Post It Notes

Labor Day Weekend Schedule
We will not be at the market this Saturday; the Good Nosh Girls are taking Labor Day weekend off. As a former desk jockey, I must say this Labor Day feels like a more deserved holiday than in years past. Nothing like hauling around equipment, producing hundreds of food items, and working a grill for hours each week to make you feel that you have actually labored, at least a little bit. While my typing skills have atrophied some over the summer, I have thoroughly enjoyed our time in the kitchen, our time at the market, and getting to know our customers.

Let Your Voice be Heard
Kei and I will be slinging food at the Downtown Market through September. For the final week or two we'll be reprising the best of Good Nosh fare. Help us decide the menu by voting for your favorite dishes. To the right you'll see two polls, one for our baked goods and one for our savory dishes. Please vote for your faves!

Just What is in the Chocolate Drops?
We are now starting to get dedicated Drop aficionados who are interested in these cookies for dietary reasons. It's often hard to find good food when you can't eat common ingredients. So here's the low-down. The drops do not contain any wheat or gluten though they do have (gluten free) cornstarch. They are dairy free. They have egg whites but no yolks. They do not contain any fats other than from the chocolate itself.

Mama Mia! The Week That Was
Last week was our third and final week of Italian food. We bid Italia off in style with Grilled Pizza Margherita. Local basil and tomatoes, joined natural fresh mozarella, and Boars Head pepperoni, all on a crust that was cooked to order. High quality ingredients, simply prepared. Here's an in-process shot of a vegetarian pizza:


Here are a couple tips if you want to try your hand at making grilled pizzas:

• Roll the dough quite thin and make sure it's got plenty of olive oil on both sides.
• Cook the first side on medium heat, flip and move to lower heat to finish cooking (covered).
  
• Top pizza in the opposite order from normal: cheese, meat, then tomatoes and sauce (if using basil, add it off the heat after the pizza is done).
  
• Don't overload the pie.
• Use wet ingredients sparingly.
  

We're Expanding our Horizons!

It's hard to believe that in three short months, our little company is getting known around town! Many of you have asked us if we have a bakery, restaurant, or store front of some kind. Ummm, no. Many more have asked if we PLAN on opening such a venue in the future. Well, maybe...but not any time soon. Aly and I are still happy testing products each Saturday at the Market to find those items we can put into production in the fall.

But to reach a happy medium, we're pleased to announce that we're taking limited requests for catering. That's right! We've already started filling orders, offering both sweet and savory goods, and continuing our commitment to using as many fresh, local and organic ingredients as possible. For more info, you can email us at kei@goodnoshfoods.com or aly@goodnoshfoods.com.

Peach Tartlet & Cannelé Catering Order

This week at Market, you'll get a chance to taste items that have prooved popular both for market-goers and catering orderers: our Peach Tartlettes (yep, local peaches are still in full swing) and our Death by Chocolate Drops. Aly will be firing a special item for our final week of Italian food: grilled pizzas! She'll use fresh dough - baked right on the grill and topped with local tomatoes, local basil, organic tomato sauce, and fresh mozarella. Omnivores can get this Pizza Margherita with pepperoni.

[Ok. Now let me digress with a little apology to all our loyal customers who came by for our Death-By-Chocolate drops last week. So many of you asked for them, but before the market opened, Aly and I made the decision NOT to serve what we had baked the night before since a combination of a new brand of suger and a wonky oven rendered our creations a little harder than usual. Simply put, they weren't up to the Good Nosh standard. We put them aside, but we were touched that so many of you were willing to buy even our seconds! Now, that's loyalty!!! I've worked out the kinks for this week and promise a truly decadant death this time around...]

Our minds are spinning with product ideas for the fall. We're excited about our new catering menu. And we love the fact that you're helping us get our name out there. Thanks for supporting our little company and for being such loyal customers! We'll see you Saturday...

Cheers!

P.S. As true laborers this summer, Aly and I are taking the Labor Day Weekend off--our first break since we started!--but will be back at Market again on September 6th. See you then!

Italia Week 2

Well last week was certainly the most exciting market day so far - if you don't count our butterflies on the first day of business.

Thousands of people and dozens of extra booths were on site for the We Art the People folk art festival. Along with many other sights and sounds, there was a parade - complete with dancers, giant puppets, and drummers - that wound through Robinson park. You can see photos on Adelita's blog at Duke City Fix.

To kick off our Italian menu we made a triple nut biscotti:


I used my treasured, well-seasoned cast iron skillets to press down our capicola and ham paninis:


For this weekend I'll be putting together another sandwich. This time we'll be making a seven layer pressed focaccia sandwich with turkey, lettuce, mozarella, roasted red peppers, local basil, local tomatoes, local onion, all on local bread. Italian pressed sandwiches are large cold 'wiches weighed down to compress and meld together the flavors, then cut into smaller portions to serve. When sliced, the ingredient colors make beautiful tight layers.

There's just one issue... the sandwich doesn't involve the grill in any way. Gasp!

I'm worried about how I'll acclimate to a day without live fire.

Perhaps I'll help Kei serve up her new addition for this week. We're serving almond chocolate sticks that are thin, crispy, and packed with flavor. Our baked item table will also feature crowd favorites, the Death by Chocolate Drops, peach tartlettes and peach buttons.

A Market Addiction: The Death by Chocolate Drops
I wanted to highlight what is arguably our most successful item, Kei's chocolate drops. We keep making more each week and we keep selling out long before market close. The drops are made with Ghiradelli chocolate chips and cocoa powder, egg whites from local sources, and powdered sugar. They're flourless - because, hey, that just makes more room for the important part - the chocolate.


I think the magic of these cookies is that the outside is crispy and the inside stays soft. If you pop them in the microwave for a couple seconds the chips will remelt, ratcheting up the intensity with a molten chocolate drop.

We've noticed people that tried a Drop in previous weeks come back and buy a bag full! This week we even did our first special order of chocolate drops for a local party.

We tested some chocolate drops using white chocolate and found out that the market goers are largely true chocolate lovers. They want their chocolate, and they want it dark, bittersweet or semisweet; none of that white chocolate or milk chocolate nonsense!

What's up for Saturday
Welcome to our first of three Italian menus. For this week's offerings, we'll be holding over the Chocolate Drops, Peach Galettes (shown below) and Peach Buttons. The local peaches from Montoya Farms are still just too good to pass up and we're pretty sure that there would be an outcry if we stop making chocolate drops.



New to the baked item menu is our Three Nut Biscotti, which combines pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts, and chocolate. Now I don't drink hot coffee, so I'm pretty picky about biscotti. If it doesn't taste great without a coffee dunk then I'm not interested. Kei did a great job with these; I've been happily nibbling on our test batches sans java for the past couple of days.

On the grill we're going back to sandwiches, with the Eggplant Capicola Panini. I'm using local eggplant and onion from La Plazita Institute and Erda Garden along with hot capicola and mozzarella cheese. This is all layered in ciabatta from La Quiche Parisienne.

Eggplant Spreads
We'll be making a simple roasted eggplant spread for our paninis this week. Both Asian and standard eggplants are in the market this week, and a roasted spread is a great option for a simple summer appetizer. You don't need to slice the eggplant or weep out bitterness - this is pretty much the easiest thing to do with an eggplant.


Here's your market shopping list: eggplant, onions, a head of garlic, and some fresh bread. Set your oven to 450 degrees, pierce the whole eggplants with a fork several times, lightly coat with oil, and put them on a baking sheet. Roast until they are soft and the skin begins to blacken. Meanwhile, slice the onions thinly, and saute on low heat with a pat of butter and a drizzle of olive oil. As the onions caramelize, slice the bread, rub with a peeled garlic clove, and lightly brush with olive oil. When the eggplant is done roasting, let it cool, slice in half lengthwise and and scoop out the inside. Combine in a bowl with your caramelized onion and add salt and pepper to taste. Toast the bread (on your grill is a nice way to go). Then top toasts with the spread or put the spread in a dish and let guests scoop or spread on their own.

Variations: Top toasts with goat cheese, like the sun dried tomato from Old Windmill Dairy. Amp up your eggplant spread with some briny ingredients like diced olives or capers. Other good spread adds are chopped fresh tomatoes or roasted garlic. A drizzle of balsamic vinegar over the finished bruschetta is a nice and easy variation. Instead of using toasted bread this also goes good with pita wedges.