The Art of the Plate: May 2016

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

The Spring 2016 Farm to Plate Class Went All Over the Lowcountry

It was another great term for CIC's Farm to Plate course thanks to everyone that contributed their skill to increase our students' knowledge of eating local in the Lowcountry. Read more about the course in the Post and Courier.

PHOTO: Top l-r: CIC alum and Hominy Grill Director of Culinary Operations, Chef Trey Dutton and soft-shell crabs, the MUSC Urban Farm, Lowcountry Creamery.
Middle l-r; Marc Filion at Keegan-Filion Farms, grains from Anson Mills, CIC Chef Instructor Bernd Gronert's Cypress Hill Farm.
Bottom l-r: CIC alum and Slightly North of Broad Chef de Cuisine Chris Holme, GrowFood Carolina, Bulls Bay Saltworks.

What We're Reading

“Eating from the Ground Up”

Out just in time for the vegetables appearing at our farmers markets, Alana Chernila’s cookbook focuses on creatively using every root and leaf. While some of the recipes may be familiar concepts – think stuffed tomatoes – hers are packed with millet, basil, and parsley. Fried rice stars salmon, fennel, and Swiss chard stems. Roasted asparagus are sauced with a combo of butter, garlic, nutritional yeast, and tamari. Stone fruit, raw corn kernels, scallions, basil, and jalapeño make a cool salad for hot weather. Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC.

"Soul: A Chef's Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes"

“This book is my homage to the cuisine of my family,” Chef Todd Richards writes in his autobiographical collection of essays and recipes. “These are the ingredients of my people. This is my sermon about my Soul food.”

Bringing accolades for his stints at Atlanta’s Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons, James Beard nominations, and, of course, his prowess at Southern cooking, Richards seasons the pot with a powerful bouquet of flavors as he pays his heritage forward. Collards cooked with ham hocks are accented with piquant pickled collard stems. Blueberries are found in fried pies; strawberries are plated with champagne aspic, whipped cream, and honey. Grilled peaches pair with radishes on toast spread with pimiento cheese. Sweet potatoes are layered with cauliflower and crab in a lush gratin.

"Soul food," Richards tells us, "is the original cuisine of the South, born from an involuntary collision of cultures."
Published by Southern Living. $35.