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No tsk, no task: The Market Basket from A Cook's Café.
Let’s see… White beets. Red leaf lettuce, very nice. A poulet noire.
Yum, anxious to try that. Pound of fresh butter. A head of cabbage, hmm. A half-pound of Swiss cheese. A mix of cherry tomatoes
(grape, Juliet, Sungold). And a quart of whole milk. That’s a sample of Monday’s order from the Market Basket program at A Cook’s Café in Annapolis. All fresh. All local. Waiting for me to pick up. Next Monday, the produce will be different. And I’m pretty sure there will be something
new and different in there. (Like “napoletano?” What is that?) I've already described the Market Basket program as “breakthrough,” and I’m sticking to it.
This is new territory — for a café to essentially offer weekly groceries to subscribers. It’s a cross between
Community Supported Agriculture (a CSA) and an online grocery service, with a broad stroke of seasonality and locavore ethics
worked in.
The whole concept began to form a year ago last July, when Craig
Sewell of A Cook’s Café began sourcing local farms to supply his café. Driven by a realization
that we must learn to live and eat differently, for our own sakes as well
as the earth’s, he sought out local farmers and met with them personally.
“What I learned,” he writes in an email, “is that eating local is about more than just our menus — it's about supporting our farmers, our local economy, and our health.” Craig also discovered that there was also a demand for local products among his clientele, with no single easy source
of supply. And since he was already bringing the product to his store as ingredients for cooking….well, why not sell
it?
So the Market Basket program was created, and had its kickoff just a few weeks ago.
Every week, Craig and his daughter Sarah Sewell-Tippin coordinate with several producers to bring orders to the Café
for pick-up, either Mondays or Saturdays.
Davon Crest II south of Easton on the Eastern Shore supplies a variety of high-end
produce. Springfield Farm in Baltimore County supplies the meats and eggs. Trickling Springs, just over the PA line, delivers
dairy products and cheese. Crispin Farms in Crownsville offers additional seasonal produce. And more suppliers are in the
pipeline.
From the customer’s standpoint, it works a bit like an expanded Community
Supported Agriculture program. Participants pay an annual fee just to join the club. Then, there are a choice of programs.
Craig personally has toured and met the producers, and tried their product. He includes
a few recipes that put the ingredients to work. He says cooking classes are in the offing to help with menus to go with the
Market Basket foods.
Sarah manages the ordering and has formed a Yahoo group where people can check in and exchange recipes and ideas. That can come in handy, when you have no idea what to do with a head of Napa cabbage the size of a newborn. Hint: Shrimp and Napa stirfry. Nearly 100 people have joined, and the program kicked off officially in the first week of June. So far, so
good. Craig says that after all the legwork and set-up, the actual running of the program is comparatively quiet.
From the suppliers’ side, same deal. I talked briefly with Sharon Lankford of Davon Crest II about
the program, thinking I’d hear about the joy in a meeting of minds, and the philosophy of local produce. Yes, that’s
there, but Sharon wanted to go out of her way to thank Cook’s Café and the Market Basket shareholders —
for economic reasons.
“The money let us invest in equipment and gave us some working capital,” she says. “It’s helped us get off to a good start and do things right and better in the future.” Which is, after all, what sustainability is all about. The Produce Baskets are sold out through the summer, but you can always join and take advantage of the
special order shopping list. I look forward to help with the Thanksgiving turkey this year.
And isn’t it good to know that everything is local, within the Chesapeake watershed, and has been personally vetted by a chef? (Even Whole Foods can’t go there.) For more information about the foods available, and becoming a Market Basket member, get on the email list at. Or visit A Cook’s Café. Join the Yahoo group. And feel really good about your food.
Raspberry Vinaigrette 1/2 c. Raspberry vinegar
A Cook's Café
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