Part of the charm of Charlie’s L’etoile Verte (*The green Star at Home) on Hilton Head Island has always been the feeling you get upon entering of being welcomed into someone’s home. The Golson family’s story is written on these walls, sharing how Charlie Golson took over a modest French bistro named Bon Vivant and transformed it into the culmination of his years-long dream to bring French cooking to the Lowcountry.
Flounder Sautéed Meuniere
In the casual and welcoming décor surrounding the restaurant, set around the cozy hearth and the dining room, we see his wife Nancy Golson’s famed eccentricity informing a comfortable French country atmosphere. And in the way these traditions have been carried into the future, we see how their children, Palmer Golson and Margaret Pearman, are continuing their father’s legacy while making it their own.
The Golson family has been welcoming people into their dining room for decades with the cuisine that made their restaurant famous. Now, with their first-ever cookbook, they’re giving us the opportunity to do the same.
“We have a great chef, Josh Castillo, who’s been with us for seven years now, and it had been on his radar to do cooking classes,” Pearman said. “First we had to write down the recipes for home use, and that’s how this was born.”
Castillo came aboard when health problems forced Charlie Golson to take a step back from the restaurant in 2007. Just as Charlie had taken Bon Vivant’s cuisine and elevated it with respect to the originals, Castillo has brought the restaurant into the future while preserving that singular style that Charlie brought to his cuisine. And he did all of this without recipes.
“When dad stepped back, he’d never written down any of his recipes,” Pearman said. “During his era, people would stay with him so long there really wasn’t any need.”
With Castillo finally putting these legendary recipes down on paper, and further adapting them for home use as part of a cooking class, Pearman saw an opportunity to tell another chapter in her family’s story.
“A cookbook was something I’d had in the back of my mind, doing it on a slightly smaller scale,” Pearman said. A visit to Antonori Winery when she was living in Italy provided the perfect inspiration for how Charlie’s recipes could be adapted and set in print. “Part of the welcome package was a memento cookbook with a menu for each season.”
The cookbook that resulted from that bolt of inspiration, titled La Cuisine de L’etoile Verte, lets home cooks try their hand at 12 of the dishes that have made the restaurant famous, grouped by season. For spring, there’s the delicately balanced flavors of the Flounder Muniere. In summer, you can revisit the Curry Shrimp Salad, one of the earliest dishes that Charlie elevated from Bon Vivant. As oyster season comes around in the fall, you can prepare a Pan Roast Bluffton Oyster Stew. And what better way is there to fight winter’s chill than with the classic Coq au Vin?
“We tried to mix in enough of the old standbys along with special items like the chocolate souffle that we usually only do for New Year’s Eve or a special wine dinner,” Pearman said. “And we knew we had to include the caramel cake. We’ve accumulated all these recipes, so it was just a matter of figuring out what made sense for each season.”
Well, it wasn’t just a matter of placing each recipe in its season. There was also the arduous process of turning them all into a book.
“It took quite some time, and I had no idea how much editing it would take to get everything to be cohesive,” Pearman said.
Adding to that cohesion is the gorgeous artwork throughout – watercolors created by Pam Johnson Brickell that jump off the page. Known more for her lavishly detailed watercolors depicting the flora and fauna of the Lowcountry, Brickell gets to show off her flair for food journaling in the mouth-watering imagery she created for the cookbook.
“I love the way she captured the essence of each season,” Pearman said. “She’s the type of person who’s always drawing what she’s eating, and she has this wonderful journal of dishes she’s had at different restaurants. We hit it off immediately.”
Brickell’s work not only fills the pages of the cookbook with color and beauty, but they can also be found on various items, including hand towels, now available for sale at the restaurant.
And while the cookbook does a marvelous job of capturing the culinary and artistic ethic of Charlie’s L’Etoile Verte, its greatest triumph lies in how it tells the story of the Golson family. If their restaurant welcomes you into their home, their cookbook welcomes you into their lives.
“I had so much fun sitting down with Dad as we were putting this together and getting the stories of why each one was on the menu,” Pearman said. “And he’s really enjoyed seeing the final product.”
La Cuisine de L’etoile Verte is available at Charlie’s L’etoile Verte, 8 New Orleans Road, or online at charliesgreenstar.com.
Any Southerner will tell you, it’s just like their grandmother made it. We started by purchasing three cakes a week from Mrs. Mary Mikell of Hampton, SC. When demand for the cake outpaced what she could provide us, we had to master the cake in house. We use the recipe from the Allendale Cookbook.
Simple Southern Caramel Layer Cake
For the Cake:
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
5 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups butter
3 cups sugar
6 eggs, room temp
4 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups whole milk
For the Icing:
2 sticks of butter
2 cups dark brown sugar
2 cups light brown sugar
½ cup of milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
For the Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour four 9-inch cake rounds. Begin by sifting the flour, baking powder, and salt together. In a small mixing bowl blend the eggs, milk, and vanilla together. Next cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy in a stand-up mixer using the paddle attachment. Alternate combining the wet and dry ingredients in three additions; scrape the bowl between each addition. Divide the batter into the four pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown, and toothpick comes out clean.
For the Icing: Blend butter, brown sugar, and milk in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stirring occasionally to avoid burning, bring the mix to a rolling boil, making sure that all the sugar granules have dissolved. Remove from heat, and place in a mixing bowl. Beat in the confectioners’ sugar until the icing is the consistency to spread. If the icing gets too hard, you may add canned milk to thin. Next, assemble the cake by pouring a layer of caramel icing between each thin layer of cake, and then icing the entire cake. Place in refrigerator to set. We think that the caramel cake is best served with Hilton Head Ice Cream Company Caramel flavored ice cream, but a nice quality vanilla ice cream works just as well.
Flounder Sautéed Meuniere
Adjusted from a recipe using veal, Charlie Golson was taught by Alsatian chef Duilio Bigatin at the Chattham Club in Savannah. The name translates to “miller’s wife,” as the fish is dredged in flour. Enjoy with a quality French Pouilly Fuisse.
4 filets of local flounder or other thin fish
2 cups flour
4 eggs
1⁄4 cup blended olive oil
1⁄2 stick of butter
1 cup white wine
4 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
In a rectangular plastic container, lightly flour the filets by gently pressing them into the flour. Make sure that both sides of the flounder are covered, and then shake off any excess. In another container, whip the eggs slightly. Then, dip the floured filets in the egg.
Warm the oil in a large sauté́ pan. When the oil has begun to pop, carefully place the filets of flounder in the pan. After both sides of the filets are golden brown, pour off any excess oil left in the pan. Return the pan to heat. Add the butter, lemon, and white wine. Let simmer for a couple of minutes until the sauce has thickened slightly in the bottom of the pan. Serve immediately with your favorite sides. We like potatoes au gratin and some fresh vegetables!
