More Charleston

November 12, 2013

     I awoke to brilliant sunshine, after a good night's sleep in my room at Springhill Suites at Ridley Point, in an area known to locals as "West of the Ashley".   After a day spent coping with the sleep deprivation created by Monday's 8:12 a.m. flight from Newark, it was a blessing to sleep in a suite whose thermostat I had turned up to toasty. I drifted off listening to Radio España broadcasting an organ concert from the La Capilla Real, Madrid.

     Springhill Suites includes breakfast with the price of the room.  It was a Southern affair: sausages, grits, eggs, donuts, danish, muffins, English muffins, yogurt coffee, fruit, granola and other cereals were all on offer.  The Southern palate is sweeter and more fatty than that of Northerners, a legacy of the English origins of the colonies that the Northeast has largely abandoned, but which anyone who reflects on the British love of candy bars and pork pies will readily find echo in.  Notwithstanding, the real estate broker who took me around to see Charleston properties today assured me that I would be able to find all the arugula I wanted if I moved here.  (Indeed, there's a Whole Foods a short distance away.)

     Charleston is a city with more than one culture: the historic, the maritime, the academic and the associational, to name a few.  There is traditional Charleston, the world of the Washington Regiment, a state militia with its own armory and owner of one of the largest tracts of park land in the city.  There is the port of Charleston, home to one of the prime Coast Guard bases in the United States.  There is the Charleston of institutions of higher learning, including a medical school and a law school.  There is the Charleston of the oldest Chapter of the Society of the Cinncinnati, the Colonial Dames, the Knights of Columbus, and the Yacht Club.  There is also the Charleston of independent bookstores, like Blue Bicycle Books, which just held its latest Y'all Festival of regional literature.  There is the Charleston of the Spoleto Festival, with its "fringe" theatre playing alongside established artists.  There is the Charleston of garden societies and house tours.  And there is the Charleston of cooks and chefs turning out traditional Southern dishes exceptionally made, with modern variations thereon.

     This afternoon I was at Blue Bicycle Books, where I picked up a pamphlet each on Congreve and Shelley, each published by the British Council and the National Book League by Longmans, Green & Co in the 1960s.  --There is no shortage of Anglophiles here.  Along with these I picked up The Southerner's Handbook: A Guide To Living The Good Life by the Editors of "Garden and Gun".

      "No",  "Garden and Gun" is not a publication of the ladies' auxiliary of the National Rifle Association, it is a beautifully laid out magazine launched in the Spring of 2007 to celebrate Southern living.  I picked up a copy at the Atlanta airport a few years ago, on the strength of its gorgeous photograph of a duck-hunting retriever and the accompanying article about training the breed to do the work for which it was bred.  The editor, David di Benedetto, is the son of parents of Italian descent from Brooklyn, New York.

     After paying for my purchases I asked where I might have an early dinner in the area and was sent to The Grocery on Cannon Street north of Calhoun.  (Locals live north of Calhoun, someone explained to me, newcomers live south of it.)  The Grocery was unfortunately not serving until later, but the hostess sent me to Two Borough Larder on Coming Street, a few blocks away.  There I had a delicious bowl of three cuts of lamb accompanied by several varieties of beets and brussels sprouts, the entire dish lying on a bed of creamy horseradish-flavored hummus.  Dessert was a chocolate budino, a dense chocolate pudding garnished with a top layer of salty peanuts, enjoyed with a locally ground coffee.

     On the walk back to the stop at North Market and East Bay on the East Side of Charleston harbor, I passed Jestine's Kitchen, another local favorite.  Jestine was Jestine Matthews, who was born in the area in 1885, the daughter of a Native American and the son of a freed slave.  Jestine was raised, if not born (no records of her birth exist) on Rosebank Plantation on Wadmalaw Island, where her father worked as a farmer.  In her teens, she moved to Charleston to work as a laundress.   Later, she became a housekeeper for the Ellison family, with whom she remained until her retirement.  She died at the age of 112 on December 18, 1997.  The restaurant's menu is based on recipes Jestine Matthews cooked for the family of the owner, Dana Berlin. Many of the dishes feature meat or fish fried in a pecan crust, although brown sugar glazed ham, and fried chicken are also available.  The "Blue Collar Special" is a peanut butter and banana sandwich with potato chips for three dollars and fifty cents.

       A peanut butter and banana sandwich is probably a good thing to have in your knapsack when you are out hunting wild turkeys or ducks with your Boykin Spaniel.  The "Boykin" is the state dog of South Carolina, a medium-sized dog with hazel eyes and a mane of hair Sophia Loren would envy.  Bred to hunt in the Wateree River Swamp, it is a mild-tempered dog that loves attention.  Walking across the Horse Lot on Chisholm Street this morning, I encountered one being exercised by its mistress. The broad expanse of the Horse Lot was everything a dog with energy to burn could want.  The lustrous chestnut coat of the Boykin resembles that of an Irish Spaniel, although the Boykin tends to a curling coat, the Irish a straight.  There are so many gorgeous breeds of working dogs here --in Bicycle Books  I came across a white Portuguese Water Dog with black markings, cut in "Lion" style to expose the flanks, a show dog, fresh from a win.  And yesterday I saw a handsome pointer, alertly attuned to my unfeigned interest in him.

     However, the most amazing dog I saw was that belonging to a lady who owns a house near the Coast Guard fort on the Battery.  I am told that its owner (known as "The Church Lady" because of her piety), has trained her dog to sit up in front of its bowl and wait while the family says its prayer of thanksgiving for the meal.  Only then does the dog lay into its food.  Amen.