The Yum Diary

Sustainably farmed eggs: flavor & color superiority

2012-05-06T13:46:00.001-04:00

When I look at the improbably orange yolk of this soft-boiled egg from Trail Ridge Farm in Aiken, South Carolina, all my hippie instincts are validated.

Then I taste it. Holy mother, that is good.

Tamales verdes, rajas & rojos in West Columbia, SC

2012-04-07T13:21:00.001-04:00

Just scored a fine looking bag of chicken tamales, $1.25 each, 3 flavors.

Props to my Flock and Rally business partner for turning me on to El Mariachi on 378!

El Mariachi has all the stuff to make fresh tomatillo guacamole to put on top, too.

Here's where I brag: the cilantro, I grew myself.

Smoked salmon, arugula, edamame hummus & goat grilled cheese sandwich

2012-03-31T13:16:00.001-04:00

On fresh baked bread by @AngryBakerSC, with a few City Roots sunflower microgreens for good measure.

Wild salmon, not farmed. (Farmed is beyond bad.)

A friend is doing me a favor today, so I am sending her off with this sandwich gift.
I made a halfsie for myself, too, of course.

Gluten-free China black rice bread French Toast!

2012-03-25T12:29:00.001-04:00

This toast, by Food for Life, requires 3 rounds of toasting in the mini oven, but once crispy and vegan butter-y, it's a dense, chewy / crunchy delight. And lavender colored because of the black rice, which is fun.

So I figured I'd soak it in organic eggs from Trail Ridge Farms, SC, organic cream, & fresh grated nutmeg overnight and give it a whirl on the griddle.

A low temp for long period helps bread crunch up without burning the egg. Sprinkle w/kosher salt and drizzle w/dark, grade B 100% maple syrup.

Oh yesssss.

Grove Park Inn & Spa, Asheville, NC: 24 hours of awesome

2012-03-18T21:36:00.001-04:00

A business partner's birthday calls for a 24 hour getaway. The best.

Water's Edge Inn, Folly Beach SC -- Vacation Delight

2012-02-20T17:20:00.001-05:00

As I type, I am running a bubble bath (in The Charleston Room on the first floor), which is filling up in a volcanic limestone Victoria + Albert soaking tub, and I am sipping from the bottle of cava the management left chilling for me as a birthday gift upon check-in yesterday.

There is a timer-operated fire flickering in the hearth, and the excellent wi-fi has been working brilliantly for 24 hours.

This morning, I padded upstairs to the small reception lounge, where I was able to get many cups of fabu locally roasted coffee; scones, muffins, bagels & pastries from Saffron Bakery in downtown Charleston, fresh fruit salad, a bunch of other stuff, and a little hot plate full of crispy, delicious bacon. All complimentary. Hellllloooooo.

And at happy hour, 4-7pm? Light beers, red + white wine, a liquored up, low-calorie cranberryish lemonade called Welcome Punch (literally they fixed me a glass upon check-in), with lots of little cheeses, nuts, salames, etc. and guests hanging out either at the outside patio or up in the lounge.

Oh, and the outside patio? They have some satellite radio station going on low volume that is, I swear to god, the "Margaritaville Station" -- same is piping out by the 24-hour outdoor hot tub. Which in some moods would just kill my soul, but this place somehow makes it work really nicely.

The hot tub, which, btw, looks out onto a marsh. And has rainbowy lights in it. And a nice little deck around it. I just spent a half hour in there as the afternoon light shone in and I feel way good, let me just say.

I'm a big ole hotel snobberina and this place totally ranks up there. I appreciate little details like the "dream machine" clock radio with an iPod hookup next to my bed, which has been playing ocean sounds ever since I got here.

I just don't really see a reason to turn it off.

UPDATE: I like my room so much that when it came time to order small plate #2 at Blu at the Tides Hotel -- where chef Jon Cropf uses (and lists on his menu) the stuff that comes from local or sustainable farms, I got my bison cannelloni to go.

So that I could get back to my awesome winter work retreat zone back at the Water's Edge. Man, it's great here.

Afternoon burger @ Hall's Chophouse, Charleston SC

2012-02-19T16:44:00.001-05:00

Mardi Gras Columbia and the Krewe de Columbi-ya-ya parade at City Roots urban farm was all 100% amazing yesterday.

Thus, the need for an afternoon burger at a fancy restaurant. An excellent cure.
Rolling into Charleston, South Carolina at 4pm, square outside of normal dining hours, I ask myself, "What Would The Shop Tart Do?"

Seriously -- she does great CHS food coverage for us Columbia, SC peeps.

So after confirming that neither McCrady's nor Slightly North of Broad serve an afternoon bar menu, I recalled Anne writing on theshoptart.com about having some great meals at Hall's Chophouse on upper King Street.

And behold! I get what I want. Dry-aged beef ground in house, parmesan truffle fries (so early 00s but who cares?), good pinot noir, and lots of dijon.

Looked overdone colorwise, but was juicy enough. (Still -- it was *not* medium rare, despite the bartender's kind comments.) Bored by the out of season tomato and romaine, but gruyere salamandered on top makes it all OK.

It's fancy in there, but you can totes get away with jeans and a fleece vest like the guys having burgers down the bar from me.

(It *is* Southeastern Wildlife Expo weekend.)

Now: off to take a nap by the sea.

UPDATE: Way too much truffle oil, dudes. I was tasting truffle oil all night. Like into the next morning. Yikes!

Broccoli Raab Pecorino Lamb Chile Fennel Bacon party

2012-02-03T00:26:00.001-05:00

This is a great consequence of growing broccoli raab in my back yard.

My dear friend Tali taught me this easy, fabu recipe!

Spicy Fennel + Sausage Pasta with Pecorino + Chile Flakes

1. Boil up some pasta to al dente. Orecchiette is best, but penne or angel hair are fine. Whateva! You'll toss it in at the last minute. Reserve 1/2-1 cup of pasta water in case you need it to lubricate your sauce later.

2. Brown up some sausage or ground meat. Sweet Italian sausage is best, but ground lamb is awesome, or any pork sausage. Ground beef, chicken or turkey will do in a pinch. How much? 1 big link per person. Cut open the casing and crumble the meat before you cook it.

3. Mortar and pestle some whole fennel seeds and red chile flakes. About 1/4 teaspoon of fennel seeds and 1/8 teaspoon chile flakes per big sausage link.

4. Throw the fennel and chile flakes in toward the end of your sausage browning process.

5. Chop up a big handful of broccoli raab per sausage link and throw it in! Salt + pepper to taste. Saute it all until the broccoli raab wilts, then throw in the pasta. You might need a splash of pasta water to get it all bubbling and cohesive.

6. Grate 1/8 to 1/4 cup of pecorino romano cheese per sausage link and scatter it in at the last minute. Turn off the heat, toss it all together, then serve.

7. Eat the pants off of this quick, delicious meal!

xoxo
TB

Grilled lobster, kittens, sea glass & a decompression chamber hiperbaric!

2012-02-02T22:17:00.002-05:00

I was just recalling fondly the best grilled lobster I've had in a long, long time. (Well, since a fabu Monday Lobster night at Rosso Trattoria last year. Which isn't actually that long to be honest.)

This lobster was flippin' great.

Nice and browned on the outside, moist and yummy on the inside. I would like to eat one of those right now, actually.

But it wasn't just the lobster that was great.

The lobster was procured for my belly from this huge, sprawling all-porch-all-the-time, outdoor restaurant called El Varadero de Oscar, located far from all the other restaurants in the main part of tourist town, way down the main North-South road on Isla Mujeres.

Ya, that dreamy little funky vacation island off of Cancun, Mexico + the Yucatan Peninsula.

We happened upon El Varadero de Oscar on a golf carting expedition on the North-South road between Playa Norte and the Sac Bajo road -- where Villa Rolandi and Playa Lancheros and the floating plastic bottle island and the Tortugranuja are located.

We thought, "Hm, that place is on the waterfront, they have a lobster tank with little miniature *grottos* in it where the lobsters hide out (the guy showed us when we popped in in the middle of the afternoon, not hungry but just curious), and their light fixtures are old fish net buoys with mod-retro holes drilled in them."

Um, yeah. Kindof no question there.

So we made a point of taking a taxi back down there for dinner one night.

It was a great decision. We are very smart. We were the only ppl there -- which was a little weird feeling, but it was also really great. (It's really far from the very pleasant, albeit very busy and touristy, zone of Playa Norte.)

There was optimal deliciousness. There were cold, tasty top shelf margaritas. There were many delicious salsas and fabulous guacamole. There were boats clinking against one another ever so gently in the marina right there.

The trend of many hungry, skittish little island cats continued at El Varadero de Oscar, but this cat was different -- she liked getting petted.

So I snuck her bits of lobster skrittle (that's not a real word) and petted her and drank great margaritas with Debi and loved that Derek discovered the apple-flavored soda, Lift!

Oh, and Debi's man Derek ordered this fried fish that was beyond insanely out of this world delicious!

There were cinnamony cinnamon overtones to the breading, perhaps with some allspice or nutmeg? Who knows. It was awesome.

Oh, and that mayonnaise? It's in an onion layer cup. That's right, a cup made from a layer of onion flesh. I'm SO stealing that idea for a dinner party (but maybe not the gross squeezy mayo look).

After we taxi'd back to Playa Norte, I went for a nighttime walk (yup, Isla Mujeres is weirdly safe like that) over to the eastern side of the island, which was beaten up super horribly by a hurricane a few years back.

A lot of properties on that shore still haven't bounced back.

Cool pool though.

That side of the island, all rocks with no real beach, is 100% amazing for finding sea glass, btw.

See?

Back to the nighttime walk.

I continued strolling around like an American lady on vacation, and I found...the hyperbaric decompression chamber!

Best. Infographic Mural. Ever.

Tikinxic Fish, from the Yucatan to My Skillet

2012-01-15T04:26:00.000-05:00

I got a little obsessed with Tikinxic fish down in the Yucatan.

How could you not? Fresh, local, whole tropical fish, basted up in a dark red paste of achiote, garlic, oregano, and sour orange juice, then grilled.

(A la parrilla means grilled over charcoal, while a la plancha means sauteed on a flat metal griddle. Important distinction. We learned it -- after a couple of *meh* fish fillet dinners.)

The place we got the Tikinxic fish on Isla Mujeres is one of those legendary beach bars, a ways out of town.

We traveled there by golf cart.

Before lunch, we stopped off at a few places.

This turtle farm (the Tortugranja) has a long ago, faraway Team Zissou feel to it.

Also a little bit like the TV show "Lost."

We also checked out the floating island made of plastic bottles!

It's maintained by a revolving crew of volunteers.

We happened to be puttering by when a giant bag of plastic bottles was being dropped off by some nice hippies.

The house is in the background, with a palapa roof.

Then, we took a tour of the Isla Mujeres Palace, one of those big All-Inclusive resorts we'd looked at before deciding to go all indie.

I don't know if you can tell, but there is like, nobody at this resort. The buffet food didn't look great -- at all, there weren't any bartenders around, and the place had a general pall that just wasn't very vacationy feeling.

We adjourned to our beach bar next door with happy hearts that we had chosen wisely by staying on Playa Norte, a block from downtown, on a gorgeous beach at the Ixchel Beach Hotel.

Time to self-congratulate with some margaritas, a Sol, and some fresh fish.

The fish place to which most peeps on Isla Mujeres will send you to is called La Casa del Tikinxic, and it's one of a handful of laid-back beach bars/restaurants/clubs in a stretch of beach called Playa Lancheros.

We saw one of the hot restaurant hosts from downtown Isla Mujeres having a late canoodle-y lunch there with his lady, so it's confirmed -- the hospitality industry likes it too.

It is on a beautiful Caribbean beach, where you can totes get your hair braided while you wait for your fish to grill.

Isla Mujeres is near Cancun, kindof like Folly Beach or Bolinas in spirit.

Can you see the spirit?

Mexico is a pretty wicked good place to visit. I love it there.

This is where we stopped for a margarita at a blufftop contemporary sculpture garden (at Punta Sur) on Playa Lancheros golf cart day.

Thanks for being so awesome, Mexico!

Now that I'm back home, I hunted up my Diana Kennedy book, Cuisines of Mexico.

She is the gringa who broughteth the truest Mexican cookbookery of her time from Mexico to the U.S. after many years as an expat there.

She is rad.

I had some wild salmon thawing from the All-Local Farmers Market here in Columbia, SC. That place is the radness.

Decided to look up the Tikinxic and see if I could pull it off.

Boom! There's the recipe.

See? She's good.

As one might have guessed, El Mariachi on 378 in West Columbia has pretty much every Mexican thing you need for cooking.

Achiote in whole, powdered, and paste form? Check.

Avocadoes, oranges, onions, mangoes, tomatillos, and limes? Check.

The cilantro and sunflower microgreens from City Roots urban sustainable farm make a tight garnish on this dish.

Just wait.

So I followed the recipe, and took the abovementioned salmon brushed in freshly made achiote paste, and let it rest a while.

I should note, however, that Seville oranges (sour orange, or naranja agria) seem to be a real pain to find in the US. They were all over the grocery stores in Mexico, of course.

I toasted some oregano, black peppercorns, cumin and later, some whole coriander in my grandmother's hot cast iron skillet.

Diana taught me that it makes them more fragrant. Si, claro.

Meanwhile, I chopped onions and City Roots purple haze carrots for a big pot of beans.

It's cold up in here. Bean time for the week ahead.

1. I put epazote in my black beans. Diana advises it, and the Mexican grocery sells it in the dried herbs area.

Supposed to help with human gassiness.

And it tastes great. Adds a bright herbaceous quality to one's beans.

2. I put a stick of dried kombu seaweed up in there, too, per the advice of nutrition maven Roxanne Koteles-Smith. Also good for gas. And nutrients!

3. I also put cumin, fresh ground coriander, s+ p, and a secret weapon...

...about a 1/2 cup of leftover turkey stock I'd made after I bought a 12 lb. brined, bourbon-glazed smoked turkey from Bone-In Artisan BBQ on Wheels at Xmas time. Yeah, dawg.

Compost city.

While everything else is going down on the stove, I'm chopping 4 mid-size tomatillos, a mango, a big jalapeno, a very small onion, a few sprigs of cilantro, and I'm squeezing like 4 of those tiny little key limes they sell at the Mexican market out at the US 1 Flea Market on Saturdays.

Man those are good and tart!

This salsa is going to be so good I already want to drink it.

OK, time to griddle the fish. If it weren't so cold out, I'd grill it on the charcoal parrilla, but the plancha's just going to have to suffice because I don't want to face the coldness of starting the grill, even.

BUT I can fake the charcoal grill taste by dropping a teaspoon of rich, smoky Caw Caw Creek Pastured Pork bacon drippings into Grandma B's skillet.

I like to keep my bacon drippings in a dainty glass candy jar.

Because I can.

Meanwhile, I've got a big French skillet heating up to fry my tortillas for tacos.

I like to brown them just so they have crispy patches on the outsides but chewy, soft, bendy insides.

This brand, La Banderita, is still my fave. Pliable. Tasty.

Fish time.

This salmon from the salmon girl at the All Local is slammin.

(I have been wanting to do this achiote thing for almost a decade. Holy grail of cooking moment!)

Now it's time to plate it all, as though we're in a cooking show remake of Fantasy Island.

Diana has her recommendations for garnishes, and they are great.

Like sliced avocado. Yum.

I am skipping the habanero because that stuff is too hot for my gringa mouth.

And skipping those Seville oranges that are impossible to get.

As soon as you get your presentation looking real cute for your bad self, then you rip it apart like a wild animal and make tacos.

So...what's the verdict? Did the recipe live up to the reality? Especially considering all the frou-frou Tracie Broom twists?

Success, my friends. This stuff is flippin' unbelievably good. I can't wait to eat it again. Cause guess what's on the menu for tomorrow? LEFTOVERS IN TACOS.

I love taco season*!

Buen provecho, dudes. Thanks for coming on my culinary nerd journey with me.

Oh, and happy new year!

*Taco season is when you have all kinds of yummy stuff prepped and ready to go for making any one of like, 4 different kinds of tacos, at any time.

Huevos Rancheros, Columbia SC style

2012-01-13T10:34:00.001-05:00

Today is going to be a big one, and that calls for a rad breakfast. I've just come in from harvesting winter-blooming honeysuckle out in my yard, and it is so cold that I had to run warm water over my fingers after being outside for 15 minutes with gloves on. Dang!

Fancy gringa huevos rancheros:

The eggs:
2 Wil-Moore Farms eggs, fried
One corn tortilla, La Banderita brand, sauteed in 1/4 teaspoon Caw Caw Creek bacon fat

Brown the tortilla, then crack one egg on top of it. Flip it so the egg cooks up into the tortilla. Yummah. Then fry the other egg alongside. I like em over medium but the choice is yours!
You'll plate this on a pre-warmed plate. Or a cold one. Whatever!

The beans on the side:
1 medium tomatillo, diced
1/2 small onion, diced
cumin
kosher salt + fresh ground pepper
fresh ground coriander

Saute all these things together in a saucepan til they're browned, then deglaze the pot with a couple of Tbsp of water.

Then add:
12-14oz can of drained organic cannellini beans (or any beans you like)
1 Tbsp hot salsa or 1 tsp hot sauce. I got to use fabu salsa from Papalote taqueria in San Francisco, CA (thank you for this most wonderful gift, Kate Baker!)
fresh oregano (from my garden, wooot! Dried is fine too.)
fresh spinach (again, from my garden)

Stir until hot and bubbly and spinach is wilted nicely.
Plate this by nestling a pile of beans next to your tortilla egg magic.

The sauce:
1/3 can Herdez Ranchera sauce, heated in the microwave or stovetop. I was heartened to see that in Mexico the grocery stores stock plenty of Herdez, just like here in SC.

You'll drizzle or ladle this pureed red chile sauce over the top of your egg + bean magic when it's done.

The garnish:
Fresh cilantro from City Roots urban farm
Fresh sunflower microgreens from City Roots urban farm

You can garnish with whatever fresh thing you want. I happened to have cilantro, which is the top choice. And those sunflower sprouts are good on just about anything.

Mexican breakfast is big on my mind after spending a week on Isla Mujeres, MX, near Cancun, having a company retreat to do some macro-level thinking. Blog posting on that will follow, but suffice it to say that Yucatan cuisine is one of the best things ever.

This is the view from where we stayed at the Ixchel Beach Hotel on Playa Norte. We loved it.

Why is it a big day, btw?

My Flock and Rally business partner, Debi Schadel, has co-founded and co-organized a brand new TedX Columbia here in the South Carolina state capital (TedX is the mini, localized offshoot of the $5000-per-ticket TED Talk series), and the sponsor appreciation cocktail party is this evening.

I'm doing some floral arrangements for it and I couldn't be more stoked to be involved in some small way! So proud of my business partner for bringing something so rad to Columbia, SC.

Here's to Friday the 13th, 2012!

Get Your Tycoon on at The Sanctuary at Kiawah

2012-01-03T02:44:00.000-05:00

As spring + summer vacation planning begins for the hardcore leisure scientists, I'd encourage the luxury travelers and conference planners to train your eyes on The Sanctuary at Kiawah if you haven't just yet.

Inside, The Atlantic Room, with its formidable dining tables, thick linens, comfortable-as-a-steel-tycoon chairs, giant plate glass windows & wraparound porch, is one of the most luxe restaurants on the Eastern seaboard. Not kidding. And this isn't even the main hotel -- it's clear across the island at the Ocean Course golf club. Image: Kiawah Island Golf Resort

The Sanctuary is awesome. It's awesome for getting one's luxury dollar's worth, for one thing.

But it's also awesome for our state's economy. The more national and international travelers realize what an utterly killer resort this is, the more tourist dollars come into South Carolina over time. And the money trickles down to support working families, and education, and even the arts. (Among other desperately important things.)

From afar, is *does* look a bit McMansiony for a lover of old school beachhouses. I'll admit.

Image: Kiawah Island Golf Resort

But I am also a lover of fanciness and luxury, and this place has got it in spades.

I had no idea that we had such a high-end resort hotel & spa here in South Carolina. It reminded me of The Peninsula Beverly Hills and Bernardus Lodge in Carmel Valley, CA, albeit without the Frette linens and Limoges china, which usually just make me feel nervous and a little embarrasingly brand-whorish anyway.

The Morning Room, where each morning, you can take your complimentary delicious coffee and read the WSJ or NYT by the light of a thousand fancy suns. Or at least it feels that way. Image: Kiawah Island Golf Resort

Call me a snottypants, but taking coffee and having cocktails in the room above was very nice. Very, very nice.

Also, those things were nice to enjoy in this room, below. Both of these spaces make up a fraction of the lobby and face out to an enormous green lawn, beyond which is the dear Atlantic ocean.

The lobby. Lord love it. Image: Kiawah Island Golf Resort

Oh. This room? Oh, that's just the lobby bar. No big deal. It's only totally sailing tycoon fantasyland. At night, it is actually pretty hoppin'. If you like to sit around and chat and drink. Which I do.

The lobby bar. Of tycoon dreams. Image: Kiawah Island Golf Resort

Maybe The Sanctuary is more like a Four Seasons, actually. The service at The Sanctuary is incredible. Our server at The Atlantic Room not only had the requisite bussers, runners, etc. but she also had an assistant server, who introduced himself as such.

And when we asked for oysters on the half shell despite them not being on the menu (we being The Shop Tart, my Flock and Rally business partner Debi, and myself), our server sped to the kitchen and swooped up on the last 6 raw oysters in the house. Do I love that The Atlantic Room has their own version of the classic tycoon hors d'oeuvre, Oysters Rockefeller? Yes. Do I love even more that they are willing to supersede it for some shellfish-grabby ladies? Definitely.

The Atlantic Room at Kiawah Island Golf Resort. This photograph does not even begin to display the excellent majesty of the casual fine dining experience there, but it's a start.

I think that if you like the service levels at The Four Seasons and such, you will be very happy. I will bet you five American dollars on this.

The grandeur, casual elegance and overall laid-back splendor of dining at The Atlantic Room was something you don't get all the time. Giant chairs. Enormous, solid tables. Formidable linens. A beautiful, U-shaped wraparound wooden porch w/excellent lounge chairs. Adirondacks out in the grass overlooking the sea. Epic stuff. Solidity, noblesse, wealth, and a sporting life. With great shellfish.

The wine list at The Atlantic Room is pretty epic too -- I was stoked to spy something I thought I recognized from my Napa Valley wine nerd days, by winemaker Ehren Jordan: an '05 Alban vineyard viognier from the Edna Valley under the Failla label. What does that mean?

Means it's really, really delicious.

Also delightful: rocking chairs out by the valet area, so that you can wait for your car in a relaxed fashion. Witness my comrades enjoying this easy-breezy amenity.

One of my great regrets of this stay is that I did not collect a photograph of the genius guest room bath layout. Obviously, the rooms are nice. They're a little froufy for those who veer toward the contemporary, but the fabrics are quality, the motifs are solidly classic Carolina coast, and it would seem that there is an ocean view of some dimension for everyone.

Better-then-average guest room. Note the homage to the traditional South Carolinian rice bed. Image: Kiawah Island Golf Resort

But the bathroom. Man, it's great. I'm a bath-taker, so a great bathtub situation is really the thing. And this one is kindof genius.

There is a brilliant, shuttered cutout window between the deep, fancypants bathtub and the bedroom. You can open the shutters, or not. Either way, you can take a perfect, deep, hot bubble bath, completely nude, and still chat with your friend or loved one in the other room.

And not only that.

The bath products -- and good bath products are a huge indicator of whether a resort is worth its salt -- are the well-regarded Elemis brand, and they smell incredible.

Although the shampoo and conditioner don't possess the super-powered awesome smell good-ness of the Elemis Sharp Shower Body Wash and concomitant body lotion, these two jammers are both absolutely exemplary guest room bath products, rife with "uplifting Spearmint and Peppermint essential oils, combined with plant extracts of Nettle, Wild Marjoram, Marshmallow, Chamomile and Thyme in a Soya, Wheat and Milk Protein base."

That is a spa nerd's happiness, can't you see? Marshmallow? Soya? Wild Nettle? And two mints are always better than one. So yes, the bathrooms are great at The Sanctuary.

Which brings us to The Spa.

Yes! It is worth your spa dollars. Feel free to spend them lavishly here. Thou shalt be rewarded with an excellent treatment, luxurious appointments, accommodating, down-to-earth staff, and the best locker room whirlpool this side of Burke Williams Day Spa in San Francisco. Or Los Angeles. (Those Burke Williams locker rooms are kinda all the same anyway, right? [But those Burke Williams locker rooms are GREAT. Do not mistake my churlishness for a lack of reverence for the Burke Williams locker room. I'd kill for a BW in Columbia, SC.])

The solarium actually has rows of these chaise longues. And lots of magazines and throws. And the pre-requisite urn of chilled, fancy water and a few noshy snacks that are a micro-hallmark of all good resort spas.

Image: Kiawah Island Golf Resort

Full-body immersion in hot, fancy water is key. This fanciness of this whirlpool situation, above, is well designed, with various nooks and seats beneath the surface.

Fun fact: they have installed two giant planters on either side of the stairs, so it almost feels like there are 2 or 3 zones in the whirlpool, so that you can *kindof* sequester and feel separate from other spagoers. This is a nice thing.

The spa locker room and bathing area aren't huge or spacious, but the space is used intelligently, and on a Fall holiday weekend afternoon, we didn't feel cramped or crowded. The treatment rooms are comfortable, as you can see.

Spa robes: the best. High quality, double-faced with the plushy inside and smooth outside. None with ratty edges that we could see, indicating that spa management attends to details like rotating out the ratty-edged robes when their time comes.

There is something about a fresh, buff-colored, rolled-up tower of spa towels that just puts me at ease.

Image: Kiawah Island Golf Resort

I'd like to slap the architect on the wrist, however, for making us ladies and gents walk *out* of the locker room/bathing area in our robes, past the check-in desk, and through a separate door to get to the solarium. When you are spending the valuable currencies of both time and dollars, the illusion of total escapism is important. I hope this was a design necessity and not a design flaw. Like somehow, because they cut that corner, they were able to fit an indoor heated pool onto the property.

Which they did. I love an indoor lap pool with a bank of plate glass windows.

Blessed be: 'tis a heated indoor pool, with a Chef's lettuce, herb and vegetable garden outside, which is the coolness. Sadly, the hot tub was tepid. That's all I'm going to say about that. Image: Kiawah Island Golf Resort

Speaking of the heated pool thing: of all the truly delightful things about The Sanctuary, this one irked me and my ladyfriends to no end. Not only was the outdoor hot tub tepid at best on a brisk early October morning; the indoor hot tub was the same *meh* temperature. While the staff responded quickly to my plaintive, whiny cry, the problem was not solved within our 3-day stay.

That said, the outdoor pool deck looked pretty sweet.

Image: Kiawah Island Golf Resort

And right along the path from the lobby out to the pool?

A boatload of beautyberry, one of my favorite South Carolina native plants. Top marks on the landscaping, y'all. You don't expect to see a ton of natives and perennials planted at a megaresort, and I appreciate it.

Well played.

Humane Pig Farmer Gets Ganked By Smithfield in Whole Hog Cookbook

2011-12-17T01:12:00.001-05:00

If you haven't had a chance to read the amazing exchange on The Gurgling Cod about the whole Smithfield / Libbie Summers / Caw Caw Creek / Whole Hog Cookbook / Emile DeFelice debacle, with some Anthony Bourdain thrown in for good measure on the Twittahs, you're in for a food nerd treat.

Although having images of your Certified Humane pastured pig farm uncredited in a cookbook branded by Smithfield most decidedly is not a treat.

Here's the meat:
http://thegurglingcod.typepad.com/thegurglingcod/2011/12/the-whole-hog.html

OK, so you clicked on the link above, and you read down to Libbie Summers' comment reply to Emile's comment, right?

In case you are feeling lazy, here is Emile's comment. But go read the story -- it's quite sassy and good. I'm not going to be an A-hole and reprint The Gurgling Cod's story without permission, although I will reprint Emile's comment, which is also sassy and good.

And then LATER on The Gurgling Cod, a savvy commenter, Todd Price, cites a September 7, 2011 blog interview by Mission: Food quoting Libbie Summers thus:

OH, SNAP!

I've done recipe development and such and you pretty much need to specify your ingredients fairly early on (duh?), BUT after a decade on the editorial side of the fence, I'm now a Marketing and PR Business Lady Person, and I can SO see how a powerful brand like Smithfield could just -- *tink! -- pop their name all over something before it were to hit the presses. Happens all the time.

Is that what happened? Is anyone skewering Rizzoli for this? (I did a lil Googling and I don't know if they are? Anyone? Bueller?)

Also, like the Cod and Regina Schrambling of @gastropoda, I too would like to know what the New York Times is doing reviewing a book which hawks Smithfield ham.

It's all horrifying/fascinating to read if you're from Columbia, South Carolina and know Emile DeFelice. (Props to Emile's colleague, Chef Kristian Niemi for having his back in the comments.) Horrifying because I know Emile works hard to walk the walk, every single day, with the whole humane pig husbandry thing, all while running the 100% delightful All Local Farmers Market, which is jammed with sustainable producers of high quality nom.

(In fact, I plan to drop a fair amount of elitist lady cash at that very market in the morning on humanely produced eggs from Wil-Moore Farms, bread baked with care at Heather's Artisan Bakery, locally squeezed goat cheese all fluttered up with lavender (crack) from Trail Ridge Farms, and sunflower microgreens grown at City Roots urban farm by a lovely, progressive family I am proud to call friends and colleagues.)

I shopped at Bi-Lo in Cayce, SC earlier this evening and dropped a bunch of elitist lady cash there too, but I didn't buy meat, fish, poultry or dairy (except for some jalapeno Palmetto Cheese) b/c I know that those high-dollar, high-impact foods A. aren't going to taste as good from a megafarm and B. have a truly bullsh*t effect on small, sustainable, local family farm culture.

Frankly, I am still learning about the whole machine and I'm far from knowing everything. But I do know that a pro-Big Ag attitude ticks me off, and I'm thankful for small, mindful farmers like Emile DeFelice who are also business savvy.

More discussion and followup on the Cod: http://thegurglingcod.typepad.com/thegurglingcod/meat_morals/

There *was* some fun stuff which resulted from the fracas, which is always nice.

Eva's story: http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=1992912064202144&ShowArticle_ID=12301412110936734

That's @FreeTimesSC News Editor @YesEvaMoore, who alerted me to this craziness via tweet the other day! I love me some Eva Moore.

(OMG, btw, The Gurgling Cod is Clemson, SC-based? I totes assumed it was from further afield. That is so cool. See? South Carolina is rad in all these ways that are secretly absolutely flipping amazing. I love living here and *being* from here makes me feel even cooler. Boom.)

If you live in @ColumbiaSC, btdubs, Eva does this incredible live tweeting reportage from Columbia City Council meetings each Tuesday that is both remarkably informative and impossibly wry and witty. I follow this lion like a lamb on my mobile and I fully recommend.

Full disclosure, of course, is that I write the occasional food article for The Free Times and Eva is my editor, but I think we all have way bigger fish to fry.

Or pork to fry. Preferably the *actually* humanely raised kind.

Southern Living Taste of Charleston, SC coming up!

2011-09-30T10:17:00.000-04:00

The Yum Diary is hitting the big Southern Living Taste of Charleston next Saturday and Sunday, October 8 + 9, 2011 at Boone Hall Plantation in Charleston, SC! (#SLTOC @Southern_Living)

I'm so pumped about the restaurant scene in Columbia, SC; over a dozen chefs make it a priority to buy from small, sustainable local farms on a regular basis. This farm-to-table movement is larger in Charleston thanks to the great tourism revenue down there, so I always enjoy checking out the Lowcountry dining scene to see what cool ingredients are being specially grown for restaurants.

I went to Boone Hall on a lark with my dear friend, filmmaker & food writer Chrissy Loader (@LemonadePie on Twittah), in '09 and fell in love with it. Tis a rad place to visit.

Boone Hall is still family owned, and it's been "continuously growing and producing crops for over 320 years."

Beautiful grounds, not too manicured...

Cool old farm equipment in pristine-ish condition...

Hidden paths...

A groovy motorized surrey tour through the woods and pastures...

And one of the longest, most beautiful allees of live oak trees in all the land.

The allee is actually on the National Register of Historic Places. Cool, right?

I am quite stoked. (Thank you to Southern Living for the complimentary ticket!) Here are some press images from prior Taste of Charleston events:

Want more info? Go here: http://www.charlestonrestaurantassociation.com/taste-of-charleston/

If you go, hit me up on Twitter and let's hang out! The Shop Tart is going too, so you can bet that we will be

Basil walnut pesto! Harvest time. Slow Food potluck today!

2011-09-18T10:23:00.001-04:00

Now that it's gotten cooler here in Columbia, South Carolina, I'm ready to harvest most of my sweet Genovese basil!

I've been cutting the flowering tops and seeds off of my plants for months, encouraging them to get bushy and full instead of leggy and gone to seed.

The tops make an easy, fragrant base for small floral arrangements, and the leaves will stay fresh in water for well beyond a few days in most cases.

I've been making these with zinnias from my garden all summer to put on the new communal bar table at Motor Supply Company Bistro in the Vista, in fact!

Just in time to make pesto for the fun, casual Slow Food Columbia potluck at the Indie Grits Festival launch party this afternoon, 4-7pm at Five Points Pub!

Our chapter of Slow Food USA is contributing potluck dishes to the party as part of the national "$5 Challenge" initiative to "Take Back the Value Meal."

Here's a link to a recent Washington Post piece featuring a Q + A on the $5 Challenge with Slow Food USA President Joel Viertel:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-we-can-eat/post/qanda-josh-viertel-of-slow-food-on-the-5-challenge/2011/09/14/gIQAoXU6SK_blog.html

Slow Food Columbia was pretty stoked to get the whole first page of the Life & Style section of The State newspaper recently, thanks to Slow Food-friendly writer Susan Ardis! Did you see it?

http://www.thestate.com/2011/09/07/1960787/throw-down.html

Notably, Slow Food Columbia members and friends try hard to adhere to Slow Food standards when cooking potluck meals for our events. The Washington Post piece sums it up nicely:

"It needs to fit the mission of slow food, which the group defines as 'food that is good for those who eat it, good for farmers and workers, and good for the planet.' As Viertel told me, 'We want to challenge people to cook slow food for the price of fast food."

The way we loosely define "Good, Clean and Fair" food when we're doing potlucks at Slow Food Columbia -- a volunteer-run nonprofit -- is that each dish should contain at least one major ingredient that was locally sourced and, ideally, produced sustainably and/or humanely.

There's an amazing sustainable food scene growing here in South Carolina, so it gets easier and more economical to cook this way each time a farmer or grocery store decides to walk the walk and spend the extra time and money required to be more green, eco-friendly, environmentally sound, sustainable, organic, or however you like to word it.

My favorite pesto recipe comes from The Silver Spoon cookbook. It's simple and super flexible. Good news considering I am a chronic recipe fudger.

Pesto is wonderful in particular for recipe fudgers, as the ratios are very forgiving should you shift them in a wanton fashion.

My Rather Inexact Walnut Basil Pesto Recipe
Makes a sh*tload + freezes beautifully

I make 4 batches at once, based loosely on the above recipe.Then I freeze 1/2 cup - 1 cup at a time in Ziploc freezer bags or freezer-safe jelly jars.

TOASTED WALNUTS, chopped (or any nuts you want: pine nuts, pistachios, brazil nuts, pecans, whatever!)
First, I toast 3-4 cups of whole walnuts, which yields 2 cups of coarsely chopped walnuts. Toasting releases their oils, making them more delicious and delightful. It also makes them more susceptible to rancidity, so use them soon after toasting! Put them in the food-processor and jam down those nuts coarsely.

DECENT PARMESAN, shredded
Then I use the Cuisinart and shred a big hunk of good parmesan cheese to yield 3-4 measured cups. The recipe says to use a lot of parm, but I am a little more conservative and end up using half that. Rosewood Market, Columbia's only independently owned natural foods store and sustainable foods deli (hello, lemon-butter wild salmon on Mondays!) has good prices on better-than-decent Argentine Parmesan, which is way cheaper than the admittedly superior Parmigiano Reggiano.

GOOD OLIVE OIL
The better quality the olive oil, the tastier everything will be. 3 cups or so for a 4x batch. This is proven fact. The crummy olive oil at big-box groceries is nowhere near as floral, green, and delightful as high-end olive oil. THAT SAID, I'm trying to stick to the Slow Food $5 Challenge, so I'm going with the big tin of Earth Fare organic EVOO. It's just fine.

SALT, kosher or sea salt + PEPPER, fresh ground
A good pinch of each
Iodized salt doesn't hold one tiny candle to the subtle majesty of kosher salt. Kosher salt is also cheap as can be! I learned from the Zuni Cafe cookbook (SF institution of New Mediterranean cuisine) that kosher salt is less potent per portion than other salts, so adjust accordingly. Sea salt is lovely, too, but stronger.

FRESH-PICKED BASIL
100-150 leaves, e.g. 12-15 good, loose handfuls
Basil is ridiculously expensive in stores. Happily, it is ridiculously easy to grow giant bushes of it, given that you have a lot of regular sun and are willing to water it every few days during dry spells. I harvest not by pulling or cutting the whole plant; instead, I snip the tops for arrangements and grab bunches of leaves from the sides and pull, leaving the small, baby leaves that are just peeking out of the stem joints to grow into more delightful basil for my table.

New York City & Columbia South Carolina -- Not So Different After All

2011-09-11T11:52:00.003-04:00

Earlier this year, my brilliant business partner, Debi Schadel, started forwarding me a Seth Godin blog post every so often -- when the content serendipitously matched a macro dialogue we had just been having on best practices, client relations management, etc.

Sitting by the pool during a recent strategy meeting with one of our fiercest new interns, Kat Baxter -- a big proponent of reading Seth's Blog -- I was finally convinced to subscribe to Seth's daily posts of macro-view business wisdom.

Today's post on Seth's Blog is great, in particular, not just because of its graceful nod toward 9/11, but mainly because the golden glow emanating from the city of Columbia, SC is a hot topic right now in just about every conversational circle I encounter.

Excerpt from http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/09/its-different-here.html:

"I got to thinking about why New York City attracts so many tourists, more than just about any city in the world. Not because of natural wonders or even outdoor sports activities. It might be because:..."

[And then Seth lists a litany of super cool things about NYC. Click that link and read the whole list! It is quite terrific. After the list, he continues:]

"...The thing is, here can be anywhere. There are New Yorks going on in towns large and small, in companies big and tiny and in families that support and respect at the same time they embrace and encourage difference..."

"...But now more than ever, I believe we have an obligation to stand up, stand out and to do work that matters. Wherever you are, there's an opportunity to be different, with respect."

Think about this in relation to your city, especially if you happen to be one of my South Carolinian brethren.

Image courtesy http://bbcristian.wordpress.com

Are you standing up and standing out? A lot of you really, really are. And it's making a huge difference in quality of life for everyone around you.

I am so inspired by my colleagues, friends, family, clients, mentors and heroes on a daily basis. Something Great is happening. And we're all a part of it.

So what do we do about getting that Confederate battle flag off of the S.C. State House grounds? It's holding up economic progress for our city, while convention after convention declines Columbia as a location because of the flag.

Seriously, y'all. What can we do?

xoxo
TB

Captain D's into Captain D-Licious

2011-09-09T00:53:00.000-04:00

Recently, I was hard at work on a project with no time to think about eating. My brother, considerate fellow that he is, brought home extra lunch with me in mind.

He does that sometimes, without asking. It is super cool.

On this particular day, he brought a fried seafood platter from Captain D's.

Now, I am a food snob for sure, so I was like this:

"Meh."

However, I was also starving, having worked through breakfast and now lunch.

Remembering a trick The Shop Tart and I had pulled a couple of times (once for a party with some fried risotto, and once at the beach with some venison burger), I went to the yard and got some shiso leaf.

It's a weird, basily, minty herb they put on spicy tuna rolls out in California (which is why I grow it here, cause I want to be fancy, y'all).

So I figure it's good with anything else you'd put on a sushi roll, like Sriracha chili sauce, tamari/soy sauce, and spicy mayo. (Vegan chipotle mayo from Rosewood Market, in fact.)

Which, let's face it, are all such great condiments anyway that you could put them on a donkey foot and it would be a terrific snack.

So, funny thing: contemplating making donkey foot* sushi suddenly made the idea of Captain D's sushi bites really rather palatable in comparison.

So I went for it.

And indeed, they weren't bad!

Et voila, the "Captain D's into D-Licious lunch" was born.

*No offense, lil donkey.

P.S. Donkeys = Democrats. Obvi I've started thinking about election season 2012! I'm sticking with my man Obama.

Homemade French fries, mandolin-style!

2011-09-05T17:42:00.001-04:00

Um, just found my Borner mandolin slicer. And I have homemade ketchup from last week. And Wil-Moore ribeye steaks. And it's a national holiday.

Sweet.

Kelloggs Breakfast Heirloom Tomato Sighting

2011-08-31T07:31:00.001-04:00

And I'd ripped out all my other sad, dessicated tomato plants just last week. Why, dear heirloom yellow/orange treat, are you flourishing so nicely?

No matter. Definitely planting *you* again next year!

Big ups to Rodgers Heirlooms in Little Mountain, SC, for the Kellogg's Breakfast tomato seedling!

Peace, Love & Rocky Roast opens in Columbia, SC

2011-08-24T23:25:00.000-04:00

When a new, high quality small business opens up and fills a need in my life, I can't help but do some shouting from the rooftops.

Happily, I would like to report that the new fancypants, independent gelato shop and coffeehouse in Columbia, SC's Vista district is open!

Peace, Love and Rocky Roast is on Gervais St. btw Park and Lincoln, a block and a half from the SC State House. They're next to the old Mais Oui space, across from Nonnah's and Carol Saunders Gallery.

Here are the bullet points of awesomeness:

Organic, fair trade coffee, roasted on site. It is highly delicious and I couldn't be more pleased.
Open Sundays.
GREAT gelato.
Wi-Fi. Code comes printed on your receipt.
Giant space.
Open 6am-10pm weekdays, til midnight Fri-Sat.
They have a gelato flavor that combines chocolate, pistachio, and amaretto, called "Amadeus Dream," of which I approve quite highly.
They have a few breakfast offerings and a smart little menu of simple snacks: scoops of things like chicken salad or Palmetto Cheese on a croissant or over romaine, with sides like pita chips or apple slices.
The owner, Butch Allen, is awesome!

I asked Butch about the provenance of this business, and he noted that he and his lady (a lawyer on the Left Bank [West Columbia]) did a ton of research, visiting Portland, OR and Seattle, WA (fancy coffee Meccas of the U.S.) to collect best practices.

Seems like they've put a lot of best practices to work here. Excellence in action. Sweet.

Butch said that he trained as a barista at "the Harvard of barista programs" (I forget the name of the place, apologies!) and brought in a big, fancypants coffee roasting machine that he tested in the factory in Chicago himself before shipping it here to Columbia.

The man's got pride in his enterprise. This is cool.

Would you like to go and "Like" them*? http://www.facebook.com/pages/Peace-Love-Rocky-Roast/144258435612679

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PL_RR

*I'm not affiliated with this business in any way, except as a happy customer.

Drip Coffee (Five Points!) & Smoked Salmon Bagel (the legendary one)

2011-08-22T08:11:00.001-04:00

After a great TV promo spot on WACH Fox for Historic Columbia's big Jubilee: Festival of Heritage, it's time for wifi and laptopping!

Entering the Jubilee Yam Cook-Off this Saturday?

Judges include WACH, KISS-FM, Teowonna Clifton, (@thatteowonna), The Shop Tart (@theshoptart), Exec Chef Tim Peters of Motor Supply Co. Bistro (@motorsupply), and Chef/Owner Kristian Niemi of Gervais & Vine and Rosso Trattoria Italia (@OffMenuKristian). Fun times!

Tomatoes on my bagel at Drip are from Sweet Bay organic farm, + Ethiopian drip coffee by the cup. Awesome.

Columbia, SC just rocks.

Caw Caw Creek Slab Bacon BLT of Champions

2011-08-20T15:15:00.001-04:00

The garden arugula is anise-y, the local Caw Caw Creek pastured pork bacon is smoky, the heirloom maters are mine, and the mayo is Duke's. Rarrrr.

Oh, and that's a Bahamian beer, b/c I'm practicing my leisure science version of "The Secret."

If I drink a beer from The Bahamas, maybe I will end up on vacation in The Bahamas sometime soon.

Couldn't hurt.

The Truth About Thanksgiving

2011-08-15T13:19:00.000-04:00

I just found this golden oldie in my files from 1999 -- it's a flash animation piece for which I wrote the script, and my dear friend Sarah Bereczki did the animation (click to open the Flash .swf file in a browser window):

Go ahead and click the "here" link when you hit a screen reading,

"Download Attachment

Click here to download your attachment."

https://6684044157173471342-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/yumdiaryfiles/ttf/tta_thanksgiving.swf

(This doesn't seem to work in the IE6 browser, and I don't have the hours and hours required to figure it out today (anyone know?), so use the Mozilla Firefox or Safari browsers if you can! Thanks!)

Was for Spin the Bottle, a VH-1 "Pop-Up Video" spinoff entity that actually still exists!

Fun times.

Green burial at Greenhaven Preserve, Columbia, SC

2011-08-14T15:44:00.000-04:00

I am filled to my top with delight at, perhaps, the most morbid thing ever*.

10-acre pond at Greenhaven Preserve, Eastover, SC

At yesterday evening's Wild Summer's Night game feast and auction at the Columbia Conference Center (benefiting the South Carolina Wildlife Federation), I won a green burial plot at Greenhaven Preserve!

This is huge. Major. Big-time adult responsibility item, now checked off the list. Sweet!

When my mother passed away in 2008, my sense of responsibility was flipped up pretty much overnight. I had to grow up 700% in the space of a week, and as her Personal Representative, I found myself handling all of Mom's funeral, probate, and financial matters.

Inspired by the realization that I had nothing in place should I get hit by a bus, I immediately created a living will for myself. Without my mom's living will, we wouldn't have been able to implement my mom's wishes easily. And it was hard enough making the decisions we did, even with her blessing on paper.

I still need to draw up a formal last will and testament, but at least the living will I drew up in 2009 (after Mom's paperwork maelstrom died down) states that I want to be buried without a casket or vault, straight in the ground, at a nature preserve in South Carolina.

Ramsay Creek Preserve, Westminster, SC

In 2009, the only green burial preserve of which I knew was Ramsay Creek Preserve, hours from Columbia, west of Greenville. So, this is the place specified in my living will, with the caveat that if a less expensive green burial option should arise, then my family should go for it.

I had read about green burial over a decade ago, maybe around 1999 -- in Columbia's weekly Free Times paper, funny enough -- while I was living in San Francisco and researching the American funeral industry for a web animation client, Spinthebottle.com.

As part of my research, I had read The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford, the scandalous 1963 tell-all about the funeral industry. (It's in the vein of exposes like Silent Spring and The Jungle.)

Thoroughly grossed out by what embalmers do to bodies, I vowed never to be embalmed or buried in a casket, vault, or other non-biodegradable structure.

From The American Way of Death (1963):

"...the blood is drained out through the veins and replaced by embalming fluid pumped in through the arteries...About three to six gallons of a dyed and perfumed solution of formaldehyde, glycerin, borax, phenol, alcohol and water is soon circulating through [the body], whose mouth has been sewn together with a 'needle directed upward between the upper lip and gum and brought out through the left nostril,' with the corners raised slightly 'for a more pleasant expression.' If [he] should be bucktoothed, his teeth are cleaned with Bon Ami and coated with colorless nail polish. His eyes, meanwhile, are closed with flesh-tinted eye caps and eye cement."

Awful. And it gets so much worse:

"The contents of the abdomen and chest cavity are pumped out and replaced with "cavity fluid," and the face "is heavily creamed (to protect the skin from burns which may be caused by leakage of chemicals)..."

"Swollen necks and cheeks are reduced by removing tissue through vertical incisions made down the side of the neck. 'When the deceased is casketed, the pillow will hide the suture incisions...as an extra precaution against leakage, the suture may be painted with liquid sealer."

So, yeah, I'm pretty much never going to sign on to have *that* done to my body.

And of course, in watching every single episode of the HBO TV show "Six Feet Under," which focuses on a family-run funeral home, I got even clearer on wanting a green burial.

Just put me straight in the earth, wrapped in a natural fiber shroud. Easy-breezy.

Except that kind of burial is considered 100% illegal in most circumstances -- except in the fast-growing green burial industry. (Remember in "Six Feet Under" when Nate went to bury Lisa in the wilderness according to her wishes and it was a really big deal? As in highly criminal?)

Green burial also hasn't been so easy-breezy, price-wise, until recently, now that multiple green burial preserves have started popping up, creating some price competition.

What I learned when I researched it in 1999, and what I learned researching options at my mom's death in 2008, is that green burial is still far, far less pricey than a full-fledged funeral with embalming, open-casket visitation, graveside velvet casket-draping, and theatrical bells and whistles like a dove release or a 21-gun salute.

Recently, I read an very recent, updated piece on green burial in the Free Times by Eva Moore -- turns out more green burial retreats have opened in South Carolina!

One of the newest is Greenhaven Preserve, near Columbia in Eastover, SC, which has an easement to be a wildlife preserve in perpetuity. This sounds really terrific to me.

So, imagine my delight when the winning bid number at last night's SCWF auction was mine! A burial place at a green cemetery! In SC! (Plus I won a pet burial plot, as well. Sweet. As a self-avowed crazy cat lady, I like this.)

Ecstatic at my win, I fell asleep last night with the Greenhaven brochure folder in my hands. Naturally, I'm dying to go and tour Greenhaven.

Ha! Dying!

(Ahem.)

Anyway, loving the section names in the site plan, below. Anyone who wants to posse up for a visit out to Eastover, let me know!

*Is this all just way too morbid? Possibly, but I just don't feel doom and gloom thinking about my final resting place, especially when I know it can be fully in line with my hippie, environmentalist passions.

Plus, it's one of those "adult responsibility to-do list" items that can so easily get put off and put off and put off. You know, cause of the whole morbidity thing. (Not to mention the cost. Ay yi yi.)

Nailing down a post-mortem plan, in advance, is one of the most considerate things you can do for your loved ones left behind -- trust me. My mom knew her health was in decline, and without our knowing, in the final years before her death, she researched** and put into place everything we would need to administer her passing when the time came.

It was such a moving gift.

Thanks, Mom. You rock.

**BTW, as of 2008, the best price in the Greater Columbia area for cremation was at Barr-Price funeral home in Lexington, SC. They were very nice and very accommodating. I would recommend them to anyone going that route.

Summer random vegetable meal, transformed!

2011-08-01T20:28:00.002-04:00

Faux ground sausage, sage-y, (and some fresh-from-the garden Chinese eggplant) sizzled in fresh ground coriander (my pet), then splashed licentiously: some red vermouth.

What in hell, they'll say?

But then spear one, new caramelized bit, and drag your fork through the feta, the basil, the diced Serrano peppers there in the background, and there you go: flavor from the bland.

Glory be!