Sea Island Mama's 1st event/Play Date! May 10th :)

All the James Island (and surrounding area) mamas out there! 

Sea Island Mama's very 1st event/ play date!

This is going to be so adorable.

Chick-fil-A on James Island is hosting a Mother-Daughter Tea Party on May 10th. Betty and I are going to the 8:45am reservation!

We get to play dress-up with sundresses, hats, gloves and parasols.

(I will have some extra dress-up clothes on hand as well.)

And here's something even more fun - if you tell the staff at the register you came with Sea Island Mama you get a Digital Offer Card with a FREE (new) Grilled Chicken Sandwich each month for 3 months!

AMAZING.....and delicious :)

So here's what you do:

Email cfajimarketing@gmail.com and make a reservation for 8:45am seating.

Dress in your Tea Party finest!

Meet us and the Princess Cow there on May 10th!

We can't wait to see you!

Update:

We are getting out our dress-up hats, gloves and pearls and getting so excited for Saturday morning! 

We can't wait to see y'all there!

Our Southern & Lebanese Easter :)

My dad's side of the family is Lebanese. His great grandfather (my great great) came from Lebanon and sold notions door to door until he had enough money to send for his wife and children. When they left Lebanon, they packed few of their belongings, left everything else in their home, locked the door and never turned back. After the family arrived here, my great grandfather (my Giddee) and his twin were born. 

Our family tries very hard to keep the culture, recipes and stories alive.

I have WONDERFUL memories of huge family reunions on Pine Island.

So now at family get-togethers for holidays, we have all the usual Southern food but we also have kibbeh, raw kibbeh, grape leaves and a bunch of other things that I didn't even realize were Lebanese or influenced by Lebanese cooking bc it was our normal. One example being what we call Meaty Beans (lol) which is butterbeans cooked in a tomato sauce with ground beef with a bit of cinnamon.

Usually my godmother Gina and my cousin, Genie, make the kibbeh and grape leaves. It is literally some of my favorite foods. This past Christmas Mama, Jen and I decided to make gribbee - Lebanese version of a wedding cookie - kinda shortbread-like covered in powdered sugar. It was an awesome thing to share with each other and we got the girls (Betty & Raina) in on it too. Passing it on!

So this Easter we decided to try grape leaves. We knew they wouldn't be as good as Gina and Genie's but we had fun trying and they did turn out delicious - just a lil different. Next time we will use a bit more rice.

 Gina gets better quality grape leaves from Andy's Deli but we got ours from Publix so we had to cut out the woody stem.

 They were working so hard :) Me too.

After adding the lemon juice we let them cook!

The Easter lunch spread

 Raw kibbeh

 Baked kibbeh

 So proud of our attempt at grape leaves! We hope we made you proud Gina! 

We had a great Easter. 

And now I'm hungry after looking at those pictures :)

Ropes Course on Folly Road & Tradesman Brewery Open for Business!

James Island is getting cooler every day! 

Now we have a new ropes course and a brewery! 

Nice.

So I have been dying to learn more about this SERIOUS ropes course that is going up on Folly Road near the Bi-Lo! 

Post & Courier had written about it on their blog HERE. 

This is what they plan for it to look like when its completed.

We drove by it Sunday and snapped a few construction pictures.

This is a sketch of the plans for the whole shopping center area.

What would you love to see in the old Bi-Lo space? TARGET? Be still my heart! 

Actually...that might be really bad....for our bank account. 

Never mind.

You can visit their website at www.wildblueropes.com to sign up for their email updates/newsletters.

In other awesome James Island news: Tradesman Brewery had their Grand Opening this past Saturday. So happy to have another growler fill option here on the island! We got a group together and went there for the event and listened to a lil bluegrass by 17South (awesome) and had a few beers! 

It was fun!

 Their little green space was jam packed. They had cornhole out there and I definitely think it will be a nice area to enjoy a beer with a small group in the future. We brought some sidewalk chalk with us to help keep the kids occupied.

Dancing :)

They had their root beer called Apprentice on tap too and so Betty got to enjoy a little bit of "bubble drink."

And of course...I was covered in beer and sidewalk chalk within the hour....

(story of my life)

Thanks for having us Tradesman! 

Y'all go check them out and be sure to LIKE them on Facebook 

to get updates about events :)

One last thing:

It's opening week for Riverdogs Baseball games! 

We love to take the kids on Sundays bc they are earlier games. 

Can't wait to go soon, whenever our weekends get a little less busy 

(when will that be?)

Y'all have a great week!

Whatchooo Doin This Wknd? 4/5 (Cajun Fest)

Saturday is supposed to be 75 and with some afternoon thunderstorms maybe. I'm hoping they hold off bc there are several fun things 

happening around town. 

We will probably stay on James Island bc its Bridge Run wknd and traffic is horrid. If you want more info about the Bridge Run - click HERE

Flowertown Festival is happening up in Summerville and I have been before and its gorgeous and a great festival filled with local artists. 

More info? Click HERE

Library Events:

James Island Library has "Make your own Kite" craft at 10:30am

John's Island Library is showing Frozen at 3pm

The Pour House has its Food Truck Court. We need to make it out to this but its hard with little ones bc doors don't open until noon and the band (The Steel Rollers this wknd) doesn't start until 1:30pm. 

One day.

www.charlestonpourhouse.com

Tradesman Brewing Company's Grand Opening is Saturday!!! 

We really hope to see y'all out there - we were there last wknd to check it out and its so exciting for James Island's very 1st brewery!

Click on Sea Island Mama blog to read my post about our Tradesman visit!

On Sunday we have the Sunday Brunch Farmers Mkt!

Live music this Sunday with Tom DeWilde Kinney and Jeff Dent.

I need to get there before Normandy Farms sells out of their soft pretzels :)

Then - the best part of the wknd: LOWCOUNTRY CAJUN FESTIVAL!

Y'all. This is huge. Way bigger than I realized. 

We missed it last year (I think. Last year I was still in a newborn blur).

People come and tailgate all day, dancing, 

listening to zydeco and eating crawfish.

IT'S GOOD TIMES!

The Music Lineup for this year's festival is:

1-2pm Shelly Waters, the "Swamp Pop Princess"

2:15pm-3:15pm Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble

3:30pm-4:30pm Felix y Los Gatos

4:45pm-6pm Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble

These are pics from 2012's Cajun Festival 

(look at that sweet BABY BETTY!)

 LOL - pick one Baby Betty! 

Banana or CRAWDAD?

 I mean...people were GETTING DOWN! So much fun!!!!

 Some more details:

- No coolers (they sell food, bev and beers)

- $10/person and free for 12 & Under

- Free for Gold Pass Members 

(If you live on James Island and don't have a gold pass that's dumb.)

Hope the rain holds off and we see you there!

Tradesman Brewery Opening on James Island!

We had a very nice last wknd celebrating our brother-in-law's birthday with a brunch at Rita's on Folly Beach and some family time. Then on Sunday afternoon Tab and I went for a visit to James Island's 1st brewery, Tradesman!

It's located behind the Exxon right near the corner of 

Maybank and Folly Road, across from Duke's BBQ.

Their GRAND OPENING is this coming Saturday, April 5th from 12pm-8pm with 17 South Bluegrass band playing on the lawn from 5pm-7pm!

We will definitely be there and I'm hoping there will be beer left when we do get there because they have warned that they have a limited supply. 

It's a small brewery set-up with a 2 barrel (4 keg) system 

(They do have 4 fermenters, but they are still working on getting everything up to full capacity)

I brought Tab along for the tour bc he is a homebrewer and really, 

the beer connoisseur in our family. 

We met up with Sara & Scott, the owners, who are Charleston natives. 

Scott is the master brewer and Sara handles all the logistical stuff.

We mostly spoke with Sara, and she was absolutely delightful and so welcoming!

The running theme throughout the brewery is "working class" and when we walked in I immediately felt at ease and comfortable. Their friends and friends' kids were running around and sipping on root beer. 

It's just a really laid-back easy-going no fuss lil tasting room area. Great to have a beer with a friend and/or grab a growler on your way home.

Some pictures of the Tasting Room area:

 Everything they've used is repurposed and has a great little story behind it. 

The nail bin they use for tshirts, koozies, etc. came from a grandmother's mercantile shop.

Speaking of tshirts - these are the 2 options they have. 

This is the art on the back of the shirt.

Prices:

 The 1920s-1930s wall art and the old tools were found at various sales.

The tasting room is located in the house and the warehouse beside it is where the magic happens :)

In between they do have this nice little green space that they plan to use for events such as their Grand Opening and in the future as a nice lil outdoor sitting space with some shade cover coming in eventually.

Scott's (and Tab's) Happy Place

THE BEER:

We sampled a flight and it was really good. My fave was the Circuit Breaker IPA, with Journeyman's Pale and Brick Layers (Red) ale coming in close behind. The Brick Layers is what started it all. Scott used to brew huge batches of it and they called it their Garnet Ale and would bring it to USC tailgates.

Tab's favorite was the Pipe Wrench Porter.

They also make a root beer for the kids called Apprentice - it was delicious!

Their tap handles in the tasting room are all repurposed tools. 

The bar top and high-top tables are old heart pine used in the Navy Yard. 

Thomas Legare will come and pick up all the spent grain and feed it to his cows out on Legare Farms. 

Even though they have been thru some hurdles getting this operation up and running - everything seems to be falling into place for them now and we couldn't be more pleased!

The current plan is to have the tasting room open from 4pm-7pm on Tuesdays, Weds, Thurs and Friday. Possibly extending the hours to 8pm on Fridays and then definitely open from 12pm-8pm on Saturdays.

Be sure to LIKE their Facebook page to keep up to date with all that is going on and Sea Island Mama will update you with any major events happening too!

Welcome to James Island Tradesman!

Hope to see y'all Saturday afternoon at their Grand Opening!