Blog a la Carte

The Hilton Head Island Wine & Food Festival is March 10, but the celebration actually starts several days before. The Great Chefs of the South series brings together great wine and great chefs for exclusive wine dinners March 5-10.

Today, the dinners were officially announced:

We recently ran a story to preview the annual Cooks & Books benefit for Literacy Volunteers of the Lowcountry Sunday (Feb. 12). As part of that, I tried something different. I asked the chefs about their favorite book, and I asked the authors their favorite Southern dish.

I ended up getting a good response, but, unfortunately, I had to cut a few due to the limits of print. But thanks to this thing called the "Internet," I can post everything uncut.

Here's all the responses I got:

Hudson's On the Docks! Congratulations to the north-end seafood house.

Attendees of this year's Restaurant Week got to vote for their favorite place. My understanding is that Hudson's won by a fairly wide margin. And I believe their Restaurant Week menu is extended through Feb. 13. It's a three-course meal for $20.99 with seven options for the entree. Check it out here.

If you don't have plans yet for Super Bowl Sunday, don't fret. Plenty is going on in the Lowcountry if you're looking for a good party.

Most hangouts will have something happening, but here's a few that are up to something special for the big game. Log in below and let us know if you've got a good idea about where to hang Sunday night (and don't suggest your place, unless you've got chicken wing cupcakes).

The Hilton Head Island Wine & Food Festival isn't until March, but the best wines have already been decided. Twenty judges sampled more than 740 wines at the International Wine Judging & Competition late last month.

The best dining deals of the year are about to end. The last day for Restaurant Week 2012 is Saturday (Jan. 28).

The Hilton Head Island-Bluffton event brings together dozens of restaurants that offer fixed price menus of some of their most popular dishes. Most of the time, the discount ends up being pretty decent.

Kenny B's is known for his unique recipes at the annual Soup Challenge to benefit Volunteers in Medicine (For example, his 2001 entry involved apple cider, Grand Marnier and apple schnapps and was dubbed "Granny Smith Got Drunk in Key West!").

He did it again this year with his Cuzin Cooter's Choot-em Gator, Fried Turkey and Swamp Critter Stew, an interesting concoction that ended up winning the judge's vote.

Take a look at the recipe below. Good luck making it yourself.

Restaurant Week is almost upon us.

From Jan. 21-28, dozens of Hilton Head and Bluffton restaurants will offer up fixed-price menus with multiple options for each course. The idea is to get people out of the house and into restaurants during a particularly slow time of the year. The best part is that many of the restaurants have some pretty good bargains.

Mallory Russell and her P-Nutty BBQ Chicken Quesadilla need your help.

The second-grader at Hilton Head Island School for the Creative Arts is a top 10 finalist in the Jif Most Creative Peanut Butter Sandwich Contest. Her entry is a combination of her three favorite foods: peanut butter, barbecue and Mexican food.

The Lowcountry may not have the same vibe as Times Square on New Year's Eve, and maybe that's a good thing. We don't have a giant ball that drops at midnight, but we do have a giant crab pot. We don't have New Year's Rockin' Eve, but we do have Cranford and Sons, Broke Locals, Zach Deputy, the Simpson Brothers and, thankfully, no Justin Bieber. Not too bad for our little pocket of the country.

Read on to get an idea about what all's going on in the Hilton Head Island/Beaufort area this New Year's Eve. Log in and post below if you know of anything else fun happening.