Grocery Life August 25, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone had a good weekend. We had a busy weekend here at the store. Friday and Saturday are always busy days but most people are surprised when I tell them that Sunday is a busy day. Sunday is usually the second busiest day of the week for us, just behind Saturday.

We have been open on Sunday’s since we started here twenty-five years ago. Back then Sunday business was not that good so we were open just a few hours. I think it was from twelve until six. Now we are open from ten until nine which is about like the other six days. We just start two hours later in the morning.

I am not sure why Sunday has become such a big day, but I think it may be because more and more households have two people with careers instead of one. This really limits the time families have during the week to shop and if you have children, Saturdays and weeknights fill up quickly with their activities. This leaves Sunday to get ready for the week ahead. I am sure there are other factors involved, but I think the changing work force plays the biggest part. Regardless of the reasons, we will continue adapting to accommodate the changing habits of our customers.

This afternoon and tomorrow, we are going to be changing our produce department. I ordered some new fixtures for the department that have finally arrived. My hope is they will help us merchandise the produce better as well as make it easier for you to shop in the department. I am always hesitant to change things around the store. Changes are always expensive and I never know for sure if we are going to get the results we are looking for until after the fact. Most of the time I think we get it right, but I have had my share of expensive blunders. One thing I do know for sure is if you do nothing you will eventually go out of business. I have seen that too many times with independently owned grocery stores. Time will tell about this decision but I am already working on the next one. Hopefully, I will not have to look back.

I did do a little cooking over the weekend. Actually I did a lot of cooking. We had a cookout at our house Saturday night for nineteen people. As usual, I was in charge of the meat and the other folks brought sides and desserts. Since I didn’t know what everyone liked I cooked chicken, pork, and beef. In hindsight, I should have had the store do it but since I was off Saturday, I figured I could handle it.

I wanted to slow cook everything on my grill but short of buying three more grills, that wasn’t going to happen, so I adapted. My biggest concern was the baby back ribs so I did them a different way which was a lot easier and still turned out great.

All I did was salt and pepper them and then brushed a little BBQ sauce on them. I then wrapped them tightly in foil, put them on a pan and stuck them in the oven at 215 degrees. I left them in for four to five hours while I was doing everything else on the grill. When the company showed up, I took them out of the oven, unwrapped them and brushed BBQ sauce on both sides of the racks. At this point they are fully cooked, but I wanted to put them on the grill so they would have the smoked flavor. I put the racks, unwrapped, on the grill on low heat and kept turning them until the sauce started to char a little on both sides. This probably took ten to fifteen minutes, and they were ready to serve.

I think they turned out juicier and more tender doing them this way instead of strictly on the grill so you may want to try them this way.

Something else I tried for the party was making biscuits. I have never tried to make biscuits, probably because my mother has always said she couldn’t make good biscuits. She is a good cook so I have always figured if she can’t cook something there is no reason for me to try.

Well in this month’s Food & Wine magazine our friends at Cruze Farm Dairy are featured and Colleen Cruze showed her biscuit recipe. They looked and sounded good in the magazine so I wanted to try to make them. Something didn’t go just right because I ended up making a big pile of goo. I kept trying to add flour to help roll the dough out but knew that wasn’t going to work. I ended up just using my hands, grabbing a wad of the goo and putting it in the pan. Surprisingly, they turned out great, especially when we add Carnathan’s local honey on them. I just left the mess on the counter while we ate which was probably a mistake. Later, after everyone left, I saw Erica over there trying to chisel the dried up goo off the countertops. Luckily I own a paint scraper.

I am going to try them again when I don’t have so many to feed and if you would like to try them, here is the recipe.

Skillet Buttermilk Biscuits by Colleen Cruze Bhatti

I would also try to pick up this month’s Food & Wine magazine. There are a lot of great farm to table recipes in there.

Have a great week!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

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Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

(865)691-8881

Grocery Life August 21, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week. After some strong storms yesterday, the weather so far today has been beautiful.

It has been business as usual at the store this week. I think everyone is starting to acclimate to the start of the school year, and we are adjusting to the changing traffic patterns of our customers due to the school schedule.

This time of year we always have a lot of turnover with our part-time employees. Several of them that worked this summer have gone back to college, started a fall sport, or have too many other school activities to work. We are in the process of replacing them so you will probably start seeing some new faces when you are in the store.

Speaking of employees, Scott, one of the butchers in the meat department got married yesterday. Scott has been with us for several years and he married Heather, who worked here up until about two years ago. The wedding was last night at seven and it was outdoors on a farm in Rockford. I thought there was zero chance of getting through the wedding without getting stormed on, but we all stayed dry. Thank goodness the reception was inside because right after the ceremony it poured down the rain.

It was a really pretty wedding in a beautiful setting, complete with horse drawn carriages.

What made it special to me was seeing so many present and past employees in the wedding party. Three of Scott’s groomsmen were Ashley, Rick, and Alex who work in our meat department and two of Heather’s bridesmaids had worked with us in the past.

I sat and watched with pride at all the relationships that started right here in the store. Obviously, Scott’s and Heather’s turned into marriage but some of their most valued friendships also started here as well. We are a pretty tightly knit group of people here at the store and I hope that reflects in the way we build relationships with our customers. I wish the best for Scott and Heather and look forward to another one of the store romances turning into a wedding.

Getting back to store business, I hope all of you are taking advantage of the locally grown products we have in produce. We are still getting a good variety of things right now but as the seasons start to change, they will no longer be available. Our peach man told us South Carolina peaches will only last a couple of more weeks and I would say the beans and okra will be ending soon after that.

I saw Doug Carnathan the other night. He is a local beekeeper that supplies us with honey. He told me his supplies are still good. We have sold a lot of his honey so I hope his bees continue to keep up.

Our leafy greens from Ecorich Farms in Greenback are really selling well. They are grown aquaponically indoors so supplies should remain good all year. They are growing some kale greens for us that aren’t quite ready yet. Since I eat kale every day, I am looking forward to getting theirs. All of their products are great and I bet their kale will be also.

Erica and I were at a couple of social events this last week and on more than one occasion when we were introduced to people they said “you all are the ones with the Kurobuta pork chops, we love those!” I am not sure Erica wants her identity to be attached to a pork chop, but it just goes with the territory when you are married to a grocery man. She loves those pork chops too so I don’t think it should bother her.

The farmer’s market is still every Friday at Lakeshore Park. I hope all of you are taking advantage of this. I have gone a few times and all of the growers seem really nice and have great looking product. I always see some of our customers when I am over there. They look surprised to see me. I am usually not there to shop; I am there to recruit growers for the store. We have found some great local producers this way and are always looking for more.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

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Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

(865)691-8881

Grocery Life August 18, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good morning from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone had a good weekend! Our website was down towards the end of last week so we couldn’t get the blog up on Friday. We also had September’s cooking class schedule to load but could not. We finally have all the problems resolved so the cooking class schedule is now up as well as our new two week ad which started yesterday. You can find both of those by clicking on these links.

September 2014 Cooking Classes

Weekly Ad August 17, 2014 through August 30, 2014

We finished up our beef tenderloin sale to benefit Hugo and Garrett this weekend. We ended up selling 1,026 pounds of it. I had no idea how this would go but am thrilled that we topped 1,000 pounds! I sure appreciate the support all of you gave this fundraiser! Both Garrett and Hugo are going to get a check for $513 because of the generosity of this community!

Some of you have asked me how you can donate to these boys directly. Hugo has a link on his Facebook page where you can do this. Garrett’s Facebook page is not set up to do this, but you can email me and I will give you the address where you can send a check.

I have been enjoying the cooler, dryer weather we have been having the last few days. The mornings have been so nice I have actually gone on a few runs before work. I am not a good runner but try to do a little of it to stay in shape. My neighborhood is full of hills so I don’t have to run very far before I feel like I have done enough, turnaround, and run back home. I guess if we lived on flat land I would have to come up with a different excuse to not run very far.

I always listen to music when I run. It seems to make the time pass quicker and takes my mind off of my aching body parts. This week I have been listening to the music my friends and I listened to in high school. My thirty year class reunion was last weekend and at every event the music of the seventies and eighties was playing. It was good to hear some of those old songs. It seems like every song that was played reminded my friends and I of something that happened in high school.

In those days my friends and I listened to bands like Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Allman Brothers Band, Van Halen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Hank Williams Jr. If we thought girls were going to be around, we would always have James Taylor and Journey albums ready. We always thought the quickest way to a girl’s heart was playing James Taylor or Journey records. I am not sure it ever worked but it wasn’t for a lack of trying on our part.

I did see the girl I took to prom at the reunion the other night. She liked Journey but I don’t think that’s why she went to prom with me. I think she was afraid this real nerdy guy was going to ask her to go so I guess she agreed to go with me so she could give him a reason for saying no. That’s kind of how things worked in high school. Most decisions were made because of peer pressure or because we didn’t want to be associated with “uncool” people.

Prom night was quite the experience for me. It all started out fine. I rented a tux, borrowed one of my parent’s cars, and even got a haircut. I was all dressed up and ready to go on time but one of my friends was taking my next door neighbor to prom. When he came to pick her up, we all had to go out in the yard to get our pictures made in our fancy clothes. This made me a little late leaving to pick up my date so I ran inside, got the corsage my mother had picked up for me out of the refrigerator, and took off to pick her up.

All the way there I was a nervous wreck. I was running late, I didn’t really know her parents and how they would react to me and the whole thing was just too formal to begin with.

Well I get there, grab the corsage, and head to her door. When she opens the door, they were all three standing there. I apologized for being late and told her we needed to get going to make our dinner reservation. Her parents wanted to take some pictures of me presenting the corsage so they got the cameras ready and I open the little white box to get the corsage out. When I look in, the box is full of chicken salad not a corsage. I thought for a moment of how I was going to get out of this, meanwhile my face was turning five shades of red. I figured I had two options, hope for the rapture or present her the chicken salad. Well the rapture didn’t happen so I said, “Here’s your chicken salad.” I think they all thought it was a joke and gave a nervous laugh but then realized it wasn’t when I was having trouble breathing. Once I gathered myself, I told my date we would have to run back to my house and get the corsage and everything would be okay so we took a few pictures and headed back to my house. I am sure her parents were really impressed with me.

Upon arriving at my house, I went storming in muttering a lot of choice words, my mother asked why I was back and what was wrong. When I told her what had happened she couldn’t help but laugh. It turns out when she picked up my corsage; she had also stopped by Ham ‘n Goodys and bought some chicken salad. Both of them were put in white boxes and I had grabbed the wrong one out of the refrigerator in my haste. Before I even got out of the house with the right white box my mom was on the phone calling all her friends to tell them what to her was a funny story but to me a nightmare.

The rest of the evening went much better but for the longest time I was known as “The chicken salad kid” around all of my parents’ friends as well as my own.

Well we have several varieties of chicken salad we make from scratch here in the store. They all sell really well so if you haven’t tried any of them, you might want to. We always pack it in clear containers. As a matter of fact, everything we make is packaged in clear containers. To this day whenever I see a white box, I get queasy and start to sweat so we will always use clear containers.

If you want something in a white box, you will have to go to Ham ‘n Goodys.

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

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Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

(865)691-8881

Grocery Life August 11, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone had a good weekend. We had a busy weekend here at the store. Business has been good this summer for us and I have talked to several other business owners who have said the same about their businesses. It seems none of us can ever pinpoint exactly why business gets good or for that matter business gets bad. If you asked ten of us you would probably get ten different answers. We would all agree that good business makes it a lot more fun to go to work.

I had a busy weekend outside of work. My thirty year high school reunion was this weekend. Wow, that was a fast thirty years. We had an event Friday night and another one on Saturday night. All of my close friends from high school spent Saturday afternoon together reliving and retelling events from our high school days. Based on our behavior Saturday, we have not matured much since 1984. Thankfully, we all have wives that have continued to mature and be responsible over the last thirty years.

Erica did not get to join us Saturday afternoon. She and the kids helped out at a dodge ball tournament to benefit Guardians for Garrett.

Garrett is a five year old boy who was diagnosed with Sanfilippo Syndrome type A (MPS III) last January. MPS III is a rare disease that attacks the body both physically and neurologically. Presently there is no cure for it and life expectancy for a child with the disease is usually between ten and twenty years. I have known Garrett since he was born. He is my nephew. He is the son of Erica’s brother. Garrett has really had a tough go of it since birth. While he was just diagnosed this year, the symptoms started showing up much earlier in his life. He has seen more doctors and had more surgeries than most of us will in a lifetime, but he still wakes up every morning happy and eager to do all the things that five year old boys do. As the disease progresses, this will become harder and harder, but he has two loving parents and a big sister to help him with his journey as well as a big network of friends and family.

I have another little friend who is going through a tough time. His name is Hugo. He is the son of Chris and Marianne Canada. I take guitar lessons from Chris at his home so that is how I have gotten to know Hugo.

Hugo is a one year old boy who was just diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. Since his diagnosis, he has been receiving care at both East TN Children’s Hospital as well as in Cincinnati. His treatments have had some positive results, but Hugo has a tough battle ahead. We all know how difficult cancer is to treat and how hard the treatments themselves are on the body of an adult much less a one year old.

Hugo also has a big sister, two loving parents and a huge network of friends to be beside him on his tough journey.

Here are some links to Garrett’s and Hugo’s facebook pages if you would like to learn more about their journeys and the diseases that they are battling.

Click here for Guardians for Garrett page

Click here for  Go Hugo page

They have also have both been featured on WBIR.

Click here for Garrett’s story

Click here for Hugo’s story

Both of these boys have been in my thoughts and prayers, especially recently. Yesterday at work, I decided I wanted to try to help them financially also. I know their parents have had to put their jobs on hold while they tend to these special little boys so I am sure they could use the help.

Starting tomorrow, Tuesday, August 12, 2014 through Saturday, August 16, 2014 whole beef tenderloin will be on sale for $10.99 a pound. For every pound we sell in the next five days the store is going to donate a dollar to be split between the Guardians for Garrett fund and the Go Hugo fund.

I hope you will come in this week and buy a tenderloin to help out Hugo and Garrett and if you have a prayer list, I hope you will add them to it. They are two special little boys that are inspiring all of us that know them with their strong and positive spirit. Go Hugo and Go Garrett!!!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

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Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

(865)691-8881

Grocery Life August 7, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from butler and bailey market. I hope everyone is having a good week. I am way behind on the blog because I have been on “holiday”. Our friends from London, England are in the states for a few weeks and wanted us to go on holiday with them. The timing wasn’t that good for us since I have a job and the kids are getting ready to start back to school, but we did manage to get away for a long weekend.

I would never think of calling a vacation “going on holiday” but apparently that is how the English refer to it. It makes me wonder how they refer to actual holidays. Maybe they call them proper holidays instead of just holidays. They seem to like to use the word “proper” a lot. It turns out I am not very proper in the eyes of the British. I think maybe they are just overly proper at least in the eyes of an East Tennessean.

Having us all together is certainly an interesting combination. Even though we speak the same language, we use a totally different vocabulary with a totally different accent. I guess since the English invented the language they use it a lot more properly than we do. I have already noticed my children starting to speak with a British accent. They will be properly cultured now and our friend’s daughter might have a little twang in her accent when she returns to England. My contribution to showing them southern culture was convincing them that you eat barbecued ribs with your hands instead of with a knife and fork. I should make them a list of all the things it is okay to eat with your hands like fried chicken, corn on the cob, French fries or an apple.

We had a lovely time with our friends on holiday. Lovely is another word they use a lot. Maybe we will be able to go on holiday with them in England sometime. Erica has always wanted to go to Wimbledon and I wouldn’t mind playing a little golf over there. I would also like to circle around Big Ben in a car with my children and say, “look kids it’s Big Ben”.

I am glad to be back to work. This is an exciting time for us at the store. School is starting, football season will begin, the weather will cool, and the holidays are just around the corner.

We will have a lot more offerings this fall compared to last year, mostly in the prepared foods category. The addition of fried chicken, all the smoked meats, and many new salads and cheeses will be great for tailgating and holiday parties.

Our annual holiday open house will be in November. This is when we prepare lots of holiday dishes, using our favorite recipes and sample them out. We have never really advertised our open house but through word of mouth it has grown into a really big event.

Last but not least the first annual Rocky Hill Christmas Parade will be December 6th. The organizers of this are doing a great job of putting it together. I can’t believe how big of an event this is going to be. We have another meeting next week about the parade so I will have more details to pass along to you soon.
I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

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Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

(865)691-8881

Grocery Life August 1, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. What a great week of weather we are having! Between the cooler weather and school getting ready to start, it seems like summer is over. Well it is going to get hot again and we still have the whole month of August to go. I think I liked it better when school started the day after Labor Day and ended the first week of June. The way it is now seems to keep my internal seasonal clock messed up.

I saw Joe Parrott in the store a couple of weeks ago. I have known Joe for many years and his son worked for us while he was in high school. My dad always thought Joe was a great painter and I actually bought one of his paintings several years ago because it reminded me of the houses on Baxter Avenue where my grandparents lived and my mother grew up.

At that time, Joe just painted as a hobby but now he is doing it full-time. When he was in the store I asked him how the painting was going and he said I should come down to his house and see what he was working on. I finally got to pay him a visit Wednesday. Not only did I get to see hundreds of his paintings, but also a bunch of his woodworking projects. He is a heck of a woodworker also. One of my hobbies is woodworking so I always enjoy seeing other people’s creations. After seeing his stuff, I should probably give it up.

Joe had several paintings that I am hoping to get. They are all of local landmarks including one of Duncan’s Boat Dock.

I figured I better take Erica back with me before I started bringing paintings home without her approval. So we will go back soon.

If you would like to see some of his work, you can go on his website, click here, or to The District Gallery over in Bearden.

Another artist that lives right here in Rocky Hill is Mike Berry. You probably see his work about everyday because Pilot commissioned him to do their billboards around the area.

I know Mike from here at the store and our children went to the same daycare so I would see him at drop-off and pick-up there. He also was at the same local art shows my dad showed his work in. Mike has a very unique painting style and his paintings are very vibrant. I love the way he interprets local streetscapes and landmarks.

Mike did a painting of Northshore Drive with our shopping center sign in it that I was going to buy, but one of my old Rocky Hill friends got it before I could. Erica knew I was bummed that I didn’t get it so she secretly commissioned Mike to do a painting of the storefront and gave it me for my birthday one year.

If you would like to see more of Mike’s art you can click here to visit his website.

Both of these artists have become really successful at their crafts and their works are in galleries throughout the southeast. I am proud to have some of their works hanging in my home. I love having the art of people from right here in our community that I have become friends with. One of the great things about my job is I get to meet so many talented people that live in Rocky Hill and find out about the unique things that they do.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

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Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

(865)691-8881

Grocery Life July 28, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone got through the storms alright last night. It was a little scary here as well as at the house.

Keith was in charge at the store last night. It is always a tense situation at the store when storms are coming through. We always try to keep the store open but we also have to consider the safety of the employees and customers. Thankfully the power stayed on here throughout the storms which makes it a little easier but they still ended up taking cover back in our storage area during the worst part of the storm. Once the storm passed, it was back to business. They did close a little early to get home before the next wave came through.

I was at home last night. Our friends, Joseph and Kathryn, came over for dinner and Erica and I were really looking forward to spending some time with them as well as eating a great meal.

Joseph is a pretty good cook. Erica and I were in charge of the flank steak and rice and Joseph was going to do everything else. I was going to document how everything was prepared so I could put it in the blog but about ten minutes after we started cooking the power went out. The rest of the meal was prepared by lantern and flashlight under tornado warnings so my plan to get Joseph’s recipes as well as how to prepare them will have to wait.

To be honest, I am not really sure what all we ate since it was so dark. I do know we had mushrooms he had found in the woods up at Blackberry as well as a lot of other vegetables from the gardens up there.

I think we finally sat down to eat about nine-thirty or ten when the storms had calmed down. It was a delicious meal so I will have to find out what we ate. After dinner we sat around telling grocery store stories from the days when Joseph worked here so they didn’t leave until about midnight. Well they were gone about five minutes before they were back. Trees were down across the road out of our neighborhood so they couldn’t get out. Kathryn needed to be at work early the next morning so Joseph and I loaded up the chainsaw and headed out to clear a path with another storm cell bearing down on us. We managed to cut away enough to fit a car through and headed back to the house. They loaded up and left again hoping to beat the next storm home. Erica and I went to bed and waited to hear that they made it okay. They did and then the next storm hit.

It was a fun but scary night but I told Erica if it had been our last meal at least it was prepared by the chef at Blackberry Farm.

Our power was still out when I came to work this morning but I am thankful that’s all that happened at our house. I am sure others were not as fortunate.

I hope everyone has a great week it looks like the weather is going to be a lot better.

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

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Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

(865)691-8881

Grocery Life July 25, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good morning from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week. My family and I got back from Montana late Wednesday night, so it’s back to the real world. This was our kids’ first visit to Montana so Erica and I were a little apprehensive about how they would like it. I think it took them a day or two to realize it’s not like going to Disney World, but once they did, they seemed to really enjoy it.

Lauren says her favorite thing about the trip was riding horses. I don’t really like riding horses especially for four hours straight. My body apparently is not designed for a horse. I am still sore from the waist down.

Another concern for me was how Tyson would do on a horse. Anytime he rides on anything that moves he will fall asleep. This is nice on long car or airplane trips, but when riding on trails with steep drops off either side it was kind of scary. Every time we got in that situation, I would start asking him questions to make sure he stayed awake. I think our guide was concerned also because he kept telling Tyson, “no siesta, no siesta.” Well Tyson managed to stay on his horse as did the rest of us and we saw some beautiful scenery along the way.

Tyson’s favorite thing was the zip-line/ropes course. We had no intention of doing this, but when we were leaving Yellowstone Park, Tyson spotted it from the car window. I was tired from two days of driving around Yellowstone but since Lauren got to pick horseback riding, we figured it was only fair to let Tyson pick an activity. This is another thing my body is not designed to do. I don’t mind the climbing and zip lining; it’s just the harness you have to wear to do this. It wraps around your waist and between your legs in these crisscross patterns and then is cinched tight.

I think the lady that fitted mine must have just come out of a bad relationship with a guy. She cinched mine really tight and when she asked me how it felt I told her it hurt. She just smiled and said that’s perfect. When she wasn’t looking, I loosened them enough to where I didn’t talk in a high pitched voice and climbed and zipped with the kids for the rest of the afternoon.

Erica’s favorite thing in Montana is Jim Allison, our fishing guide. I often accuse her of loving him more than she does me and she has never denied it? The way I figure it as long as she loves the fishing guide, the more I get to go fishing in Montana. Marriage is all about compromise.

It was great to spend the week with my family in Montana. The kids got to do and see a lot of things that only Montana and Yellowstone have to offer. If you ever get the chance to go, I would. It’s a special place.

Well back to business. The store did fine while we were gone. It always does. Sometimes I think it runs better when I am gone. Business was good and has been good all summer. I hope that continues. All the new things we have started offering seem to be really taking off. The fried chicken is really doing well and also all of the meats we are doing on the smoker. The South Carolina peach quality is improving every week and the new line of fresh local leafy greens we are getting from Eco-Rich Farms are really selling well.

The August cooking class schedule is out and several of the classes are already full. You can find the schedule on our website if you would like to look at the dates and menus of the classes.

Beef prices continue to go up. Usually in the summer months they trend down, but they continue to increase this year. This is a bad sign for the fall and holiday season. They have always trended up in the fall months, so there is no telling how high they will go. I have noticed several of our competitors are starting to promote lower grades of meat trying to combat the high prices. We are going to stick with the same grades and quality we have always used. In the short run sales may slow down, but in the long run quality and consistency always wins out.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

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Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

(865)691-8881

Grocery Life July 19, 2014
By Tom Butler

Good morning from Ennis, Montana, population 883. I hope everyone is having a good week! My family and I have been in Montana since Wednesday on vacation. Erica and I have been coming out here for years but this is the kids first time. We love it out here and are hoping the kids will also. The more they like it, the more often I will get to come back.

When Erica and I first started coming out here, we stayed at Lakeshore Lodge on Ennis Lake. It is owned by a lady named Lynn. Lynn always went out of her way to make your stay there miserable. She had rules posted all over the place and if you didn’t follow them she would find you and give you a good scolding. It was so bad it was comical. Every time you parked your car, opened a window or turned on a light you wondered if Lynn was going to come out of the office and point out that you didn’t follow the posted rules. My wife had a name for her, actually everyone has a name for her, and it’s not Lynn. Well I decided I was going to make her be nice to me and set out to figure out a way. Our next trip out I decided to bring her some Grainger County tomatoes. They can’t grow good tomatoes out here because of the climate so I figured this might be just the thing to win her over. Guess what, it worked. I don’t know if it was the tomatoes or that somebody went out of their way to be nice to her but we have gotten the VIP treatment every time we have stayed with her since. We can park our car anywhere we want, open any window we want, she lets us use the off limits fire pit and one time when she was booked up she let us stay in her private residence, which is a big Montana ranch house. My wife still can’t believe how much Lynn’s attitude has changed towards us but she doesn’t understand the power of food like I do, especially Grainger County tomatoes.

I think the kids are having a good time so far. We have ridden a train to an old mining town, panned for gold, seen a show in one of the oldest theaters west of the Mississippi, fly fished, and swam in the Madison River and of course Tyson and I have thrown baseball every day. Wherever we are we have to throw baseball every day.

We still have a trip to Yellowstone, horseback riding, and whitewater rafting to go. It gets light here just after 5 a.m. and doesn’t get dark until about 10 p.m. so you can get a lot of stuff in everyday.

I don’t really know what’s going on back at the store this week. When I am gone, we go to a need to know basis on communication. I haven’t heard from them so everything must be running smoothly. It’s nice to have such a good staff! I can take a vacation and not have to worry about work.
Well we are off to Yellowstone!

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

Grocery Life July 14, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I can’t believe it is Monday already. I hope everyone had a good weekend. We had a good weekend here at the store. I think a lot of people are back from vacation which helped business this weekend. Another thing that helped business was our one day beef tenderloin sale on Friday. I wanted to try a promotion through this blog to see how it would work. Apparently news travels fast because we sold a lot of beef tenderloin. A few people were disappointed because they couldn’t make it to the store on Friday. Hopefully, they will be able to make it the next time we try something like this.

I mentioned the upcoming Rocky Hill Christmas Parade in the last blog. Everyone seems to be really excited about the parade. More and more businesses are signing up to be a part of the parade which will just make it that much better. I will forewarn you that Northshore Dr. will be closed along the parade route during the parade. I am kind of curious to see how that is going to work on a Saturday night at 6 p.m.

Tonight Ashley, our meat manager, is going to a BBQ event put on by the American Culinary Federation. They asked Ashley if he could come and demonstrate how to break-down a whole hog. Southern Natural Foods, who we buy our local pork and beef from, is providing a two hundred pound hog for the event so Ashley will have his hands full. Culinary students from U.T. as well as other schools will be there to learn the lost art of breaking down whole animals into certain cuts of meat. Ashley has become an expert on this with both beef and pork so he gets a lot of requests for events like this. I am certainly lucky to have such experienced butchers like Ashley working here. They do a great job!

If you would like to try some of our local pork from Southern Natural Foods, we have bone-in pork chops from them on sale this week. Everyone that has tried our local pork has really enjoyed it. To me, it has more flavor and better texture than our standard pork.

Another thing you may want to try is our New York strip steaks. They are on sale this week also.Eddie, one of our biggest meat customers, called me this morning to tell me the four he bought this weekend were probably the best he had ever had. Coming from him that is a pretty good compliment.

We finally have Evian water back in stock. The supplier we have always gotten it from quit handling it so we have been out of stock for quite a while. Our new suppliers finally delivered this morning so we are back in business. We also have just gotten in a new local honey. It is produced be Doug Carnathan right here in Knoxville. I took a jar home this weekend and my wife told me this morning that if I put it in the blog, tell everyone it is really good.

We have two cooking classes this week and both of them are full. We do have some openings for the July 24^th and July 29^th classes. Keith just told me he will have the August cooking class schedule out by the end of the week so be looking for that in the next few days.

I am going to be out of town for the next few days so if there is no blog for a few days that is why.

Have a great day!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Respond to:tom.butler44@gmail.com

Click here for past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

(865)691-8881