Going South, Getting Happy

I may have mentioned my trepidation about the South once or twice before. Turns out all it takes is about three solid days of great food, wine and music and I'm magically transformed. I think I'm officially a booster for Greenville, South Carolina. Then again there were those headlines...sex slave ring exposed, lynching and the local politician caught distributing cocaine.

But let's focus back on the positive: this town loves its food, its chefs, its music. They have a new state-of-the-art performing arts center. They welcome visitors. Platinum recording artists like Edwin McCain still live here and do good things like pulling this show together.

Southern Exposure Greenville provided an entire weekend filled with great food, top chefs, fantastic wines, and terrific music. Guess who got to meet Thomas Keller? In the photo below, I'm telling him about eating at La Rive years ago, okay decades ago. He says "I used to work at a place called La Rive..." I say, "Yes, I know, it was you in the kitchen then, I just didn't know it..." He graciously says "You don't look old enough to have eaten there back then..." Chef, we're both lucky the years don't show!

In addition to Keller, I got to meet Barton Seaver of Hook in D.C. Barton is a leader in sustainable seafood choices. Chef Seaver is showing a fish (photo below) he's about to prepare baked in salt. He's explaining how to ensure the fish you're buying is as advertised.

Chefs Frank Lee, Rodney Freidank and Teryi Youngblood prepared my wine dinner and the wine-maker turned out to be a fraternity brother of my husband. Small and delicious world.

The menu included dishes like:
Pan Seared South Carolina Grouper with White Acre Peas, Tomato Split Creek Farms Goat Cheese Salad Micro Arugula paired with Livingston Moffett 2005 Genny's Vineyard Chardonnay.

Roast Squab Breast with Foie Gras Mousse, Asparagus and Sherry Wine Vinegar-Shallot reduction. Paired with Livingston Moffett 2005 Willow's Red Blend.

The desserts were amazing - just large enough to enjoy a couple of bites but not enough to induce guilt. Bourbon Chocolate Bread Pudding Souffle, Homemade Butter Pecan Ice Cream; Cornbread Pudding with Blackberry Compote; White Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding with Caramelized Bananas, Rum Caramel.

I was also surprised to learn how many things Boston and Greenville have in common.

Greenville Facts:

• Greenville is home to the Boston Red Sox Minor League Team – The Greenville Drive. Their stadium even has its own green monster.

• Keith Lockhart graduated from Furman college (where Michael Corleone was enrolled before being pulled back into the family business.)

• The West End of Greenville is home to a beautiful park whose waterfalls are crossed by the Liberty Bridge. The unique curved and angled suspension bridge almost floats over the Reedy River and falls. The Liberty Bridge was designed by Boston Architect Miguel Rosales, who was the chief architect of the Leonard Zakim bridge.

• Sterling Square – the corner of Main Street and Washington marks the site of one of the catalysts of the Civil Rights movement. Black students from Sterling High School took a seat at the Woolworth's lunch counter before public buildings were legally integrated. Their courage is marked with a statue commemorating the event. It also serves as a reminder of Sterling High School which was never rebuilt after burning to the ground in 1967.

Other notables with Greenville connections:

Tyler Florence – Food Network Chef

Kevin Garnett – Boston Celtics

Joanne Woodward – Actress graduated HS in Greenville

Dorothy Allison – Author, Bastard Out of Carolina

Peabo Bryson – Singer

Jesse Jackson – Civil Rights Activist

Shoeless Joe Jackson – MLB player immortalized in “Field of Dreams”

Snap Judgments and Snapping Turtles

It's been a long and wonderful day of work and discovery, including my stumbling on the Southern Foodways Alliance website, reading John T. Edge's fine work and then realizing that one of the sites I most frequently visit (Epicurious.com) has a feature I'd never read. Choptalk.

It was on Choptalk that I found this piece by Tim Stark on Snapping Turtles. Read it and click on comments to read my quick story about my encounter with a snapping turtle and the life lesson it taught me. I'm thankful for the reminder that Tim Stark's story offered me and for the fact that I survived my turtle encounter with all fingers intact. (photo grabbed from Stark's column shows a snapping turtle.)

I'm going to tell you this about me and Southern Food: I love it and I have reservations about going South to eat it. I have a typical Yankee's reaction when I hear a Southern accent. I can recount horrible childhood memories steeped in prejudice and injustice. For years, these have helped me justify my dismissal of all things Southern. Like most biases, I am slowly realizing this one is too tidy to be true.

So, as I think about an upcoming adventure South of the Mason-Dixon line, I now publicly promise to keep an open mind. I may forget. I may revert to the telling stories that recount harms; stories that shut down, rather than open up, discussion.

You hereby have my permission to remind me of the snapping turtle incident.

I'll also allow you these little nuggets, if that is insufficient:
- I have been to business meetings in the South where clients actually pulled together a 'covered dish' lunch on my behalf and put a welcome sign up in the employee parking lot.
- I have been invited into a total stranger's home "for a good meal if I were ever in the neighborhood" and they meant it.
- I have had a complete stranger insist on helping me with my luggage up two flights of stairs in the South (ask me how often that's happened here!)
- I have enjoyed some of the best food ever in New Orleans, found a welcoming jazz club well off the beaten path there, too.

Sure, I've been run off the road with yelps of "Damn Yankee!" for merely driving in Alabama with Jersey plates...but that's a story for, and of, another day.

For now I'll focus on the food. Fried chicken. All good pork things, like Allan Benton's Ham and Bacon. Pecan pie. Small batch Bourbons. Fried green tomatoes. Grits. Gumbo. Buttermilk biscuits with Sorghum Molasses. Sweet tea. Hush puppies.

Aw man, this is making my stomach growl. Good night and good eats!