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The Weekly Newsletter |
Menus and Stories for April 5 - 10, 2004
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| Our first full house!!! |
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A Haiku for lunch:
Have you been here yet?
More people come every day.
Come see why they do! |
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What's in this issue: |
1. Japanese Craft and Art Fair - April 10
2. Dinners to Go for the week
3. Casserole of the week
4. A new baker
5. The Cell Phone Story - Part II
6. A Note from Laurey |
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| Japanese Craft Fair - Saturday, April 10 |
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We have a new friend, Noriko, who is an active member of the Japanese Culture Club. (Did you know there was a Japanese Culture Club here?) They had a cooking class here recently and asked if they could come back for a bigger event. It sounded interesting so I said yes.
Here's what's going to happen:
A number of individual artists and craftspeople will come here, set up tables, and be prepared to demonstrate or sell their wares. There'll be Ink Painting, Origami, Japanese Pottery, A Tea Ceremony, Shiatsu Massage and who knows what else.
Come between 1 and 4.
Arigato! |
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The nightly dinners for the week |
Dinners-to-go are available Monday through Friday.
Dinners come with salad and bread of the day and are ready for pick up between 4:30 and 6:00
Easy enough? We hope so!
Monday April 5 Chicken Dijonnaise 10.25 **
Tuesday April 6 Asparagus Frittata with Antipasto 9.75
Wednesday April 7 Ginger-Honey Flank Steak with New Potatoes 11.25
Thursday April 8 NC Barbecue Pork Roast with Tri-colored Cole Slaw 10.50
Friday April 9 Grilled Grouper with Asian Vegetables 11.50 **
** means low-carb |
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Dinners to go for the whole month |
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| The Casserole of the Week |
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Casseroles are made each Wednesday.
Call to order on Tuesday if you can.
Orders will be ready on Wednesday between 4:30 and 6:00.
Order a full pan for 9 (or so) or a half pan for 4 or 5.
This week's casserole is:
Chicken Creole with “Macque Choux”
(“Macque Choux” is a wonderfully smoky corn concoction – delicious!)
Full: 33.75
Half: 16.50
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New Baker. New offerings. |
Our friend and baker, Mark, was offered a teaching job in Charlotte so he will only be here occasionally from now on. We wish him well as he ventures into this new way of looking at working with food.
Part II of this story is that we have found a new baker. Kris is here and has already been making us happy with comfort desserts of all kinds. My goal, I told her, is to have the best muffins in town, so she's gotten busy and, starting Monday, we'll have them for sale in the shop. This will be a work in progress, but don't you think it'll be fun to be a part of the whole process? Let us know what you think (and let us know if you have any special requests). |
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| The Cell Phone Story - Part II |
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This is the week's attempt to tackle the cell phone dilemma: Too many people talk too loudly on their phones, disturbing too many other people.
The crazy part is that people come in, look at this sign, and then pull out their phones. Go figure!
Anyway - it might have gotten a little better. Some of your proposals for dealing with this situation were quite entertaining.
Many of you suggested dipping the offenders' devices in chocolate. Others proposed a cell-phone cubby check-in area. Someone said we should scramble the signal once people get inside our shop - but that seems a little drastic!
Sigh.
Well, this display, at least, makes me smile about the whole thing. Thanks to our friend Ann for this light-hearted suggestion.
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A Note from Laurey |
What a fun week it has been!
Yesterday, a cold and damp day, could easily have been one to drag a gal down and make her want to go home, light a fire, and hunker in for the duration. I mean, won’t the sun EVER come back? Won’t it EVER get warm?
Right around 11:30 in the morning, right when my morning flurry was winding down, I became aware of the pleasant bustle of people coming into the shop, settling in for lunch. There’s nothing particularly unusual about that, I grant you. I continued to sift my papers and work at my desk. But gradually the bustle increased and I got up from my desk and peeked out my office door to see what was going on. Oh my! We had a full house! And not only was the house full, people sitting at every seat of every table, but there was someone at every seat in our front windows too and there were even more folks lined up at the deli case. I counted: 38 people sitting down, more standing. Unbelievable.
When I first moved downtown to my first kitchen, I kept the front door locked. My money, what there was of it, rested in a cigar box on my book shelf. I cooked, delivered, served, and cleaned up, all by myself. At one point I hired a cooking helper and then a baker, but the front door stayed locked. I did not want to have a restaurant. I loved the cooking and I loved doing parties, but I did not want waitresses or a cash register or any of that. The whole idea of it intimidated me. Customers? Scary!
The truth is that one day my business partner brought me a cash register that he had bought at a “going-out-of-business” sale. When I saw it I burst into tears, and, weeping, told him I did not want it and for him to please just take the thing away. He did, wondering, no doubt, what kind of lunatic he’d partnered with. The front door stayed locked.
But one day two people wandered in. They’d noticed my one table, and, peering through the window, they could see my deli case, an antique beauty, full of brightly delicious foods – all set for a catering later that day.
“We’d like to have lunch here,” they said.
“Um, sorry,” I stuttered, annoyed at myself for forgetting to lock to door, “this is not a restaurant, and, um, I, um, I, uh…okay, well, maybe just this once.”
I fixed them each a plate which they carried over to my sole table where they sat and ate, quietly talking to each other, taking their time, enjoying their lunch. I hovered in my kitchen, aware of a quickened pulse and a flutter of excitement in my gut. When they left, there was a dollar bill on the table. I put it in my cigar box.
So yesterday, not exactly all of a sudden, if you really stop to think about it, we had so many people here that some had to actually wait a few minutes. I found myself skipping back and forth like a bit of a kook, clearing plates, visiting, chirping to myself. I must say, the whole thing made me very happy, and I think it might be time to order a few more tables. What fun!
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| Enjoying dessert at Laurey's |
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| Mae loved our Chocolate Mousse. |
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A note on this newsletter: |
If you do not wish to continue to get these weekly notes, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on "unsubscribe."
Similarly, if someone forwarded this note to you and you wish to be ADDED, scroll down (etc.) and click on the "subscribe."
No further questions will be asked.
Promise! |
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Contact Info: |
Laurey's Catering and Gourmet to Go
67 Biltmore Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801
828-252-1500
Laurey Masterton, Proprietor |
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