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The Weekly Newsletter for June 15, 2014
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 Please keep an eye out for our
Fourth of July All-American Razzle-Dazzle Picnic to go!
When we first introduced this, Laurey noted:
"Take this out to the ball game, or to the lake or to the fireworks! We'll pack you a nice bag full of picnic yums and send you on your festive way.
(You'll have to bring your own firecrackers.)"
It's going to be great! (Talk about planning ahead!!)
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Dinners to go for the week
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Here are dinners to go for this week. This, if you do not know, is a fabulous way to have dinner. It's easy - just call us by noon and your dinner will be ready for you to pick up by 3 that very day.
You can stop by to pick yours up until we close at 8.
Add salad (3.25) or bread (1.25) if you like.
Monday, June 16
Athenian Phyllo Chicken with Rice Pilaf 8.95
Tuesday, June 17
Lemon Walnut Fettucine with Pecorino 7.95
Wednesday, June 18
Local Beef Bolognese 8.95 *GF*
Thursday, June 19
Herb Roasted Pork Tenderloin Smothered in Fried Apples $9.25
Friday, June 20
Crab Cakes with Remoulade Sauce 10.95
....and here is the entire June menu!
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Casserole and Lasagnas to go !
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Casserole of the Week
June 18: Eggplant Parmesan Whole $35/Half $17.50
Lasagna of the Week
June 20: Local Sausage, Pesto and Olives Whole $60/Half $30
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My friends, you are certainly aware that Laurey's most recent book is The Fresh Honey Cookbook, for sale at a locally-owned bookstore near you (and from us here at the Cafe, of course.) It is filled with seasonal recipes keyed to wonderful varietal honeys, and at $14.95, it is a GREAT summer gift idea, don't you think?
In her previous book, Elsie's Biscuits (Stories of Food, My Mother, and Me), Laurey included some favorite recipes, (and that, too, is available at the cafe). Really fun to read, and such sweet stories of our Vermont home and Laurey's early blossoming into Asheville's pioneer hero.
Some months ago, Martha, cook extraordinaire, and a long long time member of the staff at Laurey's, unearthed a treasure trove of the PAPER version of this newsletter. We have issues as far back as 1999, and many of them included a favorite recipe. I thought you'd like a quick reminder of Laurey's casual, easy style. When she invited her close circle to her home, the table was always GORGEOUS, the dinner tasty, fresh fresh fresh, and as local as possible.
(Just to also say that when she WASN'T entertaining, what she cooked for herself at home was often cereal. Cheerios or Muesli. Seriously.)
A Recipe: Bruschetta with Fresh Tomato Topping
The ingredients:
Crusty good bread, the best you can find
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Fresh Tomatoes
Coarse salt, Fresh ground pepper
Roasted garlic pepper
Fresh Basil, Balsamic Vinegar
Here's what you do:
Slice the bread, fairly thickly, on a diagonal. Brush one side with the olive oil. Grill (on a charcoal or gas grill) or broil both sides of the bread.
To make the topping, simply cut the tomatoes in chunks about 1/4" square. Toss in a bow with a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of the vinegar, and chopped basil. Add salt and pepper as you like. See if you can find the roasted garlic pepper in the specialty section of your grocery store. I's quite a wonderful flavor. If you strike out, just use granulated garlic.
Let the mixture sit for 15-20 minutes and then spoon onto the grilled bread. If possible I try not to grill the bread until just before serving. There is nothing like hot-from-the-garden tomatoes on hot-from-the-grill bread.
Laurey's paper newsletter, July 2002
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Laurey's notes (from a lifetime of writing)
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[So much has been written about Laurey and her life projects, but of course the best spokesman is Laurey herself. In this column we present archival reprints of her messages. This is an early newsletter from her online records.]
July 26, 2004
I've been doing a fair bit of thinking about balancing rocks these days. Yes. That's right. Balancing Rocks. I'm not really sure why this is such a fascinating thing, but, well, it has become so.
Do you know the artist Andy Goldsworthy, the fellow who goes out and picks up leaves and sticks and rocks and makes sculptures in the woods? Well, for some reason, I seem to be finding myself captivated by the simple act of finding the point of balance for rocks. Finding it, holding the rock, sensing its spot, and letting it stand, balanced, in its river or ocean or porch home.
The other day I was up on a hillside, scouting for a ceremony that will be coming up this fall. I stood, listening and trying to get the feeling of that spot and, seeing a pile of rocks, I could not resist the pull to play. One rock called and I picked it up and, mesmerized in a way, positioned it to stand up in a way that, from a distant glance, seemed like a position that would have been impossible for it to hold. But there it stood. Solid and strong and odd. The wind came up. A Red-tailed Hawk flew over. The rock held.
Up on the top of Blueberry Hill there was a huge boulder when I was little. I have no idea how it could have gotten up there on a grassy knoll, but I guess it must have rolled off Romance Mountain a long time before I ever discovered it. It was, by far, my favorite of my many secret hideouts, a grand place to climb, hide, dream. I often sat on it, balanced and very happy.
Today, thinking of writing and life, I balanced a couple of rocks, concentrating but drifting at the same time. I think that when you become 50 some things change and there seem to be many times when I need to just think and breathe and mull over what is going on. Rock balancing is a good thing to do for me right now.
I'm not quite sure how much call there is for rock balancing in this world, but it is certainly a settling thing for me to do. And, when I return to a rock that I have placed, and it is still standing, it makes me smile, amused at this odd passion of mine.
Um, I have no tidy conclusion here. But perhaps, before you wonder about me, you might give it a try. You might see what I mean. You might.
[source: Laurey's Cafe and Catering newsletter, July 26, 2004]
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We can't resist these stories about where Laurey's treasures are headed - this one is a corker!
Laurey loved Old Time music, and took fiddle lessons seriously for some years. Starting in 1995, she convinced us to join her for each summer at the Augusta Heritage Festival in Elkins West Virginia. (Even our Aunt Ethel joined us there one year, age probably 87, following their Elder Hostel. We were quite the package!)
 Every Tuesday night, Laurey's cafe still hosts an Old Time Jam, with a large, faithful, energetic crew learning the old tunes the old way: repetition and observation. Some patient leadership and hard work and a lot of fun.
Now in Laurey's house were two violins. One was a Stradivarius style creation, pretty, but not magnificent. (The other was made by Grover Sutton, and more news about that one in a future edition.)
Again news from our cook, Martha: her sister-in-law Margery is one of a four "fun-loving, Old Time music playing ladies who just left for Madrid to hike the Del Norte route of the Camino de Santiago - WITH Laurey's Strad-style fiddle!!"
"It will be enjoyed and played well, and Laurey's spirit will be along for the fun!"
Thank you, Martha, and thank you Margery!
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A quick note to say to you all that Fred and I are going to be moving, and will be the new residents at Laurey's lovely cabin in Weaverville.
Estates being what they are, it has taken some time to wrestle with the paperwork involved in assuring that this a feasible and sensible plan.
About three weeks ago, it became definite.
We had engaged in a fair amount of planning and hoping, but now are in full move-it-right-now mode. Fred has been supervising the clean-up and some remodel of the older elements of the house that simply needed to be replaced.
Fred has been in almost daily touch with well water people and water softener people and the cable guys and the heating guys and the propane guys and the propane-pipe-running guys and the kitchen cabinet guys and the taking-out-ceiling-guys (and the wildly astonishing smash-the-old-tub-with-a-sledgehammer guy!).
Lots of gentlemen, seemingly all with a grand sense of stable, calm, sweet country humor. At the end of the day, I hear, "He's a great guy". "A great country boy." "Very big, very kind." These folks have unearthed a small but impressive collection of wildlife, some known to us, some previously not known to us. None VERY hazardous.
I have planted flowers, and today, washed windows. And packed I think five boxes. We are moving Wednesday. (dramatic pause)
We have been visited repeatedly by single representatives of the decorative-creature world: as I watered the garden, a lone honeybee "snoopervised" (Aunt Ethel's word) the watering.
Laurey's garden is edged with up-side-down wine bottles (Thank you, Eberhard at the the Asheville Wine Market!). In their little indentations, a bees can take a bath. Or drown, as it happens. So they are each filled with four or five pieces of gravel, just big enough for a bee to stand on. You know that Laurey's hives (empty of bees, lost in the last cold winter) have moved to a new residence at sister Lucinda's home in Kentucky. However, our across-the-street neighbor has hives, and apparently it is HIS bees who come to see us, or take a delicate sip in the wine bottle bee-baths.
 The other day as I planted the whole truck-bed full of flowers, annuals and sweet herbs, one little bee gal stayed with me through pretty much the whole operation.
Today, fueled by one Bruegger's Bagels coffee, I washed outside walls, unloaded Laurey's glass from the glass shelves, scrubbed the screens, excavated leaves, evicted spiders..
Down the hill, Laurey's faithful gardening companions, Lito and Rolando and friend Will hacked through a sea of poison ivy. They are originally from El Salvador, where the poison ivy has real muscles, and ours doesn't intimidate them.
"I told Laurey, 'Poison ivy is my friend'", Lito beamed. I called down from my safe perch up on the deck, "Yeah, it probably keeps you from getting cancer!"
Later, as our friends warily circled a small but wildly alert nest of paper wasps, one decided Lito was too close, and stung through his glove. "That REALLY keeps you from getting cancer!" he grinned over at me, sweetly serious.
 Rolando couldn't bear it, and swung closer and closer with his blower. Wrecked the paper wasp's house ("Ahhhhh! Mi casita!" the gentlemen chortled), saving me from I-really-don't-want-to-do-this nighttime attack on this too-close stinging neighbor.
Back on the deck. One blue swallowtail at the new blue Salvia. One red-tailed hawk jumping into the blue from the oak behind us.
One more honey bee ("abeja de la miel"), tagging along.
All of it blue, all of it reflected in Laurey's clean, clean glass.
- from Heather Masterton
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