On The Road: Low Country

After years of saying "yes" to every event, every opportunity for travel, every invitation to take our show on the road, I made a resolution of sorts this year, that I would scale back a bit. I'd like to think that I've earned the right to finally be able to weigh my options more carefully. Granted, most of these events support worthy charities and provide wider exposure for both me and the restaurant, not to mention that they are also rare moments when I actually get to spend time with some of my colleagues. And really, I look at such opportunities as a perk of the job. But these days, I'm reserving all of that extra time and energy for the most important events, or at least sometimes, those that might be fun as well.

Each year I do, however, make sure to save the date for the annual Food and Wine Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Now in its third year, I've been involved since the beginning, having been initially invited by friend and former mentor Mickey Bakst, now the Maitre d' at the Charleston Grill. But I've long had a connection with the city and its chefs, and even further back spent time in Savannah and Hilton Head, all within the same marshy coastal area commonly referred to as the Low Country. This is the land of shrimp, grits, rice, huge oysters, and she-crab soup. Not only is this "Gullah" cuisine well represented in Charleston, the city boasts a vibrant culinary scene that runs the gamut, right up to Sean Brock's modern fare at McCrady's.

And the larger national trend of relying heavily on local products is quite strong in Charleston; Sean even has his own farm supplying vegetables for his restaurant. His cooks work both in the kitchen and in the fields. He also let slip that he is poised to acquire a number of pigs, and of a rare local breed at that. This infectious attitude has been shared among a lot of the chefs here, many of whom I've come to know over the years: Ken Vedrinski, Bob Waggoner, Robert Carter, etc. Another disciple of all things local is Mike Lata of FIG, which is one of my favorite Charleston restaurants. It was Mike who called me nearly a year ago, inviting me to participate in a guest chef dinner held this past weekend, one of many in connection with the Food and Wine Festival.

These simultaneous events, happening at over a dozen restaurants within a few square miles, attract chefs from all over the country. Again, one of the few opportunities to see old friends and meet new ones. This year, those in town for the Festival included David Chang, Michael Schlow, Gale Gand, Carrie Nahabedian, a NoCal contingent made up of Richard Reddington, Michael Tusk, Stuart Brioza, and Nicole Krasinski, not to mention nearby Southerners Frank Stitt and Chris Hastings. Even native Carolinians Sam Talbot of Top Chef fame, and writers Ted and Matt Lee were involved in the Festival. And my co-conspirators for the dinner at FIG were Heather Carlucci and Suzanne Goin; another New Yorker, Kevin Pike of Terry Theise Selections, was brought in to sort out the wines.

This type of event is my favorite to do: one dish, usually around 100 guests, and you get to work in a real kitchen, with your friends, and assisted by a bunch of young talented cooks. No stress, though it must have been my "say-yes-to-everything" alter ego who agreed to do two desserts back to back! After some Low Country inspired hors d'oeuvre, the menu opened with Heather's almond shorba and white Carolina shrimp, reflecting this former pastry chef's immersion into the cuisine of India. Her course was followed by Mike's "over-easy" ravioli with truffles- an entire egg yolk wrapped in pasta left wonderfully runny after cooked, which if I had a vote, was the dish of the evening. Suzanne rounded out the savory phase with veal cheeks, local greens, and an amazing truffled risotto.

The pre-dessert was a slightly smaller version of my yogurt panna cotta with grapefruit, basil, and avocado, which I wrote about a few weeks back. The menu finished with an Amedei Gianduja parfait, with organic hazelnuts in black truffle honey (yes, there was a bit of a truffle theme going on), caramelized banana, and beurre noisette ice cream. Kevin's wine pairings were inspired, the highlights being the side-by-side tasting of two vintages of an Austrian Riesling (Salomon Pfaffenberg 1982 and 2003) with Mike's ravioli, and the Margaine demi sec Champagne served with the panna cotta. And as I write, I happen to be sipping a tiny vial of Heidi Shrock's golden botrytised "Auf den Flügeln der Morgenröte" -"On the Wings of the Dawn"- early morning being the best time to pick such noble "rotten" grapes. The tiny bottle I received serves as Heidi's business card, while the wine poured from regular bottles accompanied my Gianduja dish.

My work, however, wasn't over, as the next day found me in Vincenz Aschbacher's pastry kitchen at the Charleston Place hotel, prepping for that night's event, the Festival's "Bubbles and Sweets" party. This gala assembles most of the local pastry chefs, along with the handful of us out-of-towners, to dole out desserts to several hundred attendees, with plenty of Champagne to go around. This is great for me, because it allows me to meet a lot of young chefs that I might not notice otherwise. Among them were Claire Chapman, whom I worked with on my first trip to Charleston many years ago; Kelly Wilson, who helped organize the event and who paid a visit to Le Bernardin recently; and Winburn Carmack of McCrady's, someone to seriously look out for on the national level.

By the end of that second night, I was more than ready for the informal party back at FIG, complete with a whole roasted pig, and amazing pizzas courtesy of EVO's Matt McIntosh, direct from his mobile wood burning oven.

And of course, at some point in the wee morning hours that followed, I accepted an invitation to attend next year.

 

Download Amedei Gianduja Parfait.pdf

For general notes on the recipes posted here, please read About the Recipes. And for hard to find ingredients or equipment, please refer to Resources.

 

Comments

[elarael]

Wonderful post! So interesting to tag along to the festival and, as well, such enjoyable writing! I'm actually enjoying your skill in writing and story telling as much as the amaaazing desserts and photos!

(The download isn't active, however, is that because you're in the middle of posting this? )

Also, I'd love to see a video of you plating the dessert, that would be very interesting. Thank you so much!

[Michael Laiskonis]

Thanks for the kind words, elarael. The recipes are the most time-consuming aspect of a post, as you can imagine; sometimes I just want to get something up, before the recipe is fully written, or in some cases, converted. Do check back, as I should have the Gianduja recipe up today.

And I'm fairly low-tech, but once I figure out how to do it in a way that pleases me, I'll be sure to add some video content in the future...

[Aviram]

Michael,
I recently ate at Le Bernardin and had that very Hazelnut dessert.. I've been trying to explain to my girlfriend since then just how incredible it is, and I was wondering how that grainy texture is applied so beautifully (and so thinly - perfect!) to the Parfait.

Now I have a picture to show her, but I'm afraid to say even that picture (which I'd have put up at the MoMA) doesn't do it justice..

I searched on the bernardin page through the dessert menu and then googled your name in the hope of maybe a flimsy wikipedia entry at the very least. how surprised I was to find you're a blogger!
And an excellent one at that.. its such a treat that I couldn't help myself and went over everything in the first go..

Would have loved to be able to make that Parfait for my girl, but I'm afraid its quite a bit beyond my skill, so I'll just have to take her to Le Bernardin and hope it's still on the menu..
That alone was worth a 12 hour flight :)

Thank you so much for the happiness you brought me with that.

I'd go on for hours praising the petit fours, but I'm sure you'll make a petit fours post at some point :)

Oh, and do you happen to know Alton Brown?
He's my hero :)

Aviram.