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The Weekly Newsletter |
Menus and Stories for June 7 - June 12, 2004
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| A basket of our sandwiches - ready for lunch |
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We are now using City Bakery rolls and breads for all of our sandwiches. All organic flour, natural yeasts, careful, handmade production.
We roast our own meats, and the lettuce, this time of year, is from right around here.
(The mayonnaise is Hellman's - my personal favorite - and the mustard, Grey Poupon.)
White linen napkin. Nice basket. Handmade food.
Yum. |
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What's in this issue: |
1. "Drop Off" Catering
2. Yellow Branch Cheese
3. Dinners to Go
4. Casserole of the week
5. Our Mission - "...presented beautifully.."
6. Hickory Nut Gap products are here
7. A Note from Laurey
8. A peek into the storage room
Say, if you don't wish to continue to receive these weekly notes, simply scroll to the bottom of this page, follow the instructions about "unsubscribe" and consider it a done deal. We'll understand. |
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| Another Local Cheese Arrives |
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Newly arrived and on display up front in our "Help Yourself" case, give Yellow Branch Farms' cheeses a try. Now, I'm a Vermonter, as you know, and am very partial to my home state's cheddars (can't do much about it, I just love the taste) but I am pleased to report that Karen and Bruce, from the mountains to the west of here, are making a very satisfying and rich "farmstead" cheese. "Farmstead" means THEIR cows, THEIR milk, and THEIR production. This, my friends, is handmade cheese and we're indeed fortunate to have it. (Makes me even put Vermont aside every now and then.)
Oh, it's perfect on a sandwich, in eggs, melted on a tomato, or eaten with a piece of pie. Um, or, as I did just yesterday, nibbled right out of the wrapper. Yum! |
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The nightly dinners for the week (Call 252-1500 to order!) |
Dinners-to-go are available Monday through Friday.
Here's how it works:
Just call us in the morning and we'll take your order. Then come back between 4:30 and 6:00 to pick up your dinner - all ready in a heatable container. Simple, yes?
Monday June 7 Greek Lemon Chicken 9.50 **
Tuesday June 8 Chickpea Cakes, Tsatziki Sauce, and Stuffed Avocados 9.25
Wednesday June 9 Grilled Pork Tenderloin 10.25
Thursday June 10 Italian Meatballs and Antipasto Salad 9.75
Friday June 11 Shrimp and Pasta, Primavera 10.75
How's your low carb plan going? ** means you can enjoy this meal to your heart's content. Yum! |
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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 (for June 9) is:
Basque-style Andouille Sausage and Vegetable Pie
Half 18.75
Full 37.50
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Our mission: "...to present this food beautifully..." |
In continuing the discussion of the various parts of our mission, I thought I'd spend a bit of time on our presentation.
Presentation, though not EVERYTHING, is very important here. Our baskets, our platters, even our "to-go" containers are carefully chosen with your eye in mind. Sure, the taste of the food itself is not going to change dramatically because it is presented this way, but everyone here has an artistic sensibility and brings that to the visual sense of our platters and baskets of food - and is indicative of the attention given to the taste too. Even our deli case, the first place anyone looks when they come here, is, we hope, artistic. Filled, yes, with delicious foods (that is part of our mission too) from local sources as much as possible (mission driven), it is our intention to keep this gustatory mix nicely presented all day long.
Our parties, too, are great showcases for our presentations. We go out of our way to bring props and linens and appropriate decorative elements for your buffets and dinner parties. Ours are not generic events in any sense. Rather, it is our intention to relect you and your taste. Your party, to us, is completely unique.
And, as you see in the picture at the beginning of this newsletter, the presentation of even our "drop off catering" is important. We make all the foods just for you, present them in our collected baskets and bowls, and then deliver and set them up so that your business associates will know they are as important to you as you are to us.
How about that? |
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| More local foods |
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We're delighted to finally add Hickory Nut Gap Farms to our ingredient list. These farmers are the children and grandchildren of Jamie and Elsbeth Clarke, the folks who ran the farm over on the Fairview Road, right there at the old stagecoach stop on the sharp turn on the way to Lake Lure. You've probably driven by there once or twice.
Well, they are now offering hormone-free beef and pork, free range eggs, turkeys and chickens, and nice produce in season. We've started buying their Baby Back Ribs and are really enjoying the flavor and spark they bring to our deli case. Come by and see what you think.
To me, the flavor is rich, connected to the earth. Real food. Good food. Local food. Pure food.
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From the markets - a haiku |
Local greens, so fresh.
The farmers grow them for us.
We buy them for you. |
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| A Note from Laurey |
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June 5, 2004
Let’s see. Shall I tell you more about Italy? This dream hovers, comes in and out of focus, and persists.
I have found, and have spoken with, the woman who owns this relic of a property I stumbled into when Monroe and I were in Italy last month. The woman lives in Geneva, Switzerland, and greeted me with a comfortable and curious familiarity when I called last week.
“No,” she said, “the property is not ON sale, and, right now, it is not even FOR sale, but don’t worry, my dear, because nothing will happen to it without you hearing first. I am open to this idea, the idea of you owning some of my estate. There are complications, but I am open to you.”
“I’m not really even in a position to be talking to you about this,” I stammered, dollar signs floating in front of my eyes. “I just must tell you that my heart is captivated by this dream. I don’t know how it is going to happen, nor if there is any way I could do it, but, well, I just had to find you.”
“I’m following a dream too,” she said. “Dreams are good.”
We talked about a few logistics. She related her summer's plans: watching one son race high performance cars on the Grand Prix circuit in Europe, tending to her family home in Portofino (am I in this league, I wonder?) and, finally, in late fall, going to the land in Tuscany.
“Well that’s exactly when I plan to be there!” I exclaimed. “There is a conference I am planning to attend, and I want to visit this land again. I will bring the one who shares this dream, and we can talk then.”
“Very good,” she said. “We’ll meet on October 24th, shall we?”
I hung up the phone. Sat on my front step. Looked at my yard, full of day lilies and roses and coreopsis and promise. And drifted to that hillside and that land and that dream and felt, curiously, very content. Absolutely peaceful. And tremendously excited at the very same time.
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In our storage area |
Karen and Meghan have spent time this week organizing and straightening and getting ready for the summer's weddings and assorted fetes.
I don't usually show pictures of our storage area (not that it has ever been a BAD place) but it just looks so great right now that I thought I'd give you a glimpse into this part of our inner workings. |
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Contact Info: |
Laurey's Catering (yum!) and Gourmet to Go
67 Biltmore Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801
828-252-1500
laurey@laureysyum.com |
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