Stern Michael - Cooking in the Lowcountry from The Old Post Office Restaurant

Cooking in the Lowcountry
FROM
THE OLD POST OFFICE
RESTAURANT

Cooking in the Lowcountry
FROM
THE OLD POST OFFICE
RESTAURANT

JANE & MICHAEL STERN

Copyright 2004 by Jane & Michael Stern

Recipes and foreword copyright 2004 by Philip Bardin

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Rutledge Hill Press, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.,
P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee, 37214.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stern, Jane.
The lowcountry cookbook from the Old Post Office restaurant / Jane & Michael Stern.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-4016-0146-4 (hardcover)
1. Cookery, AmericanSouthern style. 2. CookerySouthCarolinaCharleston. 3. Old Post Office (Restaurant)
I. Stern, Michael, 1946- II. Title.
TX715.2.S68S83 2004
641.59757dc22

2004004376

Printed in the United States of America

06 07 08 09 107 6 5 4 3

Contents

I n the mid 1980s, I began my dream to open a restaurant on beautiful Edisto Island. Because the island was still very much undiscovered by tourists then and the location was well up the road from the beach, I was given little chance of ever making it.

Thank goodness two people bothered to listen to me and only three believed in me: my late father J. R. Bardin, my partner David Gressette, and myself. With a little seed money from Pops J and a lot of begging, clawing, and scratching for money by my loyal partner, we finally nearly three years lateropened The Old Post Office in May of 1988. Right before opening day the number of people convinced we would make it had dwindled to two: David and me.

Now as we begin our seventeenth year, what started as a dream has become a restored landmark where generations come to meet time and time againjust like they did when the premises housed the U.S. Post Office. Employee is a word seldom used as The Old Post Office staff is more of a family. Our manager, Peter Sanders, has been with us since day one, and Ruthie Paulsen Bell, who heads our wait staff, has been charming and humoring guests since 1990. Most of the others have been with us at least four or five years. There is an old saying on Edisto, Someone has to die to get a job waiting tables at The Old Post Office.

In the back of the house we have made dishwashing a respectable position with many graduating to become chefs, engineers, and one doctor that I know of. There are no uniforms and we deploy an informal freehand approach that would drive all other restaurateurs mad. I am grateful first and foremost to my staff and to our wonderful customers. I thank my lucky stars for the great fortune we have gotten from the press and particularly glad that two heroes of mine, Jane and Michael Stern, happened to come in here one night.

Within these pages are many of our most beloved recipes. I welcome you to feel free to go strictly by the book or do as we do at The Old Post Office and work with an imaginative free hand and unstructured pursuit of pleasure.

Philip Bardin

W hat a joy it was to spend time on Edisto Island with Philip Bardin. A great host and masterful chef, a true horse lover and a good friend, he made working on this book nothing but a pleasure for us. We thank him for putting so much of himself into this project as he has into his restaurant.

Our comrades at Rutledge Hill Press have made a reality of our dream of commemorating favorite restaurants around the country in a series of Roadfood cookbooks. In particular, we thank Roger Waynick and Larry Stone, who share our passion for great meals around the country, and whose support and belief in this series make it happen. We also thank Geoff Stone for his scrupulous editing and Bryan Curtis for his good ideas to spread the word.

We are grateful for the friendship and guidance of our editors at Gourmet magazine, for whom we write our "Roadfood" column. It was they who first sent us to Edisto and who continue to inspire us to discover great places and to write about them. Thanks especially to Ruth Reichl, James Rodewald, and "Doc" Willoughby.

We never hit the road without our virtual companions at Roadfood.comSteve Rushmore Sr., Stephen Rushmore and Kristin Little, Cindy Keuchle, and Marc Brunowho constantly fan the flames of appetite and discovery along America's highways and byways.

Thanks also to agent Doe Coover for her tireless work on our behalf and to Jean Wagner, Jackie Willing, Mary Ann Rudolph, and Ned Schankman for making it possible for us to travel in confidence that alls well at home.

W e dont know of another restaurant where the table setting includes bags of raw grits. The Old Post Office is renowned for grits prepared Lowcountry style, meaning they are long-and-slow-cooked, attaining a pleasant rugged texture but a delicious creamy quality from all the butter and milk they absorb. They come alongside virtually every meal served here, and they are especially wonderful as part of that favorite Lowcountry duet, shrimp and grits.

Grits bags on the table are important not only because the grits at The Old Post Office taste so good but because grits are fundamental to Lowcountry cooking, and here is a restaurant where the food traditions of the region are honored with brio. Ask any food-savvy person from Edisto, Charleston, or beyond where to eat meals that sing of South Carolinas coastal culture, and chances are good you will be directed to this unlikely place on Edisto Island.

Compared to the rest of Edisto, it is a fairly fancy venue. Its character was established in our minds during our first dinner here by a sound system that was playing chic small-band music, the sort that was on the soundtracks of French new wave movies of the early 1960s. But stylish ambience in no way detracts from the bedrock authenticity of the plates of food that emerge from the kitchen of chef Philip Bardin. Philip rejoices in provender that is as local as can be: oysters straight from oysterman Mr. Percy, vegetables from the islands fertile soil, and those gritsstone-ground especially for The Old Post Office.

Philip likes nothing more than talking about Edistos unique personality and relating that personality to the food he cooks. He even credits the especially good flavors of so much of what he serves to the fact that sea breezes waft over the island, infusing groceries with a subtle saline zest. But there is more to The Old Post Offices extraordinary food than excellent ingredients. Chef Bardin is no naf; a well-trained and sophisticated hand in the kitchen, he applies culinary savvy in a way that puts his Lowcountry fare in a class by itself. Undeniably true to cooking traditions that go back centuries, meals served in this restaurant also offer a modern-day perspective on that kitchen heritage. That unique combination of authenticity and invention makes The Old Post Office a dining experience like none other.