Fieldshop, in the lobby);
the Renaissance, where the North Carolina chef Vivian Howard just opened her newest restaurants
Lenoir, which pays homage to the agrarian South, and
Handy & Hot bakeshop. Just across the bridge in Mount Pleasant, the charming
Post House Inn recently opened in the quiet and leafy Old Village. And if you’re game for a drive, the
Sanctuary at Kiawah Island Golf Resort, just twenty-five miles from downtown, offers beachfront views, five-star dining, and world-class golf courses.
photo: Katie Charlotte Photography
WHEN TO GO
Spring and fall are generally considered the city’s best seasons, but with the ocean breeze and plenty of waterfront hangouts, even the sweatiest dog days of summer hold their own appeal. If you would still like to hook your trip to a happening, though, these events occurring in typical, non-COVID times deliver:
Recipe by
Ouita Michel
photo: Jacqueline Stofsick | FOOD STYLING: DACEY SIVEWRIGHT
“This chili was created by Sara Gibbs for Glenn’s Creek Café at Woodford Reserve Distillery (she often checked up on the cooks to make sure they weren’t altering her recipe). Using local ground beef, bourbon-smoked paprika, and Kentucky bourbon, this is a Kentucky Proud dish. It contains several flavor notes from the bourbon flavor wheel (herbal, citrus, wood, and spice). The chili can be served in a bowl, over tortilla chips with garnishes, or as the main component of Sara’s Hoot ’n Holler Taco Salad, composed of chopped iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, chopped onions, sour cream, and salty corn chips.” Ouita Michel in her new cookbook,
:
“Just determining the table of contents alone took a year,” Michel says. But the labor paid off. The tome compiles more than 150 of Michel’s favorite recipes for classic, Southern staples such as fried chicken, biscuits, soup beans, and sausage gravy, becoming a one-stop-shop for the dishes that all Southern home cooks need to know. “We want it to reflect the simple food we’re making,” she says, “but without being
too simple.”
Take for instance the pimento blue cheese, which mixes gorgonzola and roasted garlic into the traditional spread; the sweet potato quiche born of a bumper crop of Bluegrass-grown yams; or the bourbon trail chili, which makes good on its name by featuring whiskey and local hamburger meat. “We try to figure out ways to use all parts of an animal, and making this chili helps our local farming community with that,” Michel says. “We sell it at almost all our restaurants I think we’ve made thousands of gallons at this point.”