Lowcountry Cuisine Fall/Winter 2019-20

LC 16 www.LowcountryCuisineMag.com | www.MountPleasantRestaurant.com | www.CharlestonRecipes.com lowcountry cuisine to cancer in 2002 has garnered a beautiful silver lining for the Hilton Head Island community. His parents had been running Hudson’s Seafood House since the 1970s, which Andrew had worked in as a youngster. He later became its manager, and Hudson’s became the home base for a handful of fundraisers like golf and fishing tournaments and the DMC Water Festival in David’s honor, which were well-supported by a few hundred people in the community. The water festival soon outgrew Hudson’s patio, and the Carmines renamed it the Hilton Head Island Seafood Festival and moved locations. “Over the past 10 years, it has grown to become a week-long celebration of food and seafood and the water,” Andrew beamed. “Last year, we raised $240,000 for local charities.” The seafood festival offers all sorts of perks: local chefs from the James Beard Foundation cook and do demos, May River Excursions takes people out for oystering and shrimping outings and returns to Hudson’s to cook their fresh catch at the restaurant. There’s a pig picking, paddle boarding and on-beach media panels on things like sustainability and Southern food. With 10,000-14,000 attendees, there really is something for everyone. “It’s exceeded my wildest dreams. The town has recognized its significant impact to the economy, and they give us tax dollars to support the event,” he said. He and his family are strong supporters of the environment and, through the event, have donated close to $1 million to support these local charities. But the seafood festival is not the only way the Carmines are making a difference on the island. For nearly three decades, the family has been hosting a community Thanksgiving dinner at Hudson’s. It started humbly enough when the Carmines opened their doors to the public for anyone who had nowhere to go on Thanksgiving. Food was purchased by a church, and volunteers prepped and served it to a crowd of about 175 that first year. Today, their Community Thanksgiving Dinner feeds about 1,400 people free-of-charge. “Everyone is welcome. We have the ability to serve those who are really in need without making them feel self-conscious about it, because people of all walks of life show up and sit with people they’ve never met. Patrons of the restaurant come. There are over 200 volunteers. It’s remarkable, you have to see it to understand how good you feel at the end of the day.” For Andrew, the best part of these avenues to support the Hilton Head Island community is that none of it feels like work. “It’s so enjoyable and amazing to be able to do something like the Hilton Head Island Seafood Festival. While you’re having a great time, you’re actually supporting charities. And it’s the same with the Thanksgiving dinner. It benefits a lot of people, but it’s fun at the same time.” WADE BOALS AND BRETT YEAROUT Wade Boals and Brett Yearout are partners in business under an umbrella of restaurants in the area like Saltwater Cowboys and Hooked Seafood. For 13 years, they have worked to serve more than 300 meals each month to seniors and others in need through East Cooper Meals on Wheels – that’s over 46,000 free meals. According to Boals, they are the only restaurant in the area who does this. “The recipients are used to getting a generic lunch. We take the opportunity to give them a first-class restaurant meal,” Boals explained. Boals and Yearout started doing the ECMOW lunches when they owned Noisy Oyster, and continue providing them, now from the Saltwater Cowboys kitchen on the first Wednesday of every month. Boals is a board member of East Cooper Meals on Wheels. “My family would do a route every Thanksgiving while my kids were growing up. They grew up seeing this and meeting the people. We did the same route every year. It was really special.” The pair helped fund the Magdalene House of Charleston by donating the home several years back. The nonprofit provides a safe haven and a helping hand for women who have been incarcerated for drug abuse or related crimes. “This is a two-year program where women can stay in a loving, caring place. They receive help to get back on their feet, find a job and become self-sufficient. It breaks the vicious cycle,” Yearout explained. “God blessed us financially, and we wanted to give back,” Boals added. “But we didn’t want to just write a check because that gets lost in the bureaucracy. When we read in the paper that a reverend wanted to start a Magdalene House, we bought a house for them.” Aside from their charitable endeavors together, partners Boals and Yearout volunteer separately in ways that are more personal. For Boals, serving comes first. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer at a relatively young age – younger than the recommended screening age – and now speaks with men prior to surgery as part of a newly-formed program with Roper Hospital. “I tell them different things to expect before and after surgery. There are some things the doctors don’t tell you. Being a survivor, I know what it’s like. I tell them.” For Yearout, working in the addiction recovery world is his passion. He has been in recovery since 2004, and has spent three years in graduate school for clinical psychology. He is currently interning, serving clients at East Cooper