Nooks and Crannies

On my externship, my summer was not just full of loud, hot kitchens. I was generously given plenty of time off to explore Charleston, South Carolina. I'm not sure if you've ever been, however Charleston is one of the most beautiful cities in the United States.

Charleston was the south's major port, even before the Revolutionary War, and the architecture shows that quite proudly. The residential area of town is full of tall, sea side homes with elaborate hanging gardens, giving Charleston that famous "Southern magnolia" scent all over the city. The city is young, being a college city, and accommodates their students with the various tea shoppes, coffee shops, parks, and snack bars. The streets are swarmed with tourists, business men, and skateboarding spring breakers, always alive with the energy its people provides.

Being a foodie and a college student myself, I fit right in to Charleston, and spent most of my days off roaming the streets discovering the little nooks and crannies about the city.

One of the few coffee houses I found in Charleston was City Lights in between Market and King. City Lights specializes in its coffee but has soda, beer, wines, and various sandwiches and pastries. The original interior of the late 1800s is perfectly persevered on the inside and adorned with large oil contemporary paintings. The floors, booths, walls, and bar are all beautiful, carved wood and the ceiling the familiar floral tiling. The coffee was not the attraction, it was the building.

To my surprise, the reason to the lack of coffee houses was the surplus of tea shoppes. One, that still remains my favorite to this day, is a chain. Teavana has seats, tea related merchandise, and a wall full of bins containing different teas. As you order you can smell these wonderful bins and the varieties. Teavana will make your tea hot, iced, or frozen with additions available like lemon, cream, sugar, and honey. The other tea shoppe did not sell the tea drinkable but had its own wall dedicated to loose leaf teas. The wall was in the very back and the tea kept in glass jars. These jars could be open and smelled. The decor of the building was meant to look like an ancient tea and spice trading port. The floors were scratched wood, the walls stone, and the ceiling high and criss cross with big wooden beams. The other walls were either dedicated to flavored sugars, flavored salts, dried spices, or spice blends. All were kept in the same glass jars that were easy to open for smelling. The salt and sugar jars also came with small wooden spoons to allow you to taste a small scoop of the black truffle salt or the rose hip sugar.

Chocolate shoppes were another primary source for my quickly depleted pay checks. A Belgian chocolate shoppe on Church and Market served homemade truffles (made with Belgian chocolate) and imported Belgian chocolates. Twice I went in to buy truffles and was pleased each time. Once I went in to buy the imported chocolates and before I made it to my car, the chocolates melted into a delicious but undistinguished block. My favorite chocolate shoppe was on King. The chocolates were hand painted and paired in ways that ranged from classic to funky. I had traditional espresso or raspberry but my favorites were passion fruit or blue cheese truffles. The passion fruit was beautifully vibrant and powerful in the truffle while the blue cheese was a hinted undertone that died as soon as you swallowed the chocolaty morsel.

However, my favorite location in Charleston, by far, was the olive oil shop. It was a small room that had a slim door facing King street. The sign blended into the wall and the window beautifully insignificant. As I was dragged in the lighting was low and all the shelves old and wooden. The shelves were laden with medium sized tin barrels with a small description of the olive oil inside. They were separated into groups. Some were classified by the location of the oil, some the traditional flavor (such as basil or garlic), and others were a bit more foreign (chipotle or lime). Another wall had the same tin barrels of balsamic vinegars. Some aged for twelve years, others peach flavored, some pomegranate. Each bin had small cups on the side to taste the oils and vinegars.