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The Weekly Newsletter for June 23, 2014
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 Here it is!
Fourth of July All-American Razzle-Dazzle Picnic to go!
At (our famous) historic price of $17.76!
July 4th Picnic Lunch
Buttermilk Fried Chicken
Sorghum Glazed Sweet Potato Wedges
Maple Slaw
Corn on the Cob
Apple Hand Pie
$17.76 per person
Pick up between 2pm - 4pm on July 3rd!
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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 23
 Lemon Rosemary Roasted Chicken and Potatoes 8.95
Tuesday, June 24
Tomato Pie, Chow-Chow and Summer Squash Casserole 8.95
Wednesday, June 25
Lamb Kebabs with White Bean Feta Salad 11.95 *GF*
Thursday, June 26
Flank Steak au Poivre with Herbed Mashed Potatoes $9.25
Friday, June 27
Salmon Nicoise with Marinated Cauliflower Salad 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 25: Local Beef and Vegetable Tortilla Whole $50/Half $25
Lasagna of the Week
June 27: Summer Squash and Fontina Whole $39/Half $19.50
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Here's an old, old Vermont (or at least, Northern) drink to restore electrolytes and quench thirst when you are haying. It is essentially the original ginger ale.
We can tell you with some confidence that haying can be a hot hot, itchy, prickly business. It is also extremely satisfying, sort of like painting your first apartment. You start with a field of waving grasses and timothy, catch the cycle of sunshine just right, mow it, turn it ("ted" it), and a day or two later run the baler to produce long lines of neat, dry, square hay bales, ready to stack in the barn for your horses.
(Cows can tolerate hay that is much wetter, in fact, already starting to turn -- those great big round bales. Horses have a much more delicate digestion, and must have really dry, really terrific hay. There. Now you know THAT!)
Laurey says the ginger root is optional, but please try it at least once WITH it. You'll really really like it.
This is from Laurey's Fresh Honey Cookbook for July, page 117.
A Recipe: Switchel
The ingredients:
1/2 cup honey, preferably sourwood honey
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sliced fresh gingerroot
Here's what you do:
1. Pour two quarts of water into a large pitcher. Combine the honey and apple cider vinegar into a bowl and stir well to combine. If either ingredient is cold, you might need to warm them slightly or the honey will not mix well. Add the mixture to the water. If you like a sweeter drink, add more honey. If you prefer a less sweet version, add a bit more vinegar.
2. If you're a ginger fancier [Heather says, "Just try it once this way!], add the gingerroot slices. Keep the pitcher in your refrigerator for a hot day.
(For a last-minute modifier- add a shot of sparkling water just before serving.)
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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 31, 2004
Here we are on the last day of July. The kitchen is bustling with preparations for two weddings. The market across the street is filled with happy market-goers. All seems right this morning.
I woke up early and went outside to cut a bag full of Ivy for one of today's weddings. Four or five swaths through my bank produced a fat bagful, leaving hardly any dent in the crop. When I moved into my house the bank was full of Juniper with just a little Ivy on one edge. Now, due to my inertia, I suppose, almost the whole thing is covered with Ivy, the juniper just peeking out from underneath. Ah well. The dark green leaves make me happy too.
I am a lucky land owner. My little piece of property sits tucked back from the road in a lush valley and from a distance it appears that I know what I am doing, from a garden standpoint. I put in a garden a few years ago and then kind of neglected it. Yesterday, however, as I stopped and took a good look, I realized that those things I envisioned those years ago have grown and filled in and, well, look very nice. Somehow everything is all yellow or purple right now. (Gardeners among you are rolling your eyes now, saying "duh " that's what ALWAYS happens at this time of year!") Everywhere I look there are tufts of yellow, dots of dark blue, a range of purples, and an occasional pop of red. What a delight.
Similarly, if I look around this shop and this business, watching as it grows and flows, I feel the same way.
"Wow!" I find myself saying, "look at that! Look at how this place has grown. Who would have ever thought it possible?"
One of the most pleasurable things these days is to sit in my office and just listen. In the mornings, the kitchen is a busy place, mixers and ovens and conversations all fly. Then, later, there is a flurry of activity as lunches get packed up, gathered, delivered. The phone rings with last-minute changes to orders. The printer clicks away.
Things get a little quieter then, a brief lull before lunchtime when the front door bells begin to ring as guests arrive. And then, the best sound of all, conversations filling the dining area.
We're on the edge of a big and very busy month. August, around here, will be a full time. Weddings, parties, big events. Today it feels good to slow down and just listen.
I'm liking this time. I don't feel highly active on the outside, but my brain is busy, creating, contemplating, wondering. Big things are going on, but everything is not always blatant or obvious or, really, even visible in the moment. But, in a time like this, it is amazing to take a look and see what has grown in times that were, no doubt, quiet in their own way when they were happening.
[source: Laurey's Cafe and Catering newsletter, July 31, 2004]
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 So, here's how this happened.
I have a small mission of just showing up where Laurey showed up. As her devoted and loving sister, this helps me, over time, meet some of the people she knew and loved. (Of course you all number in the many many hundreds, if not thousands.)
This newsletter is sent to over 3,000 addresses. About 1,000 of you open it and read it within the first day of receiving it each week. Your out-of-office messages keep me informed of your vacations, your other assignments, and sometimes your identities. (Interestingly, many of you are incognito, as Laurey just collected your addresses, and didn't always pop in a name. So many of her friends just dropped in to see Laurey in her office!!)
We do have a very good awareness of who Laurey's customers are, and mostly you just...come in! So wonderful of you, and we continue to be delighted that you do.
One of Laurey's dear friends is Susi Gott Seguret, who runs the marvelous Seasonal School of Culinary Arts, with outposts in Paris, Ithaca, Sonoma and Asheville. In the weeks following Laurey's passing, as I checked in to the tidal wave of messages, I saw a Facebook message from Susi. Laurey was scheduled to be one of the guest chefs at the SSCA Asheville week, in July.
Susi invited me to join the audience as she herself would teach that session, honoring Laurey with a recipe from The Fresh Honey Cookbook. Delighted, I said.
A week or so later, another Facebook message: Would I consider actually filling on for Laurey and doing a cooking demonstration?
Heather: "You know Susi, that might be great fun! Thank you for the invitation -- I accept!"
Susi: "Yay! You are a brave and daring woman! I will send specifics ..."
So, a few days ago I was sharing a glass of mead with Phyllis Stiles, the genius behind Asheville's Pollination celebration. She is the heart of getting Asheville declared Bee City USA in 2012, and is one of those marvelous folks who you see wearing bee antenna. On special occasions.
So Phyl says to me, she says, "I didn't know you were a chef!! Gosh, what ELSE do you do?"
[heart-stopping stomach-churning fear-they-have-discovered-me moment: A chef! A chef? Where did that come from?] "Yes," she chirped, "I see you are on the schedule to teach for Susi at the Seasonal School."
Oy. I am a cook, and a good one. Our mother was a fine, self-taught cook, who really started cooking only in her 30's, a chef in the fact that she ran a wonderful restaurant, wrote three cookbooks, and just at the end began a really marvelous cooking school.
 Laurey was also self-taught, never found space in her career for culinary school, but delighted in food, in its sources, in the very very specific tastes and wonders of food. She was honored and feted and rightfully celebrated as a food champion.
Our sister Lucinda devours cookbooks and food magazines, collects recipes, innovates, throws huge wonderful parties. (...leaving Sisyphean stacks of pots and pans in her wake...)
But me? Hmph. I grew up in a household where you were expected to cook, to make cakes ("from scratch" was never articulated - how else to make a cake?). You were also expected to eat, so we tried it all, learned it all, prepared and processed and served it all.
Really, we girls, Elsie's girls, grew up in the hospitality industry, which is pretty much where I have stayed, usually hosting, in the "front of house".
I am the family baker. I am also the family Luddite, distrustful of our sister Lucinda's really excellent convection oven, crabby about the food processor, prickly and a little defensive about my work in the kitchen.
I really like having my own hands in it, peeling or shredding or stirring or kneading. I am attentive and comfortable with the cooking process itself, and more or less prefer to be left alone to do it. I mostly don't cut myself and mostly it comes out the way I meant it.
For the big family Thanksgiving, I am known to start making pies or cakes after 10 pm, when all the other idiots, uh, helpers, are out of the way.
The last conflict I recall with Laurey was when she tried to tell me how she would peel the squash to make pie.
"I got it."
"Don't you even want to try it my way?"
"I GOT it!
I was not "The Great Sister" at that moment.
So we'll see what develops in the event. I am happy to go, happy to present, and look forward to sharing the wonderful world I grew up in. I have a good classroom presence, and as a singer, handle a microphone confidently. (Heck, maybe I can SING for the class!)
But to my small wonder, the way the world is today, just quietly preparing loving food may be enough.
- from Heather Masterton
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