Humble Feast Dinners at the Neighborhood Kitchen

A year ago I was browsing commercial real estate listings with a long term plan to invest in a building for a long term home for Patty Pan. I stumbled on a property close to my house that was just the right size and just the right price. It was a commercial space in a residential neighborhood and I've always liked those very much. The savvy broker had included an email from a neighbor testifying to the neighborhood's readiness to support a community-minded food business. The neighbor's email went on to wish for a Fair Trade espresso bar or a bistro run by an established chef.

We had no intention of opening a coffee shop or café. (Been there, done that.) But we certainly were looking for a place that we could grow into a neighborhood institution, fostering connections around food.

Back in 2011 I launched a series of monthly local foods dinner events dubbed the "Humble Feast", an antidote to the lavish, expensive local foods galas featuring celebrity chefs and ingredients donated by hardworking farmers and fishermen. Instead of a mind-blowing meal made up of dishes few home cooks could replicate, I wanted to prepare simple, tasty, affordable fare that could also inspire home cooking.

It seemed like an obvious, appealing idea but it turned out to be a tough sell. It was hard to find a comfortable, affordable space where we could host our dinners and we just weren't very good at getting the word out. We had some reasonably successful events and some morale-busting evenings when almost nobody showed.

Early this year I bought the building in Briarcrest, which included a small dining room off the kitchen. We built a beautiful pass-through window with an onyx counter and bamboo plywood trim. And we invited the neighbors for dinner. They came, they ate, and they told their friends. They've come month after month, enjoying our humble endeavor, filling our tiny dining room to capacity and spilling into the kitchen and the parking lot.

The dinners are going so well that, starting the first of the year, we'll begin holding them weekly rather than monthly. We're so grateful to have landed in this neighborhood.

Here's a recipe for the Shepherd's Pie that we served at the last dinner. It's tasty and adaptable, and makes a great winter comfort food.

Shepherd’s Pie (makes 6 servings)

 6 medium-size potatoes (any kind but russets)

4 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound ground beef, ground lamb, crumbled tofu, finely chopped seitan, or cooked lentils or beans
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups finely chopped vegetables (I recommend carrots, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, and winter squash)
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons other finely chopped fresh herbs (I recommend rosemary, oregano, and thyme.)

 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

 Boil water in a large saucepan. Cut the potatoes in quarters, add them to the water, and cook them for about ten minutes, until they’re very soft.

 Meanwhile, heat two tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onions and garlic and cook for about 5 minutes, until the onion is soft and translucent. If you’re using beef or lamb, crumble it into the pan once the onion is well cooked, along with one teaspoon salt. If you’re using a vegetarian protein, you’ll add it later.

 Cook the meat on medium-low heat for 5 to 10 minutes, until it’s nicely browned. Add the vegetables and salt and cook for about 10 minutes longer, until they’re very tender. If you’re using a vegetarian protein, add it now. When the protein and vegetable mixture is heated through, add the herbs.

 Drain the potatoes, add the remaining tablespoon two teaspoons olive oil and one teaspoon salt, and mash well. Spread the protein and vegetable mixture in the bottom of a large casserole pan, and spread the mashed potatoes on top. Divide them in four portions and drop them in different portions of the pan to make the potatoes easier to spread.

 Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until it’s piping hot.

Cooperative Economics

Traditional businesses use a relatively straightforward formula for evaluating success. Profit means a job well done while loss spells trouble.

The equation is fuzzier for a cooperative which, by definition, exists to benefit its members. Profit is anything left over after subtracting operating expenses from incoming revenue, but wages and salaries weigh in as operating expenses. The more a coop pays its members, the less it has left over in profit.

Earlier this year I bought the building where Patty Pan Cooperative now operates. The business pays rent to me and this rent goes to pay down my mortgage and increase my equity in the property. The rent benefits me personally, yet it comes out of Patty Pan's bottom line.

We've been grappling with these equations all summer as we've earned our livelihoods and set aside funds to pay for the expensive build-out we completed last spring. We need profit to pay back our loans, and we need profit to create a cushion because it's good to save for emergencies and a seasonal business tends to be short of cash half the year.

We recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to buy equipment to make our own tortillas out of local, organic, whole grains. Naturally we evaluated whether the tortilla project would make our business more profitable, and concluded that these tortillas will probably cost the same as the ones we currently use. However, some of the costs will switch from the material expense of buying a finished product to the labor expense of making it ourselves.

In other words, the tortillas will cost the same according to traditional calculations, but the process will give back more to our members. There are other benefits as well. By buying grain from local growers, we'll cycle funds back into the closely knit farmers' market economy. Our quesadillas will be tastier and healthier. And we'll stay interesting. When you've been around a lot longer than any of your competitors, staying interesting can be an uphill battle.

Speaking of interesting, the research and development process for our tortilla project has been fascinating. It's challenging to create a light, flexible tortilla using 100 percent whole grain flour. We're open to harmless add-ins like lecithin or baking powder, but we'd really rather study the behavior of the dough and learn how to achieve the results we want using just flour, olive oil, salt, and water.

We've made appealing prototypes using a small electric tortilla press designed for home use, but the real work will start once we buy and install the professional equipment that can press tortillas to a consistent thickness, and cook them at a consistent heat.

We're curious, we're engaged, and our morale is high. We're looking forward to getting started.