Local Food, Locally Sourced, on the Wild Side!

I have smoked and slow cooked my first wild boar.  I feel like one of the boys now.  The hardwood charcoal did the job along with Albert Heyward who shot the young thing from our land in the country.  I smoked it with hickory chips on our simple round charcoal grill in the back garden.  Actually it is the pork that flavored our okra soup this week, though I was afraid to admit it.

Tackling a wild boar, even though a small one is Nothing compared to tackling twenty five years of marriage to the same man, Preston Hipp!  Now that is Wild!  Our silver anniversary is today and I did not need a thing.  What did The Man do?  He gave me silver, naturally, from Croghans, no less, a well worn path created for his mother by his father, Charles Rucker Hipp.  Preston’s family came to Charleston because of the Heywards, whose ancestor Thomas Heyward signed the Declaration of Independence., whose descendant shot that wild boar, you see.  What was the silver he gave me?  Come and see!  It is something I do not have and something I will always cherish.  Two gifts actually.  He was giddy with excitement like the young man he was when he had the diamond ring in his pocket for a few weeks before he asked me to marry him.

He gave me this morning at breakfast an old silver basket lined in an etched glass vase for which I picked the last of the daffodils on John’s Island.  It had arrived that very day to Croghans.  But then he saw a silver jar to hold tea leaves he thought, a tea caddy, and  Lover that he is,  he bought that for me, too.  I asked why both, why not one or the other.  He said he liked that one and wanted me to have that, too.  I will keep it on the tea tray cart to add more tea when serving.  The real miracle he said is that they are from the man who the real estate market has not been kind to these last few years.  A silver wedding anniversary only comes around once.  We have the silver punch bowl that was the silver anniversary gift from Mr. Harleston to his wife, Frances, from Birlant’s Antique store where he proudly bought it.  That punch bowl graced many a table for church events as I was growing up before she passed it on to me.  Little did I know that in referring to it as their silver wedding anniversary gift, I was setting a standard for my own.

A day of wine and roses it has been.  Kind thoughts of guests for today’s Charleston Tea Party Private Tour, and friends…but then my husband says we should share the hurts of life, lest all should think we live behind a veneer of perfection.  My beloved mother, who has kept the walking tour going until last spring, is turning into an octogenarian this month.  She alas has begun this week treatment for the C word in her throat we all hate.  My own husband, 53, the most loved and best looking man in Charleston, fit as a fiddle, has  that prostate C word, too.

We are not immune to the visisitudes of life; but we are blessed with a community of life as it should be being lived out.  It is not just a shell of a city of historic houses.  There is a heritage of the faith of our fathers that runs deep and steadies us still.  It is an attitude of gratitude.  Come, partake; eat and drink.  You will leave us wiser than when you came.

Charleston is Still the Holy City: We Saved Another Church!

On this dark night, there is a light shining  making the hearts of many who look to us in Charleston glad.  The first Greek Revival church in Charleston has been saved from being sold and made into a house and income producing (church) offices, shops  and apartments.  The young and vibrant congregation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church closed today at the last minute on St. Andrews Lutheran Church on lower Wentworth St between Meeting and East Bay.   It was bought from the 16 remaining of the old congregation who had joined another church and want to build a new church away from the historic city.

Many thanks to the people on my tour, especially the 50th birthday friends of Lisa from  Tallahassee, Florida, the first who gave to keep this church a church.  Thank you to others on my tour who wrote checks to Redeemer Church instead of to me.  The congregation is of students at the College of Charleston, medical students, young people and young married couples who have committed to paying the loan of 1.6 million dollars!  That is a big commitment;  that’s what you call a leap of faith!  It’s enough to make anybody want to help.  This is the congregation that will see Charleston and America into the future.  They support with groceries Lowcountry Crisis Ministries; they go and play with the kids of homeless shelter.  They have Cru, young people who walk on the beach to interact with those needing spiritual guidance, the modern takeoff of Campus Crusade for Christ.  They are dynamic movers and shakers, as the church should be, with reports of those reached being given on Sundays.  They also sing beautifully with all those young pure voices.  Craig Bailey is the upbeat, optimistic minister who is so comfortable being completely himself,  trusting in the hilarious favor of the Giver of all good things.  No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly!

If Charleston cannot keep our churches holy, then there is no hope for anywhere else.  The world looks to us to get it right.  We are the City on a hill whose light cannot be hid.  The impossible has happened.  Cheers to all who made the sacrifices and commitments to make this purchase possible.  Now that the property is Redeemer’s, the sky’s the limit on all the ideas they will have time and place to explore.  While this is not my church, I do visit and encourage you to do the same .  The light is shining more brightly this All Hallows Eve in Charleston, pushing back the darkness.  Let me know if you are interested in seeing this church on my tour and I will make a detour as I occasionally do.  It has some of the most beautiful stained glass in the city.  Mayor Riley, who has been mayor of Charleston for 40 years,  as a boy sat under the stained glass window of an angel with arms crossed with his grandmother growing up.  He too has been supportive in wanting to see this church preserved as a functioning church.   Each person makes a difference.

Charleston Tea Party Private Tour Launches a Weekly Vacation Rental in Historic Charleston

close up of rice bed with carved rice sheathes 

Rice Bed, a  queen size,  in master bedroom  

Spring in January and February in Charleston

January and February are the best kept secret in Charleston.  The camellias are in bloom, cultivated for the social season when Charlestonians and plantation owners were in town for the races.  Magnolia Plantation is not to be missed with their world renowned collection of camellias in bloom now, which peak in February.  Those who wait til spring miss our spring like winter, especially refreshing if you live in environs where you see nothing green all winter.  Bulbs are coming up.   We are to ourselves again after the many visitors of autumn and Christmas.  It is quiet.  We have time get to know you better.

It is also the season of Lowcountry oyster roasts.  My family and I went to the SAVE THE LIGHT oyster roast for the Morris Island Lighthouse last Sunday.  I stood at the same spot for HOURS eating steamed oysters.  People would go away from our table and come back hours later to say, “You still here?!”  If anyone wants to have an oyster roast, my husband roasts some up for 6 or more.  He is renowned for doing it the old Charleston way.  He builds a fire in our old brick outside chimney; he puts a metal slab over the fire and piles on the Lowcountry oysters, ” locals” we call them.  Essential then is the wet burlap sack to put over the oysters so that they steam, roast, and smoke.  Where does one get a burlap sack these days?  Only those who are committed to LOCAL oysters know that secret!

Thank you to all who made 2011 a great year.   A young couple loitered after my last tour of the old year, waiting till everyone else left after Tea.  The young man had a guilty look.  Finally he  outed with it.  It was not my money of which he wanted to rob me;  it was another English Plum Pudding,  for the road.  He explained, “I’ve never had anything like this before.”

I also served  Hoppin’ John with a refreshing twist:  Field Peas with chopped Roasted Beets,  Ginger,  Meyer Lemon, and dried cranberries, inspiration from The Taylor Brothers, for whose cooking demonstration I first made it.  I made it it New Year’s Day for our family gathered at Aunt Dee’s.   I am using my home grown Meyer Lemons before a freeze comes along.  I was not as wise last year.  I am making Meyer Lemon Sorbet, my favorite, and Meyer Lemon Curd with scones.  Yesterday I baked two persimmon pies, which filled the house with their wonderful aroma.  You have to wait til the persimmons look soggy or they will taste like chalk.  We have a tree in back.  We have something new for the eyes to see, persimmons and calamondin oranges in my camellia flower arrangements.  Winter joys of life in Charleston keep us in good spirits until the full bloom of magic culminates in spring.

I am still up to my eyeballs in Calamondin Marmalade.  I cannot work in the front garden without a passerby wanting to know what that tree is with tiny oranges.   I gave tiny jars for party favors at a fabulous  New Year’s Eve dinner party with our friends at Cathy and Harry Gregorie’s, owners of GDC.  I ran out this morning of the marmalade jars I took with me to a citrus lecture at the Garden Club of Charleston.  Don’t worry; I am making more.

We are now in the 151st year since the War Between the States began at Ft. Sumter, April 12, 1861, in Charleston, “That Hellhole of Secession.”  One of the houses we visit is my friend, Francess Palmer’s, on East Battery with a dead on view of Ft. Sumter, where was fired the shot that was heard around the world.  I never tire of the sunlight on the water, the ever changing views of white caps or lazy glassiness where dolphins are jumping  and white sails are gliding by.  To add more value in these times to the tour and to highlight the history as seen from the Battery, I am offering a full, hot Southern breakfast in my friend Francess Palmer’s home and  B&B.  It has been in her family for three generations. I first went there for her debutant party when we were 18.  The Big Band from her grandparents era played on the lawn under a full moon.  There as we gaze at the view of Ft. Sumter,  I  talk about the history of this War of Northern Aggression!  You come to understand why Southerns had the audacity to call it that.

Our own  house had been Francess Palmer’s uncle’s.  We have owned it for 14 years this winter, having bought it from the Edmonds, who lived in it for 30 years after the Palmers.  I cried when we moved in.   I did not want to give up my home I had bought before marriage on Legare Street, where my tours had ended with tea in the garden.   I said I was only moving here because I loved my husband.  Preston in my face said, “Mark my words.  You’re gonna love it!”  And HE WAS RIGHT!  Sunlight and moisture for a citrus grove and flower garden, a view of the water, open air circulation and good sea breezes, SPACE for family living and for entertaining you, my guests,  all contribute to my love for our home.  Though it is old enough to have problems, its assets outweigh the responsibilities…so far anyway.  Your one hundred dollars each goes to the preservation of this historic Charleston house, be it ever so humble.

I realize I am living the life of my gregarious father, Fred Wichmann.  He is the epitome of Charleston hospitality, inviting strangers in who he meets often through sailing or through real estate.   Despite all the “strangers” I have had in my house, when I put everything back in their proper place, they are all there.   No one has taken from me yet after six years of my private tours.  I use old things for my enjoyment and that of of my guests as they were used in 18th and 19th century Charleston.   Thank you for being the people to whom  this Holy City of Charleston was meant to be hospitable.  Lafayette was amazed at Charleston hospitality when he visited here in 1825, saying there were so few inns or hotels because Charlestonians were so hospitable, “they would take you into their homes be you prominent or indigent.”  Read the first translation ever published of “Lafayette in America, 1824-25″, until now hidden in the French language.

I meet some of America’s nicest people on my tour.  I don’t want to let them go.  And so, I invite them in!   I learn from them.  Jump in and tell me something if it is on your mind.  I learned from Johnny Kicklighter that a scene I show of an old print of Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, was on a South Carolina dollar bill and a Confederate bill.  I did not know that connection.  It is a scene of him loving his enemy, doing good to those who mistreat you.  Marion is sharing with hated but lost Redcoat Tarleton hot sweet potatoes just pulled from the fire. That picture tells the story of the heart of Charleston hospitality.  This value is an aspect of Charleston that once understood completes the picture of who we are.  Until newcomers get this understanding that it is more blessed to give than  to receive, they are not going to be regarded as belonging.  We are not a gated community of arrogant rich people trying to keep everybody else out.  We are an open city with a heritage and culture that is still alive,  to be shared,  and which has defined us for centuries.  This sentiment I learned growing up in Charleston and from Elizabeth Verner Hamilton, poet, gardener,  and daughter of Charleston artist Elizabeth O’Neill Verner.  I am sharing my larkspur seedlings, which came from ones she shared with me decades ago.

I do my best in my humble efforts to give you that experience of Charleston that has persisted from generation to generation.  My tours are once a day at 9 a.m. with entrance into private homes and gardens. At the end of my tour I invite you in to my home.   After my last tour of the old year, a man moaned, “A hundred dollars!”  “Y-es”, I replied holding my breath.  “This tour is worth MUCH more than a hundred dollars a person! ” he exclaimed,  to my relief.  May God bless us, every one.–Laura Wichmann Hipp– Call 843-577-5896 for reservations.

Very Hipp Charleston Office Building for Sale

The best looking man in Charleston is going to have an office in my house!  Whoopie!    What is even better is I am blessed to be married to him.  I can’t wait for lunches together and romantic interludes when the children are in school!  Shhh!

His office building is for sale.  It occurred to me that people on my tour are always saying that their dream would be to live in Charleston, but that their business or practice is elsewhere.  Well, bring your business here!  Why would you want to live anywhere else?  This one story building is zoned part residential and office.  For someone starting out, it would be perfect to buy to live in as well as to have as a business or medical practice.

Anticipated Questions:

-Is it old and historic and in the historic district?  No, it is at 1412 St. Andrews Boulevard, West of the Ashley River, about 7 miles from downtown historic Charleston, in the highly visible business district.  Because it is a new interior, it is more  green and energy efficient than old and historic.

-Is it charming?  No, it is functional and practical.  It does have a back door neighbor, a lawyer,  very nice, who allows us to pick her persimmons in the late fall after the frost.  We will introduce you to her.  It is a tall tree, the glory of the neighborhood, visible from the back yard. I will even throw in the receipt for persimmon sorbet I make with these tender autumnal orbs. There is also a majestic Live Oak immediately in the back yard of our office building, as old as Historic Charleston.

–Can I keep a boat on a trailer there?  Yes!  If you like boating as we do, you can keep the boat covering my husband built for our boat in the winter when it is on a trailer in dry dock.

–Does it have space for parking?  Yes, lots of it, and not hot tar mac.  It is actually on several lots.

-Will I have to paint the outside?  No.  It is brick, 1960′s, when they built to withstand the winds and rains of time, as it has.

-Who will my friends and clients be?  Us!   Preston and I will introduce you to all our friends!

–How much is it and what is the square footage?  You will have to call my husband about the number details.  Dates I remember but not numbers.

Email him at  preston@hippProperties.com, or call him at 843-571-2332, ext 1#, or cell at 843-729-2086.  This is new on the market.   I thought you would like to be some of the first to know!–Laura