Spring Fever = Monday Escape

I blame my late spring restlessness on our school system. It's classical conditioning at it's harshest: the arrival of May means summer vacation and zero responsibility just around the corner, right? Well, until you grow up. And no matter how many years go by sans summer vacay, I still find myself, like today, hit with a case of near-summer wanderlust, wanting to play outside, adventure to new places, and snack on treats all day long. Which is why I love the NYT Travel section. It allows me to be an escape artist at her finest, reinventing that notion of 2 weeks paid vacation we all know never really works. Today's destination: the French Alps. Snack of the day: Tartiflette. Travel time: 15 minutes. (article here)

Anyone have a good recipe for Tartiflette?
I want to re-create this melt-in-your mouth Mac & Cheese-meets-Scalloped Potatoes casserole asap.

South Carolina's Low Country Highs

The weekend before last, I went on my very first Southern Adventure. Well, that's not exactly true, but considering I didn't eat much besides PBJ sandos, corn dogs and french fries for the first 12 years of my life, the family Alabama trip back in '92 doesn't count. My dear friend Natalia tied the knot in the very quaint and delightful town of Charleston, and I couldn't have been more thrilled to satisfy some of my Southern food fascination. After checking into my hotel in the historic downtown area, I rented a beach cruiser, and had the entire weekend to trek around town discovering all sorts of yummy treats.
The highlights of the Low Country included:

Kitchen soap at Charleston Cooks! They call themselves the maverick kitchen store, and it really was one of the most amazing specialty cooking shops I've been too. There was a class going on as I was in there that I got to peek my head into (culinary school, ahh, so excited), and they sell a ton of unique spices geared for cooking Low Country cuisine. The oyster bar at Hank's Seafood.
The baskets at the City Market near the waterfront
The Shrimp & Grits at Nat's wedding, yummmm... And the Citrus Mint Martini (I didn't think a mint julep could be rivaled!) at the bar at Fig

I could have stayed another week!