Come Quick! Spring is Bursting out all Over

“Times, they are a changin.”  Azaleas in January and February?  Yes, at least here in Charleston.  We cannot keep it back.  Like the rising sea levels, spring keeps on coming.  Preston and I got married April 9, TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO this coming April!  Our Silver Wedding Anniversary.  I am such a lover of silver but I cannot think of A THING I need.  When we got married in April, we had photos taken across the street from St. Philip’s in the grave yard because the azaleas were in full bloom.  This is February, not March or April, and they are in bloom now!  Consider the fig tree…  Now the promoters of Charleston tourism do not want you to know this flower report because they are afraid you will cancel your plans for the spring tour season.  Do not cancel. We will have plenty else in bloom then.  I am just saying that you should come quick, NOW, if you can.  You will have the Holy City (and me) to yourself!  It is empty of visitors and is so beautiful, especially a treat not to be delayed for those in blizzard and freezing conditions up North and out West.

We have had nonstop rain, but now the sun is out, and the sky is a deep blue, illuminating what looked so gray, now transformed to brilliant colors.  White By the Gate is my glorious, snowy white camellia in bloom in the back garden right by the back steps, so white it is an affront to all impurity. Our Old Charleston Carolina Gray brick wall has green moss appliqued by time on rose brick making that brick more than just building material. The very bricks have become saturated with emanations of heroism.  What deeds of sacrifice and patient toil have gone into this city’s making and preservation!  Charleston is a City Mellowed By Time, as captured by the Charleston Renaissance artist, Elizabeth O’Neill Verner.  Once you get Charleston under your skin, she gets in your blood, bidding you to return, like a pilgrimage to refresh the soul and to set it in order, or as a lover with her siren call.  As a vegetable lady street vender with her wheel barrow said who went away and then moved back,”Chas’n keep  dem uda places from seemin natchel.”  Ain’t it just the trute!

I discovered a new shop that I had only run past and noted before.  It is hidden away on Burns Lane between Meeting and King, The Hidden Countship.  It is actually owned by count and countess.  (My brother’s Godson, Edward Scarborough, works there.  His father and I sailed together on the sailing team at the College of Charleston, he the senior and i the lowly freshman.)  The Count and Countess were in Savannah, leaving for Italy, when someone challenged them to come to Charleston saying they had not seen the South if they had not been here, and so close to Savannah.  They delayed their return home a day, came to Charleston, and bought a house here the next day!  They prefer Charleston to anywhere in Italy!  Wow!  No wonder Conde Naste voted the same way, with Charleston being the number one destination in The Whole Wide World!  We are blessed beyond measure!  A delightful retired Dartmouth professor, Dr.D’Lia, on my tour introduced me to this shop.  It is filled with interesting things, new and old.  I have a painting of an Italian villa, La Peggio, in an arch over my dining room door, which they have on their ad card.

For those who go on my Shop Till You Drop Antiques Tour, it is added!  You can see my most recent purchase, a functional piece of equipment, an 18th century mahogany linen press.  It is in the humble butler’s pantry, a room newly wallpapered along with my dining room in Fra Angelica’s glistening gold as in San Marco in Florence.  The light has to be right in both places to capture it.  I am using the linen press for storage of cookbooks and crystal and china, but also for additional counter space!  The trays slide out, one inch high, so as to provide additional space to plate food when the marble counters are full of dishes.  A practical piece it is,  for me to enjoy using as well as regarding from the kitchen.  Thank you, Lord, and thank you, the guests on my tour!  I am enjoying the fruits of my labor.

If you cannot find an affordable place big enough, I have a vacation rental by owner in downtown Charleston some of you may wish to consider.  It is booked for most of May but has openings for the last week of February and most of March. It is listed with Home Away # 5127820805, and VRBO #404882  as Charleston Tea Party Private Tour Launches Vacation Rental.  I has 3 bedrooms, a living room, dining area, and a full kitchen, and two full baths.  It sleeps up to 7.  I have enjoyed furnishing it with vintage finds from Charleston antique shops and estate sales.  It is not luxurious, but is easy, with a two car garage, unheard of in Charleston.   It is within walking distance of Hominy Grill, a popular restaurant where you  must have fried grits.  It is better than it sounds!  there is also a free trolley pick up a minute walk away to take you all over the historic city’s peninsula.

I love it when people can stay a week, not because I make more money, but because you get free nights if you stay past 4 days!  I want you to come and experience what it is like to live here.  My vacation rental is for those who make Charleston part of their spiritual renewal, what keeps them hanging on.  Times they are a changin, but Charleston just improves, like a good rich wine.  Come!  Drink deeply!  Call me for a tour or a stay or both at 843-577-5896–Laura Wichmann Hipp

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.

Christmas in Charleston

“The advantage of doing ones own praising is that you can lay it on just so thick and in all the right places.”  I am the biggest fan of my food, Christmas dishes at my house.  It is midnight.  I served duck today that my 16 year old friend Richard Hanger shared with me from his shoot at Coosaw Plantation with his friend, Bolton Sanford.  A true Charleston man loves the land, being one with God and nature, and showing he is a provider.  I sauteed the duck in butter and Madeira with shallots and then added my calamondin marmalade from our home grown citrus grove in the front garden.  Wow!  I invited Richard’s family over tonight for the remains of the day and the kill, since it was his offering.  His mother, Monti, did not know what to do with it; I got lucky as it was passed on to me.  I served it with Carolina Gold Rice, which sells for its weight in gold,  precious stuff, grown on a limited scale on only a few plantations in the Lowcountry more as a hobby.

After dinner and our family friends helped me reset the table for tomorrow.  I made Lobster Newberg and more Carolina Gold Rice.  This dish is a Christmas special with cream, vermouth, and brandy combined with a lobster broth reduction.  If you are not coming at Christmas time, don’t get your hopes up.  I do not cook this rich a luncheon every day.  I am using the Doubleday Cookbook receipt, the second one, which is richer.  I cannot tell you how good it is.  You will have to try it for yourself.

For those who read my Thanksgiving entry, the Mars Hill College football player and family DID come on my tour.  It was a joy to treat them to the gift I had offered.  Mills Adams is a sickle cell carrier and was in the paper for “playing with fire”.  His team made it to regional championship games for the first time in 20 years.  Before the words were out of my mouth on South Carolina’s history, Mills would be saying it for me.  It is incredible how much he loves his State’s history.  He is a history major and had NEVER been in Historic Charleston houses.  ”You have no idea what this means to me,” he kept saying.  His mom, a former history teacher, and teenage brother came, too.  They are descendants of Robert Mills, Charleston architect of the first Fire Proof Building and the Washington Monument in DC, among others.

Husband Preston this afternoon cut HUGE branches of calamondin oranges–JUST what I need before Christmas–more projects!  I will be up to my eyeballs in making calamondin marmalade, as if I have not made enough already!  Everybody wants some though;  it goes out the door as fast as I can make it.  I bought  baler jars from Italy, which add to the beauty of this locally grown golden product.

Our Christmas baby daughter is turning 14 December 22, with a family birthday tea party here, followed by Christmas Eve Dinner here two days later before she sings in St. Philip’s choir  for Midnight Mass.  Sleep time now!  I can’t wait to meet the next group of people tomorrow–oops this morning!

May your days be Merry and Bright–Laura

Husband Preston Helps with Large Group Tour

A first!  We did it!  With husband’s Preston’s help, I gave my largest private tour yet.  FAUSA, a Federation of American Women who have lived overseas, came on my tour.  Sue and Hugh Ripps came to Charleston earlier to check me out. I rented two vans of 14 passengers with my husband driving one and and with me driving the other.  Charleston native guide and friend, Angie Hewitt Chakeris, gave the tour in Preston’s van as he drove to the private houses and gardens.   We had yet another vehicle, Sue and Hugh’s car filled with  people.  Sue brought along high technology: walkie talkies!  They worked beautifully, a lot better than when my brother Bunky and I had them as children.  They could hear everything I said perfectly as they followed behind me.  That was a first for me which I will invest in for the future!

Dick Bennington, furniture restorer, returned my recaned chairs and loaned me 11 more. Preston took two days off from his office to help me be prepared.   Somehow, we managed to seat  32 people in our front drawing room, which is as wide as the front of our Charleston Double House.  We served lunch and tea with Varnetta’s help and the unexpected help from my father’s lovely wife, Joyce Wichmann.  The FAUSA group also used the occasion seated together in our home to have their meeting.  Their ice breaker question President  Louise posed was  what was the most unusual and favorite dish  they learned to prepare and in what country.  These ladies have lived ALL over the world.  They have had such varied experiences.  Cooking, of course, immerses you in the culture, changing and sealing you forever as a part of that culture.  Gardening abroad does the same.

For Sue, the treasurer and organizer to say those magic words, “It was perfect”, makes all the headache of preparing worthwhile.  Her smile and faith in me are with me still, refreshing me, making me believe I can do it again for others.  I sold them my first freshly made batch of  Calamondin Marmalade as well,  which we served over roasted pumpkin cake,  and used the proceeds to treat our family that night to the movie, Courageous, an inspirational film for our times.

I wish I could have got to know all the ladies better and to hear all their adventures from the far corners of the world.  They have a zest for life from living abroad, but have not forgot to be proud to be an American.  Thank you to all who were pulling for me in this venture outside my routine of typically touring  small groups of  up to six.  At our Saturday night dinner party with good friends, Preston could talk of nothing else but our tour.  This was a rare opportunity for my man to step into my shoes for a day, breaking routine himself.  He was proud of me!  And I was thankful for him.

Other Places

  Charleston is The Place; all other places are simply other places.  This summer vacation (and my tour guests) afforded my family of five the opportunity to visit a historic city we had never seen before. 

I recommend that all try to visit Natchez, Mississippi and stay in the main house of  Dunleith, the Antebellum home on 40 acres still, in Natchez.  Natchez is a town that time forgot.  You are removed from the modern world and wonder if it is a fluke that all of the guides in the museum houses on tour do not know anything about the world of computers.  Twilight Zone. If you are weary of the syncopated unrest of a crazy world, come to Charleston; then, plan a trip to Natchez.  Natchez feels even more lost in time than Charleston, and less discovered,  to be honest.  We stayed in two museum rooms filled with antebellum antiques in Dunleith all alone for the same price as Natchez’  Days Inn.  We got off-season rates because they heard I was a famous Charleston guide.  Just kidding.  We were just another tourist family.  But we made the most of it, swimming in their pool surrounded by banana fronds, and writing post cards on the veranda, while sipping a mint julep from their herb garden’s  freshly picked mint.  The massive canopied beds were not reproductions as we have predominately here in Charleston B&Bs.

  Before summer is over, relax in a pool in the warm silky waters of the South.  All your cares melt away, as well as all your aches and pains.  And if like us you have to drive to Natchez rather than fly, listen as we did to the book on tape, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe.  Being sold Down South meant down the Mississippi River in Natchez or New Orleans where the sugar cane plantations were, more to be dreaded by slaves than the plantations of cotton or rice.

As we observe the 150th anniversary of the start of the War Between the States, it is a good time to read and visit the history of that day and age,  We learn anew the lessons.  In one of the museum houses of Natchez, we learned that the widow of 1859 had to pay taxes on not only the property of the Antebellum mansion, but on every piece of furniture, mirror, and chandelier; consequently, she was forced to sell the house. 

This one little unelaborated tidbit of history made me suddenly see why the Federal government up North was so hated in the Antebellum years.  The South felt taken advantage of.  The wealth of America was being produced in the South, but the South was being taxed every which way the Federal government could find.  America’s taxes were getting to be like Great Britain whose yoke America had thrown off because of taxation.  The South felt all their hard earned money was going up North to feed the Federal government machine of wasteful spending.  The Southerners felt they would be better off on their own, that states rights had been replaced with Federal government rights.  Statehood implies sovereignty.  People were patriotic and loyal to their state, which was their country.  The outcome of the War changed America’s perception of statehood and states rights.  In looking back, we remember who we are and were designed to be by the Founding Fathers.

Summer 2011 Edibles from my Garden

Friday’s tour with Luis and June was the first to be graced with my Golden Pear Tomato, which I have  grown from seed in my back garden, and Fresh Fig with Goat Cheese, Blueberry,  and Gingered Fig Preserves.  I feed the soil around the tomato bushes with pureed egg  shells  and bury shrimp shells for the tomoto plants’ needed calcium.  Our figs are grown on our ever expanding  tree from the baby tree Fred Sosnowski kindly gave me from his mammoth one at Rockville on Wadmalaw Island.   The first time I remember having fresh figs was from that same tree at the Rockville Regatta, where eventually I would meet my husband on my father’s ketch, Mobjack.  

Tommy Edwards is my shrimp man, from whom I buy fresh shrimp at his Shem Creek dock  as soon as he comes in from sea.  When he said they were medium on the phone, I  thought, he means small.  But when I saw them, I was impressed; the warm ocean waters have produced a goodly size shrimp already, nothing small about them.  What I do with shrimp is a family recipe my mother has made all my life.  When my father presented me at a black tie party, my mother made pickled shrimp.  Mrs. Hamby is the household name caterer in Charleston who did the rest of the food.  She asked if she could take the left over shrimp and pickling dressing home to try to duplicate it.  She has published hers, but it ain’t my momma’s!  We do not use white vinegar but tarragon or wine vinegar with half olive oil and half canola oil, marinated for several hours or over night. 

The important thing is to save your coriander seeds from your cilantro: when cilantro goes to seed in hot weather, those green balls and then the dried balls are excellent for pickled shrimp.  My mother and I also put lots of fresh bay leaf in ours.  Bay grows from my mother’s neighbor’s wall over to Momma’s where she sits with her walking tour guests for tea.  Her neighbor, Barbara Hollings Seigling, our Senator Fritz Hollings’ sister, always wants people to pick it as it grows so fast.  I take my guests into Dr Gene Gaillard Johnson’s garden, where he grows Bay as round topiaries in the center of boxwood  garden.  Bay is beautiful in an ornamental garden, as well as a culinary treat when that fresh.   Vidalia onion is also a must in pickled shrimp.  The shrimp is already cooked and shelled when you put it in the marinade.

I also put coriander and lots of fresh basil from my garden in my latest hit of the summer, a retro dish I have unabashedly perfected from our grandmothers’ era.  I call it  Gazpacho Aspic.  My 91 year old friend, Lucile MacLennan, whose coctail birthday party Preston and I went to last night, says her mother AND her grandmother made aspic.  She got me making it, but I have taken it to a nouveau cuisine level, which I find much more appealing to our fresh from the garden tastes.   Rather than starting with a can of tomatoes, I hand chop vine ripe tomatoes, cucumber, different colored bell peppers, vidalia onion,  fresh garlic, adding chiffoned basil,  and coriander balls.  To this gazpacho I add a red wine and olive oil home made vinaigrette, salt and pepper.  Dissolve 3 packages of clear gelatin in a little cold water and then stir to dissolve with a little boiled H2O.  Add this cooling gelatin to the gazpacho. 

Dig up your grandmother’s beautifully designed aspic tins that have been sitting unused for a generation (or comb antique shops with me).  I have owned some for decades and have used them  for baking tea cakes, but this is the first time I have used them for their origiunal purpose and made real aspic in them.  I like to use the individual serving size so that everybody gets their own artistic design when I unmold it, all shiney and multicolored and FRESH on their Canton ware plate.  Fill and refrigerate, or as old Charleston friend Richard Hutson says, put it in the ice box.  Run each one under hot water individually for 3 seconds. Voila!  It unmolds beautifully onto the plate.  The first time I used my molds, a lady asked, “Did you make this with mold?”  Stricken, I looked down at my plate.  They laughed as she said she meant IN A mold.

I surround the gazpacho aspic with pickled shrimp and wisps of pickled vidalia onion.  The effect is simply stunning, and the fresh taste bursting in your mouth is even better.  This healthy, light, quintessential Southern summer lunch gives us room for fig tarts and fresh home made peach iced cream with my loquat liqueur and a cup of tea. 

Preston and I picked the peaches last week from our  neighboring tree South of Broad, the first time ever.  I have only seen until now peach trees in Charleston bred for the blossoms, Peppermint Peach, we call them.  THESE newly picked South of Broad peaches rival those South Carolina peaches sold at Mr Leonard’s Vegetable Bin and Burbages Corner Store.  Peaches marry well with my home made Loquat Liqueur as the peach and loquat have similar flesh. 

We also as a family picked Sweet Blues from Dr. Randy Bradham’s blueberry farm, our yearly trek.  On the way there, I make my children and neice and nephews memorize Dr. Bradham’s WWII book quote, “Freedom is not a free gift.  It is achieved by the sacrifice and patient toil of many individuals,” which we then recited for him.  His is the untold tale of Hitler’s U-Boat Fortresses in Brittany, France.  The children learned that a U-boat is a submarine, and that France’s hedge rows are very high, making tunnels out of the roads, a surprise for which the American soldiers were untrained.

Come in from the heat,  and ride with me in my new air conditioned van as we visit friends’ homes and gardens.  For those who have been on my tour, ask about going out on our boat.  Saturday our family went way up the Ashley River and swam off the anchored boat in the floating fresh water off the bank of Middleton Place Plantation, where in the 18th and 19th centuries the fresh water was skimmed off the heavier salt water for flooding rice fields.  I quizzed our teenagers and their friends on that history and environmental horticulture, which they got!  We are blessed with refreshing, fun times such as only summer and heat can bring.  Please come and enjoy Charleston.  Call me at 843-577-5896–Laura

 

Your Helpin Hand is at the End of Your Wrist

  I walked with my heavy laden basket of home grown and home made edibles from my garden to Husk, the new, chic restaurant of local edibles on Queen Street.  Queen St ends on Colonial Lake, and our house is around the corner from the far side of the lake.   My old English shopping basket was spilling over, I mean green, lacy foliage cascading over  with a jug of fresh coriander both blooming and with fresh, green coriander balls, its pepper corn size seeds.  Another jug contained my Confederate Mint originally from the Confederate Home in Charleston 25 years years ago, transplanted from garden to garden, the sweetest mint there is.  Then there was the bottle of Essense of Loquat to both drink and use as flavoring, fruiting heavily right now all over Charleston  in its mellow orange round plum form.  Lastly, I had a big jug of Elderfower Cordial, a concentrate of sweetened  lemons and elderflowers blossoms to be diluted with water, champagne, or wine.   It also makes a great sorbet or iced cream.  These are all edibles I serve often on my private tour where they are grown and made at our Tradd St home.

“De alms, dey git so TI-yid,”   explained Flower Lady Albertha Stokes telling me long ago of how she learned to carry her flower baskets a top her head.  Her words rang true echoing through the years as I switched my heavy basket from arm to arm as I walked.  What would people think if they saw ME with a basket a top MY head? I thought.   I ain’t too high and mighty to do such a thing.  I’ll do it out of necessity!  A top my head the wicker basket went, and oh, what a relief it was!  I found that the top of my head is pointed so that I cocked my head to the side.  A lady called on my cell phone about my private tour as I walked.  Two  eras converged  as I walked down Queen St talking on my cell phone and carrying a basket heavy laden a top my head. 

As I happened to walk home alone at dusk after dinner at Husk for my husband’s birthday, I met Mr Alston, descendant of Charles Alston of the Edmondston -Alston House at 21 E. Battery, where I was the assistant administrator out of college.  Mr and Mrs Alston live on Queen Street in the residential section.   I  discovered the Old Charleston I love again in a fresh way in meeting Mr. Alston.  He is a descendant of the black mistress he says of Charles Alston.  He is very black so that it is hard to believe and yet he is convincing.  He and I alone in all of his acquaintances know his ancestry in the Alston familyand can dicuss it.  We got to talking about life and work.  He gave me a good bit of practical advice in response to my taking my edibles from my home and garden to sell to local restaurants.” People these days need a helpin hand and you’ve found your helping hand  is at the end of your wrist!”   Words to live by. 

Spoleto this year was wonderful ending June 12.  This arts festival was dynamic this year with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra accompanying the Westminster Choir in Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms sung in HEBREW with subtitles across the top of the Gaillard Auditorium proclaiming to a packed house of several thousand:

“We praise Thee, Oh God.  We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.  All the earth doth worship Thee, the Father everlasting!”

Many thanks to the people this spring who have gambled  their vacation time (and money) with me on my private tour of Charleston.  I used some of the proceeds to treat my family of three children and husband and my mother to a few of Spoleto’s finest offerings. In addition to the afore mentioned, we also saw Mozart’s opera, The Magic Flute, and the Australian dance/gymnastic group Circa, which was, in our technological age,  impressive to see  what can amaze us with the human body.  A lady climbed a rope with no knots as easily as if it was silk and she a spider.  Make Spoleto reservations for next year, late May, early June!

 This week is calmer as we transition to summer.  Call me for a private tour of Charleston.  843-577-5896.  If I do not answer, please leave a message as to the date you are interested in, and I will call you back.  On rare occasions when not on a tour or with my family, I can  be reached on my cell at 843-708-2228.  I hope to meet you soon.–Laura

Strawberries, Roses, Larkspur, and the Royal Wedding

“Some are monarchists and some are not”, said a critic after my tour.  I mentioned that in 1990, Prince Charles stayed next door to my friend Francess Palmer’s house at 5 East Battery, which we were visiting.  Allow me to confess.  I am a monarchist  and a prayer warrior for the Royal Family as well as  my own.  I was of neccesity to all things English born though a native Charlestonian.  My mother is from England, and Auntie Edie, almost 98, still lives on her own in the village my mother is from, and Auntie Pam in the next village over.  Thankfully, my mother lives in Charleston where she gave birth to me and is a daily part of my life, as well as the one doing the two hour walking tour part of my business. 

What do strawberries, roses, larkspur and the Royal wedding have in common?  They are all being celebrated this week!  My children and I picked strawberries this weekend at Pete Ambrose’s  at Selkirk Plantation on Wadmalaw Island.  We also collected eggs and picked lettuce and swiss chard from our friends Becky and David Baird’s Live Oak Plantation.  They are both doctors to support their farming habits.  Becky Gregorie Baird was one of the first women to graduate from Porter Gaud with my husband, Preston.  She also delivered our three children.  Her sister, Ann Kulze, is also a doctor who has written two books on eating right for life. 

My shoulders ache from picking, washing,  and slicing strawberries for hours last night, making  strawberry jam.  But this Easter morning, I was able to give my family a strawberry cream tea before church at St. Philip’s.  No, you do not put strawberries or cream in your tea.  You put them on your split scone and drink your cup of tea with it.  The dollop of cream makes it decadent, along with a drizzle of my calamondin marmalade.  I have made freezer strawberry jam for the first time, a fresher, healthier taste with less sugar needed. 

 This week of the Royal Wedding, I will be serving strawberry cream teas after lunch at my house where the tall Canton blue larkspur is in bloom down our walkway with the lacy cilantro, lettuces,  and johnny jump ups.  The Doctor Van Fleet pale new dawn pink roses make you want to weep to see and smell them on our fence.  The jasmine is in bloom along the same, the scent of Charleston!  The loquats are swelling up from the hard green to the fleshy yellow.  When  they are golden I will be picking them for more loquat liqueur, or essence of loquat.  It is a plum, not in the citrus family.  I have been cooking with it, adding a taste you have never had in any other American city.  It is like a sexy, fruity almond, hard to describe.  Come taste for yourself!  I hope to see you soon!  I have little time to get back to the computer with tours, cooking, gardening,  family, and friends so that the best way to reach me is by phone.  Leave me a message and I will call you back.–843-577-5896–Laura

Edibles From my Garden in Top Restaurants

I just went to McCrady’s Tavern kitchen, where Sean Brock is the reknowned chef there and at Charleston’s newest hit restaurant, Husk.  Both specialize in local food, locally grown.  Since my successful dinner party with Quail Picatta using my tipsy loquats, I thought these fine kitchens may be interested in what I grow.  They bought my tipsy loquats and calamondin marmalade and loquat liqueur, thereby becoming members of  The Society for the Preservation of This Historic Charleston House.  I am thrilled as if I won the jack pot!

For those interested in reading an article on my calamondin oranges,  order the April issue of Charleston Magazine.    If you come on my tour, I will have copies available. 

Blooming right now in  my front garden are my calamondin orange trees, Meyer Lemon trees, and grapefruit tree.  The calamondin that is the biggest is the one by my yellow Lady Banks Rose.  People are stopping to smell the sweet, exotic citrus blossoms, which are white and wide open.   I make calamondin marmalade, of which I will give you a taste at tea, as well as Meyer Lemon Sorbet, and tea cakes with citrus.  I love to experiment with these edibles from my garden.  I am also picking my lettuces, cilantro, and snow peas for our salads amongst the johnnie jump ups.  They are not only lovely to the eye to behold, they are delightful to the taste buds.  Matt, the assistant chef at McCrady’s kept saying, “WOW,” over and over when the explosion took place in his mouth with my tipsy loquats.

It is wet and chilly today, keeping the spring flowers fresh and blooming longer in time for your visit.  Call me with reservations for the Charleston Tea Party Private Tour, where we will have lunch and  tea at the end of of our morning tour.  I will personally call you back, if you leave a message,  to confirm your reservation for a 9:30 a.m. tour Monday through Friday.

843-577-5896–Laura Wichmann Hipp

If you ask ahead with reservations for my private lunch and tour, I will make you chicken picatta with my home made loquat liqueur and tipsy loquats!

Blooming in my Garden, Spring 2011

  Come on my private tour as soon as you can to see the spring flowers, peaking earlier this year.  The big surprise this spring is the Lady Banks Rose.  I have had it planted for several years by the post in our front garden nearest the Ashley River.  I finally got it to do what I want, which is to grow up and over the brick post of the wrought iron fence.  This is the first year it has paid me for my patience.  It is overflowing with bowers of feathery, yellow, thornless blossoms.  My husband, Preston, and I were sitting on the bench on the Battery wall on the Ashley River yesterday chatting with neighbors when we could see someone stooping by our house, taking pictures of  OUR Lady Banks Rose and  our walkway of flowers.  This is the first year our Lady Banks  has been noticable.

  Lady Banks Rose was named after the wife of an eminent botanist of the 18-19th century, Sir Joseph Banks, who sailed around the world for three years with Captain Cook, returning to England in 1771 with many samples of plant and animal findings.  He died in 1821.  A collector went to China where this rose grows wild on the banks of mountains, thought of him, brought it back to England, and named it after Sir Jos Banks’ widow.  Linnaeus called him “the immortal Banks”.

His legacy lives on in Charleston gardens where long stalks shoot up over walls, along the sides of houses, and up into tree tops.  To see this height of yellow sends a thrill through you, actually renewing your confidence to REACH  out of darkness and obscurity into the LIGHT!  Nature’s triumph inspires our own.

 This country has so much to offer.  Follow my freshman in college daughter’s example and get friends together to share gas expenses and take turns driving as long as it takes to get here to see spring in Charleston.  There is always room somewhere.  Call me and I will help you find the hotel, inn, or B&B  just right for you.  Splurge by treating yourself to the Charleston Tea Party Private Tour.  I am blessed to be able to show you by the kindness of my friends some of the finest private gardens of this historic city.

A group I enjoyed having on my tour this week was  a doctor who treated her mother in law,  daughter,  and aunt to my tour to celebrate the mother in law’s 80th birthday.  I baked a delicious calamondin orange and crystalized ginger tea cake with a candle  lit for her,  as we sang Happy Birthday.   The Sheffield silver tea service and tea strainer provided the elegant touch for this memorable lunch and tea party after our morning of exploring the Old Walled City together.  This daughter in law took time off from her busy  practice as a pediatrician to honor the mother of her infectious disease doctor husband.  Their daughter took time off as a successful interior designer in New York City to come as well.  We are healthier families for taking  time set apart to honor each other. 

My friend Jane Sandwick from upstate New York renting a house with extended familyat Folly Beach for the month treated her mother to my tour this week also.  Preston and I visited them last night at Folly meeting his parents and hers, all together from New York to enjoy each others company with their  grandchildren, too.  Salt of the earth they are, the ones who make this country great. ” More to be desired are they than gold, yea than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honey comb.”

Another tour group I had was of college friends having a reunion in Charleston, having gone to Kansas University.  They came from all over the country.  To keep such special friendships alive is to know what is most impotant to pursue in life. 

In that vein, though busy this week, I was not about to deny life long friends in town who I wanted to come for dinner. George Kanellos was here from the White House with son, Hill, on his spring break.  Ian Walker was flying in from Paris to pay his taxes and to visit his mother.   George was leaving town the next morning.  The only time to get together with these old friends was in between tours, Friday night.  We had Preston’s Quail Piccata with my home made  loquat liqueur.  Life long mutual English friend Victoria Hanham made mushrooms in cream .

 If you come on my tour, I might just let you have a taste of this nector of the gods.  It is a seasonal thing I make every spring, which takes a year to mature.  Last spring was a bumper crop of loquats.  Come join me for a sip after lunch and tea at my dining room table.  I can be contacted at 843-577-5896.–Laura Wichmann Hipp