Hilltown Families 
Lunch-Without-a-Special- Event-Surrounding-It Comes to the Hilltowns
Notes from Nan: Good Evening and Welcome to Elmer’s!
BY HF Contributing Writer, Nan Parati
Hello and thanks for tuning in tonight! We have a really big show for you that I think you’re going to like a lot.
Hey! So we started Lunch-Without-a- Special-Event-Surrounding-It this past weekend and it was so very good. We’re doing Beta testing on lunch right now, working out all of the kinks with the transfer from breakfast (which cuts off at noon) to lunch (which goes from noon to 2.) Because of our tiny little kitchen, we can’t continue the breakfast menu into the lunch time, with the exception of omelettes—we can still do those from noon to 2 if you’re still feeling an envie for some breaking of the fast. So since we’re still doing Beta-testing, I’m not announcing the addition of lunch to everyone—just to you. So come in, get yourself some great lunch and be guinea pigs (not for the food! That we have worked out!) Be guinea pigs for the changing of the staff, for the figuring out exactly how many wait people we need, etc.
This weekend for lunch we’re having:
- Lentil Soup
- Tuna Melt
- And a salad of field greens, beets, our home-made Blue Cheese Cressing, croutons, and pecans
We are also adding as a standard every-week sandwich: The grilled cheese with caramelized onions and local apples that we had the weekend of the craft festival. That was so freakin’ good! That’s why we’re going to have it all the time!
Lunch to Go:
Another good thing about doing lunch on the weekends is that, whatever we have left over we will put in our “To-Go-for-Lunch” cooler on Monday, if you want to stop in on your way to work. Right now we have Roasted Mushroom and barley soup in our To-Go-for-Lunch cooler.
A few people told me that the e-mail came out quite wide last week. I don’t know why that was—I always send it to myself so that I can make sure it went through and so I can check to see if it came out weird in my unsuspecting e-mail box and it came out like normal in mine. Welcome to the Readers’ Contributing Forum: Our poll question this week is: Anyone have any ideas why the e-mail formatted itself into an extra-wide format?
Ach ja!
We have already again the German Food! How lusty that I the e-mail in GermanEnglisch againwrite can! For you (plural) that on the E-mailnewsletterlist new are, this is Englisch with German wordorder ge-written. Are you (plural) not happy, that you in Germany not born were! Although, if you in Germany born were had been, then would you the difficult language already in the head have!
Friday’s Menu (12/15/07)
Okay! So here have we this week for dinner the following:
- Saurbraten (Beef braised in red wine, onions, vinegar, maybe a little gin . . .)
- Spätzle (noodles)
- Und Rotkohlsalat! (RedCabbageSalad)
- Kartoffelsalat (germanPotatoSalad)
- Classic, na? So good! Only in Aschfield can one the true, genuine Germantastefeeling get!
Grocery Talk with Rob
And now it’s time for: Grocery Talk with Rob (Editor’s Note: You have to imagine the heavy Minnesota Accent. It‘s even funnier if you do.)
Hi folks!
Just a word to let you know that you have a new “grocer” at Elmer’s Store! That’s right; Peggy has passed the grocery torch from her steady, capable hands to my trembling, sweaty ham-fists. Although I have already dropped it a few times, I’m determined to get to a level equal to roughly fifty percent of her competence, to hold the torch straight and true, and avoid further use of ill-timed metaphors.
Help Me Help You
That’s not just a Peter Frampton song (in fact it’s not even a Peter Frampton song), it’s a way for me to make sure Elmer’s Store is always stocked with your favorite products. You see, we don’t rely on them fancy bar-codes to keep track of what we need to order. I gotta do it more or less up here (I’m pointing at my head). So if we’re out of, say, EarthSoy Creamy Organic Sprout Whip, let me or someone else know about it so I can get it on the next order. Can I stop pointing at my head now?
You’re Special. Did You Know That?
You need to be reminded of that once in awhile. You also need to be reminded that you can always special order a case of something and we’ll sell it to you at a discount. Again, check with me. If it’s available to us, it’s available to you!
So thanks for helping me on my quest to become the second greatest grocer Elmer’s Store has ever had (in the last couple of years, anyway).
Love, Rob
That is all.
Thanks Rob!
New Guest
And now, on our show we have a new guest, one you’ve heard much about in recent weeks but have probably never met. Live, all the way from the kitchen, it’s Elmer’s newest chef, Jim Dion!
Greetings from the 6’x6’ cell Nan calls a kitchen.
For those of you who do not know me, I would like to take this time to make my introduction. I am Jim. At one time or another I might have been called chef. To be honest, that title always makes me uncomfortable. I like to think of myself as a cook with a little skill. (Ed note: and a degree from the Culinary Institute of America.) I believe almost all of grandmother’s produce to be better tasting, better quality food than any chef could ever achieve. Honest cooking is my philosophy and that is what I will try to produce for all of you. Please feel free to stop in the kitchen and say hi!
Thanks, Jim! Get back to your cell and –put the gin away! That’s enough gin! Jim! NO MORE GIN!
Sorry folks. He’s good, but, well—JIM! PUT THAT—
(Excuse me. I’ll be right back. Let’s go to a word from our sponsor: . . . )
The Farm Report
Okay! Now we have Little Donna Elwell with her tap-dance version of The Farm Report
PRODUCE POINTER OF THE WEEK:
I am listing the produce distributor first now because that is where the most action is. However, we still are carrying local fruits and veggies like Scott’s apples. They have a controlled atmosphere storage cooler so we’ll be able to get crisp apples through the winter and spring. -Donna
- SQUASH, Produce Distributor:
alfalfa sprouts (organic), avocados, bananas, broccoli, cilantro, garlic (organic), GINGER ROOT (ORGANIC), lemons, mesclun, onions (organic) (WA), oranges (organic), parsley, portabella mushrooms, radishes, cluster tomatoes (FL OR CA), yams (organic).- 1/2 mile from Elmer’s Store:
PATTY FLAT FARM Joan and Joel Arsenault:
red onions, red kuri squash.- 1 mile from Elmer’s Store:
SANGHA FARM MaryBeth and Derek Richie:
beets (Heirloom and Red Ace), carrots, acorn squash, buttercup squash.- 2 miles from Elmer’s Store:
SIDEHILL FARM Amy Klippenstein and Paul Lacinski:
Fresh yogurt in 5 flavors.- 4 miles from Elmer’s Store:
SPRING WATER GARDENS Will and Donna Elwell:
cordwood (split and dried), garlic (for eating or for seed), long cayenne peppers.- 10 miles from Elmer’s Store:
SCOTT’S ORCHARD Ed, Colin, and Donna Scott:
Macoun, Macintosh, and Empire apples, acorn squash, butternut squash, and buttercup squash.- 10 miles from Elmer’s Store:
ASHFIELD BACKYARD GARDENER
French shallots- 15 miles from Elmer’s Store:
MANDA FARM
Fingerling potatoes.- 20 miles from Elmer’s Store:
DONOVAN FARM Ivan and Cindi Donovan:
Red potatoes, Yukon Gold potatoes, RUSSET POTATOES.Wasn’t she just great! And so cute in her little pink sparkly outfit! Thanks, Donna!
Upcoming!
Okay now, don’t forget the Solstice Celebration coming up right here in Ashfield on December 22nd from 7- 8pm! It’s on the town common with Morris Dancers, stories, songs and celebration of the Return of the Light! (I, myself am really enjoying the dark, but I understand that others want to get back out to their gardens.)
Elmer’s will be serving dinner that night from 5:30 – 9:00—a good, hearty, stew of some sort with good, hearty bread—deep winter kind of food. And the Morris Dancers promise to come back and turn the place back into a 12th century pub with the Indoor Dancing of the Sword Dance! NOT at ALL to be missed!
And we’ll see all of you sometime, at some point, this week!
Thank you and good night!
Photo credit: (c) Hilltown Families.
Pictured: Kelli Ann visiting from Canada along with her son, Persephone & Nan.
goodness! i can smell the pancakes still!! there we are in elmer’s– hi persephone & HF — gotta do something about those eyebrows, i think… cheers!!