Bar Food

Well, faithful readers (all three of you), I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that the blog posts have been non-existent for nearly two weeks.  Why, you ask?  Well, there was this small hurdle of a bar exam I had to deal with.  And without me to enrich his life, Phillip just didn’t have anything to write about.  I kid about Phillip needing me to enrich his life, but I’m completely serious about the bar exam.  For those of you out there who have ever taken a bar exam or for those of you that have lovingly supported some insane person taking a bar exam, I’m sure you can appreciate the low priority blogging takes once you realize you have no idea what the seven defenses to divorce are or how many days you have to answer a complaint once it has been removed to federal court on appropriate diversity grounds.  So I attempted to cram all of that stuff into my head (back into my head in some cases) until I finally dumped it all out on the South Carolina bar exam last week.  There’s no real way to know how I did and it’s not a lot of fun to think about, so that’s all I have to say about the bar exam.  Except I will say that my wonderful mother went with me and did her best to keep me glued together during the whole ordeal.  And in the midst of all that, we did take some time for some local eats.

On our way to Columbia, we stopped for lunch in Atlanta at The Varsity.  Such a simple menu, but a winner on atmosphere with the pushy cashiers demanding “What’ll ya have?!?”  Also, I’m a fan of the “orange drink” they make in house.  Since we were doing some food traveling, we took along our mascot, Argnome (ar-nome-ay).  Argnome became our mascot during the Great Midwest Food Trip of 2010 in which my mom, my Uncle Richard, and I took a road trip through four states dining at various fancy and not-so-fancy establishments (and taking a hover ferry across Lake Michigan, visiting Lincoln’s tomb, and generally avoiding interstates to get a flavor of backroad America).  Anyway, back to The Varsity – here are some scenes:

Argnome at The Varsity

In Columbia, our hotel was surprisingly walking-distance convenient to several local dining options (unlike the very bar examinee-unfriendly Montgomery).  We had a yummy dinner from Nonnah’s and indulged (or consoled, in my case) ourselves with award winning desserts.

Layer cake taller than Argnome!

We enjoyed the very nice, though dimly-lit, Blue Marlin restaurant on Tuesday:

To celebrate the end of the exam, we went to the highly recommended Mr. Friendly’s in Five Points.  The fried oysters I had were excellent and Mom loved her pork special.

A local favorite.

Great fried oysters.

The next day, we headed to Charleston to get a feel for the place and to meet with a realtor.  And, of course, to grab a great meal.  We chose The Hominy Grill and were not disappointed.  Wow.  The best shrimp and grits I’ve had!  Mom chose a dish called the Big Nasty Biscuit, which was a chicken biscuit with cheese and a sausage gravy (we think it was andouille).  It was delicious too. 

Argnome at The Hominy Grill

The Big Nasty Biscuit

Great shrimp and grits - light cheese in the grits and just the right combo of fresh lemon juice and Tabasco on the shrimp.

And to top it off, we had an amazing chocolate pudding and a slice of buttermilk pie.  Mom would have preferred a milk chocolate instead of a dark chocolate and was a little turned off by the nutmeg in the pie, but I thoroughly enjoyed both – so much that I bought their cookbook so I can make it all myself!

Buttermilk Pie - it's very similar to chess pie, a favorite of the church bake sale.

Extra creamy dark chocolate pudding.

Finally, we got around to actually doing some exploring in some areas that would be convenient for us to live (relative to the hospital so Phillip can take call at home sometimes).  We didn’t take any pictures of this process, but we did turn around and go back to get this one:

Now, I'm from Alabama so seeing a trailer on cement blocks is no big thing, but a trailer on a stack of like 8 cement blocks was a new one.

Thanks to Mom, Phillip, and the rest of my friends and family who never cease to amaze me with their support, I survived the bar.  Mom and I got some quality time together, I began to get oriented to Charleston, and we experienced some great local food.  All in all, a successful week!  But keep your fingers crossed for me on that whole passing the bar exam thing.