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Week of January 14th, 2008

There are some great new products in the store that I am very excited about. In the tradition of being “Good Stuff” foods these are right at the top. The first I have mentioned before are the breads of Balthazar. Balthazar is that famous French Bistro in Soho, NYC.

Now a long lived incredibly popular restaurant, Balthazar has always been known for their great bread. A few years back they started a commercial bakery in Englewood, NJ and have taken their brand out to the suburbs. Lucky for us, as many of their breads have long been some of my favorites. We carry many of them including the cranberry walnut bread (an ultimate bread to serve with cheese), the levain boule, the olive Batard, the rye boule, traditional baguettes, the rosemary round (super with fresh leg of lamb or grilled chicken, and the delicious potato and onion fendue). Here, at Sickles Market, we have always tried to maintain a good supply and selection of the finest in NYC Artisanal breads. We continue that tradition with the excellent breads of Balthazar. Balthazar breads are available here on Friday, Saturday and Sunday every week. Let us know what your favorite is.

I am also very excited about some great foods we are getting from Griggstown Farm just outside of Princeton. George Rude, the farmer and owner at Griggstown has been raising all sorts of poultry for years. He specializes in game birds like pheasant and quail. He raises them from eggs to finished birds on a 70+ acre farm. George then markets the birds to famous restaurants all over the country and many end up with one of our favorite purveyors, D’Artagnan, who then make other great products out of them and ship to stores like ours and restaurants everywhere.

George recently teamed up with a great young chef, Matthew Sytsema who since 2002 has been whipping up great chicken, turkey and beef, pot pies, fruit pies, soups and fantastic chicken sausages and turkey burgers in their new kitchen These products are delicious, wholesome, and a foodies delight. The pot pies are a block full of chunky meat, delicious peas, carrots and surprises like cremini mushrooms and fennel. The sausages are solid meat appropriately seasoned. My favorite is the Italian with white wine, parsley, lemon, and basil. There are more varieties for every taste bud. I have tried them all and can highly recommend them all. The recipes that Chef Sytsema has come up with are truly delicious and the fact that these are true “field to table” products means that George and Matthew are in control of the process from producing and hatching the eggs straight through to the finished product. You don’t just have to take my word for it. Rick Nichols a Philadelphia Inquirer food writer recently raved about them and Griggstown themselves are written up in a recent issue of NJ Edibles, a great new foodie oriented magazine in NJ. Griggstown products are located in our frozen food department. Try them; I think you will like them.

Finally what’s old is new. There are a ton of great cheddar cheeses out there. From Vermont to Wisconsin, to California, bright cheese makers are continuing the tradition of well made cheddar that originates in Europe. This year for the first time an American cheese maker took the Grand prize for cheddar at the London Cheese Awards. Quite an accomplishment and I am sure the British were not too happy about it. Today though, I want to bring back to your attention one of my favorite cheddar cheeses from one of my favorite places in the world. It is the simple yet sublime one and two year old cheddars form Shelburne Farms in Vermont. I spent my college years in Burlington, Vermont. It is not far from Shelburne and my daughter Tori spent her college years there also at Champlain College. Shelburne Farms is a wonderful place to visit and tour as it is a working and preserved farm. Your kids can certainly learn a lot with a visit here and I think you will too. There is not many of us in this area that are close to agriculture and really know where our daily food comes from. If you can not visit just try some of their delicious farmhouse cheddar. It is made from the milk of Brown Swiss cow. Only from cows on their farm this is a limited production cheese of profound flavor and texture. It is my favorite sliced thin and paired with crisp apples and pears. It makes a wonderful winter time snack. The one year is mild and mellow the two year kicks it up a notch in sharpness. The consistency is always there. It is what I call “a good old friend”. It is not new wave or the hot shot new cheese from the American Cheese Society awards, but rather a steady Eddy that I always want in my fridge. Look for the brown wax wrapper and if you ski in Northern Vermont plan on a stop at Shelburne Farms and discover the agricultural heritage that was such a big part of making this country great.