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Saltus River Grill is one of my favorite restaurants in the world. I’m sure partly it is sentimental: it is a special spot in a very special place for us. But there are other, more objective reasons as well. The food is a fusion of Lowcountry/Sea Islands/Gullah and Haute-Cuisine American/French. This is my kind of place: a place that isn’t afraid to fuse grass-roots, hard-core, local/”ethnic” food with very high end cuisine, the most cutting-edge trends and techniques, and the highest quality ingredients. This place does not shy away from complexity. I also have a soft spot for any place that uses locally grown and seasonal ingredients. And… of course… there is the wine list. The wine list at Saltus is short and sweet. I’d prefer a short list of carefully selected bottles than a huge book of labels that lose meaning. Lastly, location location location — Saltus has a location to die for, right on the Beaufort waterfront, with a beautiful interior and even more beautiful exterior patios with gorgeous outdoor dining furniture. Oh, and the service is excellent. Basically, it is, for me, the whole package.

In the five weeks we’ve been in South Carolina I’ve done a lot of cooking. We have eaten out rarely on this trip, so we decided to splurge for one of our final nights here. Last night the five of us went to Saltus for dinner. I was hoping our kids would be able to handle themselves there, and that we’d not totally embarrass ourselves at such a high-end establishment. I was hoping it would be a lovely night.

It was lovely, dreamy, and free-of-embarassment. It was spectacular. It was, for me, a Top 10 night out with our family ever. I loved every minute of it. From meandering down the sleepy streets of Beaufort to wind our way to Saltus…

To the lovely conversations… (while we waited for our food the bambinos were able to come-and-go freely from the table and play on the playground at Waterfront Park; the playground is within eyesight of the Saltus patio– a win-win for the whole family!)…

To the family bonding… (these two, in particular, were especially lovey-lovey)…

The food…

The whole thing. It was dreamy.

After dinner we walked along the waterfront. The boys found some friends to play stickball with (of course). They could have stayed there all night — it was pitch dark when we finally pulled them away to head back to the beach house for our 2nd-to-last-night in South Carolina.

I know we should not feed the birds. And we don’t do it much. But after we ate our sandwiches on the beach today, Meera really, really, really wanted to give the seagulls the bread crust that she didn’t want to eat. I gave in and said o.k. She broke off teeny tiny pieces, one at a time, to make it last. And it was a really delightful moment for all involved.

Stone Crab Claws, Carolina Marsh Tackies, Boiled Peanuts

After a day at the beach today, and before dinner, we J-Ms had a little Sea Islands Cocktail Hour. We picked up some stone crab claws at a roadside stand on the way home from the beach (these are Owen’s favorite! dipped in melted butter! Heather too, but dipped in cocktail sauce). At the same stand we also bought boiled peanuts (a favorite of Kyle and Meera, who definitely take after Braydon — all three boiled peanut lovers). The bambinos had their favorite cocktails: ginger ale (K & O), and chocolate milk (M). And Braydon made our new favorite cocktail: The Carolina Marsh Tacky. This was a serious Lowcountry/Sea Islands Cocktail Hour!

We discovered this drink on this trip, and it has really grown on us. There is something really perfect about it on a hot summer’s eve, after having been in the sun, sand, salt, and water all day. If you’re up for trying a really unusual new summer cocktail, try this out!

Carolina Marsh Tacky

1 1/2 ounces bourbon

1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

4 ounces cold ginger beer

Lime wedge

Fill a cocktail glass with ice. Add bourbon and lime juice; top with ginger beer. Garnish with fresh lime. Serves 1. To make a pitcher: 1 1/2 parts bourbon, 1/2 part fresh lime juice, and 4 parts ginger beer.

P.S. The drink is named after the Carolina Marsh Tacky — a rare breed of horse native to South Carolina (click).

The South Carolina Sea Islands are a wealth of riches just teeming with life. These are not powdery white beaches with sun-bleached (empty) shells and crystal clear waters. We have had the privilege of spending time on beaches like that and they are exquisite and wonderful. The beaches here are exquisite and wonderful too, but in a whole other way. This is a different dimension of beach. And it is not for the faint of heart. In the five weeks we’ve been here we have rarely found an empty shell– there is something living inside just about all of them. And you can’t walk two feet without coming across something alive.

Everywhere — in every fraction of every square inch of every piece of the beach, there is life here. It is truly unbelievable. You can’t love this place unless you take a deep breath, breath in the salty air, and accept that there is stuff squirming, crawling, scurrying, living everywhere you look. The ecosystem here is healthy.

We have spent hours and hours this summer finding all sorts of things. But our three favorites are definitely hermit crabs, sand dollars, and sharks’ teeth.

There are hermit crabs everywhere on the Harbor Island beach. There are big ones and small ones and everything in between.

We’ve had so much fun finding them, playing with them, and then always leaving them behind on the beach to live their lives. Some of their shells are so beautiful, we’d love to keep them, but we have only twice in our five weeks found uninhabited shells.

And sometimes we’re surprised to find something inside that isn’t a hermit crab. One day Owen found this (below) — it is an Eastern Conch, otherwise known as a Whelk. Like I said… not for the faint of heart! (He asked me if he could pull it out and eat it. He was very disappointed when I said no.)

On both Harbor Island and Hunting Island, sand dollars are in abundance. In the five weeks that we’ve been here we have seen hundreds. But we’ve never seen a dead one. So, sadly, we have no sand dollar shells to take home. Happily, it means this place is alive and well — a place where sand dollars can flourish and thrive.

When the tide is high, Kyle and Owen love diving for sand dollars just off the shore. They find dozens and dozens of them under the water.

At low tide you can find sand dollars sitting on the wet sand, hunkering down, just waiting for the tide to come back up. During low tide Meera loves looking for sand dollars along the beach. She has become quite the expert at finding them, and has found many.

But our favorite thing to do is to look for shark teeth. On certain beaches (and really, in areas all throughout the sea islands) you can find fossilized shark teeth. Believe it or not, these are the teeth of sharks that lived thousands to millions of years ago! The beach at Hunting Island is our favorite place to look for them. When the tide is low, the bambinos love to walk along the water’s edge and search for shark teeth in the very shallow water.

You can find them scattered all over the dry beach too.

We find lots of them in all sorts of shapes and sizes. In our five weeks here we’ve been collecting them. Our shark teeth collection is now pretty large — we’ve probably found a couple hundred of them! Here are a few of the ones we’ve found:

The bambinos have found tons of other interesting things too. Lots of horseshoe crabs and jellyfish.

Kyle is fearless. He’ll pick up and hold anything. While his brother and sister squirm, he’ll hold every kind of crab he can catch.

And Owen is so quick that he can catch all sorts of little things in the water with his bare hands. He loves to catch tiny shrimp and minnows in the tidal pools at low tide.

And with nets and buckets the bambinos catch all sorts of crabs and shrimp and fish and who-knows-what-else!

This week the bambinos and I went tomato picking. Yes, tomato picking. We’ve been blueberry picking, strawberry picking, apple picking, pumpkin picking, and flower picking before. But tomato picking was a first for us.

I had seen the sign on the side of the road for the entire time we’ve been here. And I’ve been wanting to do it. So, this week we did. It is the very end of the tomato season here, so we were cutting it close, but we found a ton of tomatoes still on the vine, and had a great time doing it. The bambinos thought it was a blast!

We could have picked buckets and buckets full, but we limited ourselves to one small bucket (with only a week left at the beach house, there are only so many tomatoes we can eat!). We selected our tomatoes very carefully… there were so many to choose from!

In the past few days we’ve been eating these delicious fresh-off-the-vine, hand-picked, locally grown tomatoes. Of course, we’ve been eating them straight up. But we’ve also had tomato, mozzarella, and basil salad (sprinkled with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper — this is one of Braydon’s favorite foods of all time). We’ve had open-faced cheddar and tomato sandwiches (on English Muffins; simply sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake at 400 for a few minutes; classic!). We’ve had BLTs (really now, who doesn’t LOVE a BLT in the summertime?!). And we’ve had the best of the best — the best ever bruschetta. If you haven’t tried The Pioneer Woman’s Bruschetta (click for recipe), then you’re really missing out. And made with our fresh tomatoes this week… it was heavenly (I don’t even have a photo; they were eaten up way too fast). Happy Friday!

Kyle has been determined to teach Meera to boogie board. Over the past couple of days they’ve been having great success… thanks to Kyle’s endless patience. He has way more patience than I do with her. He has spent hours in the water with her, carefully pulling her out, getting her set up, waiting for the perfect waves, and giving her good pushes — over and over and over. When she has a good ride (which is often lately), she is so excited… and so is Kyle.

Tonight was our 5th Annual Summer “Haiti Dinner”!!!

We put Meera to bed early, made the traditional Haitian Steak Frites (what a labor of love!), and the four of us enjoyed a delicious and magical dinner together. This meal is always so amazing for us. Tonight was no exception. In fact, incredibly, it seems to get better every year (both the actual food, and the conversation). There is something so special about this night for us each year.

I remember thinking — when we were deciding to sell our old house — about this specific annual tradition. I can vividly remember thinking, “Oh my gosh!? What would it be like to have our Haiti Dinner someplace other than this house?!” It felt scary and foreign to me. And then I remember when we were in the process of renting this South Carolina Beach house… “Oh my! This would be where we’d have our Haiti Dinner. What would that be like?!”

Tonight we did it. It felt good and right and perfectly perfect. It was, in fact, I must admit, better than ever. We talked about it at dinner — when I confessed my original thoughts and anxieties about what it would be like to have our Haiti Dinner someplace other than the old house. We all agreed that it made no difference– if anything, it was the best this year– that it actually doesn’t matter one bit where we are, as long as we’re together doing it. We all four expressed hopes and dreams for the future, including many “Haiti Dinners” in the future… and where they take place doesn’t factor one bit into any of our visions.

Home is where the heart is. And, L’Union Fait La Force (“Unity Makes Strength.”)

I’m sure this kind of post seems sappy and over-the-top and pathetically-mushy-gushy-unreal-rainbows-and-sparkles to many. But I have to be honest in my portrayal of these things. And, honestly, this is how it is for us. Not always. But we do have our moments (good and bad, and the good — not the bad — most often show up on this blog). The day wasn’t perfect, we had lots of flaws and mishaps and stuff-to-work on. There were rough edges and issues. I lost my cool more than once when the bambinos were disobedient and disrespectful. I had my moments of questioning our existence and my sanity. But here, on the blog, I try to recount the best of our moments to remember — the anchors in our storm, and the very best versions of ourselves. Because these are the moments I want to string together in our memories as we stitch together our lives. This annual tradition is one of those moments.

A couple of minutes into our dinner, Owen asked us to take this picture, so we did (photo below). It isn’t always clear why they want a picture taken, but they ask often. And often those pictures show up on this blog. Tonight, Owen asked us to take the photo, and said something about how he wanted this picture on the blog so that everyone could see that he got to have a Perrier with dinner (a treat), after having had a ginger ale as his pre-dinner cocktail (another treat). He was proud of his two-carbonated-drink-evening. He was also, I think, feeling on top of the world– very proud of his Haitian heritage, and loving his steak. Here’s the pic:

For the back-story on this annual dinner for us, click here — CLICK!

This picture was taken out on the end of Harbor Island. It is a wide open space, a beach usually totally devoid of humans (but thriving with life), and it is one of the strangest and wildest and most jaw-dropping places I’ve ever experienced. We were out there one day and a couple was walking out there (rare to see anyone out there), so I asked them to take a picture for us. The bambinos and I have spent a lot of time out there over the past month. Interestingly enough, Braydon hasn’t even been out there yet. I’ve spent a ton of time alone with the kids this summer. Braydon’s been working a lot, and I have been taking a lot of time off.

Taking time off is hard for me. In the past 20 years the only time off I’ve taken has been sporadic vacations (never more than a week or 10 days), and my two family leaves (one semester when we adopted Kyle and Owen, and one semester when I gave birth to Meera). I have some deeply entrenched workaholic tendencies that I’m always trying to keep in check. And this summer has been a major challenge for me.

But now, as we approach our last week here, I am feeling better than ever. I look at this picture, above, and I see so clearly how important — and good — this summer has been for me, on so many levels.

I know that I will go back to work in a few weeks. I know that I will work hard, and it will be grueling, for the entire academic year. We will be living on campus, with all that goes with that. But this summer is revitalizing me even more than I could have ever hoped for. I feel so alive and in-tune. I feel so connected to my kids, my husband, and the world around me. I feel so refreshed. I am, right now, wishing I had figured this out years ago. Right now, if I could give advice to rising academics, I’d say this: do whatever you have to do to get tenure — and then, if you’re not totally dead by the time you get tenure, work your butt off during the academic year but start taking big chunks of each summer off. This doesn’t mean that we are truly “off” (most academics never are; we think about our work and brainstorm our research and percolate our ideas 100% of the time). My guess is that my ‘official’ work will be stronger than ever this coming year because of taking this time this summer.

On the other hand, I’m worried that I’ll — as a good friend hypothesized to me this morning — perhaps get “sea sick” in the attempt to vacillate between the two worlds of summer and school year, wide open spaces and the fishbowl of living on campus, the south and the north, the time “off” and the time “on.” As he said to me: will it be too much of a “rapid oscillation between two extremes”? I don’t know. It is scary. And I’m anxious about it.

I’m not prone to seasickness. At least not the actual on-the-water type. We will have to wait and see what happens. For now, I will do my best to make the most of this last week on Harbor Island.

My friend also suggested that rather than getting seasick, maybe I’ll feel it more like bungee jumping or roller coaster riding (both of which I like!). We shall see.

above: at Magnolia Plantation — Kyle jumping on a joggling board, Magnolia’s signature Long White Bridge, a historic marker sign

We spent yesterday at Magnolia Plantation. One thing that we knew, for sure, when embarking on this trip this summer, was that we wanted to visit a plantation. There are many of them open to the public in and around the Lowcountry. Braydon and I had visited plantations years ago, before the bambinos were in our life. So we knew what to expect, and we knew how intense it would be to tour one with our (interracial, adoptive, black-white) family. The other times we’ve visited the Lowcountry with our family, we knew we were not yet all ready for a plantation. But this time we knew that we were. So, Braydon did his (extensive) research [he is very good at that], and chose Magnolia. And yesterday was the day.

As white parents raising black boys we are very cognizant of our responsibility in educating them on black history. It is complicated, and challenging — to say the least. Kyle is, and has always been, much more intellectually interested than Owen. At this point, at age 9, Kyle is extremely interested — and is willing, and able (emotionally and psychologically), to take on an incredible amount of information, no matter how intensive and grueling that information is to process. He is like a sponge for it, and he just can never seem to get enough. He will probe and probe and probe and wants only the most brutally honest, historically factual, truth. Most people would be shocked (and some would probably be appalled) at the depth and level at which we are discussing incredibly complex topics with Kyle: Africa, slavery, U.S. History, Haitian History, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, black history. These are some of Kyle’s favorite topics. Owen, on the other hand, usually chooses to opt out of these conversations.He likes — and wants to know — some, and he probably knows a lot more than most kids his age. But, at least for now, he has little desire to dig deep into what is usually a very challenging topic for us all. He doesn’t want, and/or knows he can’t handle, too much information. And that is o.k.

So, when planning our trip to Magnolia Plantation, Braydon and I strategized very purposefully. We started the day exploring the grounds, seeing one very basic slave cabin, and visiting the farm/petting zoo area. Then we all did the tour of “The Plantation House.” We lucked out with a great tour guide — an older African-American woman who immediately took great interest in, and care for, our three kids (the only kids in a group of about 30) during her spinning of the information on our tour. She answered Kyle’s (many) questions with patience and grace, she let Owen go behind the fenced off areas more than once, and she pinched Meera’s cheeks repeatedly telling her how beautiful she is. She was a wonderful tour guide.

When that tour was done, Owen was clear that he was done. He was saturated, and we wanted to be careful not to push him, and this was exactly what we had anticipated, so we moved forward with our plan: Braydon took Owen and Meera to play and explore the gardens, riverfront, and woodsy trails. And I took Kyle to proceed with the more intensive parts of the plantation. Because Kyle, of course, was barely just getting started and was pushing hard for more, more, more, more, and more.

Kyle and I spent the rest of the time digging deep into the African-American, and slave, history of the plantation. One of the reasons Braydon chose Magnolia was because of the option to add on the “From Slavery to Freedom” tour to the basic admission. It was perfect for Kyle. He could have spent hours and hours and hours on the African-American history part.

On the From Slavery to Freedom tour, Kyle and I were immersed in the history of southern U.S. slavery, plantation and slave life, and we got to see — firsthand — some of the original slave cabins on the plantation. It is an incredibly interesting, and incredibly challenging experience. We learned so much.

And, of course, the plantation is gorgeous too — with its historic plethora of gardens and its mystic-looking majestic oaks dripping with Spanish moss everywhere you look.

It should go without saying that the whole day was a pretty profound experience. One of the things that draws us to the Lowcountry is the accessibility to Africana history, Gullah/Geechee culture, and the roots of black American life. The history here is not in the past. It is right at the surface, ripe and open to possibility. It is a wealth of opportunity for exploring, experiencing, and learning.

p.s. We just happened to go to Magnolia Plantation on their “Ladybug Day.” This is a day, once a year, when they release 70,000 ladybugs into their gardens as part of a strategy for keeping their horticulture healthy. They gave small containers of ladybugs to some children yesterday — Meera included — to release wherever they chose throughout the plantation. Meera had great fun doing this!

Our dear friends the Slavins came to visit this week. They drove down and spent Sunday-Thursday with us in South Carolina. 2 families; 6 kids; 1 beach house; lots of fun.

Visiting the Lowcountry is like visiting another land. There is so much to explore. And for kids, especially, it is a really magical, distant, mysterious place. There is an endless wealth of new things to look at and learn about. Life — of all sorts — is teeming everywhere. The air feels different. The food tastes different. The sounds are different. And even the light looks different. Coming from “up north,” you feel like you’ve been transported to some unfamiliar place that is calm and easy, yet rugged and jolting all at the same time. You can’t help but get swept up in it, even if just a little bit. And it is fun to be able to do that with each other.

We have a tradition of spending New Year’s Eve with the Slavins. But we don’t usually get the chance to spend more time than that together each year. So, it was very special to have this time together, in a whole different place for us all, and to be able to string a few days together as a group of 10 in the sunny southern summer (as opposed to our snowy northern New Years Eves).

Jen and I were college roommates. Our kids all know that about us. I think they know there is something really different and special about our friendship– something that goes beyond time, distance, and years of change. We are deep-down, long-term, in-it-for-the-long-haul friends. I love that about us. We’ve embraced each other’s husbands and kids. And we’ve embraced each other’s evolutions over the past two decades. We don’t sit around reminiscing about our college days (at least not much), we are — truly — in the here and now.

Meera took these pictures — Jen and me drinking iced coffee on the beach one afternoon. These pictures are sooo unflattering (!! something about the angle?! Or, God forbid?!, do we really look this way as we embark on our 20th-college-reunion-year?!). (Let me apologize to you for posting these Jen, and please, let me assure you publicly here: IN REAL LIFE you are a hot Mama!)… But still, despite how truly unflattering they are, I love these photos. Because they show us as seen through the eyes of one of our 5-year-old daughters. And we’re looking pretty good through those eyes! We can only hope that our kids have such great college roommates as we did. We can only hope our kids make life-long friends that stick it out with them through thick and thin. This is real life friendship.

Highlights of the week (in addition to creme brûlée iced coffee on the beach with one of my best friends in the whole wide world) include:

Lots of time on Hunting Island beach; boogie boarding; collecting sharks teeth; diving for sand dollars; catching fish and crabs in the beach tide pools; lots of meals together; a dinner out with a table for ten; dance parties in the beach house; golf cart expeditions; alligators, turtles, fiddler crabs, hermit crabs, blue crabs, snakes, “dogfish sharks”, fish; first ginger ales! cheers!; visits to the Hunting Island Marsh Boardwalk, the Hunting Island Nature Center, The Penn Center, The Red Piano Too Art Gallery; a night out for Jen & Anthony and a great night in with all six kids for Heather & Braydon; a ridiculous amount of art production from the little girls; bonding over the barbie/grill; the kids playing playing playing; the adults talking talking talking; a lot of downtime together.

The best part of the past week was being able to have fun with our kids. It was such fun for our kids. But it was also such fun for us. It was fun to do it all together.

Next time we’re going to do a super-high-end luxury all-inclusive resort with a day spa (I’m making that executive decision! LOL! oh-my-goodness-6-kids-is-a-lot-of-work!!! the food alone!!!!!! let alone the lugging of all the beach stuff!! plus… we can’t fit all ten of us in one car– not even Braydon’s Loser Cruiser Minivan.). But… I wouldn’t have given up the past week for anything.

Thank you Slavins. Thank you for making the very long drive (with an 8 year old, 5 year old, and 1 year old!!!!!!!). Thank you for spending your vacation time with us. Thank you for friendship that withstands time and space and six kids and everything else. Thank you for the laughs. Thank you. We love you five. xo, ~the five J-Ms

Kyle loves blueberry muffins. They are definitely one of his favorite foods — if not his favorite (it is sort of neck-and-neck between blueberry muffins and a grilled, medium-rare, sirloin strip steak). He doesn’t like candy at all. He generally doesn’t like cookies, cakes, or sweets of any kind. But he loves blueberry muffins.

And he is pretty much a blueberry muffin connoisseur. Not just any old blueberry muffin will do.

So, this summer, I’ve worked hard to perfect a recipe for a super simple, “homemade,” blueberry muffin that will make Kyle a happy Muffin Man.

And folks, here it is. A great, easy, 5-minute (I swear!), ‘cheater,’ blueberry muffin recipe that results in what Kyle claims is the best blueberry muffin he’s ever had. (And trust me, he’s had many.)

* * *

Beach House Blueberry Muffins

1. Buy a box of Krusteaz brand “Wild Blueberry” Muffin mix.
2. Buy (or pick!) some fresh blueberries.
3. Mix ingredients according to the directions on the box— with two exceptions: 1) Discard the tin/can of “wild blueberries.” Switch in, instead, about one cup of fresh blueberries. Note: do not over mix. Be sure to just barely combine the ingredients, and gently fold in the blueberries. 2) Add about one teaspoon cinnamon.
4. Using 12 cupcake wrappers, placed in a muffin tin, evenly distribute the muffin mixture amongst a dozen muffin cups.

5. As a special little somethin’ somethin’ I place one blueberry at the center/top of each muffin. (This makes ‘em look real pretty when they’re baked!)

6. As another special little somethin’ somethin’ I sprinkle each with about a teaspoon or two of sugar. (This also makes ‘em look real pretty when they’re baked!)

7. Bake at 400 degrees for 16 minutes (no more! no less!). Take them out, and immediately take the muffins out of the tin. Place on plate, or wire rack, to cool for a minute or two (or five).

8. Share with your loved ones. Blueberry muffin lovers will love these!

9. They are awesome warm, straight out of the oven. They are also great the next day, and even the next (if they last that long).