Thursday, April 17, 2014

Happy Spring!

Our colorful Chicken Eggs

Pink Onions!


Hello from the bakery up on the hill. Did you know that the Round House Bakery is part of what makes the Round House Café happen?

We have a wonderful bakery and kitchen here at Pompanuck Farm on Chestnut Hill Rd. where bakers and cooks are working almost round the clock making biscuits, scones, cookies and bread…soups, pickles, salads, sauces and side dishes. Every morning, someone, usually Scott, drives the van down to the café with a wide assortment of items that are needed for the day; rubber bands, blueberry muffins, leek and watercress soup, clean table cloths, Italian dressing, clean compost buckets…..

And did you know that each of our full time employees not only works at the café but also works at the bakery? We’re all skilled cooks and each one of us gives our best to the cooking we do for you. I think it’s pretty cool that the counter person can proudly take an order for the chili that she knows is super good because she made it herself the day before up at the bakery.

It can be tiring making endless batches of roasted eggplant for all of those Mediterranean Sandwiches but then aroma of 8 trays of eggplant roasting in olive oil is one of the perks of our jobs and everyone of our employees has this experience.

Right now, everyone’s chickens are laying like mad so we have plenty of local eggs for omelets, crepes and breakfast sandwiches at the café and we’ve brought back egg salad for the Spring. We make ours with our own organic eggs, chopped fresh herbs (dill, parsley and scallions), a little Dijon mustard and enough Hellman’s mayonnaise to moisten the eggs and hold them together but not so much that it will fall out of your sandwich. It’s delicious on a baguette but also between slices of sweet potato bread or any of our other varieties of sandwich bread.

We would love to offer avocado as part of our regular menu. We found that we were wasting a lot of avocados last year because we lacked proper cool storage. Thanks to a fortuitous donation by the Patterson family we now have a refrigerator in the café basement, our new mini walk-in. Joanna Patterson of said Patterson family, is a part of round House Bakery and Café. She has worked mostly at the bakery and Farmer’s Market but you’ll be seeing more of her at the café in weeks to come. Anyway, now we’ll be able to order avocados by the case and be able to control their ripening time. So if you see Joanna at the café or bakery, thank her for the avocados.

As always, we want to make the kind of food our community wants to eat. We love your suggestions in our suggestion box or through email. I know, we still haven’t brought back the homemade tuna burger. There’s a good explanation for this but it would take too long to read. Over the course of this first year in business we’ve continued to make adjustments as we attempt to give you the best quality food we can. Providing quality food at reasonable prices is our greatest challenge and we’re always looking for new ways to connect local food producers to local businesses and consumers. Thanks for participating! We love you!