(Intro Music plays) Clams.

In the words of Mario Batali, it's not about the smoodgy little thing in the center.

It's about the broth they give off.

This is an ingredient I am absolutely in love with.

(Theme Music plays- The Avett Brothers "Will You Return") I'm Vivian and I'm a chef.

My husband, Ben and I were working for some of the best chefs in New York City when my parents offered to help us open our own restaurant.

Of course, there was a catch.

We had to open this restaurant in Eastern North Carolina, where I grew up and said I would never return.

(Theme Music plays) (Theme Music plays) So this is my life.

Raising twins, living in the house I grew up in, and exploring the south, one ingredient at a time.

(Music plays) Previously on A Chef's Life.

We have finally hired a chef at the Boiler Room.

This is Eric.

He's our new chef at the Boiler Room and we are super excited to have him.

We always wrap up our December with a giant celebration on New Year's Eve.

This will be the longest night ever.

Happy new year!

(Music plays) Warren, hey!

What is it?

Is it your Asian mix?

It's a spicy micro mix.

They're probably gonna be hot.

They're probably gonna be expensive.

Yeah, they are.

(Laughter) Are you going to Charleston?

Uh huh.

I'm coming down on Friday.

What are y'all gonna do?

I don't know.

Hang out and eat, I guess.

Isn't there going to be food and wine?

Yeah.

(Laughter) That was sort of the point, I think.

Y'all will all be partying and I'm gonna be working my... Are you really going to have to work?

I'm catering like three events.

Well, I'll be there for moral support.

Okay, thank you.

(Music plays) Alright, so today we are going to the Charleston Wine and Food Festival or actually we're just going down to Charleston.

The festival doesn't start until Thursday but I've got a lot of other things lined up for myself because I like to multitask.

So, I'm working on a clam and shrimp cocktail for a dinner that I'm doing at a restaurant called High Cotton.

And basically I'm going to steam these clams and take the liquid or clam juice that leeches off of them and use that to marinate the shrimp and then we're gonna extract the clams from these shells and pickle them and serve that all together and call it shrimp cocktail.

I'm convinced there are way too many food festivals in the world.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that?

But, the Charleston Wine and Food Festival is one that I've always wanted to participate in, but I've never been cool enough to be invited until this year.

So, when you make something like clam chowder at home you would typically buy something called clam juice and that's actually what I'm about to make here.

So, I'm going to cover my clams with about one and half inches of water and bring them up to a boil.

You want to steam them in just the minimum amount to get the shells open.

What I'm making is kind of meant to resemble kind of like a pickled shrimp so that's where the clam juice is gonna come in because I'm gonna cut my pickling liquid with some of the clam juice so hopefully it all ends up tasting more like the sea but with an element of acid.

So, we'll see.

So I'm going to take a little oil here and add my spices that are gonna go into this marinade.

I have cumin and coriander and turmeric.

I'm going to add my garlic and oregano.

You probably know this but toasting these spices really allows their flavors to develop.

To the spices I'm adding red wine vinegar.

Then I'll add my clam juice and cook it together a bit longer and then we'll be ready to go on that.

So, I'm going to go ahead and take these out of this liquid.

Clams are not something I grew up eating.

Did you?

No.

But they are a very useful thing for restaurants during the winter because a lot of the fish that we rely on the rest of the summer is not readily available during the winter but this is really their season.

So, that entire bag of clams yielded almost nothing.

That's why it's so much more about the broth that it creates than it is about the actual clam itself.

So, one of the other things about working with clams that's something I haven't really figured out yet is how to get absolutely all the grit off of them.

You know, I've washed and scrubbed and sprayed these clams and I can still see a tiny bit of grit on the bottom.

So my solution has always been to just pour the broth off and try to catch that grit in the bottom of the pan.

Okay, see all that sand?

It's really not very much but a little bit of grit goes a long way.

(Music plays) I don't know about that.

I really wish I had been cool enough to be invited to the food festivals before I had children because now every time I go somewhere I feel terribly guilty and I miss Theo and Flo.

I've got one for you.

Okay.

Gimmie five.

Gimmie ten.

Gimmie twenty.

Gimmie thirty.

Don't gimmie thirty 'cause you're hands are too dirty!

(Laughter) Alright, give me a kiss.

Mommy's going on a trip.

In the past when I would go to food festivals or events I went by myself.

Now, we have a little extra staff and I'm able to take someone, which makes all the difference in the world.

So, brown sugar sweet potatoes.

You're gonna make the peanut risotto times six.

Okay.

I think that's it.

Justise is bringing her boyfriend down to Charleston.

Boyfriend.

So, I think everybody thinks they are going to be having a great ol' time.

Oh no, he already knows he's going to be working.

(Music plays) Big cooler.

That goes.

How do you say cooler?

Cooler.

(Laughter) Coo-ler!

I think Holley needs a wine cooler.

(Laughter) A few months ago I came to the conclusion that I could not do all this by myself so I hired a personal assistant by the name of Holley.

Well, I've got your itinerary.

Okay.

Waffle House Smackdown.

9:45 PM Until 11:30.

I guess I won't be going to that after party.

Oh, sure.

From a chef's perspective food festivals are about two things.

Number one, making friends, making connections and number two, having a good time.

But, this year at Charleston I'm primarily going to be working my tuchus off.

You would generally agree to work one or two events, but over the course of this Charleston Wine and Food weekend I think I'm working something like four or five.

I'm Vivian and I'm a chef and I'm in Charleston.

That's all.

(Laughter) (street music plays) (street music plays) Hey.

Is Shawn here?

He is.

Let me grab him.

And hopefully some other big dudes because I've got a really heavy cooler.

Hey Vivian.

Hey.

I'm Shawn.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

This is my sous chef, Tyler.

Nice to meet you.

How much did you bring?

A big part of the Charleston Wine and Food Festival are these perfectly paired dinners.

That's where a chef from Charleston invites a chef from somewhere else who they are interested in working with to do a dinner.

Shawn Kelly and Frank Lee from High Cotton invited me.

Let's do a tour.

Yeah, please.

Okay, so this is where our dinner will be?

Yeah.

So it's 45 to 50 people?

50 people and the way that our kitchen is set up we'll basically be plating everything right here.

Okay.

So, my clam dish, I'm very comfortable with all the other elements of what I'm doing but I've never cooked like clams in mass for a big group you know, at one time.

So, we'll just talk about how that will look.

Yeah.

Are you coming to the gala tonight?

The opening gala?

I would like to go but we'll have to see.

We're going clamming.

I've never gone and actually dug up the clams.

Well, I don't know exactly what we're going to be doing.

I know we're going out on a boat and we're clamming.

So, it will be interesting.

(Music plays) One of the characters that is synonymous with Charleston is a guy by the name of Clammer Dave.

I've heard about Clammer Dave for years.

I've actually heard so much about this guy that I thought he was a myth.

Hey Dave.

Hi.

How are you?

I'm good.

Step up here.

But, he's a real person and Clammer Dave is passionate about clams.

(Music plays) What are they doing?

They're clamming.

They're clamming?

Uh huh.

What I found out is that he is incredibly thoughtful and very concerned about his impact on the water.

So, how did you become Clammer Dave?

I have a degree in agriculture and animal science and I used to manage farm properties.

That was something which I'll forever regret.

I became a part of the mechanism that drained the Great Dismal Swamp.

Oh my god.

Really?

And made it into farmland.

I'm forever going to be paying my penance for that just personally.

But back in the late '90s the largest clam farm in the world was right here.

Oh really.

So, I ran that for about a year and my last month working for them I got, I traded clam seed for my fee and got my kayak and I planted them in different areas.

And this is one of the places that I planted them.

It takes three years to get a saleable product.

So, it takes three years to grow a clam?

Basically.

Essentially you're on menus all over Charleston.

I mean you're synonymous with Charleston.

We go beyond the regular oyster processing and the clams too.

They're pressure washed and graded and all the require is just a light rinse.

It's like I always have a little bit of trouble getting that last bit of grit in the bottom of my pan when I cook them.

Oh and I'll show you how we avoid that.

Oh good.

(Music plays) This is called a Rhode Island clam rake.

So, raking clams, this is my favorite activity.

Another name for this rake is a bull rake because you develop a neck like a bull.

Haha I bet.

That is so cool.

They're just living right below the surface of the sand.

That's right.

They're all dug ins.

These are littlenecks.

And littlenecks are one inch from hinge to hinge.

What would it be called if it was smaller?

Seven eighths Seven eighths.

There's a seven eighths right there.

Would you prefer for them to be smaller?

Yeah, like vongole size.

Can you tell me what you mean by vongole?

It's Italian for clam.

In Italy it's basically any size clam but here in the United States it's kind of a small clam.

So, that's as small as you get.

Those are the vongole and this is the top neck?

Right.

When you find dirty clams in a restaurant mostly what happens there is the guy who harvested them picked them up like this...

Right.

With mud all around them.

And then when he puts it in the basket those guys will eventually open up and start feeding again.

And when they do that they are sucking in all the mud that's on their neighbors and that is one reason why we try to get all of the mud off here.

Before you put them in the basket?

Right.

(Music plays) So, is this kind of like average bring in from a day out here or... Yeah, I bring in about 20 bushels a week.

So, you lived out here for three years?

I did.

That first three years I told you you don't make any money.

Yeah.

This is where I lived.

Wowo.

Do you remember that time fondly?

Oh yeah.

It was after a divorce and it was either this or go to Tibet, you know.

(Laughter) So, this is where you send the oysters and the clams to sit and spit out all the mud?

Purge.

Purge.

And replace all that mud with just pure algae.

And this step right here is not something all clam farmers generally do?

Hardly anybody does.

But it makes a huge difference in the amount of grit you get in your clams.

It seems like it would.

I started putting stuff in here just to hold them until I got ready to sell 'em and I opened a few of them and I couldn't believe how clean they were.

There's just no sign of mud in here and it works so well with the clams I always tell customers as a joke if they get any gritty clams I'll replace each gritty clam with 100 and I never do because it's impossible because there's no dirt, sediment on the top layer.

One of the really interesting surprises today is that Clammer Dave works in very close quarters with his significant other and their children.

They literally touch every oyster and clam that comes through their operation and they are smiling while they do it.

We get 'em washed and then we bring 'em in and dump 'em out and we start to sort 'em and we grade them by weight and shape and size.

We try to dry them off at the same time because that we know if any of them are leaking.

So, then we start sorting them out.

I usually take out the small ones first.

They are the easiest to spot.

Then I take out the biggerish ones.

It's easiest if you're cooking if they're all the same size.

Obviously they're gonna open around the same time and that way all of them are done about the same time.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

The little ones open before and you're waiting for these to open.

And this one's way overcooked.

It's a big problem.

Yeah.

I'm doing a clam dish tomorrow night.

I know that's a shocker.

But I'm going to take the clams that I have there tomorrow and do this because I have them in three pots so I can at least separate the smaller ones and allow for more even cooking.

Well, thank y'all both, all of you very much.

Yeah.

We appreciate it.

And I'll see you Saturday.

Okay.

We'll be there.

(Music plays) Charleston is just one of the most charming cities there is.

I hate saying that because I want Kinston to be the most charming city there is, but Charleston has got a little something on us.

I lived in Charleston one summer during college and got my culinary career started at Sticky Fingers where I was a server.

A very good server if I do say so myself.. Good morning.

Good morning.

How are you?

Thank you for having me.

Frank Lee is the executive chef of High Cotton.

I've heard Frank described as the mayor of Charleston.

I asked him if he could show me a traditional clam dish and he said, I know just the thing.

Clam hash.

I learned this from a gullah cook, Daisy Small, up at Pawleys Island back in the '50s.

But the clams she cooked raw.

She would shuck them but that's one of the dynamics of this dish.

When we poach clams as we often do with white wine, and garlic and bay leaf and what not, the stock that's left over is really salty but when you shuck 'em raw and use that juice like we're gonna do today it is not salty.

So, this is hard for me to admit, but I've never shucked a raw clam.

Let's go make some clam hash.

Yeah, let's do it.

It won't take long.

(Music plays) Look at that thing.

This is our specialty glove.

This is made from an inner tube tire and it will really protect your hand.

I'll show you the first one and one of the things that we like to do is soak these clams in ice water.

It makes them a little more forgiving when you want to open them up.

And you see it has a short side and a long side.

Long side.

Short side.

I like to start at the short side.

We're just going to put it right in the crack of the clam where it comes together and you kind of squeeze it gently.

You try to get one muscle, pull the knife out it and come around and get the other muscle and we want to capture the juice.

You want to eat one raw... Yeah I'd love to.

So you can see how tender it is with Dave's clams.

Try that.

For a clam that size it's not tough at all.

No, it's not.

That's pretty sweet.

Would you like to try the technique?

I'll try, yes.

Protect your hand.

Okay, short side.

Sharp knife.

Just put it there.

Oh no no no hang on.

You're going to hurt yourself.

Let me take that from you again.

You got to squeeze your hand together.

You have a little bit more force.

Okay, I'm gonna try again.

Yes ma'am.

I know you've got the skills.

(Laughter) I don't want you to hurt yourself girl.

I don't want to either but I'm feeling like I really need to do this.

I think my hand's too little.

(Laughter) No.

You're in!

Yes!

You're in!

Thank God.

(Laughter) Redemption.

Yeah, it doesn't take long for a pro to figure things out.

That's the interesting thing is the juice from this isn't going to be as salty, but to get that result you have to go through the work of shucking the clam by hand.

So, this dish you learned from a gullah cook who was related to your life in what way?

Well, her name was Daisy Small and my great aunt had a house at Pawleys Island, a beach house.

And Daisy, I learned a tremendous amount from her.

Her cobblers, her creoles.

What makes a cook a gullah cook?

Well, I think for one you have to be African American.

You know after the Civil War a lot of the low country was almost abandoned and the black communities down here were almost left to their own devices.

They kind of developed their own insular culture.

What would you say are some of the classic, quintessential gullah dishes?

For me it's always been a little tomato based kind of gumbo with okras, a little cornmeal dusted little finny fish.

It's a simple but direct and very seasonal cuisine.

Right.

So, I'm glad that I finally got this.

You did good.

Look at all the juice.

And all the clams.

Yeah.

(Music plays) For this dish we're just gonna brown up a little bit of bacon and this was always a breakfast dish for us.

I think one of the most difficult things I have to do is to encourage the chefs to practice simplicity.

So often we want to layer flavors and more flavors and more flavors.

It's what all the French chefs taught me.

Start with a really great ingredient and then just don't screw it up.

Don't mask it.

Don't hide it.

Don't cover it up.

Okay.

Now, we got it nice and crisp.

We're going to pour off most of the fat.

We got some good sweet onion and we're just going to sweat that down.

Here's our juice.

Give it a taste because you would think that it's going to be really salty.

But it's not.

It's not nearly as salty as when you poach them or...

It's saline but it's not crazy salty.

We're going to get in some of that juice and let it come to a boil.

We're going to cook up a couple eggs too.

Do it nice and slow.

Then we're going to add in our, we chopped the clams.

You chopped 'em up.

Daisy might not have used as much butter.

There's something about parsley and shellfish that just... Really works.

It really works.

Now we're gonna add in just enough Saltines to give it a little thickening agent.

That's the way Daisy did it.

That's the way we're gonna do it.

So is this something that you would ever serve in one of your places for brunch?

We did run this dish several times at brunch.

Clam hash.

It was like, Eeeehhhn!

Eeeehhnn!

It didn't sell.

Then just sprinkle bacon on top.

That looks awesome.

It's not too salty.

That's always my concern.

No, it's not too salty at all.

It's not too salty and it's clammy.

It's great.

You can taste the clams.

You can taste the freshness.

You absolutely can.

It's great on the grits.

They're a great vehicle for it.

And maybe we just need to rebrand this.

Maybe we need to call it something else.

I'm gonna think of a name for it.

If anybody could you could.

(Laughter) Hey.

What's up, Vivian?

How are you?

Good, how are you today?

I'm good.

This is my sous chef, Justise.

Justise, nice to meet you.

Hey.

Shawn Kelly.

So, are the clams here?

The clams are here.

Okay.

We're gonna sort them into three different sizes within the little necks.

Okay.

Something I learned yesterday.

Yeah?

(Laughter) Did you have fun with Clammer Dave?

We did.

We did.

So, today is when we really start the real work.

(Music plays) So, Justise, there are the clams.

So, what you're going to do is take the smallest ones out and then find the medium ground.

Okay.

Do 'em like that.

And actually since Matt's here and we've got to eviscerate all that shrimp, you might be a good guy to help.

I know y'all wanna be together so I'm trying to facilitate that.

(Laughter) (Music plays) The clam dish will get finished with some butter and we're gonna test it.

I'm a little bit concerned about how that's all gonna go down.

You know, cooking 500 clams at one time.

Mmm hmmm.

I just don't want them to be overcooked.

Yeah.

So, you know how I made that marinade for the shrimp, the escabeche?

I think...yesterday I had this whole conversation with Frank Lee about simplicity and letting the ingredient shine so I don't think I'm gonna use that anymore.

Okay.

(Laughter) I think we're just gonna poach the shrimp, season them with some salt and maybe some fruity olive oil... Mmm hmm.

With the cocktail sauce and the lemon aioli and then those pickles that you brought.

Yes, that sounds good.

But, I don't want...

I don't wanna do too much.

I was totally ready for this event.

I had done tons of prep at the restaurant and I had all my ducks in a row and then yesterday I started to second guess my shrimp.

You're gonna eviscerate the shrimp while the shell is still on and then I think we're gonna roast them rather than cook them in the court bouillon.

I just, I don't know.

Second guessing yourself.

Yeah, but why?

I hate that.

So, what have I done?

I have broken all my rules and I am changing my plan mid-day and it's not working out so great.

(music plays) For more information on A Chef's Life visit pbs.org/food A Chef's life is available on DVD.

To order, visit shopPBS.org or call us at 1-800-PLAY-PBS.