Spring has Arrived at Celebrity Dairy: The Beet, WSM's E-Newsletter

Link to Weaver Street Market's Home Page

Joe Bud's Everything
Sauce Tasting
Celebrity Cheese is Back!
Tsunami Fund Update

Main Street Update
Maple View Ice Cream
Last Lunchbox Concert

Spring has Arrived at Celebrity Dairy
By Mary Turner, Specialty Department
Spring arrived in Siler City recently, in the form of baby goats. On February 12 and 13 Celebrity Dairy, makers of our beloved local chèvre, held an "Open Barn" where visitors were invited to tour the farm and meet its many inhabitants. Guinea fowl and chickens strolled around the yard in front of the farmhouse, barn cats lazed on the porch and a male turkey puffed himself into a balloon of a display. Inside, Fleming, Brit, and crew were busy greeting visitors, serving up hot cocoa and delicious soup. But the real stars were in the barn. Madonna, Cher and the other "girls" have been busy having kids. And to us, that means milk. And more importantly, cheese! Read more...

Weekly Produce Specials

Recipe: Pommarola

Spring has Arrived at Celebrity Dairy (continued)

Whitney May, the cheesemaker who invented some new flavors last season, is working again this season. Last year, demand was greater than supply. This year, there are more goats in the flock, but judging from the daily questions at the Weaver Street Market cheese counter, it will be another sellout. The Montrachet, fresh goat cheese log we all love, will be back of course, in a variety of flavors. The Garbo is rolled in garlic, basil and pepper - what a great topping on a pizza! The Party has a coating of parsley, basil, chives and dried onion. There are also dill, rosemary, the brightly red paprika and garlic flavors. The smooth dips will be back too: sweet apricot, spicy jalapeno, and maybe chocolate - if you have not tried chocolate and goat cheese together, you should. Triangle residents are truly lucky to have this great resource. Go visit Celebrity Dairy. They hold monthly events, which you can read about at www.celebritydairy.com. But please don't just drive up anytime, because they are a (very hard) working farm and they need every second to make all that cheese we've been craving!
Read more about this local producer - don't miss the link about their Sunday Dinners!

Weekly Produce Specials

	Organic Minneola Tangelos	$1.25/lb.	Sweet & Tart!
	Organic D'Anjou Pears	$1.00/lb.	Save 59¢/lb.
	New Crop California Asparagus.	$2.00/lb.	Save 99¢/lb.
Read more about other Weaver Street Market Specials.

Caroleena's Tuscan Kitchen

Local chef and cooking instructor, Carol Barrow, resided in the center of Florence and in the province of Tuscany for ten years where she learned regional cooking from the masters: restaurant owners, farmers, family and friends. She owned Ristorante Vien under the Volta dei Peruzzi in Florence for four years. Caroleena cracks the mysterious code of Tuscan cooking and translates her very special language into easy, delicious and healthy recipes. She will be sharing recipes and tips with us from time to time. Caroleena is available to cook for you in your home. Call her at 960-8875.

Pommarola (Fresh tomato and vegetable sauce for pasta)

Pommarola is truly a Florentine summertime dish, but we can eat it anytime we wish. After the tomato harvest, these Italians get busy peeling and canning tomatoes for the winter. This recipe can be canned (in mason jars) also. Fresh, ripe ingredients are important, but these days Roma tomatoes can be found in almost all markets. It is important to choose Roma tomatoes, because they don't produce as much water as a vine-ripe or a slicing tomato, and if you choose the very reddest and firmest, you, too, will have an easy time making this sauce.

This recipe should take as long to cook as it does to boil the water needed for pasta. Pasta water should always have enough salt in it to make it taste like salt water. This is what makes your pasta dishes taste great!

Fusilli, penne, or ziti are perfect for this recipe as they catch the sauce in their niches.

Ingredients

2 lbs Roma (plum) tomatoes-coarsely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 celery rib, coarsely chopped
1 large onion coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon salt
freshly ground pepper
butter
fresh parmigiano cheese- hand grated

Boil the tomatoes, carrot, celery, onion, salt and pepper in a saucepan that is big enough to hold the vegetables and cover them with water. When all of the vegetables are soft, put them and the water in a blender. Don't over blend them - find a setting that turns it into an almost mushy consistency, but doesn't turn it into water. When this is finished, return the blended vegetables to the saucepan and simmer in order to reduce this sauce. This should take about ten or fifteen minutes. When you think it is thick enough (it is never going to act like "ragù"), it is cooked.

Drain pasta. I always put it back in the pot and add some sauce just to prevent the pasta from sticking. Serve. Add as much Pommarola as you wish. I always add a big pat of butter on top and stir it around. Add a generous amount (2 or 3 tablespoons) of freshly, hand-grated parmigiano cheese. If you are feeling daring -add a dash of crushed, red pepper flakes or some fresh ground black pepper! Knock yourself out - put a basil leaf on top!

Buon Appetito!
And remember - cook with love AND DON'T BE CHEAP!



Joe Bud's Everything Sauce Tasting this Saturday, February 26

Joe Bud's Everything Sauce is a locally-made, unique, tangy sauce that really is great on everything! Come sample it on Saturday at 11:00 am in the Carrboro store and meet the people behind the product!
Read more about Joe Bud's.

Celebrity Cheese is Back!

Mary Turner meets a new kid at Celebrity Dairy.	Celebrity Dairy has babies! And that means their delicious goat cheese is back! Cheese Flavors arriving now: Plain . . . Dill Lemon . . . Garbo . . . Paprika/Garlic . . . Party . . . Peppertop Spreads arriving now: Apricot . . . Jalapeno

Tsunami Fund Update (as of today)

Weaver Street Market customers continue to make a huge contribution to the Tsunami Relief Fund! You have purchased: 204 pounds of Counter Culture Aceh Relief Blend from the bulk bins for a $408 donation, 510 pounds of brewed coffee for a $1020 donation and bottles of wine from the Haw River Wine Man for a $572.91 donation! You also have directly donated $1433.88 to the collection jars at the registers for a grand total of $3434.79 in six weeks! Great job! Stay tuned for future updates.

Main Street Development From The Chapel Hill News, Sunday, February 20, 2005 Major Carrboro project gets public airing By DAVE HART, STAFF WRITER CARRBORO - Once it's under way, the plan the folks at Main Street Properties have in mind for the redevelopment of 300 E. Main Street will be impossible to miss. It will involve removing all the existing buildings on the south side of East Main between Roberson Street and Bleeker Street Studios. That's a span that includes, among other things, Cat's Cradle, ArtsCenter, Amante Pizza, VisArt Videos, Bandidos, Performance Bicycles and the Honda repair shop. The developers said the businesses themselves, except the auto shop, will be retained on the site in new digs. Those structures will be replaced by new buildings, some of them five stories tall; a parking deck and a ramp to underground parking levels; a pedestrian plaza; an outdoor amphitheater; and many new shops, restaurants, offices and apartments. The project will be, to put it mildly, significant. So the developers don't want it to take anybody by surprise. They held a meeting last September to introduce their proposal to the public, to gather input and answer questions. On Wednesday, they will do it again. Main Street Properties will hold an open house from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at The ArtsCenter. The developers will show the latest site plan, which has undergone some changes since the September meeting, along with models and elevation drawings. If you have two cents to throw in, they said, now's the time. "This is the last best chance to look at our ideas and let us know what you think," said Laura Van Sant of Main Street Properties. "We want everybody with an interest in downtown Carrboro, anybody who thinks they might be interested in living or opening a business there, anybody interested in the design, to come and take a look." Van Sant said the company plans to submit its application for a Conditional Use Permit to the town this spring. With a project this large and complex, she said, the review process will take some time. "One year would be very optimistic," she said. "Two years would be a little pessimistic. So somewhere between the two, I would think, would be about right. The town has a few things on its plate already - the new high school, for example. So we'll just get in line." The plan calls for several buildings to go along the street front with retail on the ground floor and offices and other uses on upper floors. A pedestrian plaza behind those buildings would run the length of the site on a long diagonal, deliberately oriented toward the Weaver Street lawn to encourage pedestrian traffic between the two areas. The parking deck would stand at the back of the site, where the long building that houses the ArtsCenter and the Cradle now stands. Both those venues would shift over to the eastern edge of the property, the Cradle in front and The ArtsCenter in the rear, with an outdoor amphitheater between them. "The big three gathering places downtown are the Cradle, The ArtsCenter and Weaver Street Market," Van Sant said. "We have two of the three on this site, and we're designing this to interact with the third. "It's a private development in the sense that it's being done by a private company, not by the town. But it is public in the sense that it's the most significant development in downtown Carrboro in anyone's memory, and so it will matter to anybody who goes there. In that sense, it's a community project. That's why we want to talk to the community about it." Open House - Wednesday, February 23! Main Street Properties will hold an open house from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at The ArtsCenter to share its proposed design for 300 E. Main Street. Contact Dave Hart at 932-8744 or dhart@nando.com.
Read the article online.

Maple View Ice Cream comes to East Weaver Street!

You used to buy used TVs in this space - but now you can look forward to buying delicious Maple View Ice Cream here. Where? In the old Tar Heel TV store across the street from Weaver Street Market. The store is scheduled to open in April. More details in future editions of The Beet.

The Last Lunchbox Concert this Year

This popular concert series winds up this week - so stop by Weaver Street Market to pick up your lunch and walk over to Century Hall this Thursday at noon. Free coffee is provided courtesy of Open Eye Cafe. Concert #8: "Hubcap's Dilemma" (Jazz) The New Orleans jazz piano of Corey "Hubcap" Sims, the soul-stirring tuba of David Morris, and the ever-grooving drumbeat of Mark Simonsen will come together as Hubcap's Dilemma, performing boogie woogie and New Orleans-based jazz, gospel, and blues with just enough funk for you to shake off the winter cold. Corey will also be giving a special "Breakfast with an Expert" presentation at 9:30am with the band prior to the concert, which will be more educational in nature. Thursday, February 24 from 12:00-1:00PM

Greek Wine Dinner

Monday Evening, March 14 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Panzanella

Join us for a tasting of wines from Northern Greece. This area is rich with Greek Wine culture. Discover the distinctive regions as well as grape varieties that are unique to this area. Discover wine regions with as many differences as similarities to the famous regions of France. Join Panzanella and Weaver Street Market for a journey through Northern Greece vineyards and its indigenous grape varieties. Plenty of delicious food will be served from the Panzanella kitchen to complement these wonderful wines. Join us and open your mind to new grape varieties and the wonderful wine producing regions of Greece.
The cost of this event is $35 per person; space is limited, so reserve early. Please pay in advance and pick up a ticket for this tasting at either Panzanella or the customer service desk at Weaver Street Market in Carrboro.

Learn more about the wines of Greece.

Wine Wednesdays

Due to popular demand, the Wine Wednesday Special has been extended through the month of February. Each Wednesday, Panzanella features 5 different specially selected bottles of wine for only $10 per bottle (tax not included)! Don’t miss this chance to enjoy a great bottle of wine at a great value. Featured wines are available by the bottle only. Regular wine list is available.

Visit Panzanella's website to view all menus (lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch).