Coastal SC Eats

To go to the beaches of South Carolina for an entire week is to lose all sense of time, as well as good internet connection. After the initial night of exuberant partying and excessive drinking in celebration of the commencement of vacation, time slows down, days of the week are forgotten, and the day's agenda involves nothing more serious than taking a shower — at some point.Everyone brings essential provisions, as well as summer's last hoorah from their gardens to stock the kitchen. Trips to the Piggly Wiggly for restocking Blenheims ginger ale and beer, stops at the roadside vegetable stand for peaches, and visits to the seafood store down the road for fresh local shrimp complete the kitchen.

Not a single meal was eaten at a restaurant the entire week. Why? Because it doesn't get any better than homemade coastal Carolina cuisine.
This roadside farm stand sign just about sums up what you'll be eating at the beach in South Carolina come late August.

A Taste Of Olive

Are you the type of person that douses any vegetable in vinegar? Can drink vinegar straight? And relishes it?

If you're anything like me, you have a cabinet filled with every type of vinegar you can get at the grocery store — white, apple cider, white wine , red wine, white balsamic, balsamic, sherry, and rice vinegars.

Add ponzu (a Japanese citrus and vinegar based sauce) to the list of vinegars above, and that is my standard vinegar inventory. Well, before I was made aware of A Taste Of Olive, a specialty store featuring "the East Coast's largest selection of extra virgin olive oils, balsamic vinegars and specialty oils and vinegars 'on tap' from all over the world!"
It all started last spring when a friend gifted me with espresso balsamic vinegar (great on berries or blue cheese), peach balsamic vinegar, jalapeno olive oil (nice way to add subtle heat to almost any thing), and Persian lime olive oil from A Taste Of Olive. I was adding these infused vinegars (and olive oils, but mostly vinegar) to everything in sight.

These vinegars and olive oils from A Taste Of Olive truly improved my life. Seriously, they have been ruling my summer, finding their way into almost every meal!

How I Used My CSA: Week 14

Week 14: red romaine lettuce, red butterhead lettuce, green bell peppers, red onions, eggplant, white Japanese eggplant, Yukon Gold potatoes, cherry tomatoes, red tomatoes, and carrots.

For this week's Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA delivery, we swapped out jalapenos and basil (we grow both in our tiny raised patio bed) for red tomatoes and an extra eggplant. There are three Bartlett pear trees I take care of that prematurely drop fruit (deer, squirrels and raccoons assist in the "dropping"), so for the past few weeks I've been collecting a couple dozen unripe pears each week. This week I made a huge batch of pear chutney, and canned it. The red onions from the CSA went into the chutney.

Portland: Voodoo Doughnut

Standing in line for a cereal or bacon-topped doughnut from Voodoo Doughnut in Portland as a tourist is, I'd imagine, like non-Philly natives lining up at Pat's or Geno's for a cheesesteak — a required check box for any culinary traveler to tick off, and also snickered about by the locals.

When I saw the line out the door and around the corner of Portland's newest (moved down the street into a larger space) Voodoo Doughnut location at 22 SW 3rd. Ave. (there is another location in Portland, as well as a mobile events truck, and a location in Eugene, OR), I walked right on past and didn't even consider waiting. About an hour later, when we passed the corner store again, the line was contained inside the building, so I decided to give it a go. Apparently, I and a bunch of other tourists are the only people who eat at Voodoo in the middle of the afternoon, because everyone in line had a camera out snapping photos of doughnuts, and the doughnut and death themed tchotchkes covering the bright pink and brick walls. The pack of enthusiastic shutterbugs was pretty comical. (This is where the locals snicker.)

How I Used My CSA: Week 13

Week 13: corn, grape tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, red tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, okra, and red potatoes.

That bounty from our Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA sure looks like summer to me! We swapped out a bunch of fennel leaf (the boy is not fond of the fronds) and onions (had some) for heirloom tomatoes (can't get enough) and an extra bag of okra (lord, I love okra!).

Huh, looking at the pictures I took, it seems that all we ate this week was tomatoes.
We tried this tomato and grilled eggplant salad from The New York Times (it was good), and threw it on top of spaghetti squash that our friend grew.

Portland: Food Carts

When most people think about Portland's food scene, they probably think of the city's plethora of food carts clustered together downtown and in surrounding neighborhood, wrapping around an entire block in some cases.

With about 20 or more in number, these Portland food cart "pods" (the name given to groups of food trucks) are wildly popular, even though they the locals are so over the hype. In fact, while we were in Portland this June, a local weekly rag, the Portland Mercury, could not help but have a cover story on Portland's food cart pods, even though they admitted that the entire city is tired of hearing about the subject.

Those who are looking for a good resource on Portland's food carts should check out the sites Food Carts Portland and Portland Food Cart Directory. I particularly found the Google Map made by Food Carts Portland very helpful (saved it to "my places" and accessed it through my phone) in locating pods.
The first pod we hit up was one of the larger pods downtown at 5th and Oak. The downtown pods cater to the downtown worker lunch crowd, and are disproportionately heavy on Asian and Mexican cuisine, compared to the pods in outlying neighborhoods which try to curate their food truck tenants to be more varied and "gourmet."

How I Used My CSA: Week 12

Week 12: Sangria watermelon, Yukon Gold potatoes, baby bella mushrooms, red cippolini onions, lemon cucumbers, red beets, Sungold cherry tomatoes, red tomatoes.

This week's Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA half share contained all things rounded! We swapped out bell peppers for mushrooms, since we haven't had mushrooms in our shares in a while and have missed them.A classic caprese salad with CSA tomatoes, Mozzarella, and basil from our garden was eaten as a pre-dinner snack.

In addition to the tomatoes in this week's share, we had a few leftover from the previous week, so tomatoes played a big part in our meals. Sounds about right at this time of the year.

Vacation: Portland

In the middle of our week in Seattle, we ducked down to Portland, Oregon, for two brief nights. Before heading south to Portland, though, we rented a car and took a little detour. We pointed our car north to get on the Kingston ferry, which took us over to the tippy-top of the Olympic Peninsula. It's not very populated on the Olympic Peninsula, so much of the drive looked like so, with tall evergreens and yellow ribbons of invasive Scotch Broom. Oh, and gorgeous, steely blue lakes.

Seattle: Theo Chocolate

One of the first things we put on our Seattle vacation itinerary was a visit and factory tour of Theo Chocolate, the first organic and fair trade certified bean-to-bar chocolate factory in the US. Factory tours always remind of the good ol' days of grade school field trips, plus you don't have to twist my arm to get me to eat chocolate!

Factory tours are a reasonable $6 per person, and run 7 days a week, but be sure to book your tour in advance, as they fill up fast. If booking in advance slips your mind, you can get on a waiting list when you visit the store and factory (and you want to visit the store!). When we were there, a handful of people on the waiting list made it on the tour due to no-shows, so there is hope. They also have a "walk-in" tour every day at 2:30 where it's first come, first served.Why do you want to visit the store? Because they put out samples of almost every bar they create! You can easily eat a few bars worth of chocolate just circling the room tasting here and there. They recommend you hold off on sampling the chocolate before going on the tour because you'll sample chocolate on the tour as well, and they don't want you to spoil your palate. You don't even know the self control involved in that request!