the Charleston Food & Wine Show

With the possible exception of New Orleans, no city in this country defines itself through its food more than Charleston. So -- when the city hosts its annual Food & Wine Festival, you drop everything and go. No excuses. And so I went.

I had a plan. I would be disciplined. I would start with appetizers and salads, work through the heartier offerings, and then do a dessert round (or rounds). Well, that plan lasted about 9 seconds as I began with a microbrew beer followed almost immediately by a caramel gelato. From that point on, it was essentially pure, random chaos. The gloves were off. all normal dietary rules were abandoned. Prepare yourself for what follows: pig head remoulade, tomato basil soup, couscous with leeks and shrimp, artichoke relish, praline pecans, banana pudding, catfish stew, sweet tea vodka bloody mary, coconut jasmine rice pudding (getting dizzy yet?), pinots run amok: noir, gris, and grigio. Double duck salad of confit and breast, blueberries, strawberries, and a vanilla bean vinaigrette; chilled Yukon potato soup with leeks and pickled crab salad, sauvignon blancs and malbecs, dark chocolate toffee crunch, pizza on flatbread with prosciutto, arugula and sliced parmesan. And, as they say, so much more. After two full hours of what had long since stopped being a casual grazing but had become instead a food frenzy worthy of your typically ravenous shark, I waddled semi-consciously to my car, hung out the “wide load” sign and got home so I could fall down.

It’s good these events only come once a year.