Join me on Wednesday, April 20 from 6-8pm for a class on Spring Soups. Also, if you'd like a 1/2 hour knife coaching session, plan to come at 5:30 for a hands-on lesson.

 

Call us at 252-1500 to save your spots for the class. 35.00 will get you recipes, tips, camaraderie, plentiful samples of all the soups, AND a glass of wine.

 

I don't know if there is anyone out there like me (um, I suspect so) but you, like me, might be the kind of person who LIKES live music but just wants to get home early.  If that's you, our Thursday night music events are perfect.  We start early - 6 o'clock.  And we're done early enough that you can go home while it's still light.  And you, like me, can sit in your garden and watch the evening roll in.

 

This Thursday do come listen to Will Straughan.  He has a wonderful voice, plays a soulful guitar, and will soothe you before you head home.  As I've said, I have been listening to his cd over and over and over. 

 

Today when I looked into our deli case I found a veritable plethora of gluten free options.  This, for example, is a polenta with a vegetable ragout.  No flour.  Lots of wonderful flavors.

 

Here are our dinners for this coming week.

 

Monday, April 18

Chicken Marsala with Herbed Fettuccine 6.95

 

Tuesday, April 19

East Indian Butternut Squash Curry 6.50 (GF)

 

Wednesday, April 20

Beef Bolognese with Cavatappi and Garlic Bread 7.95

 

Thursday, April 21

Elsie’s Chicken Baked in Wine 7.95

 

Friday, April 22

Grilled Tuna Filet with Garlic Mashed Potatoes 9 (GF)

 

Order by noon and we'll have your dinner ready to pick up by 3. We're open until 7. Nice!

 

Salad and bread can be added if you wish. Salad is 3.25 and bread is 1.25 per person.

 

We make a special casserole and a special lasagna 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 7:00.

 

The casserole this week is for Wednesday, April 20:

 

Chicken a la King

with Rice Pilaf

Full: 35.00 Half: 17.50

 

The lasagna is for Friday, April 22:

 

Roasted Vegetable Lasagna

Full: 38 Half: 19

 

Thursday the 28th is a day to mark in your calendars.  It's the day when restaurants all over Asheville agree to donate 20% of their day's sales to WNC Aids Project.  (Yes, people here still need this kind of help.)

 

It's going to be a busy day here, because we have 100 school children coming for an early lunch - a time for them to eat really good, local food in a real, not fast-food, restaurant.  But they'll be gone by noon so come for lunch.  Bring friends and enjoy locally made, locally sourced foods.

 

Oh joy - the land is beginning to yield greens and all sorts of things for you and us.  This is not quite local but it will be soon.  And it's, um, regional. 

 

My garden has baby radish sprouts which, when I taste the thinnings, zing with a zesty bright taste. 

 

Our tuna, the stuff we use in our tuna salads, is skipjack.  This, the Monterrey Bay seafood watch tells us, is the best option when it comes to canned tuna.  The best is line caught.  Ours isn't that, but still, canned skipjack still is the best option when it comes to this product.

 

 

April 16, 2011

 

Good morning to you on a blustery rainy day here in the mountains. We had a big storm all night last night and it continues as I write. Today is the first day for many of the local tailgate markets and I feel for all those folks who have been coaxing their plant starts along, preparing for the first sale day since the winter. I might venture out later to get some things, but I admit to being pretty happy to be in my dry shop and dry office, watching the dark sky and wind-whipped trees from behind my red desk, tucked in the corner of this room at the back of the café.

 

It seems that time goes so slowly for weeks and months and then, zoom, it whooshes along. Just last week I was with my sisters in Kentucky. On Friday night I surprised them by showing up for a gallery opening featuring pastels we had all done while on our trip to Tuscany last fall. And then, since I was there, I stayed for the weekend, holding onto a few precious days with my sisters.

 

My big sister lives about 2 miles from Keeneland, the race track. I’m rarely there during their racing seasons, which last for just a few weeks twice a year. This time I hit it just right. It is possible to get up early and watch the exercise riders work the horses on the track before many people are even awake. And since my sister lives so close, it was only a minor effort to get up in the dark, slip on jeans, and drive for three minutes to the track. Surrounded mostly by horse people, jockeys, track folk, and trainers, our mornings eased awake, light slowly spilling onto the track, quiet talk interrupted by the pounding of a horse being worked close to the rail. Then quiet again, horse breath and soft words of encouragement being the only sounds.

 

Twice we ate breakfast at the track kitchen. Grits and bacon and coffee and horse people, hardened characters gathered for the spring season. And then we drove the three minutes back to my sister’s home and took care of her horses.

 

One afternoon my middle sister and I went back to the track but drove to the back side, as far away from the grandstand as possible.  We stood at the back fence and were there, just the two of us, as the horses rounded the corner and thundered past.  Just them and us.  Pounding hooves and beautifully poised riders, a flash of bright silks and then on away to the finish line, a half track away.

 

We gardened some, ate out some, shopped some, danced some, and just were sisters some. All in all, a perfect couple of days, interspersed with long naps and the shedding, for me, of any residual tension I might have been holding onto after my video work just before the weekend. I slept hard each night, napped deeply every afternoon, letting it all drain away.

 

Back at home I have been puttering in my own garden, thinking about and tending to my bees, getting ready for more of them, pondering what to plant and how to go on as a beekeeper in this most challenging time. My book proposal is now out in the world. It is a time of suspended animation for me as I wait to hear if anyone is game to take on my project. While I wait I, well, wait. It’s an interesting time. An interesting and odd time of waiting, waiting and wondering.

 

I gave one outside presentation this week, all about bees and healthy cooking, and I also got to be a part of a telephone conversation with the White House chef who is in charge of the Chefs Move to Schools project. It is time for me to get back to my kids here, time to give them their spring cooking class, time to remind them about where their food comes from and who grows it. Getting them to make that connection is the key. Fortunately, for them (and for us) we DO have a number of local farmers who grow local food. And we all need to support them. Getting the kids to know this is a step in the right direction. Thankfully, the people at ASAP (Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Projects) have this on the top of their list so they make it all possible. On we go.

 

Oh what a delight to have a sister here!  She does not have her own house which makes her very happy to assist me and our other sister.  hooray!  She helped me build these beds two weeks ago, and then she helped fill them in with a truck load of soil this week.  Not only that, she even mowed my lawn (I've had a sore back, ya see...)