Who’s the Best Teen Chef? High School seniors dreaming of enrolling in culinary school can enter the Best Teen Chef Competition 2009 at the International Culinary School at the Art institute of Charleston. The top prize is a full-tuition scholarship to study culinary arts.

     If  your culinary skills aren’t up to competition standards, you might want to investigate the basic kitchen training for teens and young adults at Chop Chop Culinary Boot Camp on James Island.

     Looking for the perfect cup of coffee? Charleston Coffee Roasters offers a free Coffee Cupping on the third Thursday of each month at 12:30. Learn the tradition of tasting coffee from our own local roaster.

We are breakfast diners. The menu is usually so limited that it gets very boring, so we are always looking for somewhere special to go. We tried the EARLY BIRD Diner Saturday morning. It’s located on 17S just past the car shops, where Alex’s used to be. If you’re looking for quality over quantity this is the place. Not to say I wasn’t full, I actually left food on my plate. But there’s no sloppy all-you-can-stuff-in buffet where everyone can mingle their germs into a stew. Yum, doesn’t that sound attractive!

The diner has so much going for it. Nicole and Dexter are the top dogs here. I was told that Dexter used to be at Rosebank Café. They serve good grits, fresh tall biscuits and the apple butter was homemade, divine and 24 hours in the making. I now know what those bottled versions were trying to do. There was also a white grape jelly, house made.

Foster and I both had the special omlette and I must say it’s just like I would make it. Fresh lightly wilted spinach with just a light smathering of goat cheese and sprinkled with bacon. The flavors were complementary, balanced and very fresh tasting..

The coffee was ok, not the best, but still a good solid brew and better than most.  The service friendly, not pushy. All in all the best breakfast I’ve had all year. What a great find!

Lunch looks good too; I’m thinking the roast beef with cucumber and creamy chive spread on black bread. Sounds good, as do the soups. OK, I’m there, hope to see you too.

Open

Tues – Thurs      7a-4p

Fri and Sat –       8a-4p

                           6p-4a

Sunday Brunch 10a-3p

Closed Monday

I got out the mixer to try a Sour Cream Coffee Cake.  Since blueberries are so plentiful, I thought I’d add them. They have more antioxidants than any North American fruit and walnuts are richer in Omega 3 than just about anything. These two are amazing powerhouses. The trick I’ve always used is to dust additions like blueberries with a tad of the recipe’s flour and fold them in lightly at the last moment unless you are baking in a lavender theme. Dusting with flour keeps nuts or berries or any of those additions from sinking and collecting on the bottom.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Topping: Combine and set aside:

2t cinnamon

2T sugar

1c chopped walnuts; I was out and used pecans

Cake:Cream:

2 sticks of margarine or butter, softened

1 ¼ c sugar

 Add:

2 beaten eggs

 1 c (sm container) sour cream

1tvanilla

Sift together and add

2 c sifted all purpose flour

1 t baking powder

1t vanilla

½ t baking soda, dash of salt

Mix well. Gently fold in fruit if you’re using it. Pour half the batter into a well greased 10” tube pan. Sprinkle with half of the sugar/nut mix. Pour in rest of batter, then top with remaining sugar mix.Bake at 350’ for 1 hour, dust with 10xx sugar while warm. Cool in pan. Using a sheet cake pan, about 30 minutes.

I almost overbaked it. I didn’t bother with the 10xx sugar.Okay, I can’t leave well enough alone. I used a sheet pan and added the floured blueberries. I’m trying to use whole grains instead of processed flour so I used the King Arthur 100% White Whole Wheat flour. I did use butter. It was the only sticks I had in the freezer.You could add choc chips, peaches, apples and raisins, almost anything. It was really good!

We decided on the Tagines,  slow cooked Morrocan stews served over couscous. A major flavor I’ve read about in Morrocan cuisine is preserved lemons, so I asked our server for a taste. She brought out delicately cut zest of lemon that had been salted and put away to “cure” for weeks. The result is a very tasty condiment.

This was good to learn because we have citrus trees and you know you’re in a tough spot trying to come up with a use for 300 softball sized Meyer lemons. We made banana lemon preserves that were divine one year, but that’s alot of jars.

We each had a different flavor stew. One friend had the chicken slow cooked with preserved lemons and green olives. The other chose the short ribs braised in red wine with raisins, tomatoes and cinnamon. I lucked out with the lamb that was cooked with apricots, figs, almonds and shallots. The lamb was very rich and savory, tender and quite good. The portions served in the traditional earthenware containers resembling the tin man’s hat were really filling. We were able to barely split a creme brulee afterwards. A little warm but very smooth and tasty.

These tagines aren’t the cheapest item on the menu at $21, but they are so representative of the country that it would be a shame to miss them.  I’d certainly go back.

Last week I had lunch with my favorite cousin at Lana on the corner of Rutledge and Cannon. I’ve always liked the looks of the place but had never stopped in. Parking is tricky just like anywhere in the city, but there were spots right on the street.

Chef Ondo has put together an interesting lunch menu and there are some items I’ll just have to go after on the dinner menu, like the Lamb and Feta spanikopita. That just spoke to me. My husband and I went to a Greek Easter celebration recently and the it reminded me how much I love Mediteranean flavors.

We chose the Pear and Gorgonzola Salad with toasted walnuts and I have to tell you it was spectacular. The pears had been poached in a port/wine (?)mixture and cut into chunks. I had mine with feta and I’ll be back. The salad was $9 and extremely filling. But there was room for dessert, a treat that seldom happens when we have lunch.

My cousin chose the lemon creme brulee and I would have stolen it if he had had to leave the table. I had a dark choclate cake that tasted  like the baker used baking chocolate instead of dark. I like a stout chocolate but for most people it would be way too bitter. I would recommend the lemon creme brulee. Overall, the meal was delicious and I’ll go back.