Southern Mansions, Soul Food, and a Daddylac

Today was our busiest day so far! We pulled out of Wilmington around 8:15 a.m. and into Charleston around 11:30 a.m. Our drive started like this:

Yes, the streets really are lined with huge trees covered in Spanish moss! On this very street, we encountered a car that cracked us up. I wish we had gotten a picture of it, but we just weren't prepared for what we saw. As we pulled out of Wilmington, we spotted the never-before seen Daddylac--a late 1970s, cream colored, 2-door, Cadillac the size of the QE2 with DADDYLAC on the license plate, driven by a middle-aged white guy who was obviously proud to be a daddy drivin' a Caddie. He had his right arm slung over the back of the passenger seat with no one in the car. Top down, hair slicked back. A Daddylac. Oh yeah.

The Daddylac incident was followed by this

If you can't read it, it's Hong Kong Eat In and Take Out next to The Hillybilly's Still & Grill--only in America, I say.

The first thing we did when we got into Charleston (I know you'll be surprised) was eat. The Hominy Grill had been recommended by a friend who had eaten there (thanks, Sarah) and the guide book we have. We were not disappointed (see pics on the link to the right for the visuals). Any restaurant that starts you off with a small portion of boiled peanuts (The boiled peanut discussion will have to be tabled until later.) gets an A in my book right off the bat! We also ordered the shrimp and okra beignets with cilantro-lime sour cream. Oh. My. Goodness. It was much more like a hushpuppy than a beignet, but I reeeeaally didn't care what they called it. It was delicious. My entree was the shrimp and grits. The shrimp had a little spice and the grits were creamy with a hint of cheese. It was also covered with sauteed mushrooms, scallions, and bacon--unbelievable! Tim had the sesame-crusted catfish with sauteed okra, deep fried cheese grits (What can I say, we're in the South?) and geechee peanut sauce. The catfish was mild, the grits were, well, fried cheese grits (think of grits once they've set up, dredged in a bit of flour, and deep fried), the okra was little and tender (not much slime for those of you who don't like okra). Neither Tim nor I could identify what was in the geechee peanut sauce, but it was good. As a little aside, geechee is another word for Gullah. Read this for an explanation. We got the low-down from our tour guide, but it's easier to connect you to Wikipedia--it matches up with what our guide told us. wikipedia Gullah description. As if we hadn't eaten enough, we ended with a slice of buttermilk pie and a slice of pecan pie. I've eaten buttermilk pie before, but can't remember what it tasted like. This was good. It was creamy and sweet with a slight buttermilk twang. The pecan pie was simply the best I've ever had. (Mom, you would have thought you'd died and gone to heaven.) I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but the pecans were chopped up and ran all the way through the pie--not just floating on top of all the gooey Karo syrup. I was full, but couldn't leave a bite of it on the plate!

Oh, the drinks--sometimes I get water; sometimes I get unsweetened tea. Tim always gets sweet tea. I would consider Tim an honorary Southerner based purely on his love for sweet tea. In fact, I just may count him as a sweet tea connoisseur. And with no prejudice, he rates my mom's sweet tea as the gold standard. (Okay, maybe a little prejudice since it is his mother-in-law.) Seriously, he describes my mom's sweet tea as, "Smooth like maple syrup going down, not bitter or powdery, but with a strong tea flavor." Now, I grew up on my mom's sweet tea. In fact, I honestly didn't know that anyone would drink tea any other way until I was much older and ordered it in a restaurant. At the time, I didn't even think that unsweetened tea was fit for human consumption; however, after years of reconditioning, I came to realize that tea really was good without a cup of sugar per 2 quarts of tea. (Don't get me wrong, I can enjoy a glass of sweet tea from time to time.) Tim says a couple have come close, but my mom's is still the best. Maybe it's the little saucepan that she's made tea in since as far back as I can remember, maybe it's her Southern roots, maybe it's a secret ingredient that she won't divulge, I don't know, but it is pretty darn good tea.

Let me go ahead and skip to dinner while I'm talking soul food. If Hominy Grill is the "new soul food," then Jestine's Kitchen is the old guard classic. Jestine's mother was Native American; her father was the son of a freed slave. In 1928, Jestine began working for the Ellison family, forming a life-long friendship. Dana Berlin, the owner of Jestine's Kitchen, is the daughter of the Ellisons' only child. The restaurant was opened to honor Jestine's home-cooking. Tim and I were still stuffed from lunch, but couldn't pass up this place. It's been honored numerous times in Southern Living, and at least twice by the NYT. Rachel Ray has been here as well as Oprah. It lived up to its reputation. We started with an order of fried, green tomatoes. This is the only dish that didn't absolutely "wow" me. It had a light flour batter--there was no cornmeal in it. The fried chicken, fried okra, and collard greens were spot on. Tim and I split a plate which included 3 pieces of chicken.

Okay, I promise we did do something other than eat! Actually, after we left Hominy Grill, we headed down to the Visitor Center. There were several tour groups launching bus, carriage, and walking tours. We decided on a bus tour to get a lay of the land so that we could do some walking later. Our guide was a native Charlestonian with a wealth of information about the city, its people, and the architecture. I would not be able to rattle off all of the history of the city like Tim could, but I did learn a ton about Charleston. Some of the "new" houses were built in the 1850s--the "new" houses. There is the Charleston house--built very specifically as a two-storied, 4 room house with a porch on the South/Southwest side of the building. The porch was always built on that part of the house because of the cross-breeze that would come through the house. There was also a door on the side of the house that faced the street that was not the front door. This was the door to the porch that led to the front door. As custom would have it, if the porch door was open, the family was accepting visitors, so you could just walk on up and knock on the front door. If it was closed, the family was not available at that time--what a great custom! There were many other mansions and much more history, all of which Tim would love to tell you about if you ask him! : ) I'm also encouraging him to upload his pictures so you can see some of them. Today was the first day he really took some pictures. (Although he did take many of the lighthouse yesterday, and I have to say, his are better than mine.) After riding in an air-conditioned bus for about 2 hours, we walked the city so that we could go back and really get a good look at some of the architecture and take pictures. The heat was sweltering but we wanted to get a closer look. Tim estimates we walked about 4 and a quarter miles in the city.

We also took a tour of an urban plantation--you couldn't take pictures in there. The building had been preserved as much as possible as opposed to restored or renovated. It was interesting to see the old building and listen to the history behind it.

On the subject of plantations and slavery in the South--I'm still processing the way our tour guide, a native Charlestonian, approached the topic on the tour. He started by saying, "Now some people ask if I'm going to talk about slavery on this tour...well, of course I am. I'd be stupid not to. Charleston was built by slaves. They built this city." I believe, as did Tim, that the guide was trying to esteem the Africans who were brought over on slave ships by crediting the work they'd done. But he was so matter-of-fact and unapologetic that I just don't know what to do with it. I've actually thought a lot about it as we planned the trip and as we've entered the region of our country that has a simultaneously proud and dark past. Both of my parents were born in the South, my dad in Alabama and my mom in Florida--this is part of my heritage. I will continue to listen and process. More of Charleston tomorrow.