Grocery Life November 18, 2014

Grocery Life November 18, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is staying warm today. I guess some people like weather like this, but I do not. I am thankful I have heat where I live and work.

Neither place is real energy efficient. At the store it seems there is always an open door, plus the heaters in the store have to fight with all the open coolers in the store.

Our house is almost a hundred years old so it is very drafty. Both places have high ceilings so we end up heating a lot of space that we never get the benefit of.

Regardless of the weather, we have been staying busy at the store. We are starting to really stock up for the holidays which is always a challenge. We have limited storage space so we have to do a lot of stacking and restacking to fit everything we need into the store. We end up having to handle everything about a hundred times before it finally gets out on the shelves for purchase.

Yesterday Ashley, our meat manager, and Barbara Tenney, our cooking class instructor, taped a holiday cooking segment for WBIR. This is the second year they have done this. I am not sure what all they prepared for the special but one thing they did was a standing rib roast. Ashley brought the leftovers back to the store after the taping so we ate pretty well yesterday. I am not sure when the show is going to air but when I find out I will let you know.

Standing rib roast is on the menu of things we are preparing for our holiday open house on Saturday. We will also be preparing beef tenderloin and pork roast. We will also have a large variety of side dishes and desserts you can sample. Everything we will be sampling will be available for purchase in the store or we will provide you with the recipes to make at home.

One little thought I would like to put in your head is our annual food drive for Second Harvest. We started this last year and you ended up providing 2700 pounds of food for second harvest. My goal this year is 5000 lbs.

We will have bags of food available for purchase in the store that go directly to Second Harvest. We have a five dollar bag and a ten dollar bag. When you purchase one, you can simply put it in a designated bin in the front of the store and then they are delivered to Second Harvest.

The open house is a free event but I would love for you to buy a bag and donate it to Second Harvest while you are here. You are a giving community and this is a great cause so I hope you will consider donating.

I saw Sam “the painter” in the store last night. He has lived in Rocky Hill since the early sixties. Sam paints for us at the store and has also painted for me at the house. I asked him if he has been staying busy painting and he said he has but has been more busy getting ready for the Rocky Hill Christmas parade. He doesn’t strike me as the parade type but it turns out he and his horses are going to be in the parade. He is also going to be pulling a wagon with children on rocking horses. He told me he is going to have to find a bigger wagon because so many kids want to be in the parade. I told him I didn’t figure him for a parade and he told me he rode his bike to the grand opening of Rocky Hill Market in 1964, which was a big event, so he wanted to be a part of the first ever Christmas parade in Rocky Hill.

I guess we haven’t had a big event in Rocky hill between 1964 and the upcoming parade. Sam apparently only comes to events every fifty years so you may want to come to the parade to see him.

Have a great day!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Respond to:tom.butler44@gmail.com

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Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

(865)691-8881