Message for a quiet week

This is my favorite week of the year. It is a week where the social and familial expectations are behind us and one can take a moment to reflect on what went well this year and what changes should be made for the future. For myself, it has been a year of transition. As our café begins its bricks-and-mortar life, my fiber art assumes a smaller role. Were it not for the fact that I find creativity in the kitchen as well as the studio, I would mourn the loss. I expect that I'll always have an itch to work in fiber, but my current focus is to make A La Carte Café a favorite destination for local lunchers.

Admittedly, most restaurants are the manifestation of a strong vision of the head chef—an extension of their egos, if you will. No doubt A La Carte Café will follow that same path. But I wanted to share with you some of my personal philosophy in creating this venture. So bear with me.

About 20 years ago I swore off taking on jobs by default—jobs that others weren't stepping up to but that I knew I could probably do—simply because it needed doing. Unless it directly moved me forward in my personal goals, it was not a job I for which I was going to volunteeer. I've taken too many detours along my path for that. So the decision to open our cafe came after a LONG personal search of my goals.

When we moved to the Ozarks 11 years ago, after living our lives in medium and large cities, we expected to find our dining options somewhat limited. Like you, we anticipated each new restaurant opening hoping to experience some of the dining diversity we'd experienced in the larger cities. Sadly, most just seemed to be more of the same ol', same ol'. Some didn't even seem to care whether our dining experience was worthwhile. Most used already-prepped provisioner ingredients. Freshness and local sourcing were foreign concepts. Seemed like nobody was stepping up to the plate to provide what we were hungering for— literally.

I've never been one to play it safe. However, the last several years have beaten some of the maverick out of me with its tight finances and looming social security balances. Suddenly, the room to stretch and expand was limited by a demand for money that MUST be met. While I was younger I would have jumped in whole hog and simply expected a positive outcome. Now the downside consequences are heavier and the upside rewards less guaranteed. But we still find there is this niche that is not being filled and I think I have the skills, along with Jon and now Bruce, to pull it off. We are, quite literally, betting on ourselves and even the community.

We believe there is a community-wide demand

• To eat closer to the soil 
• To eat REAL food from sources that have faces and names
• To avoid the GMO, MSG world of fast food  
• To eat food that takes us on flavor journeys
• To demand that food be made from really fresh ingredients 
• To seek sustainable solutions to growing our food

To that end we are building our café. We'll do it bit by bit while learning along the way. If you agree with our mission, please tell your friends and co-workers.

We are fortunate that Bruce Carr is available currently to assist in steering us. He has many, many years experience in food service management. He also is an adventurous cook and we've worked together in various ways over the years. Most of all he is a very dear friend. The three of us, together, hope to present a lunch time solution that inspires you to come back regularly.

This week we are bringing back a favorite and adding a new thing or two. I would love to keep the popular dishes on the menu full-time but we simply can't if we wish to keep the batches small and fresh. So we will rotate through some favorites while adding flavor journeys along the way.



Portabellas from Bob and Wendy Semyck at Willow Mountain Mushroom Farm in Tecumseh

 This week's favorite is the Portabella Brie Bisque. I'll have it ready for lunch on Monday and make it fresh throughout the week. This is the weekly soup and it is $3.49/cup and $4.99/bowl.

This week's Flavor Journey is a hot lunch of Carnitas served with pintos and rice. Carnitas are a slow cooked pork, seasoned with Hatch peppers (mild but warm) that is pulled (shredded) and served as a taco on soft flour tortillas. You'll get 2 plus rice and beans for $6.25. We make it all from scratch. The pork starts with a dry rub and then 10 hours in the slow cooker. The beans soak overnight before being cooked with a smoked hock. The rice is my Spanish rice cooked with onions, tomatoes and bell pepper. You'll get salsa, too.

This week's salad journey is a Winter Spinach Salad—Organic Spinach from Maranatha Farm, red onion, grapefruit slices, avocado slices, pomegranate and Jon's wood-fired chicken. The dressing is a sweet/sour one that is Bruce's personal recipe. $6.25

We hope the week finds you inspired to reflect back as well as excited about the future. We believe strongly in this land of ours and are betting that scarcity will be replaced by ingenuity, abundance and growth. We have much to be grateful for— you are part of that. Thank you.