The Weekly Newsletter
Menus and Stories for April 18 - 23, 2005

She's BAAAACK!!!
Boss Lady Gum makes a triumphant return.

You'll find her right next to "Be Nice to Your Mother" gum along with seven other impulse-pleasing treats. I must admit I am rather fond of Boss Lady gum. She DOES have a red vest and that is my favorite color, you know.


In today's Deli Case
Chicken Pot Pie is on our menu today as are about 15 other lunch and dinner possibilities. You know, even though we make one SPECIAL dinner to go each night during the week, we also always have a number of other options, made at the whim of the cooks. They take a gander at the weather on their way in to work, browse through the supply bins, sniff out the mood, and take it from there.

I missed a chace to photograph the deli case in full sun this morning, since I was talking with a bride about her wedding, but trust me when I tell you that it was (and is) a sight to behold. Yum!


Birch Caramel Sauce
From the pristine birch forests at the base of Denali, that magnificent mountain in Alaska, we have a new supply of Birch Caramel Sauce. Dulce, Michael and their two daughters are, as I write this, up there tapping some 2000 birch trees for sap which, after boiling, will yield some 400 gallons of rich, dark syrup. (Did you know that the sap to syrup ratio for maple syrup is 40:1 whereas for birch it is 100:1?) Zounds!

Anyway - give this a go. A unique taste. A great story (if you want to know more, we've printed more details which are right next to our display of the sauce). Want an easy dessert? Ben and Jerry's Vanilla Ice Cream and a drizzle of this delicious stuff and - well, need I say more?


The nightly dinners for the week (Call 252-1500 to order)
Dinners 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.

Dinners are ready at 4:30 and can be picked up until we close at 6:00 pm.

Monday April 18 French Bistro Chicken 9.75
Tuesday April 19 Turkey and Pepper Tamale Pie 9.75
Wednesday April 20 Tenderloin and Shrimp Kebobs 11.75
Thursday April 21 Chicken Kiev 10.00
Friday April 22 Caribbean BBQ Seafood and Mango Rice 11.75

Laurey's (yum!) Catering and Gourmet to Go


Casserole for the week
Casseroles are made each Wednesday.
Call to order on Tuesday if you can.
Orders will be ready on Wednesday between 4:30 and 6:00.

Wednesday, April 20
Spinach Lover�s Lasagna
Full 32.00
Half 16.00


Dining Out for Life
Here's a bit of an early notice. We will be part of this national event again this year. Mark April 28th on your calendar and plan to come for lunch or dinner (to go.) A portion of our sales will go to AIDS organizations in our area.

By the way, the logo, pictured here, and designed right here in Asheville, has been adopted as the logo for the entire country. Nice, huh? (We DO have a talent-filled community now, don't we?)


Spring sweets, spring treats
Festive chocolates from Vermont are here. (I prefer it when Easter is a bit later, don't you?) Anyway - the colors of these wrappers look just like our hills these days: pink, pale yellow, new green.

Tuck some into your sweetie's lunch box, why don't you? (Does your sweetie still carry a lunch to work? If not, maybe it's time to plan a picnic!)


No pictures of glass this week
Well, it was one of those days. I have been gone and the two week break wreaked havoc on my glass-blowing skill level. Wow! Though I was excited to be there, happy to have the pipe in my hands again, I could do nothing right in the hot shop this last week.

I collapsed my first piece, blew up my second one, gathered too much glass on my third one (which rendered it unmanageably big), banged the fourth one into the side of the oven (yuck!), got the fifth one hopelessly off-center...and so it went.

I have nothing to show for my two hour session. Maybe next week.


A Note from Laurey
I�m back after a two week trip to Italy. What an interesting time to be in a Catholic country. When we left for our trip, the Pope was ill but still hanging on. We read the headlines about his death in the middle of our trip, and his funeral was a few days before we came home. It was a big, big deal over there, and, since we were staying just an hour from Rome, we encountered closed shops, altered moods, quiet times. On our way back to Florence, on our last day, the highways and rest stops were jammed with emergency workers who had traveled from all over Italy to help direct the millions of pilgrims who�d made the trek to pay their last respects to the Pope.

Remember my story about the piece of property I�d seen last year? My Italian �dream house?� Well, I paid it a visit, just to see what it looked like after a year�s break. It is a ruin! (Still!) Hasn�t gotten any better. Chris, who came along this time, and I, parked our little rented car at the side of the road, climbed through a hole in the fence (right next to the �private property� sign � ah well), and stood on the crumbling remains of what once must have been lovely walls. We looked out over the Orcia valley, imagined who once might have lived there, and what it might be like to fix this place up. But there is no electricity anywhere nearby (not that that matters so much � I�ve lived without the stuff before and didn�t miss it) and the water would have to come from a cistern and that might be a bit more tricky. The road, a dirt one, comes close to the front and then, after a hairpin turn, the back of the house before snaking down the mountain to the valley floor. It is a glorious place, to be sure. I tucked it back into my heart, gave Chris a wink, squeezed through the fence, got back in the little car, and drove off to the day�s adventure.

Our group of ten had a nice time, tasting, cooking, walking, learning. We were a bit early this year, because the trip was scheduled around spring break. The nice part about that was that we saw very few tourists, finding ourselves the only visitors in many of our chosen restaurants, markets, villages, and destinations. I liked it. I liked the quiet of it all. We visited our Italian friends from previous trips, and met new ones who we will look forward to visiting on our next jaunt. We�re thinking of a trip based on the Olive Oil pressing this coming fall. It�s one thing to take a look at the idle olive oil presses and it is, we imagine, something entirely different to watch them pick, transport, wash, and press the harvest into this year�s oil. We�re planning to visit a few different �frantoios� (olive oil factories), being able to watch tiny operations and some bigger ones too. It�ll be in mid to late October so the crowds will be gone, but that, we have found, is a nice thing. Oh, it�ll be an active wine time there too. Sound good? We think so. (The weather, they say, is a lot like here at that time of year. Too cold for swimming, probably, but warm during the day and a bit cooler at night. Perfect, wouldn�t you say?) Let us know if you'd like to join this "Delicous Expedition."

*

I made a fun, early-morning trip to one of our tailgate markets here this morning. I am glad to have the farmers back in town. Right now all they are selling are plant starts and a few new greens. Soon, though, soon, our food will be graced with the bounty of these locals fields. I, for one, can hardly wait.

Talk to you next week.


Enjoying our Italian picnic-style tuna


Contact Info:
Laurey's (yum!) Catering
Gourmet-to-Go (and to stay!)
67 Biltmore Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801

828-252-1500

Hours:
Monday - Friday 10:00 - 6:00 pm
Saturday 10:00 - 4:00 pm

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