Menu

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life April 16, 2015

Posted on April 16, 2015 by pwpadmin

Guardians for Garrett Facebook page

Grocery Life April 16, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week. It has kind of been a washout so far this week but maybe that cleans up some of the pollen in the air.

I got my tax return finished Tuesday. That always leaves me with an empty feeling. I guess I have learned that since the IRS gets to make the rules, they always win. They are kind of like the Harlem Globetrotters without the entertainment value.

Business has been good the last couple of weeks. I would like to think I had something to do with that, but the truth is, I have hardly worked the last couple of weeks. I woke up on April Fool’s day with the flu, and I am just now getting back to my normal schedule. Erica and Lauren also had it. Lauren recovered in about thirty minutes; Erica and I were down about ten days. Tami flu apparently works better on kids than adults. For what it cost, I was expecting better results. Oh well, just glad we are all over it!

We had some great swordfish steaks for supper Tuesday night. I rubbed grape seed oil on them, seasoned them with salt and pepper and put them on the grill. I probably cooked them four or five minutes on each side and they turned out perfect. I would typically use olive oil but we are trying different oils due to allergies. That’s another story for another time.

We are trying to improve our seafood selection here at the store and more specifically our fish variety. That’s easier said than done. Fish is a very seasonal product so between that and the price fluctuations caused by that, it can be a little tricky. Farm raised fish like tilapia and salmon are pretty consistent year round, wild caught fish is a different story. We will not have the same variety of fish every week, but we hope to give you a larger variety of what is available. I can only eat so much salmon and tilapia so I am excited about our new options. My favorites so far have been the swordfish, halibut and grouper.

We talked to our Grainger County tomato man last week. He said we should start getting tomatoes in the next couple of weeks. These will be hot house tomatoes but will be far superior to what we are getting now. He also grows strawberries for us and they should start coming in soon as well. The harsh winter has put the local growers a little behind, but they should catch up quickly now.

Speaking of local growers, I went by the new Whole Foods after work last night. That was my first time in a Whole Foods. This one has about four entrances, and I think I chose the wrong one because I went through the whole store backwards. I am easily disoriented in new places, but I was really disoriented there. I think I will choose a different entrance next time and see how it goes.

While I was in there, I noticed that they put up pictures and have a little biography of all of the local people in the food business. I saw pictures of Mahasti, owner of Tomato Head, Coleen, with Cruze Farms Dairy, and several others. I figured since they had their pictures and stories, my picture must be up somewhere and I wanted to see what they had written about me. After all, I have been local for forty-eight years and have been in the food business for over half of those. I searched and searched but never found anything about me, which was a little disappointing. Another blow to my ego. Maybe I was up in one of the entrances I didn’t go in?

Anyways, even though I was confused and they are the competition, I was glad to see that they are selling the products of some of my good friends. It will help them in their businesses. I will probably never shop their but it is a nice store and the company has a good reputation for treating their people well, which I admire.

Now that I have told you about it, I have saved you having to fight the traffic on Papermill to check it out for yourself. But, if you do happen by there, let me know if they have my picture up yet.

Lastly, I have written in the past about my little friends Hugo Canada and Garret Jablonski. They are two little boys that have been fighting diseases, Hugo with cancer and Garrett with Sanphilippo syndrome. If you haven’t heard, after nine months of intense treatment, Hugo is cancer free! Based on his initial prognosis, I think I would have to call that a miracle.

Garrett and his family were by the house a couple of weeks ago and while there is no treatment for his disease, he continues to be a happy, fun loving little boy.

I hope you will continue to keep these little boys and their families in your thoughts and prayers. I know it means a lot to them.

You can read about their stories here.

Hugo Canada Cancer free story

I hope everyone has a good weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life March 28, 2015

Posted on March 28, 2015 by pwpadmin

2 Comments

Grocery Life March 28, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week. Based on business last week, I think a lot of you were out of town on spring break. I was gone myself. Our family went to Apalachicola, Florida which is where we go about every spring break.

I have been fishing down there for about thirty-five years and since I have gotten married and had kids, I have combined my fishing trip with a family vacation. When the family goes, we stay on St. George Island which is just across the bridge from Apalachicola. When I go without them, I stay at Bay City Lodge which is right on the Apalachicola River. If you have never visited Apalachicola, you may want to put it on your “bucket list”. It is a small picturesque coastal town where a river meets an ocean. It is most famous for its oysters but that is just the beginning of what it has to offer.

I like the local people there. Some are nice, some are not so nice. They don’t seem to mind you visiting their town, but they are not going to put a lei around your neck when you arrive.

Most all of them depend upon the bay and ocean for their livelihood which appears to be a pretty hard scrabble life. You can see it in their leathery faces, broad shoulders and thick, powerful arms and hands. I have figured out that as long as you don’t get in the way or try to change their way of life they are glad to have you in town.

Out-of-towners have tried to come in and change the town to promote tourism without much success, probably because the locals aren’t interested. They even shot part of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in Apalachicola a couple of years ago, and I bet the locals got up, went to work on the boats and didn’t even notice.

I hope the town and the people never change. It is a special place with truly authentic people which is hard to find these days. I have benefited greatly from all my time spent there and I hope my children will come to appreciate it as well. I know they have started to because this trip they both fell in love with eating raw oysters.

Next Sunday is Easter and just as a reminder, we will be closed on Easter Sunday. It is one of the three days we close every year. The other two are Christmas and Thanksgiving.

We have several varieties of lamb and ham for your Easter meals. You can call ahead and order your meats or just come on down and we can help you pick out what you need. We will also have several things in our deli/bakery prepared to go along with your main course. Our top seller will probably be our coconut cake and it just happens to be on sale. If you want to make your own cake, our Betty Crocker cake mix is on sale also. We have a lot of other holiday items on sale that you can find in our ad by clicking here.

Now that the weather is warming up a lot of our local producers’ supplies are improving. I talked to both Cruze Dairy and Tickiwoo Farm eggs today and they both told me we should have good supplies the rest of the warm season. Brent, our produce manager, has already talked to some of our local growers about fruits and vegetables and said they are already gearing up for the season.

We love doing business during the warm months because we have so many more local folks we can buy from. I love getting to know them as well as supporting their products.

When I was in Apalachicola I bought a tee shirt from a local business I like down there and on the back it says “buy local”. Maybe I should have some of those printed up for our store?

Have a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life March 10, 2015

Posted on March 10, 2015 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life March 10, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone had a good weekend. We finally had two warm and beautiful days. Now it’s back to rain but at least it’s a warm rain.

All the ice and snow that has been in our yard for the last three or four weeks has now been replaced by weeds. Apparently they like cold snowy weather. We will see if they like the round-up I sprayed on them this weekend. It will take me a week or two to get my yard all shaped up for the spring but I got a good start on it this weekend. This may be the year that I start hiring out some of my yard work but I say that every year and never do it. I have trouble paying for something I can do myself but as tired and sore as I am after a few hours of yard work, this weekend maybe I will change my mind.

The store business is finally back to normal. The last few weeks have either been feast or famine. We would much rather have consistent, predictable business.

We have a new two week ad that started Sunday. You can find that on our website if you do not already get a copy in your News Sentinel. We have corned beef and cabbage on sale in this ad for Saint Patrick’s Day, which is next Tuesday. I don’t care much for either one of those so I can’t offer you much advice on preparing them. Google can probably help.

One of my favorite things in this ad would be the Ribeye steaks. They are $8.99 a pound this week. When we started here twenty- five years ago we would put Ribeye on sale for $3.99 a pound. Some of you still remind me of this. I am going to go out on a limb and say they probably won’t be that cheap again unless you buy them out of the back of a truck.

Those trucks come through our neighborhood every now and then trying to sell steaks door to door. I think the last sign I saw on the truck said “25 Ribeyes for $25 dollars.” I have spoken to them when they have come to our door and I have to say, they are a lot better salesmen than I am. If our store depended on my salesmanship, we would be in trouble. I have never bought anything from them, but I will give them an A for effort. Maybe I should give them a try; they may be the best steaks ever?

I guess we could prepare you 25 steaks for $25 dollars. They would be pretty thin. So thin you could probably read the newspaper through them. You could use them for beef jerky or they might make a good book mark, I just wouldn’t plan a cookout around them.

I admire anyone that tries to sell door to door. That has to be a tough way to make a living. I would have starved to death long ago if I had to do that. I do have a good friend that has spent most of his career selling door to door. He started out selling books and then he figured out that if he could sell books door to door he could probably sell insurance policies the same way so he started an insurance company. He specialized in cancer policies and the best I can tell, he became quite wealthy doing this since he retired at about my age. He has since started a consulting company and travels the world working with large corporations training their sales forces. He also donates a lot of his time consulting with non-profit organizations in third world countries. The last time we communicated he was in Tanzania. He told Erica and I that we would love it there. He’s a good salesman, but not good enough to get me to Tanzania, wherever that is.

I guess all of us have been given different gifts. I think the hard part for most of us is figuring out what our gifts are and how to apply them to our lives and careers. I am still not sure if I have figured out what my gifts are. I think I have done a better job of figuring out what I am not gifted at. I guess through process of elimination I will get it figured out. I have determined that regardless of what my gifts are, the best place for me to realize them are at a grocery store in Rocky Hill alongside all the other gifted people that work and shop here.

Thanks again for your business and have a great week!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life March 6, 2015

Posted on March 6, 2015 by pwpadmin

sunshine on rocky hill — The sun has finally found Rocky Hill

Grocery Life March 6, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week! We seem to have dodged a bullet, weather wise, yesterday. For those of us that went to work yesterday, the weather held off just enough to make everything go smoothly. For those of you that got stuck with your kids another day, it probably wasn’t as smooth. I think at this point, our kids would rather go to school. Hopefully they will go for a full week next week because the following week they are out again for spring break. I hope they still remember how to read after all this time off.

This week at the store, we have been in computer update hell. Every so often we have to do software updates on our computer systems and it never fails that we have to buy some new hardware to make all this happen. It also never fails that something goes wrong when we do this.

The computer “experts” come in after closing to do the changes and of course we never know that it is screwed up until we open for business the next day and start ringing up customers. By that time the “experts” are gone and we are left with the problems. This week the registers just kept shutting down randomly but it always seemed to happen at our busiest times. The “expert” came in again after closing last night to fix them again and so far so good today. Nothing makes me happier than spending several thousand dollars to make something better and it ends up worse. Once again, the price of progress is never cheap or easy.

I just remembered while I was writing this that I promised the employees a steak dinner for lunch today. I walked back to ask Ashley if he thought anyone remembered me putting that in the blog last week. Turns out, I was the only one that had forgotten about it. So steaks it is, along with our twice baked potatoes and a salad.

Even Colleen Cruze, from Cruze Farms, got a steak dinner. If we all look a little sluggish this afternoon, you will know why.

The time changes this weekend and the weather is going to start warming up. Spring is finally upon us!

Thanks for weathering the storms with us, now let’s get down to business.

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life February 27, 2015

Posted on February 27, 2015 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life February 27, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. Hopefully the fun of the last two weeks is going to end until next year. March is just around the corner and maybe warmer temperatures will accompany the new month! Maybe my kids will go to school in March? I don’t think Erica will ever complain again about getting up early to take them to school after having them at home the last two weeks.

I haven’t written since before Valentine’s Day, which seems like three months ago even though it has only been two weeks. It has been kind of crazy and nerve racking at the store with all the storms so I haven’t been in the right spirit to share my nonsense. I also went on a short fishing trip with a friend last weekend. We had planned it for February because usually business is slow for both of us. After spending most of Friday morning shoveling a path in my neighborhood to get the boat out, we were on our way. The fishing wasn’t that good, but we did go far enough south to find some warmer weather and fresh oysters on the half shell. I just left my boat down there, which is a good thing since we would have had to shovel the neighborhood again to get it back home. I will go back in March to get it.

Even though the store is a lot harder to operate under the conditions of the last two weeks, business has been great, which more than makes up for it. We happen to be in a business where bad weather helps. I know that is not the case for most businesses so I am grateful! I am also grateful for the employees that have made such an effort to get to work when it would have been a lot easier to stay home. Some drove, some caught rides with other employees, some we have gone and picked up, some have walked, and some have done a combination of all of the above. When it comes to getting to work, we have a lot of resourceful people.

During the warm months, I usually buy the employees lunch every Friday. We usually grill burgers or chicken out back. Maybe next Friday we will cook steaks and have our famous twice baked potatoes in recognition of all their hard work over the last few weeks. I imagine the employees that didn’t miss any work will see to it that the ones that did miss work will get hot dogs.

I don’t punish the employees for not showing up under these conditions. Probably because I know their fellow employees will give them such a hard time for the next few weeks, that will be punishment enough.

The best I can tell, most of the businesses in the shopping center stayed open during all of the weather “events” so I guess I am not the only one with dedicated employees. The other businesses I have talked to have told me they have been really slow over the last couple of weeks, but they are still showing up in case you need them. I bet the restaurants in the center will have really good business now because people will be tired of being stuck at home cooking. Our business will probably slow for the same reasons.

I have gotten in the habit of ordering sushi from Ichiban Asian Cafe to take home on the nights I close the store. They are the new restaurant just up the sidewalk. I don’t know if sushi is on my diet because besides the rice I don’t really know what is in it. I do know everyone that works their looks skinny so it must be okay for a diet. Eric and his staff have been good neighbors to us so I hope you will give them your support.

It also looks like Charles over at Sullivan’s is doing some remodeling on his restaurant. We have been cutting steaks for his restaurants for several years now. It has been a win win for both of us. We get a lot of business from him, and he says he has quit having to worry about the quality and consistency of the steaks he is serving. I often go there for lunch meetings and always get a good meal.

I am sure both Eric and Charles will be glad when the weather gets good enough for people to start eating out again.

I am looking forward to getting back to normal here and I am sure you are hoping for the same in your lives. We are hoping for a great year, maybe we will now get some time to sit down and figure out how to accomplish this…and maybe I will have more time to sit down and write my nonsense?

Thanks again for your business!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life February 12, 2015

Posted on February 12, 2015 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life February 12, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week! Business has been good this week and this weekend should be busy because Valentine’s Day is Saturday.

We have been gearing up all week for Valentine’s in all of our departments. In the produce department the big item is strawberries. They just happen to be on sale this week and next so we have been receiving them by the pallet load. Supplies and quality have been very good, which is a big relief to us on such a big week. We did have some strawberries on the vine also but they didn’t ship today and we ran out of what we had this morning. This isn’t a big item but people like them for Valentines so they can dip them in chocolate. I would rather have strawberries without the stem to dip so I can lick the chocolate off my fingers after every strawberry. I learned to do that from my kids. The produce department also has a variety of melting chocolates in case you want to dip your own….and lick your fingers.

We have gotten in a nice selection of flowers for the occasion. The biggest items in that department are roses and tulips. Typically red roses are the most popular color but last year colored roses outsold the red. People’s habits change from year to year so it’s always a guessing game for us. The one thing that doesn’t change in the floral department from year to year is the price of roses. They always double in price the week of valentines. I think most people think retailers are price gouging when this happens. What happens in our situation is our cost more than doubles the week of Valentine’s. We end up having to charge twice as much but can’t make near the margins we do most every other week of the year. The same thing happens on Mother’s Day. Even though I have told you how expensive flowers are, I would still like you to come here to buy yours.

The deli/bakery department will have a lot of goodies to choose from for valentines. They have been decorating cookie cakes, cupcakes and regular cakes for the occasion. They also have a good assortment of cookies and I would bet they will come up with a few extra special desserts before the week is over. Another thing they are doing back there is dipping and decorating strawberries so you may want to save yourself some time and mess and pick up a package (they aren’t allowed to lick their fingers).

Last but not least, the meat department will have their usual assortment of great steaks and chops for Valentines. The most popular cut
this week will be bacon wrapped fillet mignon. Another suggestion would be the Prime grade New York Strip. That is my favorite cut and they just happen to be on sale this week. Funny how my favorite things seem to be on sale a lot? I have already heard customers asking the guys back there to pick them out a special steak and they will be glad to do that for you. Ashley also told me he is cooking some whole beef tenderloins using our favorite recipe. He will have it for sale sliced and ready to go or if you want a whole one, give him a call to order one. To complement your steak or chop you may want to pick up some Lobster tails. They are on sale this week also. Erica and I have not had a steak in six weeks so I may just fix that for us Saturday. I will get the strip and she will want the fillet. I guess you can cheat on a diet for Valentine’s.

Well today broke a big streak at our house. Tyson, my eight year old, missed his first day of school ever. He has been in some kind of school since he was probably two or three years old and had never missed a day up until now. The stomach bug finally took him down.

Erica called me yesterday to tell me he had thrown up but was feeling better. By the time I got home he was throwing up on about every fourth breath. I think it was almost as painful for us to watch the little fellow going through that as at was for him. He obviously is never sick so we all were out of sorts. Erica stayed with him in his room last night and told me it continued for most of the night. I felt a little bad about going to bed and leaving her to stay up with Tyson but not bad enough not to do it. At the end of the day, even though Tyson wants to spend every waking minute with me, when he or Lauren is sick they want their mommy to be with them. Dad’s good for some things but when they don’t feel good mom is the only one that can help them. I get that because I was the same way, maybe still am. There is something about mommas and their babies that a dad will never understand.

I was in charge of taking Lauren to school this morning and I came on to work. I will have to leave early to go get her and maybe we will just come back to the store and she can help me with the flowers. I bet Erica has gone into decontamination mode at home.

I would say by the time I get home, the carpets and draperies will be steam cleaned, all of the linens and clothes in the house will be washed, and most of the furniture will be reupholstered. There will also probably be a strong bleach odor and maybe even some yellow caution tape around the areas Tyson has been.

Part two of a mother with a sick child is preventing anyone else in the household from getting sick, mainly the other child. I am sure five seconds after Tyson threw up the first time; Erica started developing a plan for keeping the rest of us healthy. Moms think that way, dads think of where they can go in the house to get away from the chaos.

I also imagine she will have some rules for Lauren and I when we get home like don’t breathe when you are in the same room with Tyson, no going barefoot, and all food and drink must be boiled before consumed. And I am sure that if Lauren and I decide to dip strawberries in chocolate, we won’t be allowed to lick our fingers.

Have a great Valentines and stay healthy!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life February 5, 2014

Posted on February 5, 2015 by pwpadmin

1 Comment

Grocery Life February 5, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope you are having a good start to your week. Things are getting back to normal here after a big super bowl weekend.

We sold a lot of food over the weekend so there must have been a lot of super bowl parties. I went to a super bowl party myself. The ironic thing about a super bowl party is you wouldn’t go to one if you were actually interested in watching the game. It seems the only time people are interested in watching the television is during the commercials and the halftime show. Once the game starts back up everyone starts talking and eating again.

We have been going to the same party for several years. It took me a while to adjust to not watching the super bowl at a super bowl party. After all, it’s just the biggest game of the season, and food and fellowship are more important?

We typically leave after the halftime show, which we did for this one, so I did watch the end of the game once we got home. What an ending to the game! I can kind of sympathize with the Seattle coach. I am sometimes guilty of over thinking things when I am in a pressure situation and end up outsmarting myself. I think that’s what happened to Seattle.

Well, I have gone about five weeks now without fried foods or red meat which, for me, is about like taking away the air I breathe.I can always think of a way to screw up my perfectly happy life.

Although Erica has always been a “perfect 10” to me, she has agreed to be on the same diet as I am. So we are on a steady diet of fish and chicken, as well as other seafood, plus a lot of green vegetables, always baked, sautéed, or grilled.

I think the genesis of this decision was when I broke my arm in September. For several weeks all I could really do is sit around which lowered my morale. This caused me to turn to my favorite comfort foods. So between lack of exercise and poor eating habits I put on a little weight. I don’t know if it is my age or what I ate, but apparently every pound I gained settled in the same spot which is where I button my pants every morning. When I got down to the last three or four pairs that still fit, I decided it was time for a lifestyle change.

The other reason is my eight year old son. He is on a kick now about having six-pack abs. I think he got on the kick because he is an early riser. He usually gets up about an hour earlier than the rest of us and I think at that hour of the morning, when he turns on the television, all that is on is infomercials. Many of these are about attaining six-pack abs. He often tells me for three easy payments we can get them. Well, we are not buying what they are selling, but we are in a little competition to attain them. I’m tired of him asking me why I don’t have them. After weeks of low fat and low sugar in my diet, plus exercising five or six days a week, a few more pairs of my pants now fit, but still no abs are showing up.

When you really limit your diet, you are always looking for ways to prepare the same foods a different way. On the recommendation of one of our friends we bought a new cookbook called “Raising The Salad Bar.” It has a lot of recipes we have enjoyed preparing and eating. The author has some creative ideas on how to prepare salads as well as meats to go with them, in a health conscious way. If you are looking for new ways to prepare the same old foods you may want to check it out.

Even though Erica and I have decided to remove fried foods and fatty meats from our diets for health reasons, in yet another case of bad parenting, we continue to feed the kids fried food and steak. Now when we have okra, I fry theirs and we roast ours. When we have seafood, they have steak, etc. etc.

One might wonder why we continue to feed our kids food we have deemed unhealthy, and I will tell you that it’s my grandmother’s fault.
When I was growing up, I got to visit my grandparents quite often. It was always a treat to me, my brother, and two cousins. My grandmother was really frugal which made her really crafty. Since she would never throw anything away, she would repurpose what most people would consider trash into supplies for crafts. So whenever I went to visit, I knew she would have some fun crafts for us to work on.

I remember making figures of people by folding the pages of old Readers Digest magazines a certain way. She would take old metalcans, cut and bend them a certain way and end up with a replica of a rose. We would also take apples that had gone bad, peel them, set them out to dry and then form them into the head of a person. We would then find sticks and such to make their bodies and she would take some cloth and sew clothes for them. She also taught all of the grandkids to knit and needle point. She also quilted which I never learned to do, but I do have two quilts she made using all of my grandfathers old neck ties.

Every time I went to visit, I couldn’t wait to see what trash she had been saving for us to make crafts out of.

I spent most of my visits to my grandparents with my grandmother, but my grandfather did come home most every day from work to eat lunch. I think he did this because he was on a very strict diet. He had already survived two heart attacks by the time I was born so he had to be really careful about what he ate. My grandmother was in charge of preparing most all of his meals for his diet.

I think one thing she always fixed was a pot of greens. I can still remember how they smelled up the whole house when she cooked them. Another thing she usually fixed for him was chicken. Because of his diet, she would always pull all the skin off the chicken before she cooked it since it was full of fat and was bad for him. Well, she was not about to throw away perfectly good chicken skin so she would pull out the old black iron skillet, fill it with oil and fry the chicken skin for the grandkids. It was worth the visit just to get some fried chicken skin.

That is probably where I acquired my taste for fried foods because I have loved them ever since. I also learned her trick for frying foods. It was all about getting the grease hot enough. The way she did this was by putting a wooden match in the oil while it was heating up. When the match lit that meant the oil was ready. I remember getting as close as I could to that hot oil, watching that match float around, just waiting for it to ignite. When all four of the grandkids were there, we would all drop a match in the oil and crowd around the stove waiting for them to light. It’s a wonder we didn’t set ourselves or the house on fire.

At the time, I never thought it was strange that my grandmother cooked foods for us that doctors had determined to be so unhealthy for my grandfather. I am not sure she ever saw the irony in this either. Maybe she did but decided what is bad for adults is okay for children? As I look back on it, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

I don’t test my oil by putting a match in it anymore and I don’t let the kids near the stove when I am cooking, but when I fry foods for them, I laugh to myself because it still doesn’t make sense to do it but I guess since my grandmother did it for me, that makes it okay.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life January 30, 2015

Posted on January 30, 2015 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life January 30, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week! We have been busy this week at the store. We had a little snow scare earlier this week and now we are bearing down on the Super Bowl which always helps business.

We will have a lot of party items prepared for the weekend and your super bowl parties. The smokers have been going non-stop since Thursday so we will have smoked bologna, chicken wings, baby back ribs, pork tenderloin and pulled pork for this weekend’s festivities. We will also have our homemade guacamole and all kinds of chips and salsas.

Our fried chicken continues to be a popular item and now we are also grilling chicken tenders which have been a big hit. Those items might be good for the game also. Prepared foods is the fastest growing category in the store so we keep adding more new items to the menu.

We have a lot of people here that love to cook and create and you get the benefit of that. Our folks here take a lot of pride in preparing foods that our customers enjoy and I take a lot of pride in knowing that they do. I just have to make sure we can make a little money doing it. It is a little trickier figuring out cost when you prepare meals compared to just opening a box and putting it on a shelf.

Mr. Bailey used to always say “Tom we are here to make friends and the profits will follow,” when we were starting out and trying to build the business. I think it was his way of trying to stay positive in those lean years starting out. I can tell you that that is not a full-proof theory but it has worked for the most part.

I have continued to use that antidote with the employees to this day and it still works pretty well but it does backfire on me occasionally. Sometimes we will prepare a new dish and I will run the numbers on it and figure that there is no way we can make money on it so I tell them to quit making it. They will then look at me and say “but just think of all the friends we will make!” Or if we have already sold a bunch of whatever it was, they will say “so I guess we made a lot of friends on that?” Maybe I will try to think of a new saying that is more profitable?

Well we have made a lot of good friends over the last twenty-five years and we have also managed to make a little money but we have also suffered the loss of too many friends along the way. It seems we are in a season of loss as I write this.

I can’t remember a time when so many of our customers have passed away or have suffered through the loss of a family member. I don’t know why but for some reason they always seem to come in bunches. Many of us are reeling from the loss of a good man last week. He was a dad and a husband and he was also our friend.

He wasn’t my friend in the sense that we had dinner or golfed together outside of work but I did see him in the store most every day. It turns out we both enjoyed golf and fishing so we had some things in common that we enjoyed talking to each other about on a daily basis which made him a friend in my book.

Due to he and I being similar in age and the suddenness of his death, this one hit me harder than most. May he rest in peace and may those closest to him find comfort and peace as well. He will be missed!

I had already decided that I wasn’t going to write a blog this week. I have to be in a good spirit to sit down and write and I knew that wasn’t going to happen this week.

Well I was here at work last night and a customer (friend) stopped to talk to me. She suffered the loss of a family member around Thanksgiving and then lost another family member right before Christmas. She typically has a cheerful, bubbly personality and a bright smile to go with it. For obvious reasons, she has not been her cheerful smiling self the last couple of months when she has been in to shop. When she came over to speak to me last night I immediately noticed that bright, cheerful smile of hers. I told her I didn’t have to ask how she was doing; I could tell by her smile that things were getting better. She doesn’t know this but it really brightened my outlook after seeing her smiling face. I guess seeing her reminded me that time is a great healer and eventually we all get our “smiles” back.

Well, as you can tell, I got back to writing this morning thanks to one of those “friends” that Mr. Bailey told me we needed to work so hard to make. The more I think about his old saying the more I think he wasn’t talking about the “monetary” rewards that would follow. I think he was teaching me the real reward is in the friendships themselves, both from those still with us and from having known those that have left us sooner than we wanted.

I guess I will continue to use Mr. Bailey’s old saying with the employees. I am not sure it is going to change the profits of the store but I know its meaning will be a lot more “profitable” to me.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life January 23, 2015

Posted on January 23, 2015 by pwpadmin

kale buds saute — Kale Buds from EcoRich Farms sauteed with garlic, butter and lemon juice

Grocery Life January 23, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. We have gone from beautiful, warm weather, back to clouds and cold. I think they are even talking about a chance of snow over the next few days.

It has been kind of quiet around the store this week. I guess that will all change if we do indeed get snow but I’m not counting on that. Actually, the perfect scenario for us is a strong prediction of snow and then nothing happening. All our business comes on the rumor so it never really needs to snow for us to have big business, people just need to think it’s going to snow.

I love the snow and my kids would really like to have some snow but when it snows, it is a pain to try to operate the business. The staff can’t get to work, deliveries are off schedule, and customers can’t get here to shop. I can’t control it either way so I don’t worry about it a whole lot.

Believe it or not, I have fried okra at home twice over the last week. We have found a supplier that has been shipping us some beautiful okra. It is actually grown in Argentina, but the quality has been almost as good as our okra in the summer. We all love fried okra at the house so now maybe we can have it year round.

We are also getting some different varieties of kale in our produce department. Some is coming in as bagged salads but we also now have kale buds and kale sprouts. We tried the kale buds the other night. I just sautéed them with garlic and butter and when they started to tenderize I added a little lemon juice. I would have also added I little white wine but we didn’t have any. They ended up having a very similar taste to Brussels sprouts, just with a different texture. I have not tried the kale sprouts yet but Ms. Tenney mixed them with scrambled eggs during her cooking segment on the news this week so there’s an idea..

mirco kale — Micro Kale Sprouts from EcoRich Farms

In our deli department, we are carrying some new things from Tomato Head restaurant. We have always carried their hummus and we have now added two flavors of their pesto, regular, and spinach & sundried tomato. We also have their tahini dressing. These are local products, with all natural ingredients so you may want to give them a try.

Another thing we are using at home now is Applegate Naturals turkey bacon. If you are looking for a healthy alternative to regular bacon, you may want to try it. To me, most turkey bacon is not worth carrying home but everyone at our house likes this brand.

We carry a full line of Applegate products in our meat department, from three types of bacon to lunch meats and cheeses. They are all gluten and nitrate free.

Well I am going to do something this weekend that I have never done before. I am going to a NBA basketball game.

A family on Tyson’s basketball team bought a game package for the Atlanta Hawks at a charity auction and they invited Tyson’s whole team to go to the game. Our family, as well as most of the other families on the team, is driving down this afternoon to watch the game tonight. My kids are really excited. I haven’t really followed the NBA since Dr. J retired so maybe seeing a game will revive my interest.

I told Erica I wanted to leave a little early so we could stop by the new Cabela’s store that opened up down there. I’m pretty excited about that.

Last weekend, I also did something I had never done before. I went on a double date to an indoor gun range. My friend’s birthday was last weekend and every year he and his wife and Erica and I go out for it. He gets to pick where we go since it’s his birthday. He decided he wanted to do the gun range and a nice Asian dinner. There is nothing like dressing up to go to the gun range and dinner on a Saturday night.

We went to Gunny’s in Maryville to shoot and then went to Lemongrass to eat dinner. I’m sure our server at Lemongrass was wondering why we smelled like gun powder and couldn’t hear what he was saying.

As my British friends would say,” It was a lovely evening out with friends.” I wonder what he will come up with next year.

As a side note, if you do go to Gunny’s to shoot guns there is a Cuban restaurant just down the street called Cafe Aroma that has the best Cuban sandwich I have ever eaten, if you like Cuban food.

Well two exciting weekends in a row! I don’t know what I will do next weekend to keep my streak alive of doing things I have never done before. Hmm…. I’ve never been to a Super Bowl.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919