Day 5: Carolina Food Only

Yesterday again things got easier. It was the first day I didn't feel deprived -- I just cooked and ate some tasty food. The only thing I missed was fish sauce for the Thai stewed chicken. I guess in theory a person could make her own fish sauce -- just set some fish and salt in a bucket in the hot Carolina sun for a few weeks and then strain out the juices, right? Unfortunately I failed to plan ahead. Also we might have been forced out of the neighborhood.

For dinner we had a sort of spicy Thai stewed chicken dish over rice. It contained:

• Chicken thighs - Oaklyn Plantation
• Green eggplant - garden
• Roma and cherry tomatoes - garden
• Thai basil - garden
• Parsley - garden
• Garlic chives - garden
• Poblano and Thai chiles - garden

I served it over Carolina Gold Rice cooked to be a little sticky. Supposedly Carolina Gold Rice is chameleon-like and can take on a variety of rice textures. This was convincingly Asian in texture, and the fragrance was nutty in the way jasmines and basmatis are.

Aaaaand check it out: I made South Carolina ice cream. The texture was imperfect -- a little icy -- but still delicious. I used South Carolina peaches, Colonial Plantation honey, Happy Cow creamery milk, and Wil-Moore eggs. Honey-peach ice cream.

On my pal Jason's recommendation I bought some Highland Gaelic Ale from Asheville. It's great. I also drank a few Hunter Gatherer pale ales.

Lunch was simple: cheesy scrambled eggs with chives, a leftover biscuit with homemade fig preserves (we picked the figs in Forest Acres last year), and a peach.