Yes, good weather and good times are a comin’. The tell tale signs? Ray is wearing shorts when he comes in for his morning coffee, Alex is no longer wearing a cap and our ice machine is arriving next week! It’s been a long time coming; after many fruitless “conversations” with ice vendors we decided to make our own, the self-reliant way. Bagged ice and fresh ice for cold drinks at the counter…soon. Thank you for your patience.
What’s new
Match making; pairing flavors
I have heard from a few of you that you find it a stretch to use herbs and seasonings outside of a recipe because you don’t know what goes with what. Understandable. There are a few givens in combining flavors because, for example, if you want something to taste Italian you would use herbs that grow there. Native American? What grew wild before we imported plants from around the world. Asian? Spices!…..and so on.
But beyond that maybe we just want to make food that tastes good instead of trying to have it be something else recognizable. Our own creation, taste memories of comforting good times, home, hearth, love.
Years ago I thought about this in some depth, and how taste is much the same as music as is the same as smell (and even of color). When a perfumer blends a fragrance they pay careful attention to using top, middle and low “notes” so as to give a balanced full scent. Music is written to incorporate the full scale of high, middle and low notes too and so a chef does the same. Nothing is as grating as repetitive single note music or as single essential oils worn can be cloying or, as you may have experienced, flat tasting food with only one flavor.
Nature has it right; try eating any crunchy, leafy green alone and will notice that it has sharp, bright top note flavors, deeper bitter flavors with middle notes of sweetness. Once again as in life, if we follow nature it is best.
You might find this chart I made years ago interesting to get you thinking about this concept. As an exercise, try tasting some herbs and spices at home to see where they are on the scale then mix a few together to see what you get. It’s fun! Trust yourself because there is no right or wrong just what tastes good to YOU.
New Art Show!
We hope you did not miss the talk at Town Hall last night, presented by Elkins Public Library and given by local historian Mark Stevens. The topic? The history of stores here in Canterbury Center! There were a LOT of tall tales!
In conjunction with that talk, we have just mounted our newest art show in The Community Art Gallery in The Feed Loft on that same topic. Our walls are lined with some of Mark’s historic photos of our town then new art work by our own Canterbury artists is hanging along side them. There are a few old store relics too! This is a really interesting show; who knew that we once were that?! We hope you’ll stop in to see it. Here through June 30.
Friday night pizza, May 17 . Order ahead 12” organic sour dough pizzas to take out or sit down and eat here. $15.95. Call ahead to order and choose a pick-up time slot. 603-783-9933
Choose:
- Pepperoni on red sauce.
- Vegetable choice of mushrooms, green peppers, onions and pepperoncini on red sauce
- Fig with gorgonzola and a honey drizzle over olive oil (no garlic)
- Cheese only on red sauce always by request
- Call in to see what Dave is doing as a special this week!
Have a great week!
Jane and Dave
Canterbury Country Store 