins on, added thick milk, (lactose free) butter, then splattered the top of the plated dollop with the roasted juices from the pork and nectarine – who needs heaps of gravy when you have such a concentrated flavor to add to the potatoes? Juicy, filet mignon-size roasted pork loins, touched by a bit of sweet yet sour fruit, accompanied by peasant-style mash potatoes, was an easy but edible semi-gourmet weeknight meal.