Grocery Life June 5, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good morning from Butler and Bailey Market. It looks like it may be a little cooler today. It also looks like today may be our best chance for rain in the next few days. I had a customer tell me yesterday that I needed to do a rain dance because her yard was drying up. I guess if it rains today, I will tell her it was all because I did the dance. Since I am the curious sort, I did look up rain dancing. It is a Native American tradition that is still practiced today on Indian reservations. Performing the dance requires a lot of chanting and spinning in a clockwise direction. I don’t mind chanting, but I do not do anything that requires me to spin in circles. I do not have the stomach for it. I will turn green and throw up. I don’t even like to watch other people or things that spin. I could never find any information on the success rate of the dance. Probably like everything else, when it rained people took credit and when it didn’t it was someone else’s fault. I did like looking at the special costumes the Indians wore for the ceremonial dance.

This Friday we have something new coming to our community, The Farmer’s Market. The Friday farmer’s market has always been held in the parking lot of the Church of Christ on Kingston Pike. They have now decided to move it to Lakeshore Park. Every Friday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., you can take the short drive to Lakeshore instead of fighting traffic on Kingston Pike during rush hour. If you have not gone to any of the farmer’s markets around town this is a great opportunity to start. I visit them quite frequently because we are always looking for new local products to sell in the store. For more information on East Tennessee Farmers Markets click here.

Lakeshore Park is also where my son plays sports in the Knoxville Youth Sports leagues. He actually just finished up his last game of the season in the “Vance Pitch” baseball league last night. This is a league of six and seven year olds, girls and boys, that Vance has pitched and umpired in for probably thirty years.

I really admire him for his commitment and dedication to teaching young boys and girls how to play baseball but also the life skills of teamwork and sportsmanship. There are not many people willing to get up on Saturday morning and pitch six or eight baseball games in a row to six and seven year olds plus a few games during the week. I know I wouldn’t and I have a kid playing in the league. For those of you that know him, I am sure you realize what an important mentor he is to our children. WVLT was doing a story about him at last night’s games and I understand several other news organizations have done the same. Click here for the story. He deserves all the accolades he gets. I would also like to thank the coaches my son has had as well as all the others coaching youth sports. It is a somewhat thankless job. They obviously do it for their love of working with kids because keeping all of us parents happy is impossibility.

All of the new local products I have talked about recently are really starting to sell well in the store. One I was going to tell you about Monday was a new local blue cheese dressing called Better in Blue. We just got it in last weekend and sold out by Monday so I did not want to mention it until we restocked. We now have it and it is in the produce department. Another item we have been out of recently is fresh okra, but we finally got some in this morning and it looks beautiful.

I also mentioned how I prepare flank steaks in the last blog. Yesterday a customer was buying some and told me he was buying twice as much as he needed for supper because they use the leftovers for salads and other dishes throughout the week. This got me thinking…if we could convince everyone to buy twice as many groceries as they need our sales would double and our profits would soar! Well I am not a very good salesman so I guess that promotion would never work? However, if you do want to do this, we are not going to stop you. Have a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

If you received this via email click here for past blogs.

Grocery Life June 2, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good morning from Butler & Bailey Market.  June is upon us and we are definitely in a summer weather pattern. I think we have been for about for five weeks now. We need some rain. I love hot weather, but I also love gardening and fishing. When it doesn’t rain, the garden doesn’t grow which leaves me more time for fishing, but I like to fish small streams and rivers and they are very dependent on rain also. Until we get some rain, my new hobby seems to be pulling my kids on tubes behind the boat out on the lake. Every day when I get home they are waiting. Some days I really don’t want to do it, but I lose that vote two to one every time. Once we get out there, I end up having as much fun watching them as they do riding.

I think another reason they want to go out in the boat so often is we usually visit Ben at Duncan’s Boat Dock. I am sure most of you are familiar with Ben Duncan and Duncan’s Boat Dock, especially if you live in the Rocky Hill area. He has been operating the boat dock since I was a kid and I think his family has owned the land since before they dammed the river forming Fort Loudon Lake. I think the only thing that has changed about the place since I was a kid is his gas prices and he now takes credit cards. I bet he doesn’t own or use a credit card, but he will gladly take yours. If the Andy Griffith show had ever needed to cast a boat dock operator and his boat dock in Mayberry, Duncan’s would have been the one. The appeal of the dock to my kids is they usually get to pick out a drink and a snack when we stop in. Regardless of what we have on the boat, Ben’s snacks and drinks are always better. What they do not realize is Ben and I have our own little micro economy. Ben buys a lot of his snacks and drinks here at the store to sell at his dock. He then marks up the price of them and my kids and I go and buy them back. We will do this all summer. My kids assure me that his drinks and snacks are better than what they can get a daddy’s store. So I guess I will not tell them any different. I don’t know if Ben comes out better on this or me, but I do know he usually has a big wad of cash in his pocket and I usually just have a credit card. Either way, I like doing business with Ben and appreciate him doing business with me.

I talked about Joseph Lenn in my last blog and here is the recipe he sent me. I have not tried it yet but am planning on doing so tonight.

We did have flank steak with rice and Brussels sprouts this weekend. Flank steak is a lean cut of beef but has great flavor. The way I prepare it is to marinade a few hours in soy sauce. We have also used teriyaki or allegro meat marinade. I then grill it on low heat. For some reason it takes longer to cook flank steak to doneness so I use low heat to keep from burning the outside. I cook the Brussels sprouts on the grill at the same time. I make a foil boat; coat the Brussels sprouts in olive oil, and season with kosher salt, pepper, and onion and garlic powder. Then I put them in the “boat” with the top open. Once they start to brown on the outside, I wrap the foil over the top to completely seal them. This makes them steam which helps to tenderize. You do need to stir or turn them while they cook or the sides closest to the heat will burn. When the steak is done, we slice it in quarter inch strips. It needs to be sliced across the grain, which on a flank steak is widthwise not lengthwise. I then put the steak and sprouts over a bed of rice. If you have not tried flank steak, this is an easy way to prepare it and if you don’t like Brussels sprouts, I can’t really blame you. I only like them grilled.

Another thing we did this weekend was feed our Sunday School Class at church breakfast. It was our Sunday to provide breakfast so we took quiche and banana bread from out deli/bakery. We make both of these things from scratch and they were a big hit with our class. If you need a quick and easy way to feed a group or just want something for yourself that you can just heat up and eat, give these items a try. We have four different varieties of quiches (ham & cheese, Mediterranean, Lorraine, and spinach, bacon, & feta), and we bake an apple caramel bread too. Have a great week!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Grocery Life May 29, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week. It has been a pretty routine week here since Memorial Day. We did have an employee get in a bad car wreck Sunday night. He has been out of work since then but came by the store to visit yesterday. He is really banged up. The police told him he would have probably died had he not had his seatbelt on. After seeing him, I believe it. He does have some cracked ribs, ligament damage in his shoulder, maybe a broken ankle, a lot of facial cuts and bruises. He is hoping to get back to work soon and we hope so too. If you see a young man working here that looks like he has been in a car wreck, you might want to give him some words of encouragement. His fellow workers have been great about checking on him and picking up his shifts while he is out. We have a lot of nice, caring people working here.

Speaking of employees, I talked with Joseph yesterday morning. He worked for us several years during high school and college. Joseph has become a close friend, a great fishing partner, and he is also the chef at Blackberry Farms. He and his wife and Erica and I are trying to plan a trip together in September. I hope we can get it worked out. When we talked yesterday, Joseph had just gotten off the phone with Allen Benton. Allen owns and operates Benton’s Smokey Mountain Country Hams. He’s the guy that makes the now world famous Benton’s Bacon. His business is in Madisonville, TN. Joseph uses his products at Blackberry and we sell his products here at the store. We both wish all of our suppliers treated us as well as Allen Benton does. He is a nice man. Joseph and I are always swapping names of local, family owned companies that produce great products and I know his guests and our customers benefit from this.

While I had Joseph on the phone, I asked him for a recipe to put in the blog. He told me he had just done some for the Wall Street Journal and I could google those. I told him I wanted one that was not already on the web so he is sending me one for a Kale Caesar Salad with grilled chicken. I will post it the next blog. Later in the day, I did google his name and the screen lit up with all kinds of articles about him, his recipes, and the awards he has won. It turns out he is famous. I then thought, I wonder what will happen if I Google my name? Not much happened. Oh well, at least my momma loves me. If you do want to find some of his recipes just google Joseph Lenn.

We have products from two new suppliers this week. The first is coffee from Three Bears Coffee Company. You may have seen Jeff selling his coffee at the local farmers’ markets. He is a nice guy, making great coffee, located right here in Knoxville. If you want more info on Jeff’s coffee click here. The other new products are cheeses from Three Graces Dairy. They are located in Marshall, North Carolina. This is a mother/daughter team that produces some fabulous, farmstead, French-style cheeses on their family farm. For more information on Three Graces Dairy click here.  I hope you will join us in supporting both of these family-owned producers.

We are also talking with a local honey producer, a local vegetable farmer, and a small company in Chattanooga that sells some great gluten-free products. We hope to have all of their products soon. I will keep you updated.

I hope you have a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Grocery Life May 26, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon and happy Memorial Day from Butler & Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good holiday weekend.

I have been thinking about this day over the weekend and realize I have not known anyone personally that has died serving our country. I will be 48 in a couple of months so most who served and are serving are either a generation before or after me. We have had and do have employees who have served and fortunately they did their tour and came home. I do know that they lost fellow soldiers that they were close with so this will be a special day for them. I can’t begin to understand what it means to serve and fight for your country or to lose a loved one that did, but I can do a better job honoring and supporting those that have and are. We probably all can. There is a veteran’s cemetery just down the street from the store (across from Lakeshore Park) and there is also one on John Sevier Highway which is near my house. I went by both of these this morning and took some pictures. I also walked and read many tombstones. I was very surprised by how many of these soldiers served in multiple wars. I think I will take my kids this week to visit so they can begin to understand and appreciate the sacrifice people have made for their benefit.

This week at the store will be different. It will be the first full week of school being out so buying habits will change. Certain items that sell well during the school year will really slow down now and items that move slowly during the school year will pick up. We try to adapt quickly to this so we have the right inventory for you, but there is a learning curve every year.

We do have a new two week ad that started yesterday and our June cooking class schedule is now out. You can find both of these on our website. Barbara Tenney does a great job leading the cooking classes. If you have not tried one you should. You will get a full sit-down meal, instruction on how to prepare it, and the recipes of everything you are served. Call the store if you would like to make a reservation.

Chicken thighs and drumsticks are in the ad this week. Some people do not like these parts of the chicken, but they are my favorite. The Butlers always fight over the dark meat at family gatherings. The way I have been preparing them lately is a little different. I marinade them overnight in two parts sweet tea and one part orange juice. I then put them in a disposable aluminum pan and slow cook them on the grill (250 degrees). It usually takes 20-30 minutes. I don’t know how I got started doing this, my wife was probably getting ready to pour out leftover tea or juice and I decided to cook with it. Anyways, I have brined whole turkeys, Cornish hens, and whole chickens using tea and juice, and we have always liked how they turned out. If you try it, let me know what you think.

Another ad item you may want to try are the Argentine red shrimp. These are probably our best selling shrimp. Many of you have told me that they are the next best thing to lobster. These are the shrimp Ms. Tenney uses whenever she has a shrimp dish in cooking class. When we cook them at home, they are either sautéed or grilled with lots of real butter and garlic involved.

I wrote in the last blog about making a reveal cake for some expecting parents. Now that they have cut the cake, I can tell you “It’s a Girl!!!” Congratulations to them and I hope all of you have a great week!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Grocery Life

May 22, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good morning from Butler and Bailey Market. I guess school is out for most everyone by now, so maybe some of you get to sleep in this morning. If your kids are like mine, they will probably be bored by lunchtime. I guess that is why swim teams and summer camps are so popular.

In my last blog I wrote about frying okra. Several of you asked me about fried green tomatoes. I do them exactly the same way I do the okra. Once they are fried, I put them on a bed of leafy greens, usually spring mix, and then add goat cheese crumbles. I like to use smaller tomatoes because the smaller slices work better on a salad. We always keep a good supply of Grainger County green tomatoes if you want to give this a try.

We had our first ever request for a “reveal” cake this week at the store. This is a growing trend with expecting parents. Some of you may have seen Abby Ham cut into her reveal cake on her news cast. Instead of expecting parents finding out the sex of their child and announcing it, they plan a reveal party with friends and family and have a cake made with the inside being either pink or blue. When the cake is cut, the color is revealed and everyone finds out the sex at the same time by surprise. In this circumstance, these parents want to find out at the party with everyone else so they had the doctor write down the sex and put it in a sealed envelope. Then they brought me the envelope so I am the only person that knows the sex. What a heavy burden for a grocery man. Now Nancy in our bakery department knows because she had to bake and decorate the cake yesterday, and the parents will know soon because the party is tonight. I will let you know in the next blog. My wife and I chose not to find out with our two children, which is pretty unusual these days. My mother always told me that the birth of a child is one of God’s miracles so we just let Him do His thing and found out when they came into the world. It is an exciting time regardless of when everyone finds out.

This weekend should be very busy at the store since it is Memorial Day weekend. We also have a new two week ad starting Sunday. We will be running the smokers all weekend with ribs, Boston butts, pork tenderloin, chicken, and salmon. The bakery/deli will have homemade strawberry shortcake, peanut butter pies, and chicken salad featured this weekend. Melon season is in full swing so cantaloupes and watermelons are really good right now. Mike, who oversees our dairy department, recommended I try our new Sargento Tastings cheese. He really likes them. We have four varieties so I am going to try all four this weekend. You may want to also. If you have not tried our pork and beef from Southern Natural foods, this weekend may be a good time to do so. They are a Tennessee company that produces all natural beef and pork on Tennessee farms. Ashley, our meat manager, has done quite a bit of consulting with them visiting their farms and processing facilities and is very impressed with their operation. These guys are producing a great product, doing it the right way, and they are local and we love local. I hope everyone has a safe and fun weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Grocery Life May 19, 2014 

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler & Bailey Market,

I hope everyone had a good weekend. My family’s was busy as usual. Probably the most entertaining thing this weekend at our house was tree cutting. My neighbor and I have ended up with an ivy covered pine tree thicket on our shared property line. We hired some guys to cut them down and I enjoyed watching them climb the trees to tie them off or limb them. I also like watching those guys make a tree fall exactly where they want it to. Both of those tasks take special skills. I thought my children would enjoy watching, but realized I was wrong when the first tree fell. My ten year old daughter immediately told my wife and me that we just killed a polar bear and that if we cut the rest of the trees it would kill all the polar bears. My seven year old son then chimed in to tell us that if we leave a room without turning out the lights it will ruin the earth. The only thing I will say to that is I guess they are learning something in school? Maybe they should turn off all their electronics, sew their own clothes, and walk to school if they are so concerned. I appreciate them being taught how to be better stewards of the earth but all things in moderation.

We are starting the second week of our two week ad. If you have not seen it you can find it on our website. Also be looking for our June cooking class schedule. We will probably have it out in the next few days and you will find this on our website.

One of the more popular ad items has been blueberries. They have become very popular in the past few years, probably due to their positive health benefits. I eat blueberries everyday in the form of a kale shake. This is what I have for breakfast every morning. I am not going to tell you they are great but for someone who has never had enough fruits and vegetables in his diet, it is just the thing. My recipe varies based on what we have at the house. In general terms it is one part fruit (1 cup), one part milk (skim or almond), two parts fresh chopped kale or spinach, and one raw egg (pasteurized). I started adding the egg for protein. It also seems to make it more filling so I don’t get hungry before lunch. For fruit I use all kinds of berries, bananas, peaches, mangos, and even clementines. I use fresh and frozen. I always use some frozen to make the shake thicker. I put all the ingredients in my Nutri-bullet blender, blend for a few seconds and I am done. Kale greens are considered a “super food” and we sell a lot. If the shake doesn’t interest you, our deli makes a kale super salad that is very popular and the produce department sells four or five varieties of kale salad kits.

To counteract all this healthy stuff, we are having fried okra for supper tonight. Everyone in our family can eat their weight in fried okra. I even make it for my son’s afternoon snack sometimes, he likes it so much. All I do is rinse fresh okra and slice it crossways no thicker than 1/4”. I then get a gallon Ziploc bag and put cornmeal in it along with salt and pepper. Amounts vary based on how much you are cooking. I would guess I use a cup or two of cornmeal and maybe a teaspoon each of salt and pepper. I then put the sliced okra in the bag a little at a time and shake it to coat the okra with the cornmeal until I have coated all of it. The okra will be sticky so the meal should coat it. Some people use a heavy batter but we like it better with a thin coat. I then put about a quarter inch of oil in a skillet on medium to medium high heat. Once it’s hot, I slowly drop the okra in from the meal bag. I cook it until it lightly browned (probably about 10 minutes) stirring occasionally. This is one of the few things my kids get excited about eating and it is a “green” vegetable. Fresh okra quality is kind of hit or miss until the local comes in, but we did get some nice okra in this morning so give it a try.

The picture you see at the beginning of this blog was taken before the shopping center was built. The buildings you see are right where we sit now. I went up on the hill this morning and took an updated picture which you see here. Notice how many more trees we have now compared to then. I can’t wait to get home to show my daughter. Have a great day!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Grocery Life May 15, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler & Bailey Market,

It looks like we are going from two weeks in the high 80’s to the high 60’s for the next few days. Spring is back. You can always tell when the Butlers have something planned because the weather changes dramatically. This Sunday, my wife has a pool party planned for her mother/daughter book club. It looks like it may be a little cool to be swimming and they may have to resort to plan B. Right now plan B is to worry enough about the weather that it actually changes the weather. We will see how that works out?

My wife and I both love to read and she thought starting a mother/daughter book club would be a good way to introduce our daughter to the joy of reading. It must be working because often times she will ask if she can stay up a little late because she wants to find out “what happens” in the book she is reading.

The last book I read is called “Paperboy.” The author of the book is Vince Vawter who lives here in Knoxville and goes to our church. I have known Vince for several years but did not know he had written a book until my wife told me. She read it and is planning to use it for her book club. Another thing I did not know about Vince is he has struggled with stuttering his whole life. In Paperboy, Vince writes about a boy with a stuttering problem trying to run his friend’s paper route for the summer. It is a semi-autobiographical look at what he went through growing up with a speech impediment in the 1950’s. Through his character and the other characters in the book, it really opened my eyes to how a speech impediment affects every part of one’s life. I really admire Vince, one for writing a book and two for writing about such a personal issue that helps us all to understand it better. He is an advocate and gives a voice to those with speech impediments. I looked on amazon.com and the book has received several awards including the Newberry Honor. If you get a chance to read it, I think you will enjoy it. Plus he is a local guy, and we are all about supporting local people and local businesses.

The store has been running smoothly this week. We do have a mysterious roof leak though. It leaks when it rains, and it leaks when it’s sunny. It has baffled the roofers, but I am sure they will get it figured out.

Last night we had our bacon wrapped fillet burgers at home. They have become one of the new favorite things at our house. The meat department grinds their beef tenderloin trimmings, forms the patties, and wraps them with bacon. What you end up with is essentially a fillet mignon burger. I just grill them and we eat them like a steak instead of with a bun.

The fresh corn on the cob has been really good lately. It is on sale this week three ears for one dollar. I think the produce department employees fear a corn sale. They end up shucking thousands of ears a week trying to keep up and when they get behind, we all end up shucking corn. We sell some in the husk, but most people want it shucked.

Tonight we are going to have fish tacos. We have baseball practice, and this is a quick and easy meal to make when we get home. I get tilapia fillets and sauté them in a skillet with olive oil and Greek seasoning. The other ingredients we use are lettuce, already shredded in the bag, shredded cheese, fresh pico de gallo, regular or southwest flavor, already made and packaged in the produce department, and flour tortillas, which we lightly brown on the stovetop or in the oven. The whole meal takes about 10-15 minutes to prepare. If you need a quick and easy meal solution that is healthy, give this one a try. I hope everyone is having a good week!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Grocery Life May 12, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good Monday afternoon from Butler & Bailey Market,

I hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day Weekend, especially all of you moms! We celebrated at our house yesterday. We had a total of four moms whose ages ranged from 40 to 79 and six children ages ranging from 5 to 49. It was fun to have everyone over, but I must admit I was tempted to sneak off and go fishing. I thought better of it considering I was in charge of preparing lunch. All kidding aside, my brother and I share the good fortune of having a great mom, and I have come to appreciate this more and more as the years go by.

We started our new two week ad at the store yesterday. Those of you that live near the store and take the Knoxville News Sentinel should have received it in your newspaper yesterday. If you do not subscribe, you can view it on our website or pick up a copy in the store.  Ray, our store manager, is in charge of putting together the ad. It is a very time consuming process for him. When you are an independent operator like we are, you do not have the luxury of a large advertising department like a chain store would.  We are in a group with independent store owners but more than 90% of them are in rural areas scattered across nine states so the items they chose to promote rarely fit the buying needs of our customers. Ray can usually use a few of these items, but everything else is customized to the things we think are important to you. Once he decides what these items are he will spend the better part of a week calling manufacturers and distributors to see if he can work out a deal with them. Most of the time they are accommodating but some have decided if you are not Wal-Mart, they are not interested. Once Ray has secured these items he meets with the department managers in the store and together they determine the meat, produce, and deli/bakery items. These items are decided based on what is in season, what holiday or occasion might be coming up, or maybe new products they want to promote. Ray then compiles all of this and we have a fresh new four page ad with 70 to 80 items. Ray really works hard at finding items that meet your wants and needs and I sure appreciate him doing it.

Some of my favorite items in the ad this week would be the Scottish salmon fillets, baby back ribs, and Nancy’s red velvet cake. My favorite way to prepare salmon is to put it skin down on a piece of foil, brush the top with olive oil, and season it with “Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Salmon Seasoning.” I then lay it on the grill for about 20 minutes at 300 degrees.  I never have to turn it and when it is done I take a spatula, slide it between skin and meat to remove and I am ready to eat.

I was grilling the baby back ribs about once a week, but since Ashley started smoking them in the store, I just take them home already cooked. Nancy’s red velvet cake is by far her most popular. If you have not tried it yet you should. It was sure a hit this past weekend for Mother’s Day. I hope everyone has a great day!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Grocery Life May 8, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good Thursday afternoon from Butler & Bailey Market,

I hope everyone is having a good week. The weather has been great if you like the weather in July, which I do. Seems more like 4th of July week instead of Mother’s Day week, but I think it is going to cool off in the next day or two.

We are still trying to perfect the transmission of this blog. It is supposed to go on the website, facebook, and email all at the same time, but the email part doesn’t always cooperate. Hopefully we will get this figured out soon. I am a lot behind the current technology so I really rely on my manager Keith to put this all together. I write the text out in a spiral notebook, give it Keith and he formats it on the computer, adds the photography, and sends it out. He does a great job, but I am sure he will be glad when I learn how to do it.

It has been a good week at the store so far. The only out of the ordinary thing that has happened is our semi-annual visit from the Knox County Health Department on Tuesday. We get inspected every six months as do all places that sell or serve food. The inspectors come in unannounced and go over almost every square inch of the store looking for violations. It is kind of like getting audited by the I.R.S. every six months if any you have been through that. My day off was Tuesday, so I missed the pleasure of his visit. This is probably a good thing. Sometimes his opinion of how I run my business and mine are a little different and he gets to decide? The old adage in our business is “the customer is always right.” It should be “the customer is always right and so is the Health Department.” He ended up giving us a good score and told us we were doing a great job.

We did get our local strawberries in this week. I wrote in the last blog that they were seventeen times better than shipped in ones. My wife questioned me a little on how I knew this. Well, I use a very scientific method. I walk over, get a handful, eat them, and that’s how I determine it. I told her the pen is mightier than the sword, so she needs to be nice in her critiques.

We have greatly expanded out cookout supply section. We now carry a twenty pound bag of all natural lump charcoal to go with our eight pound bag. We also have seven varieties of wood chips; hickory, mesquite, apple, maple, peach, orange, and oak. I have not tried all of them yet, but I am going to. I always like to test new flavors off the grill. We even sell a metal pan designed for wood chips when using a gas grill.

New to our meat department are fresh Cornish game hens. I love Cornish hens and having them fresh instead of frozen will make them much easier to prepare.

The cooking classes are almost full for May. The May 13^th class which is “Spring and Summer Salads” has several spots available, the May 20^th class has three spots available, and the May 22^nd class has two. The others are full. If you would like to make a reservation for any of these just call the store, 865-691-8881.

The deli will have strawberries dipped in chocolate, and we will have a good assortment of cut flowers for the weekend if you need to pick-up a bouquet for mom. We also offer gift certificates for cooking classes if you are looking for something special to give mom.

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Grocery Life May 5, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good Monday afternoon from Butler & Bailey Market,

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We sure could not have asked for better weather. For those that celebrate
Cinco de Mayo, I guess your weekend will continue through today. If you still need last minute supplies for Cinco; our deli/bakery department has plenty of their famous guacamole dip. Nancy also made a black bean mango salsa and a great looking strawberry margarita cake.

Our produce manager, Brent, told me this morning that he should be getting homegrown local strawberries tomorrow. The season is very short for local strawberries so make sure you take advantage of them while they last. They are usually about 17 times better than shipped in strawberries.

I get asked quite frequently when our Cruze Farm milk and ice cream delivery is. They deliver to us
every Friday, usually about lunch time. If you are not familiar with Cruze Farm, they are a local, family owned dairy farm located in East Knoxville on the banks of the French Broad River. Their milk is a little different in that it is pasteurized but not homogenized. So it needs to be shaken before it poured. They also make some delicious ice cream. Coleen Cruze makes the ice cream and bases her flavors on what is in season locally. I bet she will be coming out with a new strawberry ice cream soon. Coleen also suggested that we carry eggs from Tickiwoo Farm. They are a local producer of eggs from humanly raised, pastured hens. We now carry them in the store so give them a try. These are the only eggs Coleen will use in her ice cream.

Friday, we tested out some more fried chicken recipes. We can’t seem to get a consensus on a favorite breading so I will probably pull rank and pick the one I like.

My weekend was busy as usual. Right after work Friday, my son and I went on a father/son campout that our church organized. One of the families owns about thirty acres with woods, pasture, and a creek so the boys had a great time running around the property. All was well until we decided to start the campfire. Boys and fires are usually not a good combination. They want to throw everything they can get their hands on in, including each other.
Luckily, everyone survived just some minor cuts and bruises. We had a great time and hope our family gets the chance to do some more camping this summer.

My daughter had her piano recital Saturday. My wife and I marvel at how much she enjoys performing in front of a crowd and how well she does it. We are certainly proud of her. Neither one of us have ever been comfortable in front of a crowd performing.

Well, time to get back to work. I hope everyone has a great day!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler