Changes on the Local Horizon

Almost nineteen years ago, soon after I moved to Louisville, I realized I needed to find a small local store or two where I could buy the best produce and meats, regardless of the price. I wanted breakfast at my inn to be of the finest quality I could afford.

I was making a lot of items from scratch, like muffins and granola, but I also wanted waffles and pancakes that tasted amazing. I found that with Carbon Waffle Mix, a wholesale company in Michigan, I could order cases of their wonderful malted waffle and pancake mix and serve quality waffles and pancakes that all my guests would rave about.

Eventually I found four local markets I loved: Pauls Fruit and Vegetable Market, Burgers Fruit and Vegetable and meat market, KingsleyMeat Market, and a wonderful Flower, Seed, and Gardening Market. For the past eighteen years, I have been shopping faithfully at all four. Regretfully, two of them are closing this year.

Burgers, in the Cherokee Triangle, opened in 1958 and has been a fixture here in Louisville all that time. I

found them when I was looking for a place to buy a standing rib roast for Christmas dinner. They had the most wonderful meat counter with amazing butchers, skilled and friendly. I was so disappointed when I heard they were closing, but the saving grace is that their main butcher, Jeff Burger Jr. will be opening up a meat counter at Paul’s  Fruit Market in Middletown. Now I’ll still be able to get a fabulous standing rib roast for Christmas.

 The other store-closing is Bunton’s Seed Co.,

where I’ve bought flowers, grass seed, fertilizeRs and even garden tools and gloves for the past eighteen years. I will really miss them. They were a wonderful resource of information on lawns and gardens. As the song goes: Nothing Stays The Same and, as we know, "tempest fugit" (time marches on).


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Chicken and White Bean Soup with Tomatoes

Both of my daughters are wonderful cooks. I'm hoping they got it from me. I always loved cooking and tried to get them involved from the time they were old enough to hold a spatula. Anyhow, my youngest daughter and her husand, who also loves to cook, came up with this wonderful soup recipe. So I'm going to make it today. Thought my readers would also enjoy it. I will let everyone know how mine turns out. Hope you all will do the same. Happy cooking...............

Prep Time: 10 mins | Cook Time: 2 hrs | Servings: 4-6 | Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, chopped
• 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3-4 strips of bacon, chopped
• 1 tsp thyme, black pepper
• 1-1/2 to 2 chicken breasts, cooked, chopped
• 1/4-1/3 cup red or dry white wine
• 2-3 cans chopped tomatoes
• 2 cups chicken broth
• Wedge of salt pork, trimmed of rind. About 2-1/2 " long and 1/2 " thick
• 2 cans great northern white beans, drained and rinsed

Directions:

Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil till onion is just translucent

Add bacon and cook till browned

Add thyme and cracked pepper along with the chicken, cook till combined and fragrant, about 5 min.

Add wine, turn up heat and cook till reduced by half

Add tomatoes, chicken broth

Bring to simmer, add salt pork wedge, cover and transfer to 350 degree oven and cook for 1 hour

Stir, add beans and return to oven (covered) for another hour

Remove salt pork wedge

Serve with crusty bread


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