June 2023
Beaches and MacArthur geniuses who eat BBQ
Here’s my (try as hard as I can) monthly round-up for those of you who want to learn about or keep up a little more with me and the work that I do. Hope you enjoy.
Every beach day is different
A couple of days ago, after finding a primo parking space at a public access, I walked a sandy path past cars and too-hot kiddies in damp bathing suits to catch my first glimpse of Pawleys Island Beach. Over the crest of low dunes, green bands of clear water with blue to the horizon greeted me. Small waves hit the low-tide-wide shore. A local said it was the clearest he’d seen the ocean there since 2008 when he first moved. I set up my towel amongst all the family tents then soon was floating on my back in that clear-ish water, looking up and smiling as pelicans in formation glided overhead.
Today I sit in a gifted cottage experience out more in the country of Georgetown County, SC, the on-off rain pretty much socked in for the day. It’s a different rhythm, a different view, but both informed by the other, and I can’t help but think how easily I could have missed the anomaly of green water swimming on a SC beach. Travel is often inconvenient, even when it’s only twenty minutes to the beach.
If it’s a longer trip like mine these next few months, or one that involves planes or buses or getting back together with your suitcases, there are moments where you will be uncomfortable, more than occasionally a little dehydrated, the bed pillow won’t squish under your head just like you like it, and you likely don’t know how to work something: your plug converter, the coffeemaker, or the bus schedule in another language. It can be easy to skip, but don’t, and if all that seems overwhelming, then I invite you to start small.
Maybe take the kids to the park across town; go pick blueberries for an hour; or cruise for a good space at a public access beach and then take off your shoes when you get to the water. Despite what social media suggests, travel doesn’t have to be expensive or far, but just away from your everyday. The worth of doing the thing when you’re back at your computer on a rainy day is like a shiny token in your pocket.
Not a cloud in the sky when I hit the beach at Pawleys Island on Sunday. Photo: Stephanie Burt.
I’m out here at my desk for a quiet work retreat (I’ve built those in so I can process what I’m experience and well, write and record and all the things ;) ), so more will be headed your way soon. In the meantime, enjoy my deep dive on the Taco Salad that just went live on Simply Recipes, or get to know Cheyenne Bond, an emerging Charleston executive chef talent in our Q&A for Resy.
Next up on the Southern Fork summer tour: Greenville, SC, then multiple spots in GA!
Episode Updates
Amanda McLamb of Resident Culture Brewing in Charlotte and I chatted about beer culture and how she and her team is reimaging it — along with making some seriously creative beers — at this popular North Carolina brewery.
Then I talked all “church potluck” food with Jessica Shillato in Columbia, SC, whose popular lunch and catering business, Spotted Salamander, makes hundreds of deviled eggs a week along with plenty of old-fashioned desserts and classic sandwiches and salads.
There were two BBQ-focused podcasts, but two very distinct conversations: Hector Garate of Palmira BBQ in Charleston shared how fire, smoke, and locally-sourced meat come together to help him express his Puerto Rican heritage. And then MacArthur fellow Drew Lanham, Edgefield, SC native and poet/ornithologist, read two never-before-released pieces of BBQ-centric poetry in a conversation that threaded through race, history, childhood memories, and of course, granny’s cooking.
There are some travel journal bonus episodes happening too, so subscribe to keep up with my thoughts from the road!
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Other published media I like right now: I am savoring each chapter of Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act as he reads it aloud on Audible. I can’t wait to finish it just to start it again because each chapter is like a mini-meditation.
The power of research is still alive and well in ProPublica’s piece on the largest ever slave auction in the US. It’s simply great reporting by Jennifer Hawes about a College of Charleston grad student and how her discovery recasts the history of the city.
On my mind: always a million things, especially at 3 a.m … this month — did I lock the door? Where am I headed next? And “where is my beige. iridescent. lipstick?!” (iykyk)
Cooking soundtrack album: The Age of Pleasure, Janelle Monae
Best thing I cooked this month: Rhoten’s Onion Sausage with mushrooms and veggies over Altman Farm’s grits.
Until next time,
Steph