We still have a little bit of room for this very special dinner but call or e-mail quickly to make sure we can accommodate you!

 

Nora Pouillon, founder of Restaurant Nora in Washington, will be in town for a couple of days.  She'll be speaking at The French Broad Garden Club on Friday (give them a shout if you'd like to hear her there.)  And she'll be here on Thursday for a very special dinner.

 

Nora's was the very first 100% certified Organic restaurant in the United States and Nora has been a major proponent of safe, local, DELICIOUS food for years.  She's also my mentor and my inspiration.

 

The menu will be an all-local one, and will feature her type of food (which is like ours, but fancier.)  The cost will be $55.00 per person (+tax).  Add $12.00 if you'd like wine.  Dinner will start at 7. 

 

We'll be featuring foods from our favorite farms:  East Fork Farms (chicken and rabbit); McConnell Farms (asparagus and strawberries), Let it Grow (radishes); Jolley Farms (pea shoots and spring mix); and a few others too (watercress, for example).  Suh-WEET!!!

 

Trust me - Nora is an amazing woman and I'm thrilled that she is coming.

 

Sweet Henry is getting better.

 

The second bone marrow transplant is working and he is now making his own blood cells: t-cells, b-cells, hemoglobin. This, truly, is a miracle of modern science.

 

Henry, and his lovely parents Emily and Adam, will be home soon as long as things keep headed in this direction. This is a snippet from their latest Caring Bridge update:

 

Gosh we have a lot of crafty, talented folks here.  Irvegg makes amazing jewelry with gems and wildly unusual stones; Connor is an fabulously talented illustrator; Kris does flame-worked glass jewelry; Noel makes fused glassware.  And I mess around with blown glass.

 

Here are our dinners for the week. Order by noon and we'll have your dinner ready to pick up by 3. We are open until 8 now which makes it easy for you to dawdle if you like. Feel free to stay right here with us if you like. We'll reheat your meal and stay out of your way.

 

Monday May 10

* Pecan Chicken with Asparagus Risotto 11.25

 

Tuesday May 11

Crispy Catfish with Slaw and Tartar Sauce 13.00

 

Wednesday May 12

* Steak au Poivre with Red Wine Mushroom Sauce 12.25

 

Thursday May 13

Braised Chicken with Olives, Fennel, and Cavatappi 11.25

 

Friday May 14

Crabcakes with Blueberry Hill Cole Slaw 13.25

 

* these are gluten free

(though it is important to know that

We make a special casserole each week.

 

Order by noon or so. Order a half if you have around 4 folks. If you have a bigger group, or you just like leftovers, order a full-sized one.

 

Then come pick up between 3:00 and 8:00. (Or bring a gang and enjoy your dinner right here. We do have beer and wine by the glass, you know.)

 

Please order by phone (252-1500) or stop in to speak to one of us in person.

 

This week's casserole is:

 

Wednesday, May 12

Barcelona Chicken and Shrimp Ragout

Full: 60.00

Half: 30.00

 

We make Lasagna every Friday. Here's this Friday's offering:

 

Friday, May 14

Seafood Lasagna Florentine

Full: 60.00

Half: 30.00

 

 

Adam Tanner, my fiddle teacher and musical inspiration, is excited about all the music we have going on here.  (Me too.)  At the moment, as you know, we have live music on Thursday nights: local, acoustic, varied.  Tony Kiss, in the Asheville Citizen-Times just called us "the hot new music venue."  (!!)

 

We're not having music this Thursday because of the Nora dinner, but next week we have a trio from France.  "Le trio invite" is a jazz trio from Ile-de-France.  They are friends of a friend and I'm looking forward to hearing them. 

 

I'm getting ready to do some honey recipe development and cooking demonstrating for The National Honey Board.  I'm new to this particular game, but for starters I get to go to the Iowa headquarters of Meredith Publications (Better Homes and Gardens, More, Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal) to present new honey thoughts and recipes to a group of their editors.

 

Zounds!!!

 

Heather is the Masterton with the voice.  She now lives here in Asheville and has taken a big step out into the world of regular performing.  She is also a school group tour guide at the Biltmore Estate and also works selling entiques on eBay for people.

 

But I'm thrilled to brag about her and tell you to go hear her sing at Olive or Twist, the newly renamed club on Broadway in downtown Asheville.  She's there every Thursday and also some Fridays.  This is music to dance to so bring those slippy shoes.

 

 

May 8, 2010

 

Hi there on a sparklingly beautiful day here in Asheville. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and I hope you are gearing up for a sweet one. Even if, like me, your mother is not immediately reachable, I’m sure you have a mother somewhere who you could adore for the day.

 

I’ve been amused to remember a funny little food memory. At Blueberry Hill, my childhood home, my mother made Quiche Lorraine on occasion. This is the one with bacon and onions and Swiss cheese. Well, every single time she ever made it, someone unexpected showed up for lunch. EVERY single time.

 

Ours was not a drop-in lunch spot, located out in the middle of the Green Mountain National Forest. But if she made this quiche, we always got ready, wondering who would turn up this time.

 

We’ve got a little quiche story of our own here. A little quiche imp has taken up residence with us. We have a client, a regular, who likes to bring our quiche to a morning meeting. This is a fairly regular order, monthly at least. Up until this week I don’t think we’d every quite gotten it right. She orders one vegetarian and one non-vegetarian quiche. She likes to pick them up hot. And she always comes in the morning. You’d be surprised at how many ways we have managed to not do this correctly.

 

We’ve forgotten to warm them. We’ve forgotten to make a vegetarian one. We’ve forgotten to make a meat one. We’ve lost the order. We’ve made them on the wrong day. We’ve made too many.

 

I do not know what it is. We’re usually spot on when it comes to these things. I mean, we’ve been working for a long time and we DO have systems and we DO follow them. But for some reason, this order, for this person, always is not quite right.

 

This week we braced ourselves. EVERYONE was on high alert. A few things ALMOST went wrong but, though the quiche imp hovered and tried, it did not win – this time.

 

Mostly, while this was all going on, I remembered Blueberry Hill and my mother’s twinkle as she’d announce, “What say we have Quiche Lorraine today?” I park myself on my favorite stool next to her work counter, help roll out the dough, and wonder what would happen this time.