the Scallion for March 30, 2010
| March 30, 2010 | REGENT MARKET CO-OP E-news |
eat your vegetables |
Board’s Marketing Plan for Easter Lays an Egg
Madison — They failed to persuade the staff to dress like leprechauns for St. Paddy’s Day, but the RMC Board re-assembled undaunted, this time to draw up a marketing campaign for Easter. Their goal was a week of fresh, new ideas to bring members into the coop for all their holiday purchasing.
President Brad Wolbert challenged the board to come armed with creative suggestions. “Let’s give the little store some new life this Easter! We can do better than just jelly beans and Peeps on the counter!” he urged, although conceding that a New Peeps is out that comes covered in milk or dark chocolate.
Maggie Coluccy offered her idea first. “When Brad said we needed ‘new life,’ it was just so obvious. We could sell hatching chicken eggs!”
The board sat in silence. “You know…” Coluccy continued hesitantly, “…the kids can put them under lights and hatch them….?”
Suddenly the group burst into spontaneous approval. “Great idea!” “Of course!” Why not?” “Beautiful!”
“But hey!” challenged Kent Harris. “Why not baby chicks too?”
Again the group broke into excited approval. “Baby chicks!”
Everyone was talking at once. “Let’s get those weird-looking heritage chicks!”
“Hey hey hey! Why limit it to chicks? Why not ducklings?”
“Why not both!? And how about goslings!?”
Someone shouted over the noise that he knew a farm in Portage County that sold ostrich chicks.
“Terrific! And there’s a Wilderness Ranch in Medford that sells hatching emu eggs! Emus and ostriches! How super cool is that!?”
The air crackled with excitement. The board members were out of their chairs exchanging high-fives.
“You think Whole Food’s got ideas like these!?”
“You think you’ll find any emu eggs at Sentry!?”
“Uh, excuse me, Trader Joe, where are the ostrich chicks?”
“I can see you’ve all done some creative thinking,” Wolbert said, “but why are we limiting ourselves to fowl?”
He spoke with the calm of one who is saving the best for last. “I was thinking it would really bring the families in if we had right there in the store” —- he paused -— “a live baby lamb!”
Pandemonium broke out. “Fab-u-lous! You know the TV stations are gonna be there!”
“And, hey, what about a drawing every day for the kids! And the winner gets to keep the lamb overnight!” More high-fives and fist bumps around the room.
“Are you all thinking what I’m thinking? That llama farm near Mt. Horeb, right? We’d have one stationed at the front door. Like a Wal-Mart greeter, only it’s a llama! Can’t you just see it?”
The room fell silent then. Everyone took their seats. They looked down at the floor. They did see it.
After a quiet pause, Wolbert said, “About the New Peeps. We tried the dark chocolate. Not bad.”
A Fond Farewell to an Old Friend
and an Invitation to RMC Members
Barbara Wright, owner of the Dardenelles Restaurant, will be closing down at the end of April. Barbara is a coop member and has been a great friend and support to the RMC. She has graciously opened the doors of the Dardanelles for our annual member-recognition party. Below you see her doing a cooking demo at one of our Spring Street Fairs.
The Regent Market Coop Board of Directors will celebrate her at the Dardanelles and cordially urge you to join them.
The Barbara Wright Appreciation Brunch
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Noon
Dardanelles Restaurant
1851 Monroe Street
R.S.V.P. by replying to this email
Barbara teaches Elsa Forberger the art of the omelet
Cooking from the Shelves of the Little Store
The Dardanelles has been a part of the Monroe Street neighborhood since 1996. Owner Barbara Wright announced recently that she is closing the restaurant for health and economic reasons at the end of April. A great many of us will miss the Mediterranean cuisine served at the Dardanelles–a cozy, affordable place for neighbors to get together and enjoy healthy, local food cooked with an exotic flair.
Sorghum Pie
You may think of sorghum as a strictly American heartland food but it really originated in North Africa.
Ingredients
- 1 cup sorghum syrup
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup ground sorghum seeds or oatmeal or ground nuts
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla or other flavoring
- 2 pinches of salt
Directions
Mix ingredients and fill a pie shell a little below the rim. Bake at 325 for 55 minutes in middle shelf of the oven. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Joan Peterson is the editor of “Cooking from the Shelves of the
Little Store.” She welcomes your recipes! Send yours with a short bio
to her e-mail address.
How to Get Kids to Love Junk Food Less and Real Food More:
Interactive Shopping, Cooking, and Eating
By Michael Prager
Former RMC Board Member and Dad of Three
As every parent knows, one of the challenges of raising happy, healthy kids is getting them to eat a balanced diet. But kids are by nature picky finicky eaters; I shudder to think of the quantity of Oscar Meyer bologna I consumed between ages 5 and 10. Kids are less likely to be interested in or pleased with their food though if it seems to arrive simply on its own power at dinner time. The more they can be involved in preparing the meal, the more excited and interested they will be in eating it. If cooking becomes part of their regular routine, and not just limited to an occasional cookie baking, kids will develop great habits for life.
Since my kids were babies, the Regent Market has been a key part of this effort at involving them. We have a mixed family when it comes to food; we are part organic/part Oreo, part vegetarian/part hot dog kind of people, so the Regent Market is our type of store. Another one of the benefits of a small store like the RMC is that you can get kids in and out in a short time, they can reach most things, there aren’t too many choices to overwhelm them, and the RMC has a friendly familiar staff and honey sticks on the counter. Kids can put the food on the counter and they can help carry it home. I often bring my kids down to the store to get the ingredients for a meal, and then even with those short attention spans, we are back in the kitchen within minutes starting to prepare the meal.
The next important step in getting kids involved is having them help with the preparation. I don’t think any child is too young for it; a baby can play with some utensils, bowls or basic ingredients. Some parents may prefer to think their 2-year-old is happiest watching Family Guy because it is just so much easier to make dinner without their involvement. But the benefits they gain are worth the mess they make.
Some suggested approaches:
Step 1. Get the child up close. Give the baby a ride on her chair over to the kitchen counter. She can’t do much if she can’t reach it!
Step 2. Deconstruct every little task when you cook with young kids, remembering even the small things we barely think about. When they are very young, you must give them really easy jobs. Sometimes that means inventing work for them, even unnecessary tasks that may make more work for you. You’ll need to plan ahead to have these little chores ready for them. Some easy tasks for young fingers: cutting butter into tiny pieces; taking bread slices out and counting them for French toast or grilled cheese; sprinkling in the salt or cinnamon; dumping the flour into the bowl; counting noodles, carrots, tomatoes (for no stated reason at all!) and putting them into the bowl.
Step 3. Talk about it while you work with them, explaining when to be cautious — hot burners, sharp knives. Solicit their input: you can get pretty philosophical about when to flip a pancake.
Step 4. Put them to real work as they grow. Jobs can get more and more useful and interesting as they get older.
The children and the kitchen will be a mess and things may not turn out as perfectly as you would have done them, but a small bit of egg shell in the cookies won’t hurt anyone. As they get older, you can teach them how to crack an egg, make matzo balls, peel carrots, layer lasagna, and eventually give you a night off!
An old friend of mine, Mark Bishop, who is the Deputy Director of the Healthy Schools Campaign, has a great specific recipe for Veggie Lasagna to make with kids. Here is a super cute video of him and his son at work on it.
Shoshanna at work in the Prager kitchen