Savoring Kentucky » Restaurants

Third Street Stuff Feeds Our Hunger for Community

Rona — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:22:33 +0000

There was a time before Third Street Stuff (257 N. Limestone, Lexington, Kentucky — it is near Third Street) added & Coffee to its name and its role in our community. That time is hard to remember. It seems now that Third Street Stuff, the gathering place with the delicious coffee and tea drinks and the yummy pastries and sandwiches and fruit juices and all, has been pulling us to its color and warmth forever.

But no, Third Street Stuff’s café is strictly 21st century. In fact, once the “& Coffee” part got going behind the established store full of girl-power goodies, Lexington’s sense of itself as a dynamic small city got going, too. Could be the caffeine, could be sugar, could be the sweetness and welcome coffee impresario Hendrick Floyd pours out on each customer, whether we deserve it or not.

Add in two important factors. First, the café serves as a container for countless planned and unplanned meetings about how to improve the community. Good things accelerate as a result.

Then add the uncountable ways Third Street Stuff owner Pat Gerhard says “Yes” to community initiatives, often way before even three other people see the possibilities she sees in a new community project.

Third Street Stuff & Coffee is Lexington’s quintessential “third place.” The first two places are home and work; third places are civic or public or community spaces where both friends and strangers, regulars and first-timers congregate. Third Street Stuff proves just how crucial third places are as it helps strengthen our city’s life force.

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The world is coming to visit central Kentucky this year for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. To help our visitors know more about Kentucky’s food and food ways, Savoring Kentucky is rolling out 116 Savory Kentucky Bites, one for each of the 100 days before WEG begins, and 16 for the days during WEG, September 25 – October 10. Today’s Savory Bite is number 42.

Happy Home Cooking at Hanna’s on Lime

Rona — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 19:01:38 +0000

On Wednesdays Hanna’s on Lime (214 S. Limestone in Lexington, Kentucky) adds a Farmers Market vegetable plate to the usual array of country style veggies and meat-based comfort foods the restaurant offers. Hanna’s is a weekdays, breakfast-and-lunch place, popular with locals. Breakfasts feature homemade breads and made to order egg dishes, as well as oatmeal and lighter items.

Recently Hanna’s endured months of construction on Limestone. Lots of us are glad it has again become easy to walk or drive to Hanna’s for cinnamon raisin French toast or a feta-spinach omelette in the morning, and a veggie plate or pot roast and two sides at lunch.

Since Hanna’s is a “don’t change a thing” kind of place, it’s good they keep the pinto beans, corn cakes, and creamy slaw coming no matter what. That slaw? A perfect rendition of the classic creamy approach to the dish.

How much doesn’t change? Happily, the appealing oilcloth tablecloths survived the Limestone rebuild. It’s the Hanna’s way.

Hanna’s menu includes a sandwich that derives from a restaurant ancestor — Lawrence’s Sandwich Shop, which occupied 214 S. Lime more than 30 years ago. Lawrence’s Sandwich Shop offered a signature sandwich, the deep-fried Monte Cristo, a batter-dipped ham-n-Swiss on homemade white bread that owes some of its heritage to the French croque monsieur.

Between Lawrence’s and Hanna’s came Linda’s Sandwich Shop, beloved for 20 years for continuing (and improving) the tradition of homemade breads and meringue-topped pies. When Beth Hanna bought Linda’s, regulars at Linda’s breathed easier after learning that, for a time, Linda would continue providing bread for Hanna’s on Lime.

We’re glad this spot keeps feeding us, and particularly glad Beth Hanna makes sure some of that food comes from local farmers.

For current Savoring Kentucky email subscribers: Please go directly to the post to comment and share information Hanna’s, Linda’s Sandwich Shop, Lawrence’s Sandwich Shop, or other topics of interest to Savoring Kentucky readers.

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This is Savory Kentucky Bite number 29 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

We Salute Cathy Martin of Alfalfa Restaurant

Rona — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:53:30 +0000

Five years ago I asserted in print for the late, lamented Nougat Magazine that the real heart of my Lexington beats at 141 East Main Street, where Alfalfa Restaurant carries out its mission of “feeding vegetarians and carnivores alike with innovative and eclectic homemade eats for over 35 years.”

In those days before downtown became a destination for lots of other good reasons, my article served as a kind of prose love song to Alfalfa’s famous miso dressing, which I consider reason enough to visit downtown. Read all 300 words here.

Three years later, also in Nougat, I awarded Alfalfa my 2008 Valentine, and offered 14 reasons to love this place that is our own, and always has been. Read the Valentine (in 700 words) here.

I remember my first meal at Alfalfa with gratitude and astonishment 38 years after I ate it. I haven’t asked her, but it is at least possible that the star of today’s Savory Kentucky Bite (number 23) was there. Cathy Martin has worked at Alfalfa so faithfully, so capably, and for such a long time that she is one of a small group of people who actually mean Alfalfa to me.

Roles at Alfalfa are not always easily perceived or named. For years a lot of us hardcore Alfalfites believed the servers at the restaurant were to be properly and respectfully called “waitrons,” for example. So I may err when I describe some of the roles I have seen Cathy play: night manager, problem-solver, vibe-soother, music planner and manager, server, mentor to new staff, and accessible gate-keeper. Cathy’s competence includes understanding and knowing how to work within the whole quirkiness that is Alfalfa, how to keep good things happening for patrons in a busy restaurant that has always valued controlled anarchy — at least a little bit — as a business structure.

Recently Cathy helped me arrange for a large group of out-of-town friends and family to gather for Alfalfa’s famous Sunday brunch. It was the kickoff to a big Wedding Day. I wanted to show off the excellence of the food and the special, unpretentious but still stylish feel of this beloved place. Our group grew – no problem. We included vegetarians, carnivores, and vegans – no problem. West Coasters brought their espresso drinks in with them – no problem. During the restaurant’s busiest time of the week, we were so many the kitchen might have thrown up its hands – but still no problem. The food was fresh, delicious, and arrived quickly. The servers delighted our crowd with their breezy competence. It was all so very good, and Cathy, in her no-fuss way, made sure it happened just as we wished.

Cathy is married to Tom Martin, who has baked Alfalfa’s fine breads and made its extraordinary desserts for decades. Tom deserves his own post, but in case he doesn’t get it, I will assert that Tom makes Lexington’s best desserts, and he makes them the best consistently. If you think another place in town may have better desserts, I challenge you to try Tom’s Italian Cream Cake (recipe here: imagine that!) or Chocolate Raspberry Mousse Cheesecake — you lucky thing!

The wonders of Kentucky food include the devotion of people like Cathy and Tom Martin, whose fidelity to a fine, distinctively Lexington place, across decades, keeps that place fresh and good for so many of us from here — and away.

Follow Alfalfa in twitter: @avocadogrill. If more of us follow, perhaps the restaurant will use this method to tell us when the tomato bisque is in the house (nearly all the time now!) and when the carrot cake is down to the last piece.

For current Savoring Kentucky email subscribers: Please go directly to the post to comment and share information about Cathy Martin, Tom Martin, Alfalfa Restaurant, or other topics of interest to Savoring Kentucky readers.

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This is Savory Kentucky Bite number 23 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

Chef Jacob Graves Cooks What Our Farmers Grow

Rona — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:03:56 +0000

For a man who got up in time to be at the corner of Broadway and Maxwell in Lexington at 4:00 AM, Chef Jacob Graves looked plenty fresh and happy at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, and that made me happy, too. His presence at the Tuesday and Thursday editions of the Lexington Farmers Market is such good news for those of us who like to eat fantastic food, like to know the source of that food, and like that source to be as local as possible.

After cooking only for the Saturday editions of the Lexington Farmers Market in 2009 — his first season — Chef Jacob now produces his outdoor “pop-up restaurant,” with its substantial kitchen set-up, at least three days a week, and sometimes adds the Sunday Market on Southland Drive as well.

Look for him on Saturday mornings near the Main Street end of the Fifth Third Bank Pavilion at Cheapside Park. It is hard to miss his clean white tent with its bright blue “Cookin’ Up Kentucky” message. If you miss the tent, just look for a long line of people eager to place orders for such Kentucky wonders as these, from today’s menu:

Omelette: Local eggs with baby squash, white bell pepper, garlic scapes, turnip greens, red ripe tomatoes, and aged cheddar cheese
Burrito: Sliced grilled pork loin with homemade salsa, cilantro lime sour cream, and aged cheddar
Sandwich: Fried green tomato and bacon on local sourdough with pesto aioli and home style chips
Sandwich: Red ripe tomato and bacon on sourdough with aioli and home style chips
Burger: Local beef grilled with a fried green tomato and aged cheddar with garlic pesto and home style chips
Pork Loin: Local pork loin marinated and grilled with grilled squash and eggplant, aged cheddar, and red tomato with home style chips

Both the Broadway/Maxwell and Pavilion locations have some outdoor picnic tables near Cookin’ Up Kentucky’s tent. You can order and then watch — and smell — as Chef Graves cooks your food. I know of no other restaurant where the distance and time are shorter from the farm to your plate.

And what a plate! This man knows how to cook, and how to use the fine commonwealth of traditional Kentucky foods in new ways.

The popularity of the green tomato/bacon/aioli sandwich suggest how much we love Chef Jacob’s inventive ways with our familiar ingredients. Aioli on a BLT? Lime cilantro cream with our grilled pork loin? Turnip greens in our morning omelette? Turnip greens??

And he does sweet as beautifully as savory. The proof is in the (homemade) custard-filled crepes with local fruits often available on Saturday mornings.

In addition to Chef Jacob’s cooking smarts, it takes a rather dramatic investment of time and brawn to bring this beautifully cooked farm-fresh food to us. I wanted to know specifics, so I asked Chef Jacob what is involved in “building” his kitchen and buying ingredients each Market day.

He says he gets to the Market at 4:00 AM because it takes him at least a couple of hours to get his equipment set up. By around 6:00 AM the farmers are beginning to roll in to set up their own stands in advance of the 7:00 AM opening time. Chef Jacob buys his ingredients from the farmers who grow what they sell at the Market. That way he knows exactly who grew the Kentucky vegetables, meats, dairy, and eggs that end up on Cookin’ Up Kentucky’s plates soon after.

Just as the farmers intend to be ready for customers at 7:00 AM, Cookin’ Up Kentucky intends to be ready to cook our breakfasts at that early hour. Even with the 4:00 AM prep start time, Chef Jacob says being ready to take a customer’s order right at the 7:00 AM Market opening start time still eludes him. He continues to work to speed the set-up process, and has polished his procedures enough so he is ready to go by 7:15 or so most days, and improving.

You can “like” and keep up with Cookin’ Up Kentucky on Facebook. Try this link, or search for “Cookin’ Up Ky.”

For Savoring Kentucky email subscribers: Please go directly to the post to comment and share information about Cookin’ Up Kentucky, Chef Graves, cooking fresh Kentucky ingredients, or other topics of interest to Savoring Kentucky readers.

This is Savory Kentucky Bite number 16 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

It’s OUR Cuppa!

Rona — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:52:17 +0000

Lisa Samson’s tea café, Cuppa, delights, pleases, and cheers its patrons. Yes, caffeine is involved, but beyond the 50 loose teas and — surprise! — coffee options, this place is simply tasty in all ways.

Cuppa teas steep at the correct temperatures — a bit warmer for black than for green — and for the correct number of minutes. (Cute stopwatches abound.) Each eager sipper chooses from a lovely collection of cups and saucers the very one that seems most perfect for increasing the pleasures of the cup.

Cuppa’s visual appeal and beautiful touches sweeten the pot. The white building at 591 Short Street in Lexington, where Jefferson meets West Short, angles come-hitheringly toward the corner. Inside, spacious serenity, perhaps inspired by the teas’ Asian origins, soothes the spirit, but this is no boring place. The pretty chandelier, mural, and bay window with the surprisingly forest-like view brighten the sipping experience.

Lisa Samson intends for Cuppa to brew up more sense of community and face-to-face connections in Lexington. For people working solo who need the other kind of connectivity, free wi-fi makes it easy.

I asked Lisa about pu-erh tea, and so began my tea education. I told Lisa I had long hoped to locate a type of smoky green tea, pressed into a hard brick, that a house guest had left behind a few years ago. I did not know the name or type of tea, but since pu-erh is typically pressed into a compact, hard shape, it seemed a good place to start.

Cuppa offers two types or pu-erh. As she shaved and pried a hard button of tea into steep-able leaves, Lisa told me that some types of pu-erh may be aged in caves for years, even decades.

The tea I chose classically involves a first short steep, intended to be discarded, followed by fresh water and a three-minute steep, intended to be drunk. Unlike many other types of tea, pu-erh can be steeped again multiple times without loss of flavor. As part of my tea education, Lisa saved the first quick steeping liquid in a mug so I could compare it with the second, “real” tea, intended for drinking. Both had a brown, earthy flavor, but the “throw-away” tea included a bitter undertone missing from the second steeping.

I am eager to try Cuppa’s second pu-erh and other teas. I also look forward to more time in Cuppa’s tranquil, lovely space.

For Savoring Kentucky email subscribers: Please go directly to the post to comment and share information about Cuppa, teas, or other topics of interest to Savoring Kentucky readers.

This is Savory Kentucky Bitenumber 10 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

Sunrise Bakery: Brilliance on Main Street

Rona — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:41:00 +0000

Kristy Matherly may not know it, but she is one of the reasons Lexingtonians get out of bed on Saturday mornings and come downtown. I used to be under the illusion that it was Sunrise Bakery’s handmade pastries or croissants that drew me to 111 West Main Street, or maybe it was the flawless, smooth Illy espresso. Then I stopped eating gluten and my relationship with coffee turned on-again/off again.

Somehow, though, I did not stop going to Sunrise Bakery. It took me a while to figure out that the warmth and cheer of the place and its dedicated patrons made reasons enough for my weekly pilgrimage. And then I realized the most obvious thing of all: Kristy Matherly, who owns Sunrise with her excellent and equally friendly baker-husband Steve, puts the sun in Sunrise. Exactly like the sun, she shines a megawatt smile and sheds warmth and life-giving energy on every person who comes into this delicious-smelling bakery.

Kristy and Steve Matherly involve lots of family members and friends in their business. Two young sons, too, are getting the benefits of taking part in what their parents do. How “Main Street” is that??

I am not exaggerating about the attraction of Sunrise Bakery’s cinnamon rolls. A common sight in the bakery: Adults of all ages close their eyes and make swooning noises at the smell, the idea, the opportunity these rolls offer for savoring good, sweet, fresh, expertly made tastes. The breads, cookies, croissants, sandwiches and every other feature at Sunrise reflect the same quality. The cinnamon rolls, however, are the one picture Lexingtonians hold in their heads on Saturday morning when the question is “Sleep in? Or get up now and get to Sunrise before the rolls run out?”

Some lucky people find Sunrise cinnamon rolls, baguettes, batards and other fine things (including chocolate chip-garlic cookies) at Blue Moon Farm’s stand on the Short Street side of the Saturday Lexington Farmers Market. This is good! More chances that rolls will still be there after a hit or two on the snooze button.

If not, though, I suggest you ask Kristy or Steve to make a cheese plate from the beautiful Italian cheeses in their cold case. When Kristy hands the plate to you with her amazing smile as a bonus, you know that life is good, Saturday is good, all is well. To be clear, Sunrise Bakery is open Tuesday – Friday each week as well, thank goodness. This Savory Bite celebrates the Saturday Sunrise Bakery experience, including the way it so often prefaces a trip to the Lexington Farmers Market, and the way Kristy’s sunshine adds solar power to a treasured weekend morning ritual for lots of us.

If you can’t get to Sunrise Bakery, consider making your own cinnamon rolls. Savoring Kentucky readers confirm that it’s doable, even for people who haven’t made yeasted breads before, using the recipe and approaches Ruth and Lisle (aka Mother and Dad) perfected.

This is Savory Kentucky Bite number 6 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

Kentucky Ducky at Dudley’s on Short

Rona — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:41:16 +0000

Dudley’s on Short — the new Dudley’s, and thank heaven for it — offers splendid salads. In this case, a sunny Kentucky D-K duck egg shines out from a nest of bacon-y wilted spinach. Wine-friendly Manchego cheese and other tasty bits egg on the flavors so dramatically you will want to crow (as we seem to be doing.) Fantastic with a glass of the grapefruity Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc.

Dudley’s on Short brought along the handsome wooden bar and the warm, skilled service that made eating at the original Dudley’s so sweet. The new place, a beautiful redo of an old Short Street building, showcases all that’s fine and good in this treasured Lexington restaurant.

This is Savory Kentucky Bite 1 of 116 in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

Have You Seen Durham’s Public Herb Garden?

Rona — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:40:43 +0000

I have not seen the public herb garden in Durham, North Carolina. I had never heard of a public herb garden until I read the phrase in this beautiful story an alert loved one forwarded. The New York Times story describes the changes in what people in Durham eat since the farms near them converted from tobacco to vegetables. Watch the slide show, too.

Like our neighbors to the south, we are experiencing some of the same positive post-tobacco changes in how we eat and what we grow in Kentucky. I haven’t heard of a public herb garden in the Bluegrass yet. Given the amazing energy all around us here, and the productive pace Seedleaf, John Walker (Edible Garden Series and Urban Gleaning), and people energized at the recent Now What Lexington are setting, I’d lay odds someone in my city is collecting herbs or drawing plot designs right now.

We live in amazing times, and I live in a place of promise. You do too.

Wilt That Salad!

Rona — Mon, 04 May 2009 03:11:06 +0000

The things we did with eggs this weekend:

> Scramble with Stonecross Farm sausage.

> Make gougères – French cheese puffs, sort of. (Here’s a David Lebovitz recipe close to the one we used.)

> Make impromptu deconstructed deviled eggs “vinaigrette” with eggs originally intended to garnish fresh asparagus from our garden.

> Make wilted salad. Or “killed” or “kilt” salad, if you prefer.

This is about the salad. In the past, as noted here, moderately industrious families likely made this Kentucky mountain spring delicacy with their own homegrown and home-processed ingredients, needing only salt from an outside source.

At our house, a week or so before the first homegrown lettuce is big enough to qualify as micro-greens, our salad owed a lot to the local markets. From Lexington Farmers Market we got Blue Moon spring salad mix, Elmwood Stock Farm eggs, and Stone Cross Farm smoked bacon. Salt, cider vinegar, and maple syrup came from Good Foods Market. We snipped one sprig of our own green onion.

There’s not a lot of technique.

Boil eggs: Use eggs that are at least one week old. This prevents the inadvertent introduction of coarse language into your otherwise tranquil kitchen, since extremely fresh eggs hold onto their shells, making them maddening-to-impossible to peel smoothly. Cover your fresh-but-not-too-fresh eggs with cold water, and cover the pot with a lid. Bring gradually to a boil. Boil one minute. Cover and let set eight minutes. Drain hot water, and replace with cold water. Wait a few minutes. Crack the eggs all over. Peel. I used three eggs for two people.

Wash and rinse lettuce; put it in a heat-proof bowl. Use double the amount of your usual salads. This one is going to melt away to a much smaller version of itself.

Cook the bacon. Allow about two pieces per person. Use your good bacon protocol: Cast iron or heavy skillet, cold, low-medium heat, turning as often as needed to produce crispiness all around. When the bacon is done, lift it to a cutting board. Cut it in small pieces while still warm. Cutting while warm keeps the bacon from flying into Aunt Hattie’s eye as she sits near you, watching you cook.

While the bacon cooks, slice or crumble the eggs. If you have one of these strange egg slicing tools — much loved by one of our sons as a young person — your egg slices will be beautifully even.

Until you start eating your salad, of course. Crumbling your boiled eggs with fingers or fork will work just as well as slicing. Use your keen imagination to decide what egg texture and look suit you. Put the eggs on a cutting board or in a dish. Do not add them to the salad yet.

Chop a green onion (or more, or less than a whole one, to taste) in small pieces and put on top of the salad greens. I use only the green stems, but my mother (and very likely her mother) added the chopped, “hotter” white parts of fresh spring onions for this salad, and so should you, if you like that biting, fresh hot new onion taste.

Once the bacon is lifted from its hot oil, leave the heat on, and add about 1 Tablespoon good raw cider vinegar to the skillet. It will steam and hiss and splatter – and it may make you cough, so try not to breathe in the steam just at first. If you like a sweet-sour-salty combo, add 1 – 2 Tablespoons maple syrup or brown sugar as well, and stir, stir, stir with a wooden spoon or heat-proof whisk. (Classic wilted salad in Kentucky is completely savory. No added sweetener of any kind.)

Add a pinch of salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper. When all is sizzling and boiling away, carefully pick up the entire skillet, and pour the mixture over the salad greens. Put the skillet in a safe location, and toss the greens as they wilt and shrink.

Top the salad with the sliced eggs and chopped bacon. Serve. Oooh and aaaah, just like our great-grandparents did — I’m pretty sure.

The Flowering

Rona — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:49:17 +0000

Add to the abundance of edibles already appearing this spring a generous flowering of events about food, food systems, farming and agriculture of the sort intended to sustain Kentuckians from now on.

Two food summits will take place soon in neighboring cities. These may be the first Kentucky food summits. Certainly the idea of a food summit is new to me, and promising.

Community Farm Alliance invites us to “Everybody Eats!” From the Ground Up: First Annual Louisville Food Summit this Saturday, April 11 —- well, perhaps not. Their event is sold out. Good for them!

Berea College kicks off its April 16-17 Food Summit with the irrepressible, inimitable Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm leading a convocation and speaking at a local foods dinner. Meet Joel in 97 seconds here, or spend eight minutes with him here as talks about forgiveness as a farming principle. Several of the Food Summit events are open to the public.

Next week in Lexington, the Gaines Center for the Humanities at the University of Kentucky brings Will Allen to a public forum at the Central Library, 140 East Main Street, Monday night, April 13, 6:00 PM. Allen founded Growing Power in Milwaukee, and received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 2008.

I am eager for a different type of event that takes place this Saturday, April 11: the first day outdoors in 2009 for the Lexington Farmers Market. This year the outdoor Market moves to a new location on the west side of the old Fayette County Courthouse along Cheapside Park, between Main and Short Streets, and along Short as well. Opening day outside means a lot more growers come to the Market. They will bring with them new green things to eat (green garlic for sure, thanks to Blue Moon) and other tasty bits I can hardly imagine!