SAVOR ENCORE the mustard to the tavern’s repertoire of oldfashioned, home-cooked foods. While oldfashioned foods like this are popular now, Old Dog Head Chef Eric Boodt says he’s driven by something other than following a trend. “Our focus here is food made from scratch, from good ingredients,” says Boodt, who prepares all the foods, including the pickled vegetables and simple syrups for the bar. Old Dog also boasts one of the most traditional bar foods ever — pickled eggs. “You can almost spot someone in the pickled egg crowd coming in the door,” jokes Boodt, who says the pickled egg is a favorite snack at the tavern. “It’s one of our biggest sellers.”
Studio Grill Studio Grill owner Daphney Dotson learned to make freezer jams by watching her grandmother. “She had a large farm and an abundance of blackberries and raspberries, so she would make freezer jams,” Dotson says. “The whole house would smell just amazing.” Now Dotson uses this skill at Studio Grill (312 W. Michigan Ave.) to create homemade
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seasonal house jams. Making freezer jams is easier than traditional canning, Dotson says, because you use just fruit, pectin and sugar and skip the sterilization, boiling and monitoring that canned jams need. “It’s so easy,” she says, “and the customers love them. They’ll always say ‘Wow! Really?’ when you tell them we make them in-house. It’s a moment you wished you had put flour on your face and made it a dramatic reveal, but it only takes about 30 minutes.” The berries Dotson uses for her jams come from local farms such as VerHage and Brookside because knowing where ingredients come from is very important to her, she says. Jars of the homemade jams are available for sale at the restaurant.
Water Street Coffee Joint Liz Comrie is Water Street’s operations director. “Before we started making our own chocolate sauce,” she says, “we were using” — she hushes her voice and cups her mouth as she finishes her sentence — “Hershey’s syrup.” Then Comrie laughs and adds, “Just kidding. A lot of people love Hershey’s syrup. It’s a great product. But Mark (Smutek, Water
OUR TEAM
Bill Garnett - 13 Years
Street’s owner) came to us and asked if we could do better.” After much experimenting with 10 different cocoa powders and thorough testing to make sure the new syrup complemented Water Street’s coffee perfectly, Comrie is confident she and her staff have created something better. “It’s a darker, richer sauce and a bettertasting product,” she says. In addition to the chocolate sauce, Water Street also launched six house-made syrup flavors — almond, caramel, coconut, peppermint, hazelnut and vanilla. They’re all made in Water Street’s kitchen, at 6938 Elm Valley Drive, and distributed to the restaurant’s four locations — downtown (315 E. Water St.), Oakland (3037 Oakland Drive), Borgess Medical Center (1521 Gull Road) and Portage (245 W. Centre Ave.). For canning, pickling and homemade sauce and syrup ideas and recipes, visit Encore’s pinboard at Pinterest.com/EncoreKalamazoo.
Ryan DeNooyer - 6 Years
Service Manager
Used Car Manager
Easy experience, no pressure, good explanations and great service through the sale. I’m looking forward to have my third Chevy serviced there. Thanks. - BEN I. - KALAMAZOO, MI - JUNE 2014
Jason Sellers - 15 Years New Car Manager
BENEFITS Locally owned for 70 Years Exceptional Customer Service Southwest Michigan’s Best Selection of New & Used Vehicles Quick Turnaround Service Department Comprehensive Website with Online Appointment Scheduling
5800 STADIUM DRIVE KALAMAZOO 269.372.3040 18 | ENCORE APRIL 2015