Charleston Distractions

A funny thing happened around the time that I made my last post.  First, my daily green tea began inciting a queasy feeling in my stomach.  Next, the smell of Bryce cooking eggs made me want to flee the kitchen forever.  And finally, I started to wonder if my Saturday morning trips to the farmers’ market were really worth the energy.

You see where this is headed, right?  Flash forward to five months since my post, and I looked like this:

In the time it took me to generate that big ol’ belly, I didn’t feel much like cooking, much less writing about the aroma and taste of food.  I also kept busy moving into a new house, and studying for and taking PhD exams in Chapel Hill.

This is all to say: a lot has changed since August!  But now that things have settled down a bit, I’m ready to start cooking, eating, and writing all about it on the blog.  So I hope you’ll check back soon for my usual dining posts, which I’ll be supplementing with tales of first-time gardening, joining and using a CSA, and, come fall, making baby food.

For now, I’m off to raise a glass to the new and improved dinewithdanielle.  Ah, milk.

Charleston is a peninsular city, surrounded by the brackish waters of three converging rivers.  Port facilities and container ships dominate its northeastern edge, and its western side is dotted with marinas, dry docks, and a few condominium complexes.  While these areas have their charms, the undisputed highlight of the downtown peninsula is its apex, where land gives way to the Charleston Harbor. This curve of sea wall and wide sidewalks, called Battery Park, boasts the most jaw-dropping historic homes in the city.

Most days, tourists prowl the Battery’s blocks with cameras around their necks, taking photos atop the canons in White Point Gardens and peering for a closer look at the private residences.  Many of the mansions are still inhabited, though a few now operate as bed and breakfasts or inns.  One of the oldest, the Edmondston-Alston House, actually serves three functions:  its top floor houses a descendant of the Alston family, its carriage house is a popular bed and breakfast, and its first two floors have been converted into a museum.  When Teresa was visiting, she and I decided to take a short guided tour of the house.

Because the house contains flash-sensitive paintings, draperies, and wallpapers, I couldn’t take pictures of the its interior.  You can see one, though, at the Middleton Place website.

Unlike Drayton Hall, which was bare of nearly all furnishings or adornments, the Edmonston-Alston House is full of family relics, from silver and paintings to desks and light fixtures.  Its caretakers have taken a decidedly restorative approach to presenting the house; it appears as grand today as it must have in 1838, when the planter Charles Alston bought the house from its seafaring builder, Charles Edmondston.  For 30 minutes, we wandered its rooms, learning about the family from our straightforward guide.

Our tour took us to the house’s second-floor piazza, where we enjoyed a warm breeze and great views of the harbor.  I could also see the house next door, made of yellow-colored brick, across the garden wall.

The Edmondston-Alston House was nearly as enjoyable as Drayton Hall, but the strengths of the two places were entirely different.  Here, our tour guide had broader material with which to entertain us; in addition to describing the architectural features of the home, she used antiques in the house to give us a vivid sense of the residents’ lives. The family portraits were many, and the house’s decorations beautiful.  While Drayton lacked those sorts of visual stimuli, its atmosphere somehow felt more authentic, its aims more earnest.  I felt there that I was observing researchers in action and gaining a sense of time’s passage.

Regardless of how it compares to Drayton, the Edmondston-Alston house is worth a tour for the bragging rights alone.  After all, how many of your friends can say they’ve set foot in a prestigious Battery home?  As the unaware tourists gape outside, it’s fun to see the Harbor from the other side of the window.  Now, if only I could sneak my way into this palace…

On certain summer nights in Charleston, a glow from the city’s west side fills the harbor sky.  Usually, there’s not much to see in that direction: an MUSC commuter lot, the Citadel’s stone buildings, and a run-down housing project.  But when the Riverdogs are in town, their baseball stadium lights up the Ashley River, brightening the drive from James Island into town.

We made that drive on Thursday, lured by $1 student tickets and $1 beers.  Though the box office line stretched across the entryway, we had no trouble parking, and soon we were seated just under the awning on the 3rd base side.  Charlie, the Riverdogs’ mascot, was just around the corner.

Unfortunately, the game did not live up to Charlie’s enthusiasm.  The Riverdogs are ranked last in their Single-A league, and they quickly allowed the Hickory Crawdads a commanding 7-1 lead.

The game was broken up, luckily, by inter-inning games of The Price is Right and visits from Tony the Peanut Man.  Tony, who wears a shirt bearing his photo and title, also wears a sweetgrass hat with no top.  I’m not sure he sold many peanuts, but he did get plenty of attention.

A few innings into the game, the tedium on the field was relieved by approaching action in the sky.  Soon, the stadium lights weren’t the only source illuminating the night!  By the 7th inning, we gave up on the home team and made a run for the car.

Followed by “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” we reached our car just in time to avoid a soaking downpour.  I didn’t check the game’s final score, but I can only hope that the coming storm put the ‘Dogs’ out of their misery, too!

In American culture, visiting mothers-in-law get a bad rap.  Sitcom housewives frantically scrub and scour before their arrivals, desperate to avoid passive aggressive censure.  Sardonic greeting cards offer humor or empathy to victimized husbands and wives, alike.  And on the big screen, prospective mothers-in-law often try to buck the title before it is theirs, calling upon bottomless reserves of malice to terrorize their children’s fiancees.  For sensible young couples, it would seem, the only reasonable response to a mother on the move is to escape, fleeing her destructive force as one might the winds of a hurricane.

Pretty grim, right?

It certainly sounds that way, and I suppose that it really can be.  But after a weekend spent with my very own mother-in-law, I feel compelled to raise a couple of questions that complicate the damning American standard.

For instance, what if your fearsome in-law arrives bearing near-bursting bags of things like this?

With a kitchen full of homegrown blueberries, pattypans, yellow squash, zucchini, and cucumbers, there’s little space left for tension.

Or, what if your mother-in-law’s visit gives you an excuse to play tourist in your own town, visiting places like these?

I could go on, but I don’t want to rub it in too much.  Suffice it to say that hosting my mother-in-law has given me plenty to blog about for the coming week!  I’ll have updates on pasta, pizza, cold drinks, and Charleston restaurants and attractions, all courtesy of Bryce’s mama.

Sure, she took me away from dinewithdanielle for the weekend.  But she gave me things to write about for even longer, so I think the trade was more than fair.  I hope you’ll agree!

Charleston is famous, in part, for its history as a waterman’s city.  In addition to the Atlantic, countless creeks and marshes, and even a small lake or two, the city offers easy access to the Ashley, Cooper, and Wando rivers.  This wealth of water draws boats from near and far to Charleston’s harbor, where they conspire to drive me mad with envy and longing for one of my own.

Luckily, I haven’t gone crazy just yet.  Within a week of our arrival in town, Bryce and I met our friend Joe, who just so happens to have a Freedom Boat Club membership.  As often as he likes, he can reserve one of their boats for a day trip.  He’s been kind enough to take us along twice; today, we dragged out our boarding equipment and headed for the Wando.

It was overcast for most of the morning, but that didn’t stop Bryce from diving straight into the water with his wakeboard.

After just a minute or two on the board, he was ready for action.

Soon, Bryce switched over to the kneeboard, which he decided to ride as though it was a surfboard.  He’s executing a 360 degree turn here:

Once he finished spinning about, Bryce passed the equipment over to Joe, who gamely attempted both boards for his first time.  The kneeboard, as for most people, was easier for him to ride.  When Joe took his turn, we were directly in front of a container loading facility at the Port of Charleston.  I’d say we gave APL Malaysia quite a show!

Before we called it a day, I took a few turns on each board, too.  Bryce drove while I was wakeboarding – it really happened; I promise! – but he did catch a few shots of me on the kneeboard.

As usual, I was completely unaware of being photographed.

After our dinner at Saffron, Bryce and I realized that we were just a few blocks from the site of Charleston’s annual Harborfest.  The dockside vendors had all closed shop for the evening, but handcrafted vessels and tall-masted sailboats were still there for the viewing.  Here are a few photos from our stroll through the near-empty event:

A boat on display

A handcrafted kayak

Flags on the harbor

Farther down the dock