The Weekly Newsletter
Menus and Stories for November 12 - 16, 2007
It's time to order!

We make a complete Thanksgiving meal each year and this year is no different.

The dinners are made on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, in the morning and are ready to pick up that day, between 2 and 4 (when we close.) Our meals are packed in reheatable containers and simple reheating instructions are included.
Sound good?
Give us a call to place your order.
252-1500.
Or if you prefer the personal approach, just stop by and one of us can take your order.
We'd like to have the orders in by the end of the day on Friday, November 16. (That's this Friday!)

Here is this year's menu:
Thanksgiving 2007 "A Taste of the South"

Starters:
Cheddar Cheese Sausage Balls (with Hickory Nut Gap Sausage)

The Dinner:
Sorghum-glazed Turkey with Apple Chestnut Stuffing
Cheesy Mashed Potatoes with Classic Gravy
“Green Bean Casserole” Haricots Verts with Crunchy Onions And Roasted Mushrooms (a fancy version of the traditional one)
Southern Corn Pudding
Cranberry Orange “Jubilee” Chutney
Clover Leaf Rolls
Traditional Pumpkin Pie or Apple Crumb Pie
$29.95 per person


P.S.  These are Monroe and Lupe's flowers but they are so pretty that I thought they'd be a good introduction to this little reminder.)

Five little pumpkins

Remember last week's stories? Remember me telling you about Lupe and Monroe's Wedding and that we were going to have the dinner reception here? Well we did! It was quite beautiful (Monroe and Stacey, the florist are quite a team). Monroe had asked me to make some little round ornaments that became nametages for the guests. He told me what colors he wanted and let me loose.

The ornaments were sweet, but they were all given away to the guests so I put these little fellows together for the family. Five memories of this most lovely day for this most lovely family of five.

Our shop, transformed

We sat 75 guests in here for this wedding party. Mon came over with a tape and measured ahead of time and, though it was full, everyone fit nicely. Their families are both very musical and the band which was very good, hardly got a chance, in between multiple songs from assorted family members (mine included - my sister Heather has a beautiful voice and she sang a love song that made all of us teary) and stories from the friends who had gathered from all over the country.

All in all it was a very sweet evening. I, for one, felt quite blessed to have them all here.

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.

As a reminder, 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.

Maybe you'll win next month.

Order a lot? Enter a lot!
Good luck!!

Here is this week's menu:



Monday November 12 Chicken Parmesan with Glazed Brussels Sprouts 10.25

Tuesday November 13 Pan-seared Trout with Saffron Orange Aioli 12.25

Wednesday November 14 Smothered Pork Chops with Gingered Applesauce 11.75

Thursday November 15 Chicken and Gorgonzola Fettuccine 10.25

Friday November 16 Crabcakes with Roasted Potatoes 12.25

(say, don't forget to call us if you'd like our Thanksgiving Dinner to go next week.)

Our website
Special casserole of the week

We make a special casserole each week. Order before noon on Wednesday and we'll have yours ready to pick up between 4:30 and 6:00 that very afternoon. (Yes, you can order in advance too.) Order a full for 9 portions or, if your gang is smaller, opt for the half-sized one, which serves 4 or so.

Say, we'll happily make a salad and provide bread for you if you like, just let us know when you call and we'll get you all set up.

This week's special casserole is:
Wednesday, November 14
Eggplant, Roasted Pepper, and Ricotta Provençal Gratin
Full: 28.00
Half: 14.00



It might be time to start stockpiling casseroles for the upcoming holidays. Just give us the word and we'll make 'em. (252-1500)

New Bread

Have you had one of our sandwiches lately? My they're good! This one, a daily special one day last week, was an Adam creation (he did tell me the details and they were delicious but sadly, I've forgotten them. I can tell you that this is one of the new breads we're getting, from Annie's in Sylva.)

So yes, in addition to the full deli case and the hot lunch of the day and the soups of the day and the fish of the day and the chicken of the day, we have a sandwich of the day. If you get here early enough you can pick the chair-in-the-sun of the day, though if you're later, you might have to find a place to sit wherever you can. Don't worry, I'm sure we can find a nice spot for you.

Jean Anderson comes to Asheville on the 17th

You have a pretty terrific opportunity this coming Saturday to meet Jean Anderson and hear her talk about her new book, A Love Affair With Southern Cooking. She'll be at Malaprops on the 17th at 2 pm. I get the honor of introducing her! We'll bring a few things from her book for you to taste.

Jean is a highly lauded cookbook author, a James Beard Award winner, and a very interesting person. I was introduced to her through my book. She, it turns out, worked for The Ladies Home Journal when my mother's books were first out and she knew my mother's food and recipes and writing intimately. How sweet for me, then, to get this chance to be a tiny part of Jean's visit here.

If you're around a television on Friday at noon, I'll be demonstrating her Moravian Gingerbread recipe which is a rich and delicious one. (I'll have some at Malaprops too.) I'm having a lot of fun with her book and know you will too.

Jean Anderson
Salt 'n Pepper

Our wish is to have and serve really good food. Here's one way we do that. Our cafe tables are supplied with Celtic Sea Salt and pepper that our guests grind for themselves. And while we mostly have products from small manufacturers in the United States, this salt is too good to miss (anyway the distributor is a tiny company located here in Asheville so that's a rule-bender we can tolerate.)

You can have this same salt at home, as you see here. The dispensers are re-fillable (with these cute little packages) or, if you have some salt sellers, fill them right up with this mineral-rich, vibrant salt from France.

A Note From Laurey


November 11, 2007

Hiya,

I write on Sunday morning this week. Yesterday was a big day and I had no time to sit and arrange my thoughts for this newsletter. Today I feel much clearer and calmer.

It started with a bad dream sometime in the middle of the night. In my dream I showed up for the book signing (a real thing that was going to happen during the day yesterday) without any books. And I was all the way at the event, an hour west of here, before I realized it. Ugh. That started a sweat for me, in my dream. It got worse from there, with many more typical anxiety dream standards coming into play and I bolted up, at 3:30 in the morning, heart pounding and wide awake. I tried to settle down and finally did, sometime around 5. But then Skipper came in and wanted breakfast and purred and kneaded me until I gave in and got up at around 5:30.

I got to work early. Certainly early enough to get the books (!) and other things I needed for my book event. I drove west, settled in, waited for the audience (many of whom chose the day’s beauty to go hiking, I think) and then, after a time, packed up and came back here. I DID get to meet some inspiring other authors, and that made it very fun. Oh, I I shared a panell with the fellow who collected the tales that became the book Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread and Scuppernong Wine. That book was the James Beard book of the year a few years ago so getting to share the podium with James Dabney was really fun too.

I got back to Asheville just in time to collect the team and head off for the next thing. The evening’s event was a staff reunion for The North Carolina Outward Bound School. Some 300 or 350 (or more) old OB staffers were gathering up on top of Table Rock, an hour and a half east of here, for dinner and cavorting. The Table Rock basecamp can comfortably accommodate 50 or so, which meant that a whole gang of folks was going to be up there, gathered on one of the only flat spots, ready to visit and celebrate and have our food for dinner. I'd been obsessing all week about this dinner, concerned about protions and quantities and style of service. The day before I had lost my temper when it looked like we did not have enough chicken. Ugh. And for days I'd found myself worrying about things like, “how is our van going to fit underneath the tent so it can get to the kitchen?” and “how are we going to organize the service of the food so that huge lines don’t form?” and “what happens if 400 people show up?”

Outward Bound gave me my start in North Carolina. As an OB student I was challenged to do more than I had known I could do and that gave me the energy to plunge in doing this kind of work. That school and that philosophy still mean a lot to me so I felt especially excited (and nervous) about the dinner. 350 people is a big party under the best of circumstances, and the logistics for this one presented some daunting challenges.

When we got there I hopped in the van (Jaime could have probably done it just fine but I was too wired to let her try) and maneuvered it through the maze of tables and chairs and under the tent (it fit!) and in between the trees and poles and down the steep driveway, backwards to the kitchen. Outward Bounders are resourceful and service-minded so I had guardian angels at every possible point of contact on the van and what was possibly a 35-point turn resulted in our van being able to drive right up to where we wanted it, safely on the driveway and not over the bank. Whewf!

The kitchen was the only warm spot around, however, so the next mini-hurdle was making way for our buffets, weaving through gathered, chatting instructors and old-time staffers. Jaime had organized everything beautifully, though and our team flew into position and constructed three very nice buffets and filled them with food in about a half hour. When the time for dinner came I got to stand by the door saying hello to folks I had worked with many years ago, before I started this business (but during the time when I was imagining being a cook.) That was the finest time for me, just standing there in the glow of all those people, in that very special place.

After dinner I snuck into the tent and listened to tributes and memories but, between you and me, I was pretty tired from my hours of motion and miles of driving, so I helped the gang pack up (I didn’t do much – they were the most perfect team), and we all got in our cars and drove off the mountain.


A preview...

We'll be having our Staff Holiday Craft Fair/Sale on December 8th this year. I've been messing around in the Hot Shop, learning about new colors and new techniques. Here are a few of them. Come see for yourself. Others here will put things in too, and a portion of the proceeds will get turned into Christmas for a family. Nice, eh?

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