http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Save-the-Date--Fire---Ice-2013--February-16--2013.html?soid=1108926845282&aid=IXVGcpoGF_8

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Save-the-Date--Fire---Ice-2013--February-16--2013.html?soid=1108926845282&aid=IXVGcpoGF_8

honey & jam | recipes + photos: Green Tomato Pie + Kids Farm to Table Camp

honey & jam | recipes + photos: Green Tomato Pie + Kids Farm to Table Camp: "Where do potatoes grow?" That's how last week started for me. I had the opportunity to work at a kids farm to table camp, hosted by The ...

Well, Yowza! I’ve Joined the Online Coupon World

There’s a deal  going on for small business owners. And it’s aimed at getting your brand well-known in virtual couponing circles. Yowza!!, a location-based mobile coupon app, joined in on the second annual Small Business Saturday® on November 26, 2011. Yowza!! is supporting the Small Business Saturday Coalition by offering two free monthsof service followed by a 50 percent discounted monthly rate to the first 15,000 merchants who join by Nov. 26, 2011. 

The American Express Small Business Saturday promotion gives participating merchants two months of free Yowza service and discounts its normal $89 monthly fee by 50% off for 2012, so the monthly fee would be $44.50. As David Teichner, CEO, Yowza!!  noted that  a full year with Yowza is about what a retailer would pay for a traditional print coupon promotion with one of the coupon services.

“Coupons have always been a sales driver for small businesses, and mobile coupons have proven to be 10 times more effective than traditional coupons. With Yowza!!, merchants can post offers in seconds and reach consumers when they are on the go and looking to spend money,” said David. “We really designed the app for small independent businesses to bring couponing to them in an affordable manner. We focus on total simplicity. Our target is someone who is really busy, has the phone with them, they use it to shop and they want to save money. They can take the radius up to 50 miles they swipe it and up to 3 offers come up. It’s easy for the retailer. It was built with the small business owner in mind.”

Some other advantages to the platform is that users can save their favorite stores and opt-in if they are willing to receive more offers from their favorites. So each time I go in to change my offers those fans will be notified of my new deals. 

“So it’s a nice tap on the shoulder saying they have a special offer coming up,” David remarked. “It’s really, really specific to the business. What we try to encourage people to do is get them to offer anything that someone can use at any point in time.  This way  consumers use the app as an every day coupon and merchants don’t have  that pressure that to give something huge away to make the time limited offer worthwhile.”

David told me it was so simple even technically challenged merchants can use it. I was going to really challenge them and have my chef-husband sign us up. But instead, I gave him a break and took the challenge myself.

Now, I am not a novice to the online world, but I do have my shortcomings when it comes to learning new technologies. But the platform David described to me sounded like a good fit for our loyal customer base so I decided to give it a whirl.

Okay, signing up was easy. We’ll keep you posted on the process and the response once the deals start posting!

Get Your Small Business Saturday BUZZZZ

First there was Black Friday, then Cyber Monday. Now, there's the 2nd annual Small Business Saturday, the day people support small businesses. Pledge to Shop Small^SM on Nov 26th. If millions of Americans shop small, it will be huge. 

 

If you are a shopper...support your local businesses by getting involved. https://sync.americanexpress.com/sbs2011

 

American Express wants to help you make a difference. Get a one-time $25 statement credit when you register an eligible American Express® Card and use that Card for a purchase of $25 or more at a small business on November 26th. Registration is limited. Terms and Conditions apply. 

 

If you are a merchant, be sure to check out all the tools American Express offers and get the word out!

Farm to Fork

We're focused on Farm to Fork here in North Georgia. We'll be out this afternoon harvesting greens for restaurant service tonight. There is definitely a chill in the air and with all the winds of late, our blankets were blown off the bok choy last night just in time for a cold frosty morning.

Our own work in the gardens reminds us of how much effort goes into building a sustainable, safe and fresh food source in this country. Every community and individual should be focusing on how to better supply for its citizens, neighbors and family.

Today I came across a fun site that let's consumers talk to local farmers and see what's going on, learn more about how to grow their own food, or simply check out some fun recipes. FarmFlavor.com is a fun, easy-to-navigate site packed with information. And this month they've released Let's Talk Turkey, a Digital Guide to Thanksgiving.

The e-book features recipes for baked and roasted turkey, as well as recipes for dishes made with leftover turkey. Readers will also find preparation tips and techniques; the e-book even includes a comprehensive guide to frying turkey including instructions and safety information.

Let’s Talk Turkey is stuffed with turkey trivia, such as the answer to why commercial turkeys’ feathers are white. The e-book also takes a look at the business side of Thanksgiving with a profile of Kauffman Turkey Farms, one of the last independent family-owned farms in the nation.

Check it out and give thanks this Thanksgiving for the folks who work hard to put food on our tables.

Virgina Willis' Brilliant New Cookbook

Basic to Brilliant, Y’all

150 Refined Southern Recipes and Ways to Dress Them Up for Company

It was a delight to pick up the newest cookbook from Virginia Willis. A newly appointed Southern Girl myself, Willis’ mix of great messaging about sustainable, realistic eating and cooking is fabulous. She debunks marketing messages about what to shop for, fresh farm eggs, free-range chickens and more. Willis provides interesting anecdotes, such as composting stories from her days as kitchen director for Martha Stewart Living Television.

She writes, “I was responsible for ensuring we composted for the garden, recycled and saved any bits appropriate for chicken feed, resulting in very little trash. (Martha taking a cure from simple country living, has been defining green for decades.) Once a rubber band was found in the feed, and I held my breath for a few days, hoping none of the flock fell to foul, not fowl play.”

Willis’ no nonsense conversational writing makes the cookbook a great bedside read, with the added bonus of having a creative style of approaching recipes. Featuring150 recipes that combine Southern flavors with time-honored French technique, Willis includes a sophisticated variation that kicks each dish up a notch to make it ‘brilliant.’ So the reader ends up with an additional 150 dual recipes: a soul-satisfying basic recipe accompanied by a technique, garnish, additional step, or short recipe that transforms a wonderful dish into a show stopper.

My favorite recipes I tossed up from my own chicken’s supply and arugula from our Georgia gardens is her rendition of Arugula with Country Ham and Pecans. I stepped it up a notch to Brilliant by making my own version of lardon with guanciale I brought home from a quick visit to Eataly in New York City this month.

And I am looking forward to testing out her Warm Summer Shrimp Salad next summer with our garden’s heirloom tomato varieties. And speaking of heirloom, I love that Willis just provides simple explanations to readers being bombarded with today’s marketers trying to sway them to make purchases with works like artisan, heirloom, heritage and hormone-free.

You'll love this book. And it will make a great gift this holiday season. Or better yet, see if you can get to one of Virginia's cooking school classes. For Atlanta natives, are several classes this fall at several Cook's Warehouse locations. Check it out.

If you're local to the mountains, we're sure gonna give it a try to get here cooking here at The Farm next year when we've got the cooking school built out!

For more information, please visit www.virginiawillis.com

Here's a recipe for you....made with beautiful fresh Georgia trout that we also serve up at Harvest on Main fresh from our local waters.

Pan-Seared Georgia Trout

Serves 4

1/4 cup canola oil, plus more for the baking sheet

1 cup pecans, finely chopped

1 cup plain or whole-wheat fresh or panko (Japanese) breadcrumbs

1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 (6- to 8-ounce) skin-on trout fillets

Lemon wedges, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 200°F. Brush a rimmed baking sheet with canola oil and place in the oven to warm. Combine the pecans, breadcrumbs, and parsley in a shallow bowl or pie plate. Season with salt and pepper. Press the flesh side of each fillet into the pecan mixture. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Place 2 trout in the pan, crust side down, and cook until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Turn and cook until fish is opaque in the center and just cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the trout to the prepared baking sheet, crust side up. Place the baking sheet in the oven. Repeat the process with the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil and the remaining 
2 trout fillets. Transfer to warmed serving plates and serve immediately, garnished with the lemon.

Brilliant: Short Recipe

Pecan Brown Butter

Basic panfried trout is elevated to Brilliant when dressed with Pecan Brown Butter.

Wipe the skillet clean with paper towels. Add 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter and melt over medium heat. Allow the butter to foam and turn medium brown, swirling the pan occasionally. Remove the pan from the heat, add the finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon, 1/4 cup chopped pecans, and 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley; season with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place the trout, crust side up, on warmed serving plates. Drizzle with the pecan butter. Serve immediately.

Photo credit: Helene Dujardin © 2011

To purchase, visit  Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Powells.com, or IndieBound.org.

“Reprinted with permission from Basic to Brilliant, Y’all: 150 Refined Southern Recipes and Ways to Dress Them Up for Company by Virginia Willis, copyright © 2011. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.”

A Bird's-Eye, Retailer View

Here's a note I received a few weeks ago from my Left-Coast Pal Laura Havlek from Sign of the Bear in Sonoma. We caught up in Atlanta in mid-August both checking out what was new at AmericasMart. Now, the Havlek's are traveling Europe with their boys while my husband is finally headed to Napa with plans to check out their store...while of course cooking at Cakebread's 25th American Harvest .....Oh Sugar.....

Oh, Sugar...

There is no better education for anyone in retail than a trip to AmericasMart. Besides, it's such fun. I get up every morning with that sense of joy and anticipation that marked Christmases of my youth, eager and wondering what amazing things I will discover that day. Consistently, I come away with a renewed delight in and depth of knowledge about cookware, books, interiors, and tabletop; with all the fun and excitement of what's new, from great new companies and longstanding friends' companies, and able to filter and buy well for fall...

Fresh, lively colors and a sense of fun continue to drive the season, from Dr. Seuss' aprons to. And from the Zoku QuickPop to Le Creuset's fresh fennel. We continue to see color, texture, and authenticity as driving forces in successful visual merchandising...and Atlanta's exhibitors consistently set the standard for visual inspiration. From silverware candelabra to giant laser etched spatulas to fall's lovely crop of linens, ceramics, and cooks' tools, it's a time to celebrate innovation and a sense of fun.  Every show, we return from AmericasMart fired up with great new display ideas, cell phones full of pictures for visual inspiration, bags full of catalogs, having ordered dozens of new products, and all jazzed up just from the joy of working with so many friends.

Life has few finer moments than the joy of watching friends succeed and evolve, and there's something remarkable about the sheer grit that goes into every new company... watching that wingspan unfurl is just magical.

And as is so often the case, some of the lessons I get are not the ones I thought but they are so the ones I needed. Walking with a longstanding friend, on the escalators, the hem of my slacks caught, and I fought for propriety "Oh, Shhhhhhhhh.... " ; and she so nicely finished for me, "here in the South, we sometimes say, 'Oh, Shhugar...' "

And the market AmericasMart has that quality of delightful, soft-pedaled humor, and education..

Thank you Atlanta 

 More on Cakebread

Check out Americasmart

Or for the latest issue of Gourmet Business