Here is your access to some of the South's most interesting culinary stories; they are too good not to share! Listen to the podcast and join the conversation.
Robbie Robinson: City Limits BBQ (West Columbia, SC)
photo: City limits bbq
Augusta Road in West Columbia, SC, isn’t a storybook setting. Strip malls are lined up down the road, flanking a Wal-Mart and a sprawling old school U Haul campus. But just keep going and turn off the road at the Aldi and there’s a summer camp style building tucked in some trees and a modest BBQ sign. That’s when you know you’ve reached the city limits, City Limits BBQ to be exact. Owner and pitmaster Robbie Robinson grew up in nearby Red Bank, SC eating his fill of SC Midlands BBQ. While living in Houston in the early 2000s, he acquired his first Texas-style offset wood smoker and began his journey to unlock the subtle mysteries of smoking meats. He’s been serving the people of West Columbia for eight years, including the last year in this building on the edge of town, a town that he is representing this year as a James Beard Foundation finalist for Best Chef: Southeast. Every time we visit, we end up at the smokers, where we get down to the business of conversation. And I invariably mispronounce chicharrons, which you’ll hear here. I’m working on it, I promise.
Episode with Robbie >
Southern Fork Sustenance: Talking “Why Wine?” with Author and Editor Ray Isle
photo: marc fiorito
Despite the bio I’m about to share, I think Ray Isle is one of the least pretentious people in the wine world today. He grew up in Houston, and he learned to see wine as an adventure, an adventure that’s taken him all around the world. Ray is the longtime executive wine editor for Food & Wine as well as the wine and spirits editor for Travel + Leisure. He writes Food & Wine’s monthly “What to Drink Next” column as well as regular feature articles for both magazines. His writing has also appeared in Departures, Wine & Spirits, Time, The Washington Post, and many other publications, and he’s been nominated three times for a James Beard Award. His new book is The World in a Wine Glass: The Insider's Guide to Artisanal, Sustainable, Extraordinary Wines to Drink Now.
Philippe Feret: Hilton Head Social Bakery (Hilton Head Island, SC)
photo: visit hilton head
Do you ever consider going to Hilton Head Island, SC for a fresh-out-of-the-oven French baguette or a raspberry tart that’s perhaps gilded with gold flakes and filled with lemon curd? Maybe not, but you might want to reconsider because Hilton Head Social Bakery, with two locations on the island, has been baking that and much more since Chef Philippe Feret and his wife Marissa opened the bakery in 2016. Phillipe was an apprentice in his father's Paris bakery from the age of five, and he soon made restaurants his life, from the famous Parisian restaurant Taillevent, to New York City where he was enlisted to reopen Windows on the World in 1996. He subsequently served as executive chef at Tavern on the Green, The Regency Hotel, Cafe Centro and eventually owned his own restaurant and catering for 15 years. The bakery and his life on Hilton Head seems his most joyous chapter yet, using his father’s croissant recipe, and also letting his creativity, enthusiasm for new flavor combinations, classic recipes, and the artistry of sugar work fill the pastry cases daily. He’s embraced the island life and given up his chef’s coat for shorts and t-shirts in the kitchen, but he admits he still dons it for special occasions.
Episode with Philippe >
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