SALTUS HOSTS BIFF BENEFIT

This is shaping up to be a fun event complete with a BIFF signature cocktail (more on that later). Meanwhile here's the official word:

Saltus River Grill, located at 802 Bay St. in Beaufort, will host a wine dinner to benefit the Beaufort International Film Festival on Thursday, February 3 at 7 p.m. Complete with wine pairings presented by Celia Strong and a four-course meal by Saltus Chef Brian Waters, the dinner will be available for $50 per person, with $10 per paid customer to benefit the Film Festival. Reservations may be made through February 1 by calling (843) 379-3474. The menu is available at www.saltusrivergrill.com.

 

Beaufort Film Festival Chair Ron Tucker will be present to give highlights of the 2011 festival, to be held February 16-20, as well as information about membership in the Beaufort Film Festival. Favorite shorts from the 2010 festival will also be shown.

 

“This is a way for us to help drum up support for an incredible organization,” said Saltus Owner Lantz Price. “This festival is part of the artistic culture of Beaufort and we want to do our part to help sustain it.”

 

The Beaufort Film Society and the International Film Festival showcase the beautiful film-friendly region of Beaufort and the Carolina Sea Islands. For the past quarter of a century Beaufort has served as the backdrop for more than 20 major motion pictures, to include “Forrest Gump”, “The Big Chill,” “The Prince of Tides”, and many more.  The festival reintroduces Beaufort’s sweeping marsh vistas, antebellum homes, and quiet charm of the old south to a new generation of filmmakers.

 

For more information visit www.beaufortfilmfestival.com

 

And head on over to the Lowcountry Weekly's FILM FIX for exclusive BIFF previews and behind the scenes coverage of the festival. 

Why Walterboro Rocks, Part II

Written by Mark Shaffer

Wednesday, 15 September 2010 11:05

Casual observations from Main Street USA “I’ve been on this street 58 years,” says Cindy Corley. She’s helping to mind her mom’s store while her mother (Helen) runs an errand. Infinger’s Jewelry is one of the few businesses relatively unchanged this last half century in downtown Walterboro. A few blocks away on Washington Street you can still sip a Coke float at the soda fountain in Hiott’s Pharmacy while your prescription is filled. Otherwise much is different. “My mom actually moved into this store when I was two weeks old. I grew up on this street,” says Corley. As a girl she remembers emptying ashtrays (“yes, you could smoke in stores back then”) and cleaning up around the store for the dollar price of a Saturday matinee at the local movie house around the corner. The theater’s long gone. So is the dime store. “Things have changed,” she says a bit wistfully. “When somebody leaves you think, what a loss. But then you meet a new person and they become a new neighbor and a new friend and things continue on, as they should. It’s not always bad, just different.” Fifty-eight years has seen huge changes on the Washington Streets of America. Somewhere along the line, Main Street USA became a Disney attraction. Shopping malls, big box stores, fast food franchises and the great American car culture slowly began to choke the life out of Downtown USA. The real thing became harder and harder to find outside of a theme park, and with each passing year became more and more diminished. But where some see vacant storefronts others see opportunity. Cindy Corley and her husband John saw that opportunity right across the street from her mother’s shop under the big clock of the old Farmers & Merchants Bank. Six years later, the Corleys and Old Bank Christmas & Gifts are preparing for the annual open house extravaganza to mark their official start of the holiday shopping season. “Starting the first Sunday in October we’re open seven days a week right up to Christmas,” says John. The shop is packed with every sort of ornament and decoration imaginable. Many are collector’s items. “The thing about Walterboro is that it’s still a hometown,” says Cindy. “We give you that down home feeling. That’s what I want you to feel like when you’re in my shop: you’re relaxed, you’re shopping, you’re having a good time, there’s no pressure. And Walterboro’s like that. The whole town is kind of relaxed.” Megadeth meets Main Street I’m sitting in Downtown Books & Espresso, just across from Infinger’s, sipping a cup of damn good Joe wondering how often Dave Mustaine’s name has been uttered within the city limits of Walterboro. For all you non-metal heads, Mustaine is the lead guitarist and founder of the semi-legendary heavy metal band Megadeth. A well-dressed, conservative looking guy about my age is ordering a copy of the musician’s autobiography, Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir. For some reason I find this odd and interesting. I’m doing what I normally do in a place like this – gathering my thoughts and committing pen to paper.  In fact, this combo coffee house and bookstore has a vibe not unlike a few I used to frequent in my old Seattle neighborhood: laid back, relaxed, contemplative. The rows of bookshelves mingle with tables, chairs and sofas. A guitar leans against the old brick wall next to a table with a chess set ready for a match. The mother and daughter team of Catherine Freeman and Michelle Morris opened the doors nine years ago and have watched the changes up and down (appropriately enough) Washington Street. “I guess the main thing is that we have a lot more antique shops filling up the empty storefronts,” says Catherine. I ask if she has the feeling that things are really beginning to happen again downtown. “Yeah, I think so,” she says. Catherine tells me they’ve recently been featured in USA Today as one of the top three independent coffee houses along the entire length of I-95. The recommendation comes by way of the authors of the guidebook Drive I-95, which details an exit-by-exit breakdown of food, lodging, attractions, shopping and speed traps. As I mentioned, the DB&E serves up a damn fine cup of java. “We only use Island Coffee,” she says.  I’m familiar with them and a big fan of their beans since relocating from a place where coffee’s considered art – and in some cases, religion. “They’re in Ravenel [SC], and only import coffee from small fair trade farms all over the world, says Catherine. “They really know what they’re doing. They know their coffee.” I will vouch for that. But coffee, tea, espresso and all the other goodies still play second fiddle to the written word. “The main thing is the book store,” she says. “We feature a lot of local history, books about the Lowcountry, and we have a great used book room (also mentioned in USA Today).  And how about the Mustaine book, is that an odd request? “No, not really,” she says. “I’ll probably get a couple more.” Dave, if you’re out there, next time the band’s on the road, please – please – wheel the tour bus in for a round of espressos and drop off a few signed copies of the book, dude. The diversification equation I step back out into the thick September air, suddenly aware of all of the red rocking chairs set out in front of the shops and restaurants lining both sides of Washington Street. The town symbol is everywhere, inviting visitors to kick back, take a break and slow down, Lowcountry style. There is also a sense of community and diversity here. The South Carolina Artisans Center is barely two blocks away, offering the single largest collection of juried South Carolina art in the state (see the sidebar). I’m a short walk away from two historic districts, an excellent museum, the Robert Mills designed courthouse and access to the Great Swamp Sanctuary – the largest preserve of its kind on the East Coast. There are day spas, boutiques, clothing stores, shops and galleries. The soda fountain at Hiott’s Pharmacy is a working time capsule. You almost expect to catch James Dean loitering over a malted at the counter. The primary restaurants are Irish and Italian: Gary Davis’ Blarney Stone and Carmine’s Trattoria. Carmine is actually from Italy. Both come highly recommended. And of course there are antiques. “I’ve been in the Antique business for 32 years,” says David Kinard of Lowcountry Antiques. He spent most of that time at a high end Charleston importer before going out on his own just as the economy decided to head south, so to speak. He heard about Walterboro’s growing antiques market from David Evans at Bachelor Hill Antiques, checked things out and moved in next door. Like most of his colleagues on the street, he’s carved out a particular niche. “I sell mostly 18th and 19th century decorative furniture and art,” he says and that means a lot of time on the road going from auction to auction. Sometimes that means closing the shop for the day. “You’ve got to get out there and buy the quality items. The buying is where you make the money,” he points out. From the Green lady to the Great Swamp The Green Lady Gallery’s namesake portrait hangs at the rear of the shop. The mystery woman in the sleeveless green dress lounges in a curiously disaffected pose, eyes cast down, her bare feet dangling. Owners Martha McKevlin and husband Eddie Dominguez blew the Charleston scene a decade ago and eventually opened this gallery in 2008. “We like to say that we have a little bit of everything and not a lot of anything,” says Martha. Both are actively involved in various downtown development initiatives, including a plan to expand downtown beautification efforts with landscaping and a more pedestrian-friendly parking pattern (still free). McKevlin also holds a PhD and teaches biology and environmental science at the University of South Carolina at Salkehatchie, where she preaches the religion of recycling to her students. “One of the things I always try and tie in with my environmental science class is the idea of re-using and recycling. Buying antiques can fall into that category if you avoid the ultra high end museum pieces.” Dr. McKevlin says that kind of approach to the antique business should translate to a younger clientele looking for a higher quality of furniture than one might find at a trendy urban chain store. “We’re getting a lot more young people coming into the shop looking at things because they’re made of real wood – not particle board, veneer and formaldehyde.” They’re also excited about a new energy that seems to be crackling downtown in spite of current economic woes. “We also keep inviting more businesses to come to Walterboro,” says Dominguez. He points out that his neighbor across the street has recently relocated from Summerville. “We don’t try to compete. There is no sense of competition because everyone has a niche. We all try to be different so that the people who come to see us find something unique in every shop.” “We all try and promote each other,” echoes McKevlin, “because if everyone does well and people have a good experience in Walterboro, then they’ll come back.” Part of that good experience goes beyond making a sale and just boils down to good old-fashioned Southern hospitality, says McKevlin. “I always tell people – particularly those traveling on the interstate – ‘thank you for stopping in Walterboro.’ What remains unsaid is that there are so many places they could have stopped.” My final stop is The Great Swamp Sanctuary at a trailhead right off of Washington, a literal stone’s throw from the Antique District. This is the largest preserve of its kind on the East Coast, more than 800 acres of black water bottomland with braided streams of hardwood flats. Cypress-stained streams and creeks wind alongside a network of paved trails, boardwalks and bridges. Visitors can walk a stretch of the old Savannah Road, a colonial era stagecoach route where it’s not uncommon to catch sight of deer, fox, wild turkey or any number of reptilian critters. It’s a little hot for a long walk and the national bird of the Lowcountry, the giant horned mosquito, is out and in vicious abundance. A rumble of thunder decides my course. I will be back when it is cooler and there is more time to sit on a bench and simply be. If you’re going: From Hilton Head/Bluffton take I-95N to exit 53 and stop in at the Welcome Center. The city’s excellent “Front Porch of the Lowcountry” brochure is packed with information and features a detailed, color-coded map to get you where you want to go. From Beaufort, avoid the interstate and take 21N to 17N, then left on 303 (Green Pond Highway) continuing until it ends at Jefferies Boulevard. Bear right and then right again just past the courthouse on Washington St. into the heart of the Antique District. Brochures are available in many of the shops. The Backyard Tourist recommends: The South Carolina Artisans Center (www.scartisanscenter.com) The Great Swamp (www.thegreatswamp.org) The City of Walterboro (www.walterborosc.org) The Colleton Museum (www.colletoncounty.org) Email Mark Shaffer at backyardtourist@gmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Read Part One of "Why Walterboro Rocks" Read more Backyard Tourist

Why Walterboro Rocks, Part I

Written by Mark Shaffer

Wednesday, 01 September 2010 12:41

“You can tell it’s a friendly town because they’ve got all these rocking chairs out on the street and nobody’s stolen them.” - Unidentified woman commenting on the abundance of bright red rocking chairs (the town symbol) lining the downtown shops It’s after five o’clock on a weekday afternoon and The Blarney Stone in downtown Walterboro is beginning to fill up with hot, thirsty people in search of cool respite from the hammer stroke of another blistering August day. Gary Davis takes time out from our conversation to greet his regulars and welcome the newcomers, mostly day-tripping antique hunters and “halfbacks” taking a break from interstate traffic. “We’re halfway between Miami and New York on I-95,” says Davis, “so we get a lot of people coming through who are halfway back to one place or the other – halfbacks, I call them.” According to Davis a lot of the halfbacks tend to stop on both ends of their journey, drawn to the town’s increasingly famous Antique District and the South Carolina Artisans Center. Halfbacks, day-trippers, “antiquers,” locals and backyard tourists – whatever your designation, inclination or destination – this unlikely Irish pub in the heart of this Lowcountry town, serves as a perfect metaphor for the cultural alchemy at work in this place. In other words, something unusual is happening here – something unexpected and rare. “There is a sense of community – community and cooperation that sets us apart,” says David Smalls, President of the Walterboro-Colleton Chamber of Commerce. “We’re all in this together, everyone’s aware of this and I think that’s evident.” Art, History, Nature Part of the beauty of this job is the act of discovery. In fact, that’s pretty much the whole point of The Backyard Tourist – to discover or rediscover the people, places and things that make the Lowcountry and its immediate surroundings unique. When I mentioned to my friend Bonnie that I’d never actually visited Walterboro she was insistent that it was high time I did. “You’ll fall in love,” she said. “I’ll make some calls.” Walterboro is a crossroads town sitting at the center of a network of state roads and highways with two access points from nearby I-95. The area was settled by rice planters who built summer homes as a retreat from the heat and humidity of their coastal plantations. The Walter brothers were the first to stake claims in the wake of the American Revolution.  Others soon followed and by 1822 the community boasted a magnificent Robert Mills-designed courthouse and one of the first libraries in the region – both are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In the decades between the war for independence and the bloody conflict of secession, Walterboro emerged and flourished on the fortunes of wealthy planters. Many of the old plantations still exist, purchased as private estates and exclusive hunt clubs by northern billionaires and private corporations, off limits to the less privileged. The rest of us can still pierce the veil of history elsewhere and the Colleton Museum in the old 1855 jail is a good place to start. It’s also hard to miss, looking a bit medieval with its triple parapets and faux ramparts facing Jefferies Boulevard. “We are the historical, natural and cultural heritage museum of Colleton County,” explains museum Director Gary Brightwell.  She’s good enough to give me a personal tour and explain a bit about the town’s unique environment in the heart of the ACE Basin – 350,000 acres of diverse habitats bounded by the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto rivers. Walterboro also claims the East Coast’s largest estuarine preserve. The 842-acre Great Swamp Sanctuary has been conserved from the town’s inception and features a Colonial-era bridge along an old stagecoach path, hiking trails and an abundance of wildlife – including bald eagles and alligators – all within walking distance of shops and restaurants (more on the Great Swamp in Part Two). The museum’s educational outreach programs stress environmental preservation. “We work very closely with the Historical Society in the preservation of buildings and landmarks,” says Brightwell. The Pickens native has seen a lot of change since settling in Walterboro in 1976, including the revitalization of the old downtown. But everything comes at a price. “I think people are more cognizant following the loss of the Nullification House which was a real important historic property,” she says.  The Nullification Crisis erupted after federal tariffs passed in 1828 and1832 sparked outrage among wealthy South Carolina planters. The legislature voted to “nullify” the taxes within the state’s borders and withdraw from the union if any attempt was made to collect them. At the height of the crisis, the secessionist movement gained serious momentum and President Andrew Jackson dispatched warships to Charleston before cooler heads cooked up a compromise. “Robert Barnwell Rhett gave a famous secession speech on the steps of that house,” says Brightwell. “But it was falling down, something had to be done and nobody stepped up to the plate.” The home was razed and an irreplaceable piece of our national history simply vanished, a hard but perhaps necessary lesson in historic preservation – one not soon forgotten. A Magic Combination Hank Amundson is a small town convert. In fact, he’s practically evangelical about it. “Everywhere I’ve ever lived you have to go out and seek groups and clubs. People here will invite you to do things,” he says. “There’s a personal touch to everything.” Walterboro’s dynamic young Economic Development Director was a big city boy until he married a Walterboro girl (they met working summers at Disney World) and found that small town life suited him like sweet tea on a porch swing. “Disney spends a billion dollars a year trying to recreate Main Street USA – the same street we have right here,” he notes. “My job now is to help people realize the value in that and get them involved, whether it’s a group organizing a festival or someone starting a business.” I’ve been invited to lunch at Gary Davis’ Blarney Stone for a casual discussion on all things Walterboro. Our table near the window in the main dining room is framed against Amundson’s pastoral slice of Americana – the one Disney can’t seem to buy at any price. Even at high noon on a brutally hot day, Washington Street – the heart of downtown Walterboro – is busy with people ducking in and out of the air-conditioned shops in search of unknown treasure. This is also the heart of the Antique District, with more than a dozen shops spread over a couple of blocks, lined with plenty of free parking. Unlike in downtown Beaufort, where parking enforcement’s recently become the growth industry, thanks to city outsourcing, and a bitter division among business owners, you’ll never pay a dime to park in Walterboro. Beaufort, on the other hand, will cost you a buck an hour – if you can find and figure out the “state of the art” kiosks. The only sight more common than horse-drawn carriages in downtown Beaufort these days are what I like to call Parking Pods: groups of confused and disgruntled visitors huddled around something that looks like Darth Vader’s personal droid, scratching their heads and muttering obscenities. But I digress. There is no such silliness in Walterboro – and for good reason, according to Amundson, Smalls and others: it’s just bad for business and it pisses people off. Small towns dependent upon the business of strangers ultimately can’t afford to be rude to their guests. That’s particularly true in the current economy. “How we’ve grown is just astounding,” observes David Evans of Bachelor Hill Antiques. Evans and partner Jorge Ruiz, have been instrumental in this growth, actively recruiting other dealers and businesses since becoming disillusioned with Charleston some years back. “We’ve gone from three to fourteen stores with another getting ready to open up. And in a down economy when shops are closing all over the place, shops are opening here in Walterboro.” So, begs the question, why now and why Walterboro? “We have that magic combination of a really good marketing plan and a really good support network of shop owners who don’t look at new shops as competition,” he says. “They look at new shops as being an added attraction. When you’re trying to attract somebody’s attention to make a day trip or get off the interstate, if they know they’ll be able to stop and visit a dozen shops you’ll be able to get them.” But it doesn’t stop there, according to Evans. “From this the ancillary business prospers. The restaurants do well because people stop and have lunch and people wander into the dress shop, and the Christmas shop makes money. It’s all about keeping the momentum going.” There’s no doubt that a good chunk of Walterboro’s business comes right off of I-95; a lot of the momentum Evans and his colleagues need to grow, let alone survive, seems to be coming from within the region. “We see more and more people from around the Lowcountry,” says Vicki Smith of Gallery 225. “We get a ton from Beaufort, Bluffton and Hilton Head – the day-trippers, we call them.” Smith is among Evans’ recruits and another refugee from the Holy City. Having spent the better part of two decades abroad, she specializes in fine European linens, crystal, art and jewelry. “All at a discount and all very affordable,” she insists. And like every shop I’ve visited, completely apart from the rest. “Everybody’s got their own unique take and their own unique flavor,” says Smith. “This is mine. When you step in here, you step back in time.” In essence that’s what downtown Walterboro’s all about – a return to a simpler, less complicated era. “It’s a nice town with nice people,” says Evans “It’s clean, it’s safe, it’s pretty. It’s a feel-good story.” To be continued…

A Grand Meander Into the Past

It's hard to miss Jon Sharp. He's the tall, lanky guy with a mane of shock-white hair leading packs of tourists through centuries of Beaufort history.  As we count down to next January's tricentennial, here's an encore of a piece we did on Jon in October, 2008...

Timing is everything

    “Is this your retirement job?”
    The tall man with the full mane of white hair takes no time to ponder the question.
    “Yes, it is.”
    The woman nods, “Sweet,” she says.
    Jon Sharp smiles, a piece of silver and turquoise the size of a teaspoon dangles from his left ear. He welcomes a group of women from West Virginia day-tripping up from Hilton Head. Three or four locals and a couple from Michigan round out this morning’s tour. Charming and charismatic, in another time, in this same place, Jon might easily pass for a pirate or a privateer, ironic considering how he practically washed up on these shores.
    The tour group begins to form up in the parking lot of the Beaufort City Marina, beneath an uncertain sky of rolling grey clouds.  The famous and influential breezes off the Beaufort River have given way to autumn’s full bluster. The river is choppy and smells of the sea. There is drama in the wind.
    “I set sail out into the Atlantic in winter time, alone, never having sailed a day before in my life.” This is not a line from a lesser known work by Robert Louis Stevenson . This is the beginning of Jon’s own story, one that might fit neatly into the running narrative he delivers each day to groups like this along a 2 mile trek through 500 years of Beaufort history.  It sounds like a classic adventure tail: a man tires of the glamorous life in a big city, sells off his possessions and sets off across the country on a quest for some sort of inner fulfillment. In this story the big city is Hollywood where Jon directed television shows like “Archie Bunker’s Place” and “The Golden Girls.”   Later he caught the acting bug and moved in front of the camera for guest shots on shows like “Dynasty” and “Hunter.” But by the early 1990’s he was burned out on Hollywood and facing one of life’s major milestones...(cont'd)Read the rest of the piece here.

Notes From the Field: the New Shooter

I write a lot of stuff that requires - at the very least - decent accompanying images. My big, fat (and recently obsolete) Nikon D80 is my baby. But she's a little bulky for some things, particularly in tight quaters and low light situations. I needed a good pocket camera and after much research I decided on the Canon S90 (purchased through Adorama).

These snaps were shot around Beaufort in a hurry, mostly one-handed, no tripod, no flash.

 

Palm Key Part II (Wherein Miss Warrene briefly loses her beverage)

  Originally published in The Lowcountry Weekly 10/14/08

“You can’t rush good”
Palm Key is an award-winning nature-based retreat on the tidal marshes of the Broad River. The colony of picturesque cottages and meeting facilities was founded by Judy and Emil Rigg more than two decades ago and is also home to The Institute at Palm Key, a separate education-based entity. To read Part One see the previous post.


Meat, Fire, Eat
This may come off as a wildly hyperbolic, possibly sexist generalization, but I’m willing to bet real money that about nine out of ten guys who couldn’t find their own kitchens with night goggles and a GPS could still char a passable steak given a slab of raw meat, a pack of matches and a sharp stick.  This is part of our genetic code, a misty kill-cook-eat muscle memory from a time when the embryo of civilization gestated ‘round the cookfire, and meat was what’s for dinner.  Any meal that found you eating instead of being eaten was a good one.  This is not to say that women are missing the BBQ Gene (as it came to be known), it’s simply recessive…more or less.
    Culturally speaking, this phenomenon manifests itself on a global scale in a kind Culinary Darwinism.  It’s like that lake in Africa with something on the order of eight hundred species of cichlid. All evolved from a single species. As a species we have evolved many forms of marrying meat to flame around the globe, separated by oceans and eons, under extreme and diverse conditions. And when it is no longer a matter of survival, we elevate it to an art form, to a culture all its own.  Meat on fire is among the basic things all of mankind shares as a common point in our anthropological heritage, even if some members of the species no longer choose the way of the carnivore.

Carnivorous Ways 

    In the South few topics apart from religion and politics are capable of igniting such incendiary passions as barbecue.  “It’s football, God and barbecue,” admits J.T. “Tim” Handy. He’s the “J.T.” in J.T.’s BBQ of Summerville, land of coaching legend John McKissick’s Green Wave and a place where barbecue, like football, is practically religion.  Handy has come to Palm Key as the keynote speaker for an Elderhostel program dedicated to revealing the culinary mystique of Barbecue in the Lowcountry. Twenty-eight people from as far away as Seattle, Washington and Carmel, California have converged beneath the live oaks on the edge of the salt marsh to learn both the theory and practice of terms like “low and slow,” “dry rub” and “beer butt chicken.” I’m keen to learn the last one myself.
    Tim, a former North Charleston police officer, is a rising star on the burgeoning pro barbecue scene.   That’s right, pro barbecue.  It is – forgive me – the hot new thing, kind of like NASCAR, complete with custom vehicles, plenty of smoke, flame, sponsor logos and sweaty men in uniforms, only a whole lot slower.
    “I had a little motorcycle accident and ended up with several rods in my legs,” Tim says nonchalantly, “so I got an early retirement and now I just travel the [professional barbecue] circuit cooking barbecue full time.”
    “So, what you’re saying is that you don’t miss police work?”
    He laughs, “Not at all. Fifteen long years, it sure was.”
Tim found his passion slowly hissing on the grill via several Fraternal Order of Police fundraisers.  “I entered the first contest down in Charleston kind of on a lark ‘cause I enjoyed cooking ribs. And like everybody, you always think yours are the best on the block. We entered ‘em and got thoroughly beat.”  That was far from the end.
He “got hooked on the camaraderie” and found out the “prize money wasn’t bad, either.” Once he started winning, he never looked back. He’s the 2008 SC Master Barbecue Champ with an impressive string of five consecutive Whole Hog titles under his belt, and a real threat to cook up a national title for South Carolina.
    Today, Tim’s taught backyard basics and ribs 101, and along with event organizer, Ron Toole, led the group in a prepping tonight’s main course. The evening’s meal features a national barbecue phenomenon (not Bobby Flay) called “beer butt chicken” and a special guest appearance by the dish’s inventor, a famous TV chef (still not Bobby Flay).
    Rick Browne, host of the PBS series Barbecue America is on his way to Charleston to shoot a show, when somehow word reaches him through the piggy pipeline (it’s a ‘cue thing) of the program at Palm Key.  Why, I can practically hear the tires squealing all the way from the Charlotte airport.  Besides, why waste time in a state with only one kind of sauce and a proportionate skill level in major college football? Really?  It’s a fact that every Southern state (Texas and South Florida, excluded) lays claim to its own indigenous style of ‘cue except South Carolina. We claim four.
    “It’s the only state with four distinct varieties,” Tim tells me. He’s fired up the massive cooker on the rear end of The Beast, his custom-built twenty-four foot competition trailer and work in progress. “That makes judging more difficult in competition. Not like anyplace else.” And competition is serious. Consider this: The Beast was built from the ground up, by a firm that used to build race car frames. These days all of that accumulated skill and knowledge goes to fabricating custom grills, many for the teams queuing up (sorry) for the gastronomic answer to NASCAR.
    Dozens of plump chickens have marinated long hours in a rub of savory salt and spices.  Cans of beer are popped and inserted into the cavity, the chickens set standing upright, balanced on the can.  The idea is to steam the chicken from the inside, keeping it moist and tender, while sealing the juices in a crispy, spicy skin and providing fodder for any number of jokes/humorous comment during the insertion/removal of the beer (“you’re not gonna throw that away, are ya?”).

The Art of Flame
James Beard once wrote “Grilling, broiling, barbecuing - whatever you want to call it - is an art, not just a matter of building a pyre and throwing on a piece of meat as a sacrifice to the gods of the stomach.” During the days my wife, Susan, and I spend absorbing and being absorbed by Palm Key, the theme of art is a constant.  People speak of art as an essential thing, a healing force – a gift or skill we may possess and master yet consider ordinary. Judy’s brother, Ron, clearly agrees with Mr. Beard.  “You can’t rush good,” he says. Well, yeah.

    This program is Ron’s baby and so far it’s a prodigy. The average group for an Elderhostel program usually runs about a dozen, mostly couples. “This one hit the limit at twenty-seven,” he explains, “and we made an exception for twenty-eight.” Most of the CueSapiens are retired married couples. But a few women like Kathie, a former airline executive from Seattle, have come to immerse themselves in an unknown culture. And the indigenous cuisine of a place is always key to understanding its people. She tells me the Lowcountry is unlike anything she encountered in thirty years of flying around the world, splashing about in the bigger bowl of cichlids. The emphasis here – the main attraction – for Kathie and the others is the barbecue, but they’ll savor Frogmore Stew, as well as the history behind it.  Palm Key may be a world away from the Northwest, but that sense of Something Bigger is a powerful draw. “It’s what life should be like,” says Kathie, “respect for the environment – so important. That’s what I see here.”
   Rick Browne is a big hit with the crowd, a bonus prize, if you will.  They all gather ‘round The Beast as Rick, Tim and Ron unveil the beer can-infused poultry. The smoke disperses revealing row after row of perfectly bronzed, upright chickens lined up in formation on the massive grill top.  Amid all the “oohs” and “ahs” someone quips, “looks like that terra cotta army, you know, in China.” And they do, only without heads.
    The Terra Cotta Chicken (as it came to be known) is among the best I’ve ever had.
After dinner Rick spends the evening with most of the group over at cottage fifty-one answering questions, swapping recipes and autographing his cookbook.  We make plans for an interview the next morning before he and his crew head to the Holy City but some sort of scheduling snafu torpedoes the plan. Next time, though. I have a feeling he’ll be back at Palm Key.  I’m also guessing his cameraman, a tall skinny young guy, is doomed to pack on about thirty pounds in this gig, unless he’s got the metabolism of a rabid shrew.
    I leave them to it and head back to cottage forty-four. There’s a full moon this evening and we’ve got front row seats on the river.

The Moon and Mrs. Parker

The day had been hot. The kind of hot that inspired the creation of air conditioning, modern refrigeration, the inflatable kiddie pool and any number of Tennessee Williams plays. This was the stifling, claustrophobic simmer worthy of Blanche DuBois or Brick Pollitt.  And it reminds me - oddly enough - of Neil Simon. As his autobiographical alter ego disembarks a World War II troop train in Biloxi Blues, Eugene Morris Jerome of Brooklyn proclaims “Man it’s hot. It’s like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of hot.”
    Indeed, we’re a mile from the sun – for now. Fall is out there. The signs are unavoidable, even to such a reluctant guest as summer. I can smell it. This morning it was practically palpable as we paddled out into the freshening tide of the Broad River with moonset to starboard, sunrise to port, a cool sweet breeze fleeing the onset of the day, whispering conspiracies of coming change in flight.
    Now, it is the moon’s turn. Why is it, I wonder, that so many cultures attach the masculine to the sun and the feminine to the moon? How is it that the sun comes to symbolize war, aggression and power when Sister Moon inspires the sensual?  The second story porch of cottage forty-four is the perfect place to ponder such things between the turn of a simple, eternal celestial routine.
    An iridescent glow builds beyond the Broad River, a pale backlight silhouettes the savannah and the furls of Spanish moss dripping from the gnarled oaks, limp and still as sorrow.  All is still. The moon arrives like Dorothy Parker at the Algonquin Round Table, suddenly outshining everything else around, dazzling in her pallid brilliance.  She rises quickly turning a bright buttery yellow, the perfect match for a deep, ironic indigo sky and the shimmering train she trails on the water.
    
Miss Warrene and a change of season
    “I’ve lost my glass.”
    I’m standing in the kitchen of the main dining hall watching Ron put the finishing touches on his peach cobbler. The room’s a hive of activity as guests help out with the preparations.
    “I seem to have lost my glass,” repeats Miss Warrene.
    I neither know nor care if “Miss” is indeed the proper title; it just fits.  Miss Warrene is what Flannnery O’Connor would have called “colorful,” and I think she’s a peach. She’s immaculate, yet casually attired with matching personality. She spots her “glass” – an insulated mug – atop a pantry shelf.
    “Ah there it is! Well,” she says, raising the mug, “it’s five o’clock somewhere. Cheers!”
Miss Warrene, late of Tampa, grew up in Memphis, a town famous for Elvis, Beale Street jazz, barbecue and an odd ritual involving ducks at the Peabody Hotel.
    “I used to go to Leonard’s [Pit Barbecue] when I was a girl.  I just loved it.  My father used to take me.” She sips at her beverage with a wistful sigh. “Of course, it’s not as good now.”
Not only is Miss Warrene living proof that Southerners still abide in South Florida, she’s a bona fide barbecue fiend, even totes around her own sauce – her friend, John’s secret recipe.  John once co-owned a barbecue joint in St. Louis called Noah’s Ark, complete with “a real ark and real live animals.” While I ponder the irony, Ron’s son, Brent recalls visiting the place as a child. It’s a tiny little barbecue world, and yet, all things change.
    “He let his brother buy him out in ’75. It went downhill pretty quick after that,” says Miss Warrene. “Oh well.”
    Tonight’s meat is off the grill and Miss Warrene wanders off bearing a liter bottle of sauce to port, beverage to starboard. Outside, a breeze stirs the moss. Storm clouds mass in the east, towers of billowing grey sails like an approaching armada. Fall is coming.

Palm Key Part I

Originally published in The Lowcountry Weekly  9/30/08

Part One: A Sense of Place
The earthworks of the abandoned railroad trestle split the marsh for more than a mile before ending abruptly in the dark tidal currents of the Broad River. The tracks are long gone, a rough washboard road remains flanked by scrub and brush and volunteer oaks tall and thick enough to form brief canopies. The trestle itself, or what’s left of it, looks like the victim of an air strike, whole sections missing, toothsome pylons jutting up out of the black water all askew.
    The full moon hangs bright and yellow just above Palm Key to the west. Beyond the ruined bridge a glow builds on the eastern horizon.
“We’d better get in the water.”
    A soft breeze blows in, cooler than it has been, almost chilly. We pull the kayaks off of Judy’s pickup, snap paddles together, clip on life jackets.
“Watch where you step,” warns Judy, “it’s a little tricky.”
    Somehow I make it down to the oyster shell beach toting my end of the boat without exhibiting any hint of my usual cat-like dexterity. In the gray half light I get the impression that the beach is moving. A carpet of tiny crabs flee before us over shell and drifts of cordgrass in a unified sideways scuttle. They make a sound like rain drops on palm fronds as they fade into the marsh.
    We climb into the boats and paddle out into the wind and soft chop of the rising river, the first lipstick smear of sunrise silhouettes the ruined trestle. I back paddle for a better view, turning the bow into the current, port side east, starboard to the west. The sepia moon fades behind the key as the sun breaks the opposite horizon in a searing red arc. A dolphin breaks the surface just yards off my bow, spouts and briefly eyes us as if to say “tourists” before slipping back beneath the surface.
    For an instant – a deeply, nearly indescribably sensual moment - we are suspended between night and day, floating between sun and moon, inundated with the perfume of sweet grass and salt air.     There is no man-made noise, no sirens, no cars, no lawn equipment or power tools only the sound of water, the wind on the river and the shore birds heralding the fresh morning. This is a perfect moment, like a June snowstorm in Yellowstone or a fall sunset on the Oregon coast - sunrise at Palm Key.
Art and Symbiosis
    Judy Rigg sums up Palm Key in two words, “good energy.” Judy and her husband, Emil, stumbled upon the 350 acre island as newly retired residents of Hilton Head back in the early 1980’s. After years in the D.C. rat race (where Emil spent 3 decades at the National Institutes of Health) they were pondering the future with friends when the question of “what to do with the rest of our lives came up.”
    Disillusioned with what was happening to Hilton Head, the Riggs knew they wanted to create something that didn’t exist in the Lowcountry, a place where people could experience nature, explore, discover, heal and create.
    “So, we made a list of things we wanted,” says Judy, “and we wanted a marsh island and we wanted to be able to get to fresh water, we wanted a road to it, and blah, blah, blah – just talking. And this woman came up behind us – she was catering the dinner – and says ‘my ex-husband has an option on a piece of land just like you’re talking about.’ And this is it!”
More than two decades later Palm Key is an eco-friendly colony of modern cottages and meeting facilities clustered among moss-covered oaks, surrounded by vast savannahs of salt marsh and wildlife. Hundreds of heron, egrets and ibis nest in a nearby rookery. Eagles and hawks prowl the river. Raccoons stroll the grounds at twilight. This is a “green” retreat for individuals, families and groups “just five minutes off I-95,” laughs Judy, mimicking her famous public radio ad. Palm Key is also something of a grand experiment in symbiosis. While most of the cottages are individually owned, most are also available for rent and only a few have televisions or phones. A Property Owners Association and Board of Directors hold the enclave to the highest environmental standards, and higher standards are always being sought.
    “Development is death,” says Judy. “This is about giving something back – creating energy rather than consuming it.”
    Judy’s brother, Ron Toole, is hosting an Elderhostel event of his own invention, “Barbecuing in the Lowcountry.” The average size of these groups runs about a dozen. Twenty eight people, mostly retired couples, have flocked to Palm Key from as far away as Seattle for five days of what I refer to as ‘Cue U . This essentially means the preparation, slow cooking and consumption of mass quantities of meat day after day after day. Another group is here to study meditation. Most, if not all of them, are vegetarian. Serenity abides, nonetheless.
   Ron bought the first cottage back in ’89, number 31.  He’s been a devotee since the beginning, echoing Judy’s thoughts. “It does seem to ignite peoples’ creative juices,” he says. “There’s a peace and serenity to it. No TV. No Phones. [Some] People have to get used to it but once they do they enjoy it.”
    Kathie Torgison is out from Seattle with a friend. She’s just retired after thirty years flying the world as an instructor for a major airline. “Why Palm Key? Why the Lowcountry? And why barbecue?” I ask. She shrugs, “Why not? I spent thirty years learning all about other cultures all over the world. Now I want to learn about the cultures in my own country.” And the ‘cue?’ “It’s something I didn’t know how to do and wanted to learn,” she smiles, “so why not come to where they know how to do it and learn from the best?”
    Why not indeed?
    The non-profit Institute at Palm Key is just part of the Rigg’s dream fulfilled. The Institute is education-based with curricula rooted in “the unique ecology, art and history” of coastal South Carolina. The IPK’s nature programs include everything from professionally-guided marsh and river tours to bird watching expeditions, dolphin spotting and some of the best fishing in the ACE basin . Corporate and group retreats are mainstays at the Institute, and wellness – of both body and mind – is a mission. A Palm Key Wellness Center is in the early stages of planning. And Judy’s quite proud of the Boys and Girls Club Art Program. Forty youngsters from nearby Ridgeland attend classes at the Institute twice a week, studying painting, photography and pottery. During this year’s Art on the Porches (Oct.11th) the students become teachers as they assist with the art activities geared for kids.
    “It’s all about providing a sense of place,” says Judy.

Adrift Among the Metaphors
Back on the water we glide through the winding tidal creeks as the full moon tide reaches its zenith. The sun is up now, white and bright, blasting away any notion of a breeze, any whisper of fall’s approach.  Judy’s paddled back to the truck.  Her friend, Sheila, guides us through the labyrinthine waterways. We’re both former desert rats - Vegas residents - although my time there was but a blink compared to hers.  I make the lame observation that this is as far from the Vegas experience as one can get. I am nothing if not a master of the obvious.
    The marsh is awake now, and most of it is hungry. Tiny silver baitfish burst from the water like explosions of silver coins, fleeing the ubiquitous bigger fish. The metaphor is not lost. Spottail bass smack the surface with the force of a fourth grader’s cannonball at the county pool. Something that looks suspiciously like a small shark corners its unseen prey against a mat of grass, half out of the water for a split second, a crescent dorsal fin, the sleek brown body, an eruption of spray, then froth on the water and stillness. Another metaphor within a widening circle of rings.  Majestic Snowy egrets fishing the creek edges rise at our approach. The big white birds are luminous against the shimmering green grasses and the sparkle of sun on the water. They croak and chortle their annoyance looking back at us, cursing – like old men at a secret honey hole. We round another bend and the process repeats itself. During this paddle we annoy a huge segment of the indigenous population of Egretta Thula .
    I hang back a bit to fumble with the camera. Sheila and my wife, Susan, float by, Sheila in her cherry red kayak, Susan in bright blue. Their faces are serene, contemplative. Susan dangles her feet in the water, smiling. A flock of red-winged blackbirds cling to the stalks of cordgrass like hand-drawn notes on a sheet of music.
    After a few futile attempts to capture the previous impression I give up on the camera. Someone once said “there comes a time to put away the camera before you miss what you’re shooting.” I believe it was my wife. Besides, the next few days should offer ample opportunity to indulge my inner shutterbug.
    I paddle my lime sherbet craft to the others. We drift for a while in the stillness, listening, watching, smelling, senses fully engaged, moving at the whim of wind and water.
This must be that “sense of place” I’ve heard so much about.

To be continued…

Coming up:
Barbecue Gurus and beer butt chicken.
Miss Warrene briefly loses her beverage.
And the seasons change at Palm Key.

Find more information on Palm Key at www.palmkey.com or phone 843-726-6468. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it