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The Weekly Newsletter |
Menus and Stories for May 15 - 20, 2006
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| What a sandwich! |
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You may not know this but we make terrific sandwiches here in the cafe. Here is one Adam made for me for lunch the other day - I could not resist taking a picture (some people take pictures of cute children...)
We have locally baked bread and a bunch of different kinds of rolls and wraps and such too. This one, on a Ciabatta was great. Ham, Havarti, Italian Pimientos, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and Dijon Mustard.
Yu - UM!!!
Our baskets of sandwiches make great lunches at your office too. We'll put 'em on a tray or present them in one of our cloth-lined baskets. Add one of our fresh salads, some of our cookies, some of our Iced Tea and you'll be good to go. We hear that folks who eat our business lunches are primed to buy whatever it is you are selling. You can (almost) trust me on this one!
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Salad Nicoise |
Today is a busy day here. The gang has been here since early early early this morning getting the food ready for a big wedding this afternoon. (I got to decorate the Wedding cake for that one, though Mel baked it.)
It is graduation time and one lucky graduate is going to be celebrated to the tune of our Chicken Salad Nicoise (still can't figure out how to put that little "c" thing-y under the "C" in Nicoise even though my friend Jade tried to teach me.) This is their lunch: Grilled Chicken, Stemmed Artichokes, Grape Tomatoes, Haricots Verts, and Olives. Lucky graduate and lucky graduate's family too. Congratulations to all graduates. We knew you could do it.
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| Herbed Chicken |
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Here's Richard's creation of the day. Our garden is beginning to produce fresh herbs and inspire us to fill the deli case with fresh things of all kinds. My simple Baked and Fried Chicken takes on a pleasant complexity with these additional flavors. (We don't want you to get bored, you know.)
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Dinners to go |
Dinners, as you know, come with a freshly-made green salad, salad dressing of the day, and made-right-here bread of the day. We take reservations until noon or so. Please order by phone (252-1500), by FAX (252-02002) or stop in to speak to one of us in person.
Here is the menu for this week:
Monday May 15 Braised Chicken with Olives and Preserved Lemons 10.00
Tuesday May 16 Chickpea Cakes with Israeli Couscous 9.50
Wednesday May 17 Thai Beef with Lemon Vermicelli 10.75
Thursday May 18 Pulled Pork BBQ with Richard’s Sweet Potato Salad 10.25
Friday May 19 Grilled Tuna with Wasabi Butter 11.50
By the way, every time you order a dinner to go you are eligible to enter our drawing. Just drop a card in our drawing jar (a business card works or fill out one of the cards that we have right here) and, at the end of the month, we'll pull one card which will be good for two free dinners-to-go. Inaugurated a few months ago, our first winner was delighted! Maybe you'll win next month.
Order a lot? Enter a lot!
Good luck!!
(Our friend from across the street, Roz, just won for April's drawing. Way to go Roz!) |
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Our website |
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| Special casserole of the week |
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We make a special casserole each week on Wednesday. Please give us a call by the end of the day on Tuesday and we’ll fix yours for you. Come by between 4:30 and 6:00. Get a half (for 4 appetites) or a full sized pan (for 9 or so.)
Wednesday, May 17
Seafood Cottage Pie
(an old-fashioned, New England-style pot pie)
Full: 39.50
Half: 19.75
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Pesky Gift Cards |
Well, the best laid plans and attempts sometimes fall flat. So it is with the Gift Card program we had adopted. We thought it'd be a great idea to get these little credit card-like cards and offer them instead of our handmade paper certificates. All very high-tech and up-to-the-minute, you know.
Alas, we were very wrong.
The cards we got lost their value, sometimes didn't work, and were, well, problematic. We got lots of complaints and have decided to discontinue their use. We've gone back to the good old handmade ones (they look nice, don't worry.)
We do know that there are a number of these gift cards out in the world and so we are standing by, ready to turn them into the nice, reliable, handmade ones. If you have one of our cards, or if you know of anyone who does (you may have given one for a gift) we'd like to swap with you. Just bring the card in and we'll do the trade. It won't take long - but we ask that you avoid our lunch rush. You can also call and we'll do the whole thing on the phone. Ask for Emily if you will.
We learned our lesson. We're sorry for this inconvenience. Thanks for helping us straighten it all out.
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| Silliness is good |
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We don't necessary agree with the sentiments of these magnets (in case you can't see the picture, they say "Boys are Smelly" and "Boys are stupid - thrown rocks at them") but we figure if something makes us smile it might also make you smile and smiling, we figure, is a good thing, right?
We have some new magnets and some more silly gum and some goofy things that might appeal to YOUR graduate or new bride or birthday gal. Come see. They are on the "Happy Center."
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Appalachian Grown |
We are pretty active with Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Partners (for those of you who don't live here, that word is pronounced "app-a-LA-chin" (like lap), not "app-a-LAY-chin") These folks are movers and shakers, keeping fresh, local food on the tip of everyone's tongues around here.
They have come up with a new program, which will ensure that items bearing their new logo will be locally grown. Their logo is so new it isn't even available to be seen yet. BUT we had the distinct priviledge of being the very first one to sign up to be a part of the Appalachian Grown License agreement! Cool, huh?
Pretty soon we'll have stickers and signs and labels and such which will let you know which salads in our deli case and products on our shelves contain locally-grown items. This is a fabulous program and will help our local farmers, giving them the attention and notice that they deserve. You know that farms all over this country are being turned into developments. And that many "organic" products are not local at all, but are trucked in from California, so they are not necessarily any better than regular-old commercial produce.
Appalachian Grown stickers and signs will highlight LOCAL farms and local people who are making sure that that does not happen to every single farm around here. It's an important step. As soon as I can I will show you the new logo - and will stick it on as many things as I can around here.
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| A Note From Laurey |
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Isn’t it funny that a birthday can be such a special thing? There is a certain ring to the day that, when it comes, is MY day. 14 has always been my favorite number – no doubt because it is my birthday. But it amuses me to be almost giddy with all, still. Presents are fun, but not necessary. And a celebration is fun too. This year there will be a few. (We have a picnic planned for tomorrow, an outdoor festival, an excursion on Monday.) But the taste of a cake can tend to yank me, faster than anything, into a reverie.
Emily made me a cake the other day, giving me a book of birthday cakes and telling me to pick any one I wanted. What a blast!
“We got to pick our own cake when we were growing up – as long as it was The Perfect White Cake,” I said to her. “We could choose which color the icing was going to be, but it was always that same cake.”
“Really!” she exclaimed.
That, to me had seemed normal - all the way up until the time I was in 5th grade and went to my friend Dale Thomas’ house and her mother had made an angel food cake with meringue frosting. That was a memorable cake! We all balled up little clumps of it, after the sugar rush had overtaken us, and flung them at each other, catapulting them across the birthday table. It was a big sticky mess, and we had a big time. Believe it or not, I can still clearly remember the taste of that cake.
Our mother generally had us invite one or two friends for an entire dinner. The birthday girl got to choose the dinner – and, of course, the icing color for the cake. I smile, amused, at this memory. I always chose spaghetti with tomato sauce. I probably would have chosen “American Goulash” (a gourmet concoction of macaroni, hamburger, and canned tomatoes) but that was not in the Blueberry Hill repertoire.
My sister Heather now celebrates a birth month, which lets me and my other sister off the hook as far as timely present-giving goes. Lucinda’s birthday is right after mine so I have a built-in reminder. We just saw each other a couple of weeks ago and will get together again in June. We’re pretty flexible when it comes to holidays, celebrating whenever we ever manage to get together. The Perfect White Cake is still the one that, more than any other, says “it’s my birthday” to me. That and the number 14.
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Happy Birthday (to me!) |
Here's the top view of Emily's cake. Cake for breakfast is my very most favorite thing. It had all those breakfast necessities in it: fruit, eggs, flour, butter (lots of butter), milk. I felt fortified and appropriately feted. Everyone had a piece right along with me. I buzzed back into the office and the rest of the gang buzzed along to the stoves. What a way to start a day!
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Contact
Info: |
Laurey's "Gourmet Comfort Food"
Eat In - Take Out - Catering
67 Biltmore Avenue Asheville, NC 28801
828-252-1500
Hours:
Monday - Friday 8:00 - 6:00 pm
Saturday 8:00 - 4:00 pm
"Don't Postpone Joy!"(tm)
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