Farro: A Fall Treat

Fall is upon us in all of its glory.  All the signs are there.  There are leaves in my yard that I will no doubt ignore for months.  The mosquitoes have stopped their relentless assault.  And, I’ve had a fire in the good ol’ stove.  And with the change in weather, comes a change in appetite.

Working in the café, it is somewhat magical to watch the seasonal shifts in eating habits.  The quantify of soup we sell sky rockets.  And, it’s not just soup that we humans begin to crave when it gets cooler.  All of a sudden, the hearty dishes like braised meat stews and lasagna start to sound delicious, whereas in the heat of the summer even the thought of those heavier dishes gives me the sweats.  Sometimes these winter dishes can be less than forgiving on the waistline.  But after all, I need that extra layer of fat to keep me warm…right?

Serve hot, eat often.

Grits are good for you. I knew that long before I first ate shrimp and grits in Charleston, SC. While the “grits belt” runs from Texas to Virginia, I can only crow about the offerings of two states, both dear to me.

I’m lucky enough to have family living in the low country of coastal South Carolina. While visiting, I’ve learned to love the smell and vista of the salt marshes, large live oaks draped in Spanish moss, shrimp boats lining the docks (think Bubba Gump without the chocolate) at Gay’s Seafood on highway 21, past Beaufort. Ok, I can do with out the fire ants and humidity, but the palmetto state has it going on when it comes to food. Pat Conroy, native son and Fripp Island neighbor to my in-laws, wrote a fantastic cookbook that brilliantly weaves his story telling and culinary finesse. He describes grits “as an empty canvas for all kinds of experimentation” and of course, details his own Shrimp and Grits recipe, recommending the stone ground grits of Anson Mills. Have not tried them yet, but they offer blue corn grits from the Cherokee Nation, “…made from fresh new crop blue corn that have the fragrance and taste of mountain terroir and sweet corn, with intriguing background notes of chestnuts.” Mmm, what a beautiful image and provenance.

What the heck is a sunchoke?

One of the greatest parts of my job as Feast’s produce manager is procuring a variety of unique seasonal fruits and vegetables.  One of our newest offerings are delicious sunchokes, aka, Jerusalem artichokes, from one of our favorite local growers, Harvest Thyme, located in Staunton, VA (who also happen to be some of the nicest people I’ve ever met!).

If you haven’t seen one before, sunchokes are somewhat curious, knobby looking fellas… almost like ginger roots. And their name is misleading as they are not from Jerusalem, nor are they artichokes. One theory behind the name is that the word “Jerusalem” comes from the corruption of the original name “girasola”, which in Italian means “turning towards the sun”, which refers to its relative: the sunflower.  Native to North America, sunchokes were introduced to Europe by the French explorer Samuel de Champlaine after coming across them in Cape Cod in 1605.  They seemed have remained more popular across the pond but are making a culinary comeback here.

Automotive Challenges at the Heritage Harvest Festival

This past weekend we partook in the Heritage Harvest Festival at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.  The festival is a celebration of gardening, sustainability, local food and the preservation of heritage plants – all things that we wholeheartedly advocate for on a daily basis. As you might imagine we were thrilled to be there, especially since this was the second outing for our recently acquired 1974 Citroen cheese truck.

To make a very long story short, we encountered automotive challenges during our morning ascent to Monticello.  Suffice it to say, we left an ample trail of transmission fluid and a massive cloud of white smoke in our wake (which may still be hanging over central Virginia).  The mechanical fracas managed to cause a fair share of chaos among festival organizers and other vendors (most of which were mired in the traffic jam our stalled out vehicle created).

New happenings in feast’s cheese world

One aisle of the Summer 2011 Fancy Food Show

As some of you may remember, a little while back several of the feast! staff members got to head up to DC for the Fancy Foods Show. 180,000 products from 2,400 vendors on two mind-boggling floors. We spent two days wandering dazedly through this cornucopia of craftsmanship and chemistry, marveling, savoring, recoiling, and head-scratching. You learn quickly to pace yourself, and turn down nearly everything thrust at you, or you don’t make it down the first aisle. Nevertheless, I feel like I consumed nearly my body weight in 1-ounce cheese samples. Our waistlines suffered, but our knowledge grew markedly. Not only did we have some great staff bonding time (go ahead, ask Megan about standardized testing in public schools, I dare ya), but we also came back with formidable lists of new products to add to our lineup.

Over in my corner of the store (the cheese counter), we’ve already been able to integrate some of these fantastic new items.

An Ode to Crane Crest Real French Dressing

Every week the team at Feast changes out products being sampled throughout the store.  It’s harder than you might think to continually develop sample plans that keep both customers and staff engaged.  As the buyer, my purchasing informs the bulk of our sampling, so there’s significant pressure to perform week to week*.

This week proved particularly challenging and left me grasping at straws to fill the final sample spot on our center table.  Eventually I decided to highlight Crane Crest Real French Dressing, an old favorite that occasionally gets neglected.

In a Pickle

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

You regulars at Feast may or may not have noticed that the café has developed a predilection for pickling.  We’ve pickled cherries, okra, cucumbers (two ways), quail eggs, red onions, lemons and on September 2nd we are giving pickled peaches a chance on our salad special.  Some of these items have appeared in specials, and some are being sold in the store as we speak.

Why all this pickling mania?    Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but pickles are awesome.  They are even healthy, although I won’t bore you with all the health benefits, which are more numerous than I care to research.  However, I will bore you with some fantastic pickle facts that I’ve tracked down.

Corn, not always from a can

Growing up in the northern Virginia suburbs, corn came from a can, year round. These days, it comes from the Saturday farmers market or our CSA subscription; whole ears of sweet corn, thin, pale silk tassling out the ends, deposited into the canvas bag, driven to our old house in southern Albemarle County. Corn on the cob is summer to me.

My mom shopped at Safeway. With a family of nine, (middle child) I remember helping with dinner, reaching for the can opener, adjusting the magnet to lock down on a 15 oz. can of house brand yellow corn, the flat-toned whirr of the motor about as appealing as the metallic taste. Two or three cans would be VEGETABLE portion of dinner, heated in a large aluminum pot on the stove. Once on my plate, I remember when the salt was passed my way, an automatic 180 vertical pour would follow until my Mom cried out “KathyMimiTerri, you know who you are, STOP with the salt already!”

Making Time for Tea

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.” – Henry James

There is something decadent about getting together with your girlfriends for afternoon tea.  I’m not sure if it’s the elegant finger food (I’m a sucker for anything mini), the exquisite bone china and sterling silver tea service, or the simple pleasure of finishing a cup of tea before it turns cold (which is quite an accomplishment when you have a toddler).  Maybe it evokes a comforting, nostalgic feeling for the days of pretend tea parties and playing dress up when we were young.  Whatever it is, I love it!

So…where have we been?

We're sorry to have been away for so long. Please accept our apology and this image of a hamster with flowers.

For those of you keeping score at home, Feast has been absent from the blogosphere since April 13^th.  A variety of actual business factors contributed to the four-month radio silence, but rest assured that good old-fashioned laziness also played some part in our hiatus.  It’s a tad embarrassing to be the owners of a neglected blog*; therefore, we pledge to get back on track.

Starting today, we will once again provide regular blog posts from the center of the food universe at 416 West Main Street.  What’s that?  You’re wondering what we’ve been doing for the last 16 weeks?  That is a reasonable question and we owe you a reasonable answer. Here goes…