I My Mind…
I’m going to Carolina. Actually I AM going to Carolina, South Carolina specifically. By the time you read this, I will be back. I grew up in the Charleston area and my parents and brother still live there, so I am going to see family.
As much as I love Charleston, I decided many years ago that we need to have a long- distance relationship. I voluntarily emmigrated to Texas over forty years ago and have truly never looked back. Thanks to air travel it is easy to go visit, and thanks to my cookbook collection I can make all of the “Lowcountry” foods I grew up with.
Like many cities in the South, Charleston has grown and changed almost beyond recognition. Charleston has always had notoriously bad drivers, but growing the number of drivers exponentially has resulted in terrible traffic. Thankfully the old downtown portion of the city is better walked, anyway. And it seems once you get away from the suburban areas and freeways, things become more relaxed.
I look forward to the smell of the long- leaf pines and the flowers that have started blooming already. I actually look forward to the smells of the saltwater marshes, which most visitors seem to regard as a stink rather than a fragrance. I have never cared very much for the beaches, but I love the tidal creeks and rivers and the harbor.
My husband is looking forward to some “real” and fresh seafood. My parents’ next door neighbor is an avid fisherman and shrimper, so we can likely get some really, really fresh seafood from him. Thinking about flounder cooked on the grill is making me want to hurry up and get there. My dad has blueberry bushes in the back yard so we always have lots of things made with blueberries. I wish we could grown them here. I also love the pork barbecue there. It is very different from barbecue here in Texas. One is not better than the other, they are just very different.
My daughter has asked me to go over to Folly Beach and buy some T-shirts for her husband from a particular surf shop. I was telling my husband that we need to half-pack two suitcases so we will have plenty of room to bring things back. He said “what do you want to bring back?” Well…I have brought back well-wrapped frozen shrimp, bags of stone ground cornmeal and grits, frozen boiled peanuts, rocks, whittling sticks, homemade pear preserves, and now I am evidently bringing back a stack of T-shirts at a minimum.
Well I am off to finish halfpacking. I will be sure to let you know if I bring back anything especially interesting this time!
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