Featured Articles
March / April 2008
Tyler’s Ultimate Porch
by Shannon Cavanaugh
Tyler Florence scribbles his name across the pages of his new cookbook as quickly as he talks – and that’s pretty darn fast. His autograph is as big and bold as his smile and good looks. No wonder “People” magazine voted him “Sexiest Chef Alive” or that he draws millions of viewers to his highly-rated television show, “Tyler’s Ultimate” on the Food Network.
This South Carolina native may have lost his Southern accent in Brooklyn along with his taste for sweet tea, but the made-for-TV chef’s still got the Southern charm to serve him well when back in the Lowcountry.
In what he hopes is an annual pilgrimage to share his love of South Carolina and its “really pure flavors,” Tyler recently visited Palmetto Bluff, a 20,000 acre reserve for wildlife and home to the luxurious and secluded resort, the Inn at Palmetto Bluff in Bluffton. It makes for the perfect backdrop for him to bring together his two loves, family and food. He hosted the first Palmetto Bluff Lowcountry Celebration, a weekend of food, wine, music and fun. Keep in mind, Florence, who grew up in Greenville, has cooked all over the world, but only here in the Lowcountry can he work and enjoy the view out the kitchen window of a live oak tree draped in Spanish moss swinging in a gentle breeze or the moonlight spread across the fronds of a Palmetto Palm. The event, dubbed Tyler’s Ultimate Porch, combined the ultimate in Southern surroundings and taste. It would have made his “Florence mama” proud.
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Riverventure Part 1
by Richard Bernabe
It was shortly before 6 a.m. and the night’s last glimmering stars reluctantly yielded to the luminous eastern sky of early dawn. The September air was thick and humid, causing a sweat to break out on my brow even at this hour. With camp broken down and the canoe loaded up, I pushed off the sandbar and my craft slid quietly into the waters of the Broad River. Two hundred and fifty-five miles of adventure and uncertainty were downriver awaiting my passage.
Less than 24 hours earlier, I had been home in Greer, where last-minute preparations for this month-long journey had been made. It is also where the plan to paddle across South Carolina in an open canoe, alone, was hatched nine months earlier.
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Bringing the Outdoors In: Red Bone Alley
by Mary Ann Hester
Redbone Alley Restaurant and Bar is probably the only place in South Carolina where patrons can eat outside year round. Wretched heat, pesky flies, and cold rain cannot permeate this place since owner and chef Dale Barth brought the outside in.
Rather than outfit an ordinary building with tables and a kitchen, Barth has created the ambience of a sidewalk café indoors. Reinventing the old JC Penney’s department store in Florence Mall, Barth showed the architect pictures from outdoor cafés in New Orleans, Charleston and Savannah and said, “make it look like this.”
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Rollin On the River
by Heather Magruder
Before the South Carolina legislature established a courthouse named after famed Revolutionary War Hero Andrew Pickens; before the little town know as Pickens Court House grew up around the courthouse; before roads and markets and communities developed, Benjamin Hagood built a “five logger” for himself and his family.
He selected a spot not far from the banks of Jennings Creek. There, near the start of the 19th century, on land that had once belonged to the Cherokee, Hagood, probably with the help of other hardy souls like himself, hoisted the logs into position. The logs averaged 18 inches high, each one of them. Stacked and sealed, they formed the cabin that Hagood and his family would call home.
By 1823, Hagood was well settled and ready to take ownership of a gristmill on the creek near his cabin. Some speculate that the mill had been owned by one William Jennings from around 1793 and sold to Hagood; others suggest that Hagood was the original owner. Regardless of its start, the gristmill on the banks of what would become known as Hagood Creek became a center of rural life in Pickens County.
By the end of the 19th century, the county was populated primarily by family farms. Farmers came to the mill to trade and meet, to work and socialize. In the late 1800s, Hagood Mill produced 140,000 pounds of meal every year and 11,200 pounds of flour. The mill continued to thrive and support the farming population as the county and town of Pickens grew.
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Revealing the Past
by Deena C. Bouknight
“What’s the difference between a fiddle and a violin? A violin has strings. A fiddle has strangs.” – Traditional Southern expression
What is the difference between a plantation and a house? That is a question that Georgetown attempts to answer during its Annual Plantation Tours, but it’s a question they answer without words.
For 60 years, the Episcopal Women of Prince George Winyah Parish in Georgetown have been showing locals and visitors alike what it means to be a plantation.
The tour was born, in 1947, as a way to raise money for the Women’s Auxiliary. Georgetown, named last year as an All-American County by the National Civic League, derives its significance from a rich history that dates back to 1721. The town itself is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the surrounding area along the Santee, Pee Dee, and Black rivers boasts 100 or so surviving plantations.
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