Fo o d
sMoky dAvis
Food nostAlgiA
Businesses find success by making it from scratch Deanna Darr | PhotograPhs by Laurie Pearman Not too long ago, stocking the pantry meant visiting the neighborhood butcher for the freshest cuts of meat, the bakery for a favorite variety of bread and maybe a cookie, the green grocer for the season’s harvest, and the deli for those specialty ingredients. As life got faster and time more limited, the giant grocery store emerged to take the place of the artisan food purveyors, offering just about everything in one stop, and many of those specialty shops fell victim to modern times. But the art of preparing food from scratch hasn’t been completely lost in the pre-packaged world of convenience. Some businesses are filling a niche that is part nostalgia and part quality, and in the process they are finding success by being a
little old fashioned. Whether it’s buying a loaf of bread at zeppole Bakery, a decadent treat from the chocolat Bar or rich, locally-made cheese from Ballard Family dairy and cheese, the public is responding to the care put in to scratch-made products. “We have a lot of older folks coming in here, and they like it because this is how food used to taste,” said Andrea Maricich, owner of salt tears coffeehouse and noshery, an eatery that takes from-scratch cooking seriously. Maricich and her staff prepare nearly everything themselves, from bread baked in the wee hours of the morning to in-house roasted meats and homemade preserves. “People are surprised that we do so much from scratch,” she said.
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ingredients. While the results speak “They are intrigued and they watch for themselves, Hoevel said the coneverything we do when they realize cept that there are so many subtly we really do make everything from different cakes is sometimes a new scratch. concept for some customers. “A lot of people don’t want “People are used to the same to dedicate the time to get to things from the grocery that level, but for me, it’s so store,” she said. “There’s little worth it,” Maricich added. difference in those.” “You can taste the difference smoky davis owner Gary in the food.” davis agrees that the extra It’s also a matter of taste time it takes him to hand cut for Pamela Hoevel, owner of video: Behind steaks, make beef jerky or pamela’s Bakery in Eagle. the scenes at Smoky Davis. house-made pepperoni sets “We think that preparing his business apart from the from scratch just tastes so grocery store meat counters. much better,” she said. “In a way, you “It’s just a superior product,” davis almost have more control—you can said. “You have control over what control the flavors and the textures.” goes into it.” Pamela’s Bakery has become In an age when the neighborhood known for its astounding assortment butcher shop is nearly a thing of the of cakes and goodies, each made past, davis takes pride in the fact from scratch and using traditional www.B oiseweek ly.coM