Special Coverage
It’s 1975. Imagine the culture shock a family that has just fled Vietnam experiences upon entering a California supermarket. Yet Andrea Nguyen’s mother learned to adapt non-Viet ingredients to feed Vietnamese food to her family.
While “EatingWell Soups: 100 Healthy Recipes for the Ultimate Comfort Food,” is a collection of recipes selected by the editors of EatingWell, the contributors include such culinary luminaries as Lydia Bastianich, Bill and Cheryl Jamison, and Raghavan Iyer.
New Year’s resolutions of the culinary type are somewhat predictable: Eat less sugar, less red meat, less food altogether.
This month, we look for cookbooks that are multipurpose: both excellent to cook from and desirable as presents.
“Red Truck Bakery: Gold Standard Recipes from America’s Favorite Rural Bakery”
“Southern Snacks” serves up new twists on old favorites, like the dip below, and clever riffs on classics, like transforming melon-and-prosciutto to watermelon with country ham.
Once September rolls around, impromptu summer cooking meals revert to routine weeknight cooking for families with school-age children. Sam Kass, chef and former senior adviser for national nutrition policy, wants to change our routines.
“Food 52 Any Night Grilling: 60 Ways to Fire Up Dinner (and More)”
“Saladish: A Crunchier, Grainier, Herbier, Heartier, Tastier Way with Vegetables”
“Soul: A Chef’s Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes”
“Secrets of the Southern Table: A Food Lover’s Tour of the Global South”
“More Glass Onion Classics: Recipes from a Southern Restaurant”
“Eating from the Ground Up”
In “Weeknight Cooking with Your Instant Pot,” personal chef and cooking teacher turned full-time food blogger Kristy Bernardo didn’t set out to write a how-to. Rather, she offers a collection of 75 recipes using the machine to put dinner on the table in a fraction of the usual time, from qui…
“The Cottage Kitchen: Cozy Cooking in the English Countryside”
Holiday cookbooks bought to use or give as gifts should educate as well as entertain. We submit two excellent candidates.
Whether it be persimmons or paw paws, author Nancie McDermott delivers a 101 on their characteristics and recipes for them in “Fruit,” the newest cookbook in the University of North Carolina Press Savor the South series. (See example below.) Especially interesting are sections on lesser-know…
"Peter Callahan’s Party Food." Caterer to the stars, Peter Callahan produces beautiful bites, and whether they are in an array of the mini hors d’oeuvres that he is credited with inventing, a sensational sushi station, or an ice cream stand, all are artistically displayed. You’ll be wowed by…
“Food52 Ice Cream & Friends: 60 Recipes and Riffs.”
“On Vegetables: Modern Recipes for the Home Kitchen"
“Tartine All Day: Modern Recipes for the Home Cook”
“Over Easy: Sweet and Savory Recipes for Leisurely Days”
Michelle’s Chocolate Rice Krispy Peanut Butter Bon Bons
The 2017 edition of the Charleston Wine + Food Festival boasts more than 100 events over five days (it started Wednesday), featuring “homegrown flavor” with notable local and guest chefs, mixologists, winemakers, storytellers and artisans, adding up to around 500 professionals stirring every…
By establishing the Lee Brothers Library series with Rizzoli, brothers Matt Lee and Ted Lee have been able to bring what may be the first of many culinary jewels back into print, Pamela Strobel’s 1969 cookbook. Laced with Strobel’s poetry and seasoned with her life story, it is, as the readi…
“Stir, Sizzle, Bake: Recipes for Your Cast-Iron Skillet”
“Big Bad Breakfast: The Most Important Book of the Day.” Author John Currence owns a number of highly successful restaurants in Oxford, Mississippi, among them Big Bad Breakfast, the fountainhead of this cookbook. Like the hangtown fry recipe below, the food is robust, ranging from eye-opene…
“Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes”
★☆☆☆☆ Pawpaw does not live up to what Southern food means in Charleston.
Southern | French Quarter
★★★★☆ Rodney Scott's BBQ lets the good times, good food roll.
Barbecue | North Central
★★★★☆ Bar Normandy on Broad Street is unconventionally delicious.
Small plates | South of Broad
★★★★☆ SNOB
★★☆☆☆ High Cotton
★★☆☆☆ Old Village Post House
★★★☆☆ Unpretentious, comforting Goulette is a true neighborhood restaurant.
French | Cannonborough-Elliotborough
★★★★☆ Rappahannock's Charleston location is fresh and inventive.
Seafood | Eastside
Charleston and New Orleans aren’t exactly the same, but when visitors who’ve been to The Big Easy first come to The Holy City, they’…
Our food critic visited three Charleston restaurants when they first opened in the past year. After giving them all two stars in the first round, she revisits them to see what's improved and what stays the same.
Royal terns may fly, but Charleston area diners tend to drive, so when John and Ben Williams opened a restaurant named for the seabi…
The massive Folly Beach restaurant, which measures three dining rooms and 6,500 square feet in all, has good intentions that spawn nothing but disappointment.
There are some places where it doesn’t take a compass to know which way the culture goes. People in Miami have to go north to reach …
Shrimp-and-grits hasn’t been a Lowcountry signature for very long, but the dish has more than made up for lost time with ubiquity.
Answering readers' food questions
Q: I misplaced my recipe for spaghetti sauce from LaBrasca’s Restaurant recently and I really thought I would not be able to find it again. I, like many others, miss the "L…
"There’s apparently a new rage for patty melts that inspired me to revisit my prior conclusion," food critic Hanna Raskin writes.
It’s a critic’s job to accurately describe a restaurant so potential patrons can knowledgeably decide if they want to go there. Readers can do as they choose with the accompanying opinions.
Charleston's newest restaurants
When the small bar located beneath Elan Midtown Luxury Apartments was occupied by Crooked Crown, the idea was for patrons to cool of…
The half-acre plot that serves as MUSC’s Urban Farm is an ideal venue for teaching people about growing vegetables, but volunteers l…
At Sunrise Bistro, the restaurant he first opened in 2009, Brian Appelt had limited opportunities to serve lobster. But the self-tau…
There isn’t a Betty Lou behind Betty Lou’s Bistro, but it took three partners with food-and-beverage experience to create the new We…
Interesting drinks around town
Exploring what locals eat throughout a day
Joseph Edge lives in Moncks Corner.
Allison Viverito lives in Mount Pleasant.
David McClain lives in Mt. Pleasant.
More Food
The half-acre plot that serves as MUSC’s Urban Farm is an ideal venue for teaching people about growing vegetables, but volunteers looking to …
When I was 30, I found myself running a restaurant in rural Majorca, Spain, one hour's drive from the major city of Palma. Armed only with a r…
"There’s apparently a new rage for patty melts that inspired me to revisit my prior conclusion," food critic Hanna Raskin writes.