Life with GOM: Chapter One

Welcome to Mount Pleasant, South Carolina!

I am so lucky to have a friend who is generous and invites myself and my husband to share his home which he's had here for many years now.

A month on holiday is a treat. My particular passion is food – cooking it – South Carolina is culinary heaven, there's so much to learn and to sample. Our friend is English and a Northerner too, my contribution to the chores is to cook for the three of us and occasional guests that drop by when we are at home. As a cook, it's good to “fly by the seat of your pants”, check what's in the fridge and the cupboards (discarding shrunken heads first!) and hope!

My husband and my friend are best friends, they have one major hobby in common, they enjoy what I call “Chinese” crosswords, I use this phrase because to me they may as well be speaking Mandarin, this hobby has a language all of its own and is very complex. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there is a degree of competition here and anyone present at their early morning sessions is privy/witness to bickering like you would not believe. Hence my phrase, life with the GOM (grumpy old men), said affectionately of course.

The other, and most important member of the household is my friend's dog, Choo Choo, a wheaten terrier who, surprise surprise, came from Chattanooga (those of us who are old enough will of course be reminded of the Glen Miller song).

For those of us who have read the book (by Margaret Mitchell) or seen the subsequent film “Gone with the Wind”, this really is the deep south, untouched, except for “Downtown” Charleston where its popularity knows no bounds. Downtown is an experience – the street lighting is still in its original form and lit by hand each day. The original slave market is still there, although these days it has a different use – Charleston's Historic City Market - it's a mixture – at one end, the posh end, it's full of archetypal tourist type shop units selling prints, food, et al. The other resembles an open market in the north of England.

In this part of the world the range and quality of products is outstanding. Excellent meat, fish and seafood generally. One of my OCD habits is to compare the contents of my shopping cart – sorry – trolley, forgive the USA speak, to that of my counterpart. You'll find tetra pack cartons of instant mashed potato the size of a small house – small is not a word you'd apply to any portion size/control here. The choice of potatoes is wide – the Russet, the best baked version – Yukon Gold, so versatile boil, mash or in particular saute and Red Creamer for boiling, steaming and skin-on mash.

I hope you'll be entertained in the forthcoming chapters.