On the way to Charleston we took a slight detour to Beaufort (pronounced Bew-fort, sounds like you-fort). A quick visit to the tourist information building where they had a big map of America and pins where all their visitors came from, mischievous Mollie and I decided to add a section with two pins for Esther and I !!
Beaufort is a sleepy little town, which may be due to it being a week day, not sure, and very historic with buildings from the Civil War. We split up as we wanted to see different things. Esther and I wandered looking at the houses and churches and ended up at a small Civil War museum and in speaking to the ladies there it was interesting to us that there was a pocket of people who still harbour end the north/south grudge. It was also interesting at the small cemetery at the church that there was a mixture of Confederate and Yankee flags nestled into the graves.
Onward we continued after a good wander around town and ended up at Sullivan's Island. How wonderful. This was on Kathie's bucket list and I'm so glad we went. Pristine beach on the Atlantic Ocean. It was absolutely beautiful. I was surprised when I checked the weather that it was only 12 Celsius as we were in short sleeves, the weather was wonderful.
Here we are, our heads just fit!!
Arrived in Charleston, a much bigger city than Savannah, checked into the hotel and then wandered downtown. I tell you Pralines are huge down here. HUGE!! I mean huge as popular and huge as in big! And they are absolutely delicious! Every second store was offering free samples. No need for dessert, just wander down the Main Street!! And what is with the Caramel Apples? Never seen anything like it, so different to our toffee apples.
Off to dinner at a very VERY nice restaurant called Magnolias. We had checked out some lovely restaurants in advance from Australia and this one seemed that the menu was an adventure! And an adventure it was.
Our waiter who shall remain nameless (to protect the not so innocent), let's call him Ted for the purpose of the exercise, was let's just say a tad snooty. Don't get me wrong, it was an exceptional menu and meal and we had decided that tonight we were going to dine well.
I wanted to go completely Southern, I've been pretty much eating salads a lot when we've gone out, so I wanted this meal to be authentic. I had pecan crusted chicken, mashed potatoes, collard greens with a side of grits. Oh my! Okay so we worked out that collard greens are just silver beet!
So snooty Ted did his job and ensured we were catered for, we could not take a sip of water before the glass was refilled, but always with his nose in the air. We decided the meal was delish and all looked at each other when the dessert menu came round. We tried to engage him in conversation and he did talk about his dogs, but it seemed a bit out of character for him to make chit chat with the diners. Didn't need much convincing, dessert was definitely on the cards. Amongst the other orders Esther and I decided to share 'Southern Pecan Pie' (with bourbon caramel sauce and vanilla bean icecream).
So Snooty Ted comes to deliver Kathie's apple cake and Lynnie's choc chip pound cake. He places Kathie's plate ever so carefully down and arranges it just so, that the name of the restaurant on the plate was at 12 o'clock. Then he goes to place Lynnie's plate down and I swear he was overcome with the five ravishing beauties in front of him, either that or he had heard of Lynnie's kleptomaniac ways with the fork at Paula Deen's and was trying to do a table count of cutlery in his head and lost concentration, that the plate jumped out of his hand. It did a somersault in the air across the table and landed slap bang upside down on top of Kathie's plate and squished her apple cake so hard it split her plate in two. Not only that but Lynnie's icecream scoop on top of her pound cake flew off the top of her cake and shot across the table, her wine glass full of water and ice fell over so hard it split the wine glass into two. And nary a drop of any of this went on any of us.
Poor Snooty Ted was sooooo embarrassed and full of southern charm there was some "oh my gracious me's" thrown in. He was mortified, and it didn't help that we were shaking trying to swallow our giggles, we just looked at each other and saw tears in each other's eyes we were laughing so much. Everything after that was extraordinarily funny. We just had to say something to each other and we were gone, falling about laughing! He got us two replacement desserts immediately after wiping the table and then he was gone for an age. I had visions of him holding on to the kitchen door with clenched fists begging not to go out to face the laughing ladies any more.
And if course the scrapbookers in us had the good grace not to take photos of the actual scene, but the aftermath tablecloth was not off limits.
When he did finally come out he couldn't be more apologetic once again, it was all too much and even now, hours later, just the thought of it still makes me laugh. Poor Snooty Ted, I don't think tonight will be forgotten for a long time by him or us.
