Looking back at the last few weeks, there’s been some quality eating and cooking going on with us.  It started with a food truck rodeo at Marion Square, right in the middle of downtown, and enjoyed barbecue, crawfish mac n’ cheese and smoked fish lettuce wraps (top row).

I tried my hand at making a salted chocolate budino (middle row, left), still haunted by our outstanding meal at Trattoria Lucca (my version was dense, overly rich, and not at all like the light-as-air confection I’d had at Lucca, so I won’t share it here).  I made the Gravy Baby and the hubby an impromptu grilled mahi mahi fillet topped with fresh avocado and golden tomatoes and drizzled with a spiced yogurt sauce, which was much more successful than my budino mishap (middle row, center pic).

On weekends, we’ve been frequenting a friend of my sister’s husband’s brother-in-law’s friend’s gourmet donut shop, Glazed (don’t think too hard about how we’re linked — I’m not even sure that’s right).  One of our favorites recently is their “Curry Up” donut (middle row, right), a decadent chocolate-iced creation seasoned with curry and topped with crystallized ginger.  I’d call it the next gimmicky fad food, kind of like how people all riled up over cupcakes these days.  But these donuts are so seriously tasty that I’m willing to jump on that bandwagon.

We loved the carnitas burrito at Santi’s, a neighborhood Mexican restaurant we dropped by one afternoon.  Great food and eclectic atmosphere will keep us going back there. The mole enchiladas are absolutely on point — richly flavorful and comforting.  The fact that the Gravy Baby destroyed some delicious Mexican rice and beans should also serve as a ringing endorsement.

And lastly, the hubby surprised me with a birthday dinner at Husk, the nationally celebrated Lowcountry restaurant that’s the hot ticket these days.  The highlights were starter shrimp and clams dish over Anson mill grits surrounding a perfectly sous vide egg, and I got a little Meyer lemon meringue over an espresso budino for dessert.  But I’m still processing our experience there, which I’ll share in a separate post.  There are some meals that need time for reflection and thought.

Of course, there are always those meals that get inhaled so thoroughly and quickly that there’s barely time to even taste it.

Not that I would know anything about that.