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The Weekly Newsletter |
Menus and Stories for August 23 - August 28, 2004
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| Still Life with Tomatoes |
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Look at these babies!
Straight out of my very own garden. (It's enough to make you think I know what I am doing, which is not exactly the case.)
The plants were a birthday present to me from Melissa, here in the shop. Can't think of anything nicer, really, since I've been enjoying the most succulent tomato sandwiches all summer.
Thanks, Melissa!!! |
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What's in this issue: |
1. Yum!
2. What's in this issue
3. Dinners to Go
4. Casserole of the week
6. Talented Individuals
7. A Note from Laurey
8. Dinner in the Garden Room
If you'd rather not receive these weekly notes, simply scroll to the bottom of this page, follow the instructions about "unsubscribe" and that'll be that. |
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| A Day in the Garden |
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A group of us spent the afternoon at the edible garden at the YWCA recently. Here is Martha in front of a stand of popcorn, some purple basil, a bunch of herbs.
The tomatoes were looking wild and full, the Canna Lilies, robust. In a couple of years we'll have apples. And we'll help the kids get some fall crops going before too long.
All this from a rubble-filled lot. Ain't life grand? |
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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 for that night's meal. Then come back between 4:30 and 6:00 to pick up your dinner - all ready in a heatable container. Simple, yes?
Monday August 23 Rosemary Roasted Chicken with Cilantro Sauce 9.50
Tuesday August 24 Jerked Chicken with Calypso Black Beans 9.50 **
Wednesday August 25 Pork Chops in Orange Ginger Sauce 10.25
Thursday August 26 Lemon Pepper Flank Steak 10.50 **
Friday August 27 Shrimp and Grits, Low-country style 12.25
** means you can enjoy this meal to your "low-carb" 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.
Wednesday, August 25
Artichoke and Spinach Lasagna
Summertime in a pan
Full 28.50
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Talented Individuals |
Here is Donna, our shop co-manager. Prior to coming here she ran the Garden program at Warren Wilson College, keeping some 30 students actively involved in running that schools' vibrant edible foods' curriculum. (She also can hitch and guide draft horses!)
In one of her other lives she does blacksmithing and iron work, creating all kinds of useful (and some not so useful) art objects. She is a bike rider and a great addition to our place.
Here she is helping on our service project of keeping the YWCA Edible Garden looking sharp. She fielded all our neophyte questions, "Is THIS a weed?" and convinced me that the weird things I kept avoiding were NOT poison ivy.
She does a grand job here, quietly and efficiently systematizing us and generally taking care of all sorts of things.
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| More fun gums |
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If you haven't already seen them, do come by to see the very entertaining boxes of gum we have these days. When they sell out we replace them with a new kind, so, if you haven't been in lately, well, make a point to.
We've all been laughing pretty hard at "Be Gone Evil Twin" gum, "Wanna Kiss?" gum and, my personal favorite, on those days when nothing seems to be going right, the gum who's package says, boldly, "How about a nice big pack of SHUT THE HELL UP." (Of course we don't mean it, but it is fun to keep a pack in our pocket, ready to flash it when the moment demands - not that it ever does, you know.) |
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I'm here |
| Yup - that's me, tucked back behind the potato chips and the "Fizzy Lizzy" boxes. We had to take everything out of the Garden Room to get ready for Dinner and Conversations the other night. The only open spot was right in front of me. (The good news was that NO ONE could see me and I felt like I was in a secret hideout. Reminded me of making forts out of old refrigerator boxes. Remember that?) |
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| A Note from Laurey |
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August 21, 2004
What a week we’ve had. Again. What a delight it all is.
It really was a week of gardens. As you can see by looking at these pictures, we spent an afternoon cleaning up the garden over at the YWCA. I had helped get it built a while ago, but had found a garden manager to take care of it and, frankly, I hadn’t gone over there in way too long. (I guess that I was spending time building THIS place, an acceptable excuse, I suppose.) Well, the manager moved on and I got a call for help from the YW folks and enlisted the gang here to do a clean up session. Much to my surprise, the garden was in very good shape even before we arrived. Someone had been in there weeding, cleaning, sorting, harvesting. Still, our little group really did a nice job, getting the place ready for the fall planting.
And then, a couple of days after the clean up, I met with some folks over there who are going to help the children get more involved, more connected, more in touch with the dirt, the tomatoes, the basil, the onions. This has always been my dream for that garden, to have little kids and old people, teachers and community folks all working together to plant and dig and eat real food. It looks like it is happening.
Keeping with the garden and real food theme, we had our first Dinner and Conversation this week. What a grand start it was! Nearly forty people came to share the evening, meet a couple of our growers, tell stories, celebrate the sacredness of food. I must say, one of my favorite moments was sitting at a table with excited people, some of whom I did not even know, watching this room full of strangers eating, talking, exclaiming. I was late sitting down, as is the usual style of the host. But when I did, and took my first bite of the Heirloom Tomato Salad with Tom and Kari’s Floralina Orange Banana Tomatoes, and moaned at the exquisite tang, my friend, who was sitting next to me said, “Oh WE’VE already moaned about everything! You’re behind!” She went back for thirds on the roasted Bulbing Fennel. I saw a lot of returns for more of the roasted “All Blue” baby potatoes, the stuffed “Gold Nugget” Squash, the Peach Bars. YUM all around.
We listened, after dinner, to the growers tell why they do what they do. I should have known, but admit I was surprised at their eloquence. “Growers live by the seasons,” Tom said, “we follow the moon, the stars, the planets. We’re really eating dirt, you know. Marvelous isn’t it?”
One fellow, a guest, told about visiting a commercial tomato grower in Florida and as he told about watching the stacking the cases of hard green tomatoes in a gas chamber, it felt like I was hearing about a concentration camp. I thought about it all night long, grateful to be living in a place where tomatoes ripen on the vine, in the sun, with real water and soft air.
This morning Martha, one of our cooks for the feast, came into my office asking about the Dinner and Conversations. “We LOVE it when the growers come into the kitchen!” she said, “We always want to see what they brought us.” It’s lovely to see the cooks’ inspiration when I go up to have lunch from our deli case. Heartening to know that I am not the only one who is full of this passion. Growers, buyers, cookers, eaters. We need, and have, all of them.
I’ll be in touch next week.
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Dinner in the Garden Room |
My it was pretty here the other night. Wish you could have joined in.
Maybe next time. What d'ya say? |
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Contact Info: |
Laurey@laureysyum.com
828-252-1500
67 Biltmore Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801 |
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