Maggie Crenshaw and Jesse discuss her favorite Mexican restaurant on Hilton Head Island and a few other things in this first episode of Monday’s with Maggie.

Jesse Blanco: Alright, well good morning everybody, and welcome to our maiden voyage, I feel like the love boat theme should be playing here, of Mondays with Maggie, my name is Jesse Blanco from Eat It And Like It, you can find me at eatitandlikeit.com, her name is Margaret Crenshaw. Good morning young lady, how are you? 

Maggie Crenshaw: Hey Jesse, I’m doing well. How are you? 

JB: Good. You go by Maggie, though, right? Henceforth? 

MC: I do, I do. Some folks call me Margaret, and some call me Maggie, and then I’ve got I think a handful of other nicknames as well.

JB: Okay, let’s start with that, tell us one of them.

MC: Magpie; okay, so, Margaret, Maggie, Magpie, Marge–

JB: Marge? That sounds so 1962. Marge? Really? 

MC: Well, my mother was a Margaret and her nickname was Margie. But I had a high school friend that jokingly called me Marge because, I don’t know, do you remember the commercial? 

JB: Which commercial?

MC: Do you remember the Palmolive commercial?

JB: Palmolive. No, I’m sorry, the dishpan hands? 

MC: Yeah you’re soaking in it. 

JB: No, I don’t remember that much of it, because I was a young boy at the time and so I didn’t really, you know… 

MC: Yeah, I am older than you. 

JB: Not by much, not by much. Well, I’m very excited to be doing this every Monday with you, and having a little conversation for everybody to listen to, either on their way to work, or once they get to work, or middle of their day on a Monday. We are going to talk about the weekend on the island–Hilton Head Island, that is–we’re gonna talk about what you like to do, what you don’t like to do, most importantly, what you ate, what you didn’t eat, what you like to eat, what you don’t like to eat… we’re calling it a food centric lifestyle conversation. And I was so thrilled when you agreed to spend this time with me, I know it’s early for you. Do you usually wake up this early on Mondays? No. 

MC: No I really don’t, I have always been a night owl. 

JB: Aha. What time, on average, do you shut down?

MC: Well, last night I think I went to bed around 2 AM. 

JB: Oh my, oh my. I went to bed at 2 AM a couple of nights ago, but that’s because I was out with a friend that was visiting in town. What did you do this weekend? 

MC: You know, I had a little work to do, you know, cause as a realtor, I did have some clients in town. But I was able to eat some good food. 

JB: Really?

MC: I checked in with my favorite Mexican restaurant, San Miguel‘s. 

JB: Did you do that on purpose just because we were about to start this thing? 

MC: Maybe. Or maybe I just go there at least two times a week anyway.

JB: Do you really? Wow, you must really love it. You were telling me you’ve been going there almost 40 years?

MC: Yes, so, San Miguel’s first opened–they were located on Executive Park Road, if anybody’s familiar with the island, right in the location where Chow Daddys has most recently been, that is actually now turning over, Chow Daddy’s moved to Sea Pines, and the Chow Daddy‘s location is going to be as of, like, at the end of the week, it will be the new Captain Woody’s. 

JB: Wow. At the end of the week, today being Monday, August the 7th, so by mid August, Captain Woody’s is moving, is that accurate?

MC: Yes, that is accurate.

JB: Do you know why?

MC: Yes, well, I think they had the opportunity to buy that building where Chow Daddy’s–well, that was originally San Miguel’s, that was the whole point, and then at some point it was Dry Dock, the bar and grill, and most recently, it’s been Chow Daddy’s. But the owners of Captain Woody’s had the opportunity to buy that space and turn it into their own, and I think it’ll be a great synergetic thing for them, being right next to The Sea Shack–have you ever eaten at The Sea Shack? 

JB: I have not, nor have I been to the Hilton Head Island Captain Woody’s. I’ve been to the one over at the promenade in Bluffton, but I’ve never been to the one on the island.

MC: Oh my gosh, the next time you’re here we should do… 

JB: A seafood hop?

MC: (laughing) A seafood hop, yeah, that’s a really good idea. But Captain Woody’s will have an expanded outdoor bar area, and they feature, in season, they feature nightly entertainment, too, so it’s a fun spot to be.

JB: That sounds awesome. Can we wait till it’s not 164° outside?

MC: Okay. (laughing)

JB: Yeah, no, I may be from Miami, but this kid doesn’t play. If I have to be outside, I’m probably going in search of a pool, and I’m in it up to my mouth with a beer sticking out of my hand. I just… I don’t dig it, I don’t dig it. It gets–you know, some people… I hate to get this graphic in the morning, some people can sit outside and not perspire, but I just don’t. I’m not comfortable, I’ve always been that way. So, tell me, let’s backtrack to our Mexican at San Miguel, you got over there this weekend? 

MC: I did, I was there on Friday. I have a friend–my piano teacher, we go, we have a standing lunch once a week at San Miguel’s.

JB: Does that mean you do it every Friday, or you eat standing up? (laughing) He’s got jokes, he’s got jokes at seven o’clock in the morning. It took you a second. 

MC: (laughing) We actually go on Wednesdays, typically, and we do sit down at a table. But this week, she’s been out of town a lot, because it’s summer, and her kids, you know, are out of school, so she’s been traveling around a lot, but she’s San Miguel’s buddy. We go every Wednesday and we get the same waitress every time. 

JB: Random question, a thread we will pull another time, not today, but how long have you been playing piano?

MC: Oh, just months, I mean not even… I’m just mastering– 

JB: Chopsticks? 

MC: No I’m beyond Chopsticks. I can’t– it’s too early in the morning to think about it– the one that all kids– the first song they play.

JB: I have no idea.

MC: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!

JB: Oh, isn’t that special. Well, it sounds like you’re not good enough for us to care right now, so I’ll check back with you in six months, how about that? 

MC: Oh, yeah, you might wanna give it a couple of years. (laughing)

JB: (laughing) But good for you, good for you to be taking that on that, you know… I just painted myself into a corner, I was about to say “at this age”, but I meant that in a nice way.

MC: Yeah. It’s so true.

JB: So, tell us what you had for lunch at your standing lunch at San Miguel.

MC: Alright, well, I’m really boring, I only get one of two things. 

JB: Ever?

MC: I either get the San Miguel salad, or the chimichanga con queso. 

JB: Which means cheese, for the nons out there.

MC: Cheese, yes, I get a chicken chimichanga that’s smothered in just, like, this delicious queso sauce, and it’s served over a little shaved lettuce. They started putting rice on the side a few years back, and I always ask them not to do that.

JB: Sounds like a gut bomb. 

MC: It is ridiculously good. I try to eat half of it and take the other half home.

JB: If you ever–on the days that you do eat the whole thing, that’s a nap waiting to happen, isn’t it? 

MC: It’s definitely a nap. And sometimes we have beer.

JB: Oh boy. 

MC: It depends on what’s happening afterwards. If I have to go back to work, I don’t have beer. If I am not stressed for the day, I will just relax and have a beer. And then the other dish, the San Miguel Salad, you can get that with beef or chicken, and it’s really delicious with beef. 

JB: Really? Okay. And this beef on a San Miguel Salad, is it like, you know, asada? Is it grilled? 

MC: It is carne molida. So it’s ground beef, and it’s cooked off in seasoning, you know, it has a taco chili kind of flavoring and they chop up some simple iceberg lettuce, kidney beans, tomatoes, cheeses, they crumble up some tortilla chips, and they serve it in a big fried tortilla bowl, and it’s got just a creamy, sort of mayonnaise-based dressing… it’s so good. It’s so good.

JB: Sounds like you’re addicted.

MC: I would say addiction is… yes. You can get– if you’re trying to be light, you can have that with the chicken, but it’s just not as good, you know, because the chicken hasn’t captured the flavor like ground beef does, with how it cooks off in the fat, you know.

JB: No, yeah, I get it. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like a Friday for me, because if I’m gonna eat something that, you know, if I’m not working, which always involves food, and, ‘hey try this’ and ‘hey try that’, if I’m going to lunch, you know, on my own, if you will, I’m not doing something like that earlier in the week, because it kind of throws me off my whole patterns. But what I do is just very… so incredibly unorthodox, because of how much I am asked to eat, if that makes sense. 

MC: Yes. 

JB: My whole week is wonky, and something like that is a special treat. So, you’ve been going there 40 years, huh? 

MC: Yes. I mean, it’s just a staple, it’s on the rotation. And, you know, I’ve always recommended restaurants to visitors and locals alike, and, I mean, I get asked that question so many times, where to eat, that I actually have a PDF document stored in my computer that I just send people, because I get tired of typing the same things over and over again, via text or email. But, yeah, San Miguel’s is my Mexican go-to.

JB: Easy for you to say. I have a similar PDF stored, it’s called eatitandlikeit.com. (laughing)

MC: (laughing) That makes sense.

JB: And I send– no, you’d be surprised, you’d be surprised, and we can get into my my my adventures with people asking me for recommendations another time, but I will tell you that I cannot begin to tell you the number of times people ask me for, ‘hey, I want a good wine list, kid friendly, has to have ABCDEFG, and is pet friendly… and they end up going to Applebee’s. It’s like, really dude?  That… you know, it’s just so frustrating. 

MC: Yes, I will say that my go-to list are all mom and pop, you know, locally owned and operated.

JB: Oh, always. I don’t ever mess with chains. The only times I’ll go is I’m in a group and they’re all going, I’m not gonna stand there and pout in the parking lot, you know, and just say, “I’m not going in there!” I’ll go. Speaking of chains, there aren’t a lot of them on the island. There are a couple of, you know, a handful there. There are more over in Bluffton, and we don’t need to get into that, but I will segue there and ask you how long you’ve been on the island.

MC: So I’m approaching my… this is my 50th year.

JB: Fifteen, one five? 

MC: Fifty. 5-0.

JB: 5-0, that’s what I thought. Wow, 50th year. And anybody who wants to read about Maggie‘s history on the island, and all of that stuff, you can grab the August issue of CH2 magazine. It is… I was gonna say on newsstands, but newsstands don’t exist anymore, it is wherever you find CH2 magazine now in August. She and I had a conversation last month about her background, and what brought her here, and all that. It’s a fascinating read, if I may say so myself, because it’s all in her words, I just asked the questions and let her go. You can find all of that there if you are curious about that, but I did want to ask you, you know, you’ve chosen to make this island your home, what do you love most about this island in 2023?

MC: Ooh. You know, I think it’s– I still rely on… in just my day-to-day course of life, I still rely on those tried and true, whether it be businesses or friendships or mentorships of, just, folks that have been my tried-and-true for decades. But what’s great about the island, I think, as we keep moving forward, is, you know, there was a time on the island when, especially in my youth, there was always a desire to have more. You know, we started, you know, with nothing, this was, as most folks know, just an island with a lot of trees on it. There was always a desire for more; more things to do, more places to eat, more businesses to visit, and now, you know, fast forward all these years, that’s here. It used to be, and I think I’ve said this to you before, it used to be that, you know, I knew every new business, particularly the restaurants, that were opening up, and 12 new restaurants have opened this year, and I didn’t even know about it. A friend, a fellow foodie, happened to post it on her Facebook that these 12 restaurants had opened, and I think I recognized two of the names. And that’s kind of exciting. I know on the one hand, I say I’m losing control of my island, but on the other hand, it’s really nice not to just have the inside track all the time. It’s nice to have a surprise. And recently, before going to the play at the art center here–they’ve got Jersey Boys on stage through August 20th–but I went for opening night with my friend Gretchen, and she was like, “hey, do you wanna go to Lulu‘s for dinner beforehand?” And I said, “Lulu‘s? What’s that?” Like I didn’t even know it existed. And I think it’s been around for a year or two, actually, now so we had dinner there, and I was delighted. It was just a nice–I didn’t know the menu by hand, so that’s always nice. Just a fresh new menu, and a fresh new look in a place that had been several other restaurants. So it’s that kind of stuff, new businesses open, meeting new people that just moved here a couple years ago and they have that…

JB: New car smell?

MC: New car smell, that’s right. They don’t have that jaded sense of knowing everything. But intrinsically when you boil everything down, Hilton Head is still that, you know, family friendly, tight knit community. Everybody here, for the most part, of course, we’re speaking generalities, but for the most part, everybody’s super helpful, willing to give information to help those who don’t know as much about the island.

JB: I get it. I get it. So, lunch at San Miguel on Friday. Did you eat anything else fun over the weekend? 

MC: Only stuff I cooked.

JB: Aha. Do you have a go-to? 

MC: So I picked up some huge sea scallops from the Harris Teeter the other day, as my special weekend dinner, and I made it with a little–and this is a throwback to a restaurant that was here but that doesn’t exist anymore, but I worked there in my early 20s, a restaurant called Flamingos, and they had this dish, these scallops with a mustard cream sauce that I was addicted to. So I made a version of that for myself on Saturday night, and it was really really good. These scallops, for anybody on the island right now, Harris Teeter is running some sea scallops, they’re $19.99 a pound, and they were fabulous.

JB: That’s good to know. Good information, good information. We are winding down our maiden voyage of Mondays with Maggie. We’re gonna be doing this every Monday here, wherever you find your podcasts. I think I told you last week, we’re now on Spotify, did I tell you that?

MC: Yes, oh my gosh, I’m so excited about that, and I told a bunch of people, because, you know, I went– I had my hair done this week, and that’s where everything happens, is at the hair salon.

JB: Ooooh, Grand Central Station.

MC: Grand Central, yes. And anybody I have spoken to this week, and everyone is excited about the Spotify.

JB: Good. Good good good good good. We’re excited to be bringing things to Spotify. 

MC: I listened to some of your conversations that you’ve had with folks, and you’re a great… you just really move conversations well, so it’s… your podcasts are interesting, because the questions move the conversation along and it’s very interesting.

MC: Did you listen to my night Johnny Depp snuck into Savannah?

MC: YES! That’s a great story.

JB: (laughing) Okay, so what do you think? Was he there or was he not? 

MC: I think he was there. 

JB: Of course he was there. (laughing) But? 

MC: But he could’ve easily not been, right? I mean, I get what you were saying.

JB: Yeah, yeah. For those of you who are wondering what we’re talking about, we have a podcast on the website, or wherever you podcast, Spotify and Apple, I told the story of the night Johnny Depp snuck into Savannah, several several years ago. And I never saw him, so I cannot determine whether or not it was in fact, true that he was there, but everybody who has listened to that podcast… when it first posted, I got a bunch of texts from people, “hey, I think he was there.” Because, you know, in the podcast I ask. I think he was there. You can go back and listen to that, but yeah, that was an interesting evening at Ruth’s Chris Steak House.

MC: You know, and you really took your time with that story, and you really laid it out, and I had a real picture of the waitress that you kept talking about. I had a picture of her in my head, what she looked like and everything. 

JB: Yep. Yep. Yep. She freaked out, when she came back and she said “he’s here, he’s here, he’s here”, three times, I’ll never forget that moment. Her eyes were the size of coffee saucers. It was ridiculous, and I’m like, okay, so, at that point, you know, the kitchen was buzzing, because obviously, if anybody’s going to know whether Johnny Depp is in the building, it’s going to be the kitchen.

MC: Exactly.

JB: Anyone who’s interested can go back and listen to that at eatitandlikeit.com on the podcast tab at the top of the homepage. If that doesn’t ‘trip your trigger’ as they say here in the south, you can come back and join us here again next Monday morning with me and Maggie Crenshaw, we’re gonna talk about what we’ve done over the weekend, we’re gonna talk about food, and we’re gonna talk about eventually, a Partridge in a pear tree, is that fair to say? 

MC: Yes. 

JB: (laughing) Alright, well, all of that said, we’ve rambled long enough, we will reconvene next week, you got any big big plans you wanna leave us with that you might have for this week?

MC: I do, you know, I have clients in town, with my real estate business–

JB: Charter One, plug plug plug.

MC: Let’s plug for– I’m with the Kaiser Jaton group at Charter One Realty. And, yeah, I’m just showing property and trying to sell houses.

JB: End of summer, does it start getting busier for you guys? 

MC: It does– fall is more of the selling season, spring and fall more than summer, so summer can tend to drone on a little bit. We’re not quite as busy. But I also wanted to mention that I am going to the Barbie movie this week. 

JB: Me too. Girl dad. I’m going by myself. Girl dad issues, she threatened me, so I’m gonna go mid day by myself.

MC: Are you gonna wear pink?

JB: I might, I might. I don’t know, I haven’t gone to that point. But yeah, I went to see Oppenheimer the first weekend, and she texts me, “why don’t you wanna see Barbie?” I said, “I’m gonna wait for that to stream.” And she goes, “Go see it.” I said “but I’m gonna wait…” And she responds, I’ll show you the text, she said, “Go see it.” I’m like, okay, she’s not playing around. ‘Go see it,’ I’m like, alright. So I’m gonna go, I decided then, when I get a little break in my day, mid week, when it’s quiet, and I can go in and out and not have to deal with anything, I’m gonna go see it by myself. So maybe we can talk about it next week. We’ll do a three minute movie review of Barbie, what do you think?

MC: Okay, let’s do it.

JB: Very good. 

MC: I don’t think Barbie and Ken eat food though, I think that’s a flaw. 

JB: Aha. Well, we can we can discuss what they would eat if we thought they would eat. 

MC: If we thought they would eat, okay, that sounds good.

JB: Sounds good. Maggie Crenshaw, thank you so much for hanging out. Mondays with Maggie will be every Monday here at eatitandlikeit.com or wherever you podcast. Have a wonderful weekend, lady, and we will talk to you next week.

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