I knew I missed The South when we moved back a year or so
ago, but I just didn’t know how much. Most days, I miss The West and I don’t
even realize how lucky I am to be able to live back here. But there are weekend
trips now and again that we take that remind me of precisely this blessing.
If this month would have a nickname, it would be “Food”.
Seriously, all we did was spend exorbitant amounts of money on foods pretty
much every other day. I am always of the belief that food is not only good or
worth exploring only because you pay hundreds of dollars for a bit of it – on the
contrary. The most delicious food, I think, is the most primitive, the simplest,
cooked in small corners of the world, in the most unexpected, least equipped kitchens.
We didn’t seek the extra expensive food. It kind of found us, through chance
and some little planning. It is a big month of celebration for personal reasons
for us, so I guess it kind of went with the times.
Food is a great excuse to travel. And although food takes us
places, we never stop just at that. We try to take the entire place in and experience
the most that it has to offer.
A Short Trip to Kinston, NC
First, we spent a day and a night in Kinston, NC. I wrote
before that I love taking trips to places that people would ask “Why in the
world would you go there?!” about. Kinston might be such a place. I am sure many people
have never heard of it, even if they lived in North Carolina for a while. It is
in the Eastern part of the state, where rivers run wide and the barbecue sauce
has no tomato in it, like God intended!
Some of our friends put together a pilgrimage trip to the Chef and the Farmer restaurant which is featured
on a PBS show of some fame, A Chef’s Life.
The owner of the restaurant, Vivian Howard, is also the star of that show,
giving people a peek into Southern cooking, Eastern Carolina style.
We first stopped at our hotel, a former bank nowadays called
The O’Neil, across the street from
the restaurant. The hotel is a turn of the (20th) century former bank.
The lobby has antique details, an amazingly ornate plaster ceiling, an enormous
vault turned into a bar and luxurious seating behind former teller windows. The
hotel only has seven rooms, and each room has a unique personality. We had
another couple of friends staying at the hotel who were in a Chinese-motived
room, while ours had an English hunting cottage feel.
The Farmers & Merchants Bank in Kinston, NC, now The O'Neil (hotel)
This is how you know this is a small town: we asked the
front desk lady if it’s OK to park on the street, on the side of the hotel because
we could see no signs for parking. She said, in the most endearing Southern drawl:
“Oh, mah goodnesshyeah! You surely can park just about anywear … You
see some signs in the street clearly sayin’ ‘No Parking’, but don’t pay them no
mind!” She peeked through the window behind her desk and pointed at the cars
parked across the street: “You see them cars over there? It saiz ‘No parking’
right there, but they’re parked right under the sign. No one will tow you.
Kinston police don’t care. They have bigger fish to fry, I reckon!” – she ended
with a shrug. We were wondering about them big fish and what they were. Hmm …
The lobby at The O'Neil - with the ornate plaster ceiling and the giant vault
The place was brimming with hospitality. The front desk lady
was nice and helpful, and if you can tell from my retelling the parking story,
very welcoming. The vault, like I mentioned, is turned into a giant beer and
wine cooler, with a self-serve bar where they invite you to partake of snacks,
cookies, fruit, water, beer, wine, or coffee at any hour of the day and night. The
cleaning ladies wished us a good weekend when we left, and asked us how our
stay had been as if we were old friends. The hotel, like the whole town, really,
was quiet. We did feel like maybe we and our friends might have been the only
guests that day.
To wait for the rest of our friends to get to town for our
planned dinner, we went to Mother Earth Brewing
– a brewery, as you might have guessed which was about a block and a half away
from our hotel. You really cannot get lost in this downtown. Everything you
need to see or do is right there, in a 200 yard square, just about. Some of our
friends who had checked into the hotel earlier than us noticed that the lead
singer in the band at the brewery was also the front desk person who welcomed
them at The O’Neil earlier. It’s all
in the family, you see.
After our refreshments at the brewery, we headed towards our
destination – Chef and the Farmer. We were seated in a private room, because of
the size of our group – about 16. Between all of us we ordered just about every
appetizer on the menu. Because of my weird diet, they had to mash two of their
entrees into one – I got the grilled red snapper on top of the sweet potato
skins and everything was delicious. The portion sizes were decent, unlike some
of the really “fancy” restaurants that skimp on the quantity on the account of
presentation and flavor. In this place, each dish had everything: presentation,
flavor, uniqueness, and size to please you. The cocktails and the desserts were
unique and delicious as well.
The red snapper and sweet potato skins with mushrooms at Chef and The Farmer
The following morning, we headed for brunch at Boiler Room Oyster Bar, a restaurant
owned by the same people as Chef and the
Farmer. Again – all in the family here. I guess this is not as famous as
the fancy restaurant we had dinner in, nor nearly as expensive, but like I said
before: it’s not all on the price tag. In fact, the lunch I had at The Boiler Room was in some ways more
surprising and more delicious than Chef
and the Farmer, especially in its simplicity. I believe half of our group
had the butter bean burger, me included. Just as plain as simple as it sounds: a
patty made of butter beans and I am not sure what else. But I am sure it had a
mix of love, and mystery, a Southern blessing, and a splash of good luck to
make it extra special. It was deep fried instead of grilled, and my goodness,
was that the best veggie burger my mouth has ever tasted?! It was tasty and as
soft as butter melting in your mouth. They did ensure me there won’t be any
butter nor mayo, nor eggs, either, in it – and still, it was amazingly delicious:
the right measure of savory, salty, crunchy, buttery, melty... You would think
people went there for the oysters, but think again – like I said: about 8 people
out of our 16 got that burger, vegetarians, vegans, and meat eaters alike and
we all loved it.
I hope I’ll travel many a places in my life, but that
butter bean burger, I tell you what – won’t leave my memory any time soon.
We strolled the city after our brunch and visited The CSS
Neusse – a real-life replica of a Civil War boat -, the local coffee shop, and just
walked the streets of downtown Kinston. It’s a sleepy town, with stores open
but quiet, and not much foot traffic. One of our friends said “there is nothing
in this town but drunk foodies.” We chuckled because we surely recognized all
of us in that description.
The CSS Neusse
Click the picture to browse through the Kinston, NC album from this trip
Continuing the Journey Through Charleston, SC
Following our weekend in Kinston, NC, we had a weekend planned
for Charleston, SC. Now, I won't repeat every truism that was ever said about Charleston.
I am sure those of you who visited it know all about why it’s amazing, and
those of you who have not have read about it too: the gem of The South, the
beauty, the Civil War-era historic hub, the home of Rhett Butler, the “civilization
gone with the wind” are just some of those things mentioned about it.
I usually go to Charleston to slow down and sip the past just
like you would a hot cup of mint tea. The aroma of the place seeps into your
pores and takes over the body and the mind like a mist. There are many the
things you can do in Charleston. So many, there is never a good plan for it,
because there is no human way to pack everything there is to do in one weekend!
We settled for strolling Meeting and Market Streets
downtown, and looking at the street artists in the City Market while hunting
for pralines and a place to eat really good seafood. This was the first night.
The next day, because we had a whole day, we drove to Magnolia
plantation, a place that has belonged to the same family since 1600’s (started
with The Drayton Family). The plantation home has been rebuilt several times
since the first foundation was laid down, and today it’s more like three or
four houses and multiple additions put together rather than one cohesive
building, although it surely does look like one. The grounds of the former
plantation were the star of this show, however. After losing all the money they
had in the Civil War, like most landowners in The South, the owner of the
plantation decided to open the grounds as a garden, and they remain opened this
way today.
The home at the Magnolia Plantation
What's a Southern home without a peacock on the front lawn?!
The gardens are a scrapbook of forests, pastures, marshes,
lakes, all along the Ashley River. They are only very subtly human-touched;
they are mostly left to the devices of the subtropical Southern vegetation to shape
it in the most wild fashion. The trails are graveled, but crooked and winding
through overgrown areas. Azaleas, camelias and Spanish moss brush your face as
you squeeze yourself through the many narrow pathways and trails. While admiring
the beauty of the trees, bushes, and flowers (all in bloom, it seemed just for
us, as this was April, one of the most flora-rich times of the year in The
South), we were watchfully crossing bridges over ponds and estuaries of the
Ashley river on the lookout for alligators. I was watching the trees for
snakes, too, but I figured with that many vines, it would be impossible to tell
which one was a snake and which was a vine. The alligators did not let
themselves waited for for too long. They were shamelessly swimming around,
undisturbed, it seemed, by the sizable crowds of visitors.
I love visiting old Southern homes, because you see America’s
history rolling right in front of your very eyes in the stories they amount inside those
walls, in the pictures, décor, books. All its glories, and shadows, all the
ghosts, and belles of the past, all carefully and elegantly tucked inside the
grand staircased foyers and plantation shutters …
Alligator at the Magnolia Plantation
For dinner, we found a treat of a place called Hanks, close to our hotel not far from
The City Market. The food here was a little too overpriced for what it was, but
the cocktail I had (it was a locally inspired one), called Colonial Daiquiri
(rum based) was divine! I also loved their special salad which had the most
enormous shrimp (sized more like lobster than shrimp), arugula, and roasted
potatoes (I kid you not!) in a roasted tomatillo vinaigrette. Holy salad gods!
I still don’t think it was worth the almost $20 it cost, but it was memorable. Maybe
not quite as amazing as that butter bean burger in Kinston – but still something
to definitely remember.
Walking the streets of Charleston is really my favorite
thing to do down there: shooting the beautiful doorways, people watching around
the Waterfront Park and the Pineapple Fountain, hearing the giggles of college
girls taking selfies at The Rainbow Row, watching people line up for food at Blossom, Magnolia’s, or Hyman’s –
all color the Charleston experience in its own unique way. This is a town encapsulating
so much history within its brick walls and cobblestone streets like a snow
globe: you shake it and another memory forms – all real, all old, and yet right
in front of your eyes.
Charleston entry way
There is a smell about Charleston that stays with you: it’s
a mix of sea and mold, a mixture of uncured antiques and jasmine or some other
bloom.
The Pineapple Fountain at Waterfront Park
We picked funky-named places, with hippie or Southern names
to have breakfast in both days we were there. We figured how could we go wrong
with such choice deliberation?! On the first morning we were there, we went to Another Broken Egg (their crab cakes are
so fresh you’d think they reached out into the waterfront for the crabs right
then and there), and Page’s Okra Grill
in Mount Pleasant, the second day. That place is a zoo. Not sure how the wait
staff doesn’t turn postal on people – there is not one revolving door of many
people queued up to get in but two of them – one through the front of the store
and one through the back patio. With all this apparent commotion, the staff
never misses a beat: good ol’ Southern hospitality is at home here. Their
breakfast potatoes are to kill for!
Rainbow Row
The last day, we drove across the many bridges around Charleston
in look for an islandscape we could shoot. We ended up on Sullivan’s Island for
a short hike and a peek at the ocean. Again, we were mindful of alligators and
snakes, but luckily found neither one that day. Crossing over the dunes onto
the beach was like seeing one of those multi-commercialized prints all the
hotels down the beach hang in their bedrooms: water brush swinging in the wind,
sand blowing at an angle, with seagulls diving in the horizon, where it meets
the water … Idyllic and peaceful comes to mind, if you think the beach is peaceful.
The beach at Sullivan's Island
While we chased all these treasures, and all the history and
the tastes of The South, during both trips we got lost on ancient (for America)
streets lined with magnolias, live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. There was
not even a hint of a breeze in the branches. The trees and the houses with old fences
and gates were silent, sleepy, immersed in a slumber of centuries. The thing I
missed the most about The South is just The South … The old homes, with wrap-around
porches and the big columns in front, the pineapple details on the front staircases, the narrow streets with even narrower, uneven sidewalks. The awkward,
cluttered layout of an old city that ran out of room for new homes. The smell
of mold and dampness, the humidity in the air that makes my hair feel like it
was dipped in molasses. I missed all that, down to the sweaty skin I get when
walking around the honey-like air … The buttery taste of food from people who
know how to use butter and a fryer. I must have been born in The South at some
point in the past. If not that, then I am not sure what ghost lives inside my
chest, because for sure it does, as it always understands this song …
Whether food called us out to the road, or whether we just found it looking for some
other treasures is irrelevant. Dipping ourselves into the past and into our
surrounds for a spell is always a treasure, no matter the pretense. This
weekend, I found out that The South is still here and has waited for me,
patiently, unchanged, for the nine years I have been gone. There is something
to be said for timelessness and eternity – and The South surely knows a thing
or three about those …
Timeless Charleston, SC
Click the picture to browse the entire album from this trip
