Chanterelles

September 4, 2010

Chanterelles! What a find at today's farmer's market! It is the tail-end of the local mushroom season here, and soon it will become too dry for these little guys.

Captain Woody (who makes his own fresh pasta, sells his own hen's eggs, and grows three varieties of cultivated mushrooms) instructed me to use them within 2 days and that they are fantastic in risotto.

http://www.portroyalfarmersmarket.com/vendor_list.html

I forgot to take a picture of them in their raw state, so please take a look at another South Carolina blog about local mushrooms and foraging....he's got some great pics!

Mushroom Mountain

I love how they just marched out of the woods and into Mellow Mushroom Pizza in Greenville and had them put their wild mushrooms on the pizza!

Since our closest Mellow Mushroom is 40 miles away....I just made my own.

Pizza dough: recipe can be found at www.ansonmills.com

I topped the pizza with a roasted local tomato and red bell pepper sauce that contained a little of our own Charleston Hot Cayenne pepper from the backyard.

The greenery on the pizza is home-grown basil, and we added a small amount of Sweetgrass Dairy Eden goat cheese and also a dusting of Parmesan cheese.

The risotto was pretty good with the chanterelles. I added lots of parsley from our garden and of course, Parmesan cheese. The saffron adds a nice luxurious smokey quality. Here is my favorite risotto recipe! I just substituted the chanterelles for the morel and cremini mushrooms, and substituted local rice for the Arborio.

The best kind of rice for risotto is a round or semi-round short-grain rice such as Arborio. This is the most common rice you see in this dish in restaurants. However, in the Lowcountry, I can just use Carolina Gold Rice. It is a semi-round medium grain rice that puts out plenty of starch for a creamy risotto.

From Carolina Plantation:

"In 1685, a distressed merchant ship paid for repairs in Charleston with a small quantity of rice seed from Madagascar. Dr. Henry Woodward planted the seed in South Carolina, beginning the state’s 200 year history as the leading rice producer in the United States. At the turn of the century, rice cultivation ended in the Low Country South because of a weak market, inadequate machinery, and competition from the Gulf States.

Until recently, most of the “Carolina Gold” on the market, unfortunately has been grown in the Gulf States, not in South Carolina. Because of our commitment to providing authentic Carolina-grown products, Carolina Plantation Rice has devoted a portion of it’s rice acreage to the cultivation of true “Carolina Gold” Rice. Your purchase of this home-grown product keeps South Carolina growing."

Carolina Plantation, found along the Pee Dee River in South Carolina, also produces long-grain aromatic rice, processed into both standard white rice and brown rice.

The Carolina Gold rice is about the same price as an imported Arborio pound-for-pound, so order some and give it a try sometime!

Stone fruit season

The chickens are getting gigantic! They are now 9 weeks old! When we are home we let them run about in the garden, but they rather enjoy the condo that Doug built for them. They love their multi-height roosting system and their shredded junk-mail bedding. When the bedding gets changed, it goes right into the compost! Laying boxes will be installed in September.

I've been working on the late July blog for a while, and I think its time to post!

It has been incredible how many wonderful things are growing just a few miles from my house. Now that I'm working closer to home, I can spend more time seeking out local, fresh and healthier foods. I think Doug likes me cooking almost every night too!

Sadly though, late July means that much of the summer season is coming to a close and we'll be transitioning to fall veggies in our own garden.

We got some of our plants in the ground a little late this year, but we will still have cucumbers and tomatoes on into September if we are lucky.

A few wonderful things that I have come across this July in the Lowcountry have been:

- Plums

- Peaches

- Figs

- Tomatoes

- Sweet corn

- Sweet and hot peppers (chiles)

The pic to the right are local cayenne peppers, I like to dry my own, then grind them into powder I can use all year long.

- Melons

- ETC, ETC, ETC

After a few pictures, I'll share some recipes I either found on the internet, got from the guy at the roadside stand, or just made up myself!

Peach Tart

The easiest pastry recipe of all time, and yes, I modified this recipe from Food Network
Thank you, Ina Garten!

Follow this recipe to the letter, the only changes/substitutions I made:

-Peaches instead of apples (be sure that the peaches are very firm. Most people think that peaches that are firm are not ripe. WRONG! As long as the peach has a nice "blush" on the skin and it's in the store, its ready to go for pies and tarts. For eating raw, its nice to have them a little softer)
-South Carolina golden rum instead of Calvados.
- Orange marmalade instead of apricot preserves (I had good French orange marmalade on hand)

I made this tart for an elderly neighbor who recently lost her husband. I actually gave it to her without testing it....she offered me a slice with coffee and it was VERY GOOD! :)

Local Rockfish with soba noodles

- Rockfish is also known as Striped bass. It is on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch BEST CHOICE list for sustainability in the Southeast region. About 10 years ago numbers were in serious decline in the Chesapeake Bay area, but it has made a remarkable comeback. My fish market, Sea Eagle, carries local South Carolina long-line caught rockfish. They''ll even show you where the hook was in the fish's mouth!

1/2 pound of Rockfish fillets--serves 2 people very well, I even had leftovers
oilve oil
salt and pepper.
- salt and pepper the fish, sautee skin side UP in oilve oil over medium heat for 5 minutes. remove fish from the pan.

If you have "fond" or little bits of fish stuck on the bottom of the pan, deglaze pan with juice of 1 lemon and 1/2 cup of white wine. Take your wooden spoon and pry those bits up!

THEN add to the pan, sautee until soft and sauce reduced on medium heat:

- chopped red bell pepper, medium dice

- medium Vidalia onion, medium dice

- dash of cayenne pepper powder

-1 large fresh tomato, chopped

Add right before you put the fish back in the pan:

- tablespoon of fresh basil, fennel fronds (or 1/2 teaspoon ground fennel seed), fresh parsley.

- 1 tablespoon drained capers.

Put the fish back in the pan skin side DOWN with the veggies on LOW, then cook until the fish is flaky and cooked through but not falling apart.

I'm sure you could do this recipe with cod, grouper, flounder, etc.

Cook SOBA noodles to desired doneness: Soba noodles are a Japanese buckwheat noodle. If you cant find them at your grocery or local Asian market, use whole wheat spaghetti.

Remove fillets to serving dish. Put cooked hot soba noodles into the veggies in the pan, toss with tongs, then place with the fish on serving dish. YUMMY!
Serve with your favorite white wine.

Another thing I enjoyed SO MUCH this summer were Rainier Cherries from Washington State. Yeah, I know they're not local, but, since Doug loves them so much and they were buy one get one free at the Publix....we ate them as snacks and even dried some to eat with granola during the wintertime!

I was planning on making a pie with them, but they were eaten before that could happen. Oh well! Maybe I could soak the dried ones in rum and sugar and then make them into a tart sometime this winter!

NEXT BLOG........August, AVMA and Atlanta! :)

4th of July

Hello all,

I have taken a rather long break from blogging since I have been so busy lately! I have changed jobs and am now enjoying the freedom of part-time and relief veterinary medicine. My new job will keep me rooted in Beaufort, SC and allow for some traveling in the Great State of South Carolina.

I am hoping that the new traveling, especially in the Charleston area, will allow me to source some of my local favorites right from the farms in that area! I was able to pick my own blueberries on my way home from an interview last week.

I have finally gotten around to posting baby chicken pictures! They are now 3 weeks old. The top picture to the right is them at 2 days old. We got 3 Rhode Island Red hens in the mail through http://www.mypetchicken.com/. They should start laying at about 20 weeks of age or so. Their names are Tandoori, Parmesan & KeBab!

This 4th of July I woke to the sounds of boats racing up the Beaufort River and of the chicks peeping away on the porch for their breakfast.

After a breakfast of "Deconstructed French toast" (In honour of the French and their dedication to the Colonists quest for Independence)---recipe to follow---Doug set to work on the chicken's outdoor coop and I took the chicks for a garden outing!

I'm actually writing this sitting on one of Ivy's saddle pads (that needs washing) next to the bird bath in the center of our garden. I have to make sure that the chicks are staying safe since Danger isnt much of a chicken-shepherd. He mostly sits next to me and watches the chicks run by!

We received enough gift cards at the wedding from our loved ones (THANK YOU!) that we were able to buy the Dyson vacuum AND a nice bread & baguette maker. I tried out the baguette maker yesterday and made 4 individual-sized loaves with an extra crisp crust. This morning I figured there was nothing left to do with the leftover bread than make FRENCH TOAST!

"Deconstructed" French Toast...for those of you who find you have too much custard left over!

~ Remember ~ LOCAL and FRESH ingredients are best!

4 eggs

3 tablespoons of honey

1/2 cup milk (we used skim)

pinch of sea salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cardamon (this makes it extra-exotic tasting!)

Whisk all these ingredients together the night before and store in the refrigerator.

Remember to put your bread in the microwave overnight to let it go stale. If you're like me, you may just skip this step since fresh, homemade bread that contains no preservatives goes stale in 1 day anyways, often even if refrigerated!

Morning: Pre-heat your oven to 375 F. Turn on your griddle and let it heat up while your bread is soaking. I do this on my double-sided cast iron griddle/indoor grill that I set directly on the gas burners. Don't forget to lube up with butter or non-stick cooking spray. A frying pan is great too.
Take out custard, whip one more time and soak your bread in it--1 minute on each side.

Move directly onto the hot griddle, let cook until golden on both sides.

Place on a cooling rack. When all slices have been on the griddle, put the whole cooling rack into the heated oven for 5-7 minutes.

I THEN took the leftover custard and cooked it like scrambled-eggs on the still hot griddle. I had turned the heat off at this point.....still enough residual heat to do the job nicely.

~ Remove the toast from oven, top it with the scrambled eggs "Bruschetta-style" and enjoy with whipped cream, fruit and maple syrup on top. (Grade B is my fave or that smoked maple syrup my Dad gets from Indiana...awesome awesome awesome!)

Yes, it is OK to use your knife and fork, especially if you used soft Wonder Bread or Challah. Our French bread French toast still had enough crust on it so it was stable for eating "Bruschetta-style."

~ We also love to put fresh fruit on ours....this morning it was SC Peaches from Barnwell County!

Next blog.....SUMMER FRUITS and other BOUNTY!

What's picking: Foraging 2010

I wrote a blog last fall about the fun and exercise of "foraging" around your home. Early summer foraging is probably my favorite. You can find all sorts of yummy things growing along the roadways, abandoned pastures, and even in front of your place of work!

I was blessed to grow up in the South with a Mother and Grandmothers who were familiar with the fun and benefits of "foraging".

If you are unfamiliar about what's edible and not in your surroundings, consult with a Foraging expert or blog, but always take caution with unfamiliar items, ESPECIALLY wild mushrooms!

Here in the Lowcountry, there are many wild varieties of berries and salad greens that are ready to be picked in late spring & early summer.

A few that I've enjoyed this past week are: (click on the links for nutrition information)

- Blackberries - Blueberries

- Loquats - Dandelion greens & flowers

The blackberries are just about to be in full swing. There are a few here an there now that are ripe, and they are very nice additions to fruit salad or just eating as you walk!

When you can't find many fruits or berries out in the public areas, look around your local farmer's market and ask the fruit vendors there where you can start.

On Thursday I went and picked my own strawberries cultivated on Barefoot Farms (St. Helena Island, SC), and the owner pointed me to a lady down the street who lets you pick your own blueberries!

Here is a recipe for a fruit salad that I like very much:

The Fruits of my Labor:

2-3 peeled, diced Kiwi fruit (grown in Ridgeland, South Carolina!--who would have known?)

5-6 large strawberries, washed and caps off (St. Helena Island, South Carolina)

handful of blueberries--washed first (St. Helena Island, South Carolina)

handful of blackberries--washed first (Hilton Head Island, South Carolina)

3 Loquat fruits--washed, quartered and seeded (Hilton Head Island, South Carolina)

- Toss together with 1 tablespoon of lemon or lime juice and a teaspoon of local honey if you want it a little sweeter!

- I enjoyed this mixture by itself with my breakfast, but makes a lovely topping for ice cream!

Loquats are an amazing find for me this last week. I discovered them growing in front of my clinic! They are also known as Japanese plums, and many yards on Hilton Head Island contain these "ornamental" sub-tropical plants. Rumour has it, Charleston was one of the first places in the U.S. these plums were brought to, due to it's climate and reputation for impressive ornamental gardens.

Loquats are very popular in China, Japan and India for eating raw or in preserves and chutney. My neighbor on Hilton Head has a very large, 12 year old Japanese plum tree that is LOADED with fruit this year. He was kind enough to share them with me now that they are ripe.

Loquats are the "perfect" dessert splurge for dieters, especially if you are cutting back on sugar. Not only are loquats loaded with NATURAL sugars, but are high in fiber, B-vitamins and Vitamin A. So the next time your trainer tells you to cut back on the sugar intake, put down the chocolate chip cookies and grab a few loquats! About 10 of these small snack-sized fruits contain ~100 calories.

Health Benefits of Loquats

Here is what this "exotic" fruit looks like:

Lowcountry Local Party Recipes

Thursday, April 22, 2010 was the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day. I would have written an Earth Day blog the week of, but I was very busy getting ready for my wedding that Saturday.

However, I did get to celebrate and promote Earth Day in a truly unique way. Most of our family members were in Beaufort that day, so we decided to have everyone over to our house for a garden party.

The hors d'oeuvres were made from 90% local ingredients. I define "local" as produced within 100 miles of Beaufort. The few items that we used from the regular grocery store (beer, olive oil, phyllo dough, butter) were at least products of the U.S.A., and even fewer things were imported (sea salt, black pepper). Even the rum in the punch was produced 15 miles north of here, with locally-grown sugarcane.

I had spent hours planning only to discover that the best way to do it was to go to the farmer's market and see what's available.

Please enjoy the recipes that I used for this fun party--you should try it out on your friends the next Earth Day! Those of you who do not live in the Lowcountry, please follow our example and spend some time at your local farmer's market--the creations you can make from just a few ingredients will blow your mind!

Sweetgrass Dairy Green Hill en Croute
- recipe courtesy of the Sweetgrass Dairy, Thomasville, Georgia
Green Hill is a surface ripened, double-cream cow’s milk cheese. If not readily available, any brie or camembert style cheese would be a welcome substitute.
Ingredients:
1 piece Sweet Grass Dairy Green Hill, COLD
10 Sheets Phyllo Dough
Butter, melted

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. If you are lucky enough to live where you have access to fresh phyllo dough, then congratulations! For the rest of us, bring phyllo to room temperature, unroll, and cover with a barely damp towel to prevent drying out.
3. Take first sheet, and brush lightly with butter. Repeat 5-10 times being careful not to let raw phyllo dry out in between layers.
4. Place Green Hill in center of phyllo, and cut dough into a rough square that is larger than Green Hill by 3” on all sides.
5. Begin to pull dough to center of Green Hill and continue in a circular fashion keeping dough as tight as possible to the cheese. When all dough has been wrapped around cheese, turn over onto sheet pan or cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or foil.
6. Brush exterior with butter and place into oven for 8-10 minutes, or until the phyllo is just browned.
7. Remove from oven, let rest for 3-4 minutes.
8. We served it with fresh salad greens (from our backyard!), rice and flaxseed crackers, and honey (Beaufort, South Carolina)


Doug's yogurt dill dipping sauce for veggies:1/2 cup of Doug's homemade Greek-style yogurt (yeah that's another blog)
2 tablespoons of fresh minced dill (Bluffton, South Carolina)
1 garlic clove, minced (our backyard)
2-3 tablespoons of California extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice (my Aunt Susan's backyard...Amelia Island, Florida)
drizzle of wildflower honey (Beaufort, South Carolina)
Whip together until smoothsalt and black pepper to taste

Raw Veggie Tray:
Green baby Vidalia onions (Lyons, Georgia)
Sweet salad turnips (Bluffton, South Carolina)
White and orange baby carrots (Bluffton, South Carolina)
Broccolini (Bluffton, South Carolina)
Red bell peppers (John's Island, South Carolina)
Cucumber (St. George, South Carolina)


Honey Cayenne Grilled local South Carolina Shrimp
This is the LARGE SCALE party recipe, for about 30 people

Combine in a large bowl together:
10 pounds of deveined, shell and head off medium sized shrimp (Beaufort, South Carolina)
1/2 cup of local wildflower honey (Beaufort, South Carolina)
1/4 cup of California extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of sea salt
1 teaspoon of Charleston Hot Cayenne pepper (grown in our garden in 2009, dried, crushed)
Sautee in a large pan or place on wet bamboo skewers and grill for 3-4 mintues or until shrimp are pink and shaped like a "C"

*An old trick for cooking shrimp---if they're pink & shaped like a "C" they're cooked, if they're pink & shaped like an "O" they are OVERcooked!*

Dessert:
Strawberries - Fresh picked in Hampton County, South Carolina with
Homemade whipped cream and
Jerri Roth's homemade Pound Cake (Hilton Head Island, South Carolina)
(Jerri is a friend of mine who has 20+ years experience as a baker and in catering)

Strawberries and Champagne

Spring is turning to summer, and that means WEDDING SEASON in the Lowcountry!

Weddings have been on my mind lately, especially since Doug and I "tied the knot" (literally!) on April 24th.

The week leading up to the wedding was full of parties, gardening and trying new recipes. The weather was beautiful that week, but it rained the morning of the wedding.

The rain stopped just in time for the ceremony and outdoor reception. It is only fitting that it rain on our wedding day; a lot of agricultural cultures see this as a symbol of good luck and fertility.

There was lots of good French champagne left over from the nuptual celebrations, and I had to figure out what to do with it once the bottles were opened and the bubbles were all but gone.

Mimosas, after all, do not have the same sparkle when made with day-old champagne.

With me being frugal and not wanting to pour good champagne down the drain, had to come up with a way to harness whatever goodness was left.

We also had a lot of fresh-picked Hampton County strawberries that my Mom had bought on her way from Georgia that were leftover from Thursday's party (I'll blog those recipes later).....

....what is better than to put strawberries and champagne together?

Most people eat the strawberries fresh, drink the champange and enjoy how the flavors of each compliment and open up each other. It is very refreshing and delicious.

What I did to minimize my waste and enjoy the best of both worlds is this:

Strawberry Champagne Adult Fruit-roll-ups

NOTE: I would NOT attempt this recipe with strawberries that are not LOCAL and IN SEASON, it will NOT taste good!

Place 1 pound of fresh picked strawberries, (washed and caps off of course)

and 1 cup of Champagne (fresh or day-old) into a blender

add 4 tablespoons of lemon juice or orange juice (helps preserve color)

- Blend until liquid.

- Pour onto the flat rack in your food dehydrator, or onto a parchment paper-lined half sheet pan.

- The dehydrator should be set to 100-150 degrees F for 8-10 hours.

- You can do this in your oven, however, most ovens will cut themselves off if left on for this long, and it's not very energy efficient. That being said, get your oven as low as it will go and dehydrate the strawberry puree for 8-10 hours.

- Once firm and dry to the touch, remove from rack and cut into snack sized pieces, or roll up onto a piece of cling-wrap.

DELICIOUS!

I am going to take full credit for this recipe since I cannot find anything like it on the internet. Surely someone has done it before.

Some other good recipes for strawberry season:

www.ncstrawberry.org

Foodie's peep-show?

April 3, 2010

I know that you guys have probably seen the Anthony Bourdain "No Reservations" show on the Travel Channel. He is fun to watch, even though he is lewd at times. In his 2008 season, he hosted a show called "Food Porn." For decades the media has been successful in selling sex. It was interesting how Tony began to make references to how food is a basic primal need and that the food tv channels often sexualize the chefs and their products to have the viewer begging for more. A perfect example is Nigella Lawson. WOW! She definitely has me begging for more. But it's not just the chef or cook that is turning us on. It's the FOOD itself! Let me explain further....


With that kind of intro, I'm sure you're wondering where this is going. I couldn't help but think about how I've been so intrigued by several of my own experiences in food lately and that it makes me yearn for more of the same satisfaction. My cousin Buddy sent me an email recently that definitely kept me "stringing along" with my mouth watering and tummy rumbling in envy.

I do realize that I have mentioned my cousin Buddy and his family a LOT in this blog, but he is a really unique person with an awesome job. He is also a wealth of information when it comes to sustainable gardening and cooking. He has to use such knowledge every single day!

Here is his email:

"I had dinner at SHH last Sun. with a journalist because the owners were in the Yukon, so I told Martha I would tell her what we had.
The journalist writes about organic food and spirits and has a 1,000 acre grain farm in Saskatchewan, growing hemp among other things. It is Certified Organic

Stinging nettle and grilled leek soup with miner's lettuce and pea shoots.
Tuna loin with gooseneck barnacles and scallop in a smoked salmon emulsion.
Sole with pickled blueberries, sunchoke, purple sprouting broc., and a crab potato perogie.
Sablefish with kale, squash, and Raclette cheese potato croquette.
Rhubarb angelica mousse on fennel sponge cake with sour cream ice cream.

I could not imagine it being better. "

Everything in the meal came from the gardens of the Sooke Harbour House, the Pacific Ocean surrounding it, or Vancouver Island. The kitchen gets its flour for pastries only from Canadian grains and mills.

How lucky is he to experience this table of local bounty?

Salad is no longer boring

April 1, 2010

Spring is in full bloom, and the salad greens are GOING CRAZY! My Mom planted an "Italian" and "French" salad mix of seeds in the fall, and they did pretty well, and then they died back in the snow we had in February. But now....they're BACK!

The most delicious mix was the "French," which included royal oak leaf, freckles lettuce, butterhead, flint, spinach, and heirloom Cos type lettuces. These are all "heirloom" varieties and can be found here at High Mowing Organic Seeds, of Vermont.

The oak leaf is most easily recognized in a "bag" salad of baby greens from the store, but it doesn't develop it's full flavor until the leaves are mature.

Even when mature and picked later, these varieties of lettuce are still tender and carry excellent flavor. I had heard that "baby green" varieties that are allowed to mature a little longer become bitter...I think this is a myth.

The radishes are doing well, and they provide a nice bite to my salad. We planted three varieties this year: traditional red, pink and mild white.

Here is a nice salad dressing I've come up with that contains many fresh, local ingredients:

- juice of 1 Hilton Head meyer lemon (frozen in December)

- 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard

- 1 tablespoon of local honey

- 2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley

- blend in enough California extra virgin olive oil to make a 2:1 oil to acid ratio.

I like to whisk this all together in the bottom of my salad bowl. I then add the freshly picked (washed and dried) salad greens, thinly sliced fresh radishes, toss to coat and serve!

This dressing is great in a salad with dried cranberries, pecans and sliced local hard-boiled egg.

I wish that I could attend a workshop in May at the Sooke Harbour House garden, hosted by none other than my cousin, Buddy Cook.

He will be teaching guests about growing your own organic salad in small spaces or even window boxes.

Check it out here!

Spring!

It's springtime in the Lowcountry! The insects are out in full force, the warm tropical rains are drizzling down, washing the pollen to the Earth....and out of my sinuses!

The Bluffton Farmers Market is back, it just started this past Thursday, and so far, south Georgia and parts of South Carolina are already filled with spring goodies!

Many of these include honey, spring baby Vidalia onions, broccoli, mixed baby greens (spinach arugula, buttercrunch and the like), and even strawberries! In another 3-4 weeks the South Carolina strawberries will be ready.

Doug and I have been working hard to ready our little garden for spring. We've turned the compost and prepared our vegetable beds, and planted Clemson heirloom seeds in baby planters. It is so easy to have even a small vegetable plot, even on a small lot or in a window-box. I have not been composting at my home on Hilton Head, and I do produce a lot of organic waste since I like to cook from scratch. My roommate and I both recycle what we can, but I'd like to take this to the next level.

Our challenge is to figure out how to compost food materials in a small living space. We do not have a place to have or means to use a large compost bin, so I have researched smaller, indoor varieties. One thing that a lot of apartment dwellers use (especially in Japan), is the earthworm compost box. It is super easy, and relatively odor-free. There are many websites out there to help you get started, such as this one from Vancouver: Urban Agriculture and Worm Compost

I will soon be posting more information about composting and pictures of our garden as it grows! More recipes are to come as well, I picked up a very nice farmhouse blue cow's milk cheese from Swainsboro, Georgia at the farmers market and can't wait to talk about it!

Eco-Tourism and My Honeymoon

I had the most unique and wonderful honeymoon I could have imagined. There were two incredible components to the trip, so I will start with a little bit of history. Ever since my cousin Jessica got married at the Sooke Harbour House, I wanted to either be married there or spend my honeymoon there. I had no idea that years later, my dream would come true.

My cousin Buddy Cook, and his daughters Jessica and Sarah Cook are proud Canadians, and for 20 years, Buddy has been the head organic gardener at the Sooke Harbour House on Vancouver Island. This eccentric little B&B is well known for its restaurant, gardens and commitment to sustainability.

We began our honeymoon by visiting Doug's parents in Seattle, and then we drove up to Canada for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics! This was so special to me in that I attended the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and I thought that was a once in a lifetime opportunity. We attended Women's luge, Women's hockey, Men's curling and Women's downhill skiing events over the course of 3 days. It was a busy and tiring few days, but well worth the effort!

The night life in downtown Vancouver was vibrant and the local micro brews were delicious!

Our final day held the greatest treat of all...we got to see Lindsey Vonn win Gold for the USA!!!!

I am definitely now a lifetime lover of curling. It's basically shuffleboard on ice that allows cheating. The men tended to be a little more into shoving the opponent's stones out of the way with brute force, but the women would sit there and triangulate ways to out-maneuver the other team with precision.

We spent two days over on Vancouver Island, but did not get to see much. It was a very short trip, but I got what I wanted. I got to see my family and Doug and I had a very relaxing time in the Whale Room. I do wish that I could spend more time with the Cooks, they are lovely people and I have enjoyed getting to know them into my adulthood.

Aidan, Buddy, Deborah, Doug



British Columbia and Seattle offers a lot for the Eco-minded tourist. Everywhere we went there were public bins for composting and recycling, even out on the streets of Vancouver! Many restaurants and microbreweries we visited focused on locally sourced ingredients. Buddy often boasts that the only items on the menu at the Sooke Harbour House that are not local is the coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate and wheat flour (though Canadian-grown and milled). Seasonal, local food just tastes so much better! It is often not possible or practical to go 100% local, but every little change helps.


I think I have mentioned before that the goal of this blog is to educate my friends and family about the benefits of dining and shopping locally. Yes, local eating can be beneficial in the grand scheme of things (such as climate change, over-fishing, etc... but I'm not going there right now), the MAIN FOCUS is to SUPPORT your LOCAL ECONOMY, bringing food commerce back into your area (or keeping it there) and away from mass-produced products that are often stripped of character, culture and nutrition.


Food is less expensive and better for you when produced locally and minimally processed, which puts more cash in your pocket and more into the immediate community. It's not all about "saving the Earth," its about saving local, healthier ways of living.


You can do this even when you are on vacation. Pick a hotel or B&B that is environmentally aware and supports the community. Don't be wasteful...recycle when you can and don't eat at the mega TGIMcDougall's restaurants. It doesnt take that much research or effort, you can do it!

Back in Seattle after the Olympics, we went to the Theo chocolate factory!

Their tour was educational and the aroma was intoxicating. I wanted to morph into Lucy and step right onto the production line....except with Theo, they produce small artisinal batches of chocolate, so there is no "production line!"

Some awesome resources:

The only Organic, Fair-Trade Certified bean-to-bar chocolate maker in the United States: http://www.theochocolate.com/ Seattle, WA


Speaking of helping communities...what is Fair-Trade Certified?


This is not all just a bunch of hippie psychobabble....it's about doing the right thing for fellow human beings!

Drinks for the New Year

It's been a while since I've updated the blog, there has been TOO MUCH going on!

I've found that this absence from writing has given me some time to get my thoughts together for the New Year blog. With the parties that have come and gone from Christmas all the way to Super Bowl Weekend, I've done some looking around for local spirits and festive drinks.

When most people think about the South, they think about Jack Daniels from Tennessee, Kentucky Bourbon, and of course hot toddy (NOT HOTTY TODDY!!!!) and mint juleps. The hard stuff has the most vibrant history as well, from rum-running along the barrier islands by famous pirates like Blackbeard, to the birth of the modern sport of NASCAR in the foothills of the Appalachians.

Beer has unfortunately been slow to take hold, probably due to a couple of centuries without refrigeration and hot, humid conditions. Wine is made in the mountains but are not known for the best of vintage. The best "vintages" from those locations is of the moonshine variety. :)

I'm going to touch on a couple of items that I've found in local liquor and wine stores that are truly unique and worth your time!

Some of you may have heard of this stuff called "Firefly", which is a sweet-tea infused vodka produced in South Carolina. I do not care what the New York Times has to say about it....(what do they know about sweet tea anyways)...but this stuff is NASTY. I don't care if it's local, don't do it!

What IS worth your while is another liquor product from the Firefly people: Sea Island Rums. The Sea Island Carolina Gold Rum is made from sugarcane grown in South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. It is delicious to mix into a South Carolina peach daquiri or just by itself on the rocks.

Living on Hilton Head Island and being exposed to the "wine scene" here has been an excellent education. The wine store and restaurant owners and staff are well versed in where to go for "local" wine....which comes from North Carolina or Georgia. There are a couple of Lowcountry "wineries" in the area that make wine, but the grapes come from as far away as Oregon. I'd prefer something a little fresher, and representative of the upland Southern climate and soil.

The best wine I've had that is "local" is from Shelton Winery in the Yadkin Valley of North Carolina. That's about 200 miles north of here, around the Winston-Salem area.

They grow 22 varities of grapes and broke ground on their 33,000 square foot facility in 1999.

Their 2007 Bin 17 Chardonnay is medium bodied and is a bit dry. It's not overly oaked, which is important to me. I have also enjoyed their 2007 Yadkin Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Doug has had a glass or two of these wines since his return from Japan, and he was quite surprised that it is so good. He definitely has been spoiled by good Washington State wine, so his thumbs-up on any East Coast varietal is awesome.

Another "older" winery is from Biltmore, also in North Carolina. Most of the vines were established in 1971. Biltmore has a bit of a reputation for being a producer of very sweet wines, varieties include Chardonnay, Riesling, Viognier, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot. It has been hit or miss with us--a bottle of Pinot noir recently went down the drain after one taste, but I did very much enjoy the 2008 Limited Release Malbec.

This tour of Southeastern wineries would not be complete without mentioning Château Élan. This winery is located about 15 miles from my parents home near Oakwood, Georgia. North Georgia does have higher elevations that could be conducive to growing decent grapes, but this is not the case. There is, however, one grape that can stand the Georgia heat, humidity and pests. Native only in the Southeast, the muscadine grape is characterized by heady rose and lemon aromas and was traditionally made into a sweet, low-alcohol wine. Château Élan has done some pretty impressive things to make their muscadine wine delightful. They have developed methods to harness and control its components, with the result being a light, fruity and uniquely Southern white wine. I have enjoyed many a glass of their Autumn Blush chilled on a hot summer evening.

Lately I have encouraged my friends and family to buy local, and if that is impossible, at least buy American. There are so many good wines out there from Washington State, Oregon, and California that it is hard and even scary to branch out into "local" Southern wines. From what I have been exposed to so far, there is something from Virginia all the way to Georgia that can satisfy any wine-o.