Charleston Food+Wine Festival, Bill Neal's Cheesy Grits

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:37:00 GMT

     There is one Southern vacation spot that is definitely, not overrated. Charleston, S.C. deserves all the kudos it receives. Less than 5 hours by car it meets all three of my requirements for either a short getaway or extended stay:
1. Charleston is restaurant rich.
2. Charleston’s low-country cuisine is delicious
3. There are many good hotels and B&B’s within walking distance of these great restaurants.
     Between meals Charleston offers a wonderful historic downtown area filled with antique homes, historic churches, museums, and an aquarium. Most all is accessible by walking or, even better by horse-drawn carriage. If history and museums are not at the top of your list, you can shop for sweetgrass baskets in the open-air market, art in a barrage of trendy shops, or clothes in those very familiar chain stores we have come to love and depend on.
After your evening meal, you may want to stroll along Battery Park. With the Cooper River on your left, some of Charleston’s finest homes will flank your right. There you will find a line of “painted ladies”, a brilliantly- colored row of Victorian homes aptly called Rainbow Row.
     All this adds up to one dynamite place to hold the first annual Charleston Food and Wine Festival. On March 2-5, festival organizers chose to bring out the best of the best in Charleston and surrounding areas. Several North Carolina chefs came down to host a few of the events. Chefs Ben and Karen Barker took time off from one of North Carolina’s finest, Magnolia Grill, in Durham, N.C.
     For the Friday night festival kick-off some of the most famous local restaurants opened their doors to diners and their kitchens to guest celebrity chefs. Famed restaurants like S.N.O.B. (Slightly North of Broad, (Street)) Cypress, FIG, and the Charleston Grill hosted a Dine-Around. For $150.00 those patrons were treated to a four-course meal, (including wine pairings) prepared by one of the famous chefs. The ticket also included an invite to “Bubbles and Sweets” hosted by Charleston Cooks! While sampling champagne and tasting the sweets there was a cigar bar for those that dared or you could just “feast your eyes” on the displays prepared by the pastry chefs.
     If patrons to the festival found the Friday night kick-off a little too pricy, the Saturday (or Sunday) all-day pass of $25.00 was another option. Upon paying your $25.00 you were handed an empty wine glass, for the tasting, and a directory of the events. This was a great way to sample a great variety of the grape while discovering which restaurant makes your favorite low-country dish (like shrimp and grits). There were free chef demos every couple of hours but if you wanted a little more, for a little more money you could attend a special show by the famous chefs and wine specialists.
     The cooking tip of the day came from Tory McPhail of Commander’s Place in New Orleans. He solved one of my worst problems in the kitchen. I always have trouble cooking rice on my Viking gas range. The cooking eye is so hot I can’t keep the rice from burning, even on the lowest setting. Tory’s solution is to bring the rice to a boil on the stove top and then to put it in a pre-heated oven at 300 degrees. Cook it in the oven for the amount of time you would normally cook it on your stove top. This is also a good way to save stove top space when you are trying to cook many items at one time.
     The travel tip of the day came from a couple of my travel buddies, Steve and Becky Bowles. The South Carolina Visitors Center offers a one-weekday-only deal for staying in Charleston. Upon entering South Carolina stop by the center and ask them to find you a room for the night. The Bowles has stayed at some of Charleston’s finest for a fraction of the regular price. The visitor’s center number is 800-774-0006 and their website www.charlestoncvb.com
If you are like me and can’t wait until your next visit to Charleston for some of that good low-country cooking, try Bill Neal’s cheese grits.
From REMEMBERING BILL NEAL: FAVORITE RECIPES FROM A LIFE IN COOKING by Moreton Neal. Copyright (c) 2004 by the University of North Carolina. Used by permission of the publisher.  www.uncpress.unc.edu
1 cup stone ground or quick grits (not instant)
4 cups water (or milk for creamier grits)
1 cup cheddar cheese
4 T. butter
½ t. salt
1/8 t. white pepper
¼ t. Tabasco sauce
Cook grits according to package instructions for 1 c. grits. Turn off stove and add the remaining ingredients to the sauce pan. Stir until just mixed and serve immediately.
Cheese grits are the basic ingredients of Bill Neal’s famous shrimp and grits. For the busy man or woman you can turn this into an easy version of shrimp and grits: sauté shrimp in garlic, season with a little lemon juice and parsley. Before adding shrimp to cheese grits, flavor the shrimp with a little barbeque sauce. If you don’t have any shrimp around taco sauce also works to make great grits.
See photos for pictures of the Charleston Food and Wine Festival.

For great reading check out a copy of Moreton Neal's book. It is a good way for newcomers to the South to learn about Southern cooking and it's history. For us natives it is the pepper to our salt, just that right amount of spice, skill and inspiration that gets our Southern juices flowing.

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Charleston Food+Wine Festival, Bill Neal's Cheesy Grits