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Hunter Gatherer

Hunter Gatherer is a restaurant/micro-brewery that I’ve walked past innumerable times, each time causing me to turn back for one lost whiff of the delicious aromas wafting off of the dishes the diners seated outside were enjoying. A spur of the moment dinner with a friend finally caused me to try the place out and it was definitely a good choice. My friend highly recommended the burgers and the beer was great.

My boyfriend thoroughly enjoyed  a burger and was highly impressed by the toppings offered—smoked gouda even!—and had an excellent wheat beer. I, not being a big meat-eater, opted for a roasted chicken ravioli tossed with wilted spinach and sun-dried tomatoes, and covered with olive oil and a balsamic vinegarette. It was excellent, although sweeter than I expected. My friend chose a grilled chicken panini with a pesto mayonnaise and paired it with a Pale Ale. Simply, it was a delightful meal with wonderful ingredients and an even better atmosphere.

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Cooking in the Moment by Andrea Reusing


As far as cookbooks go, Andrea Reusing‘s Cooking in the Moment: A Year of Seasonal Recipes, is the cream of the crop. Rather than containing an overwhelming number of recipes that require lots of advanced technique and special tools, Reusing approaches cooking in much the same way I do—cooking is about enhancing the experience of eating fresh, quality ingredients, not masking the taste of vegetables in a mess of spices and sauces. In a lot of ways, this cookbook can be read as a carefully crafted food journal, with dates, stories, and incredible photographs; however, it contains a lot of good advice and technique tips as well.

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Drip

Having recently relocated from a middle-of-nowhere college town to a slightly less middle-of-nowhere state capital, Columbia, I have spent a lot of time wandering around and exploring. I have found that free, local newspapers make exploration a little easier—at first, anyway. Very early on I managed to find some awesome Farmer’s Markets (local everything! Including produce, herbs, meats, seafood, and better yet, apple, peach, and blueberry donuts baked on-site!) and believed that I was truly in heaven; then, as I was savoring my blueberry donuts, I decided to find the local coffee shop I had read about in one of the local newspapers.

What I found was mere minutes from the farmer’s market, offered individually brewed cups of coffee, and had a season brunch menu that I just couldn’t resist. The place: Drip. I’m no coffee aficionado, and honestly judge coffee shops more on the quality of their hot chocolate than the coffee, but one sip of their espresso milkshake and I was hooked.

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