Things that really hurt as an innkeeper

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JBloggs

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When you serve a full table of guests a delicious home-cooked totally fresh and hot breakfast, and part of that breakfast plate was the biggest reddest ripest locally-grown tomato, sliced and all lacy with segments of the tomato showing…and not one person even TRIES IT.
It kills me, it really does. Please localvores, go out of your way to shop locally - your gas, your valuable time, and have no one eat it. It was, and I state, a BEAUTIFUL TOMATO! I had it's brother on a BLT this week, it was the creme de la creme of tomatoes.
 
I go to our Farmers Market every Wednesday morning. I try to buy something from each vendor there. The apple lady has lost me though. She gave me yucky looking apples 2 weeks in a row now. They look so bad, I do not even want DH to eat them - very, very spotted not rotten. Later in the season, the apples will be better looking. I got nice ones at the produce store that are WV grown (the nice thing is they are also cheaper). They have to be grown in-state to quality for the vouchers DHHR gives to be used to pay for them.
 
Whenever we have something totally local, like a huge, ripe tomato or strawberries or blueberries and OUR maple syrup, I tell guests. Right out, 'That is a local, heirloom tomato.' 'That syrup came from those trees right outside.'
Otherwise, yes, guests do not eat decorative tomatoes. Absolutely do not. And here's why...they buy industrial tomatoes with no flavor and assume what we serve will be the same. I am dying to cut into the huge heirloom tomatoes I got yesterday. Just wiating for lunch time. Toms & cukes. Yum-o!
 
Lord forbid I bring out the scuppernongs. (I will save those for us and us alone)
 
We have a lot of blueberry farms in the area. The season only lasts from June to July, but we get enough to last all year and freeze them. I always make it a point to tell our guests that the blueberries are local, the honey is local etc. Somehow, it just makes it taste better or they get the idea that they are having a unique experience.
Your food and its presentation are part of the overall ambiance of your B&B. "Local" just makes it that much more special in the eyes and experience of the guest.
 
Who said I am not talking to the guests?
Oh ye of little faith, that is what I do. Remember me, the one who adds "our B&B name" onto many a dish to make it more innviting and appealing.
wink_smile.gif

What I long to do is make up a fictious name and call it "Bootleg possum holler pie" or something and see what they do! Or better yet, serve em all possum! or should that be....road kill cafe breakfast?
 
Sorry to say, but to some folks, tomatoes are not breakfast food. Maybe that is why they left them. THinking they were just for garnish. :-( A friend keeps giving us tomatoes and they are so tart it rips the skin off of your mouth. Now we just toss out. We can't eat that much.
 
Who said I am not talking to the guests?
Oh ye of little faith, that is what I do. Remember me, the one who adds "our B&B name" onto many a dish to make it more innviting and appealing.
wink_smile.gif

What I long to do is make up a fictious name and call it "Bootleg possum holler pie" or something and see what they do! Or better yet, serve em all possum! or should that be....road kill cafe breakfast?.
I know. I really do know. Just that it seems to work here. If someone questions the tomatoes in Feb, I explain there is a local biz that produces tomatoes year round in greenhouses. (No, they do not taste like summer toms, but better than industrial toms.)
 
Sorry to say, but to some folks, tomatoes are not breakfast food. Maybe that is why they left them. THinking they were just for garnish. :-( A friend keeps giving us tomatoes and they are so tart it rips the skin off of your mouth. Now we just toss out. We can't eat that much..
Two words: tomato sauce.
I wish I could get enough toms and have enough time!
 
we always try and buy local - had this weird guy who kept asking where everything was from then said gosh "yorkshire must be a bountiful place overflowing with ham and honey etc" no we try and support our local businesses and save the environment plus it is fresher and nicer. why would you want it the same as where you come from?
 
The lady that left this morning took a quart of WV syrup and a pint of local honey and a John Panek original watercolor painting home with her. KA-CHING!!!!! She said she had to buy one now so she would have one when he became famous. She only buys made in USA.
 
The lady that left this morning took a quart of WV syrup and a pint of local honey and a John Panek original watercolor painting home with her. KA-CHING!!!!! She said she had to buy one now so she would have one when he became famous. She only buys made in USA..
gillumhouse said:
She only buys made in USA.
I didn't know my mom was visiting you today ;)
 
The lady that left this morning took a quart of WV syrup and a pint of local honey and a John Panek original watercolor painting home with her. KA-CHING!!!!! She said she had to buy one now so she would have one when he became famous. She only buys made in USA..
gillumhouse said:
She only buys made in USA.
I didn't know my mom was visiting you today ;)
.
She will buy Canada or England but hates China. Good philosophy unless you need shoes, a TV, and more things than I care to think about.
 
The lady that left this morning took a quart of WV syrup and a pint of local honey and a John Panek original watercolor painting home with her. KA-CHING!!!!! She said she had to buy one now so she would have one when he became famous. She only buys made in USA..
gillumhouse said:
She only buys made in USA.
I didn't know my mom was visiting you today ;)
.
She will buy Canada or England but hates China. Good philosophy unless you need shoes, a TV, and more things than I care to think about.
.
New Balance shoes made in Maine. Bass Weejuns made in Maine. Can't help with the TV.
 
I think for some folks tomatoes are not considered a breakfast food.
Put then there are the people that have to have their catsup with their eggs. Go figure..... lol!
Sorry that happened, if I was there that tomato would have been history!
 
The tomatoes are fabulous this year! I had a fried tomato on a salad recently. To die for!!! If anyone has a good fried tomato recipe please share. I haven't been able to find one online that comes close to the one the restaurant served. Oh, and it wasn't a fried green tomato, but a regular ripe, red tomato.
 
The tomatoes are fabulous this year! I had a fried tomato on a salad recently. To die for!!! If anyone has a good fried tomato recipe please share. I haven't been able to find one online that comes close to the one the restaurant served. Oh, and it wasn't a fried green tomato, but a regular ripe, red tomato..
I just got mozzarella and basil to make insalata caprese. (At least I hope he bought mozzarella. In his notebook it said 'mozz balls' which could have been translated as 'moth balls' once he got to the store!)
 
The tomatoes are fabulous this year! I had a fried tomato on a salad recently. To die for!!! If anyone has a good fried tomato recipe please share. I haven't been able to find one online that comes close to the one the restaurant served. Oh, and it wasn't a fried green tomato, but a regular ripe, red tomato..
I just got mozzarella and basil to make insalata caprese. (At least I hope he bought mozzarella. In his notebook it said 'mozz balls' which could have been translated as 'moth balls' once he got to the store!)
.
Ike, that's one of my favorite salads...especially in the months when I have my own fresh basil. I have been on a kick of Mediterranean salads all Summer....
 
I agree with Ike - when guests are accustomed to mass produced, mass marketed down-flavored items.
It's a catch-22 though. Some guests, if I talk up an ingredient, won't touch it because they "don't like" it...when they may have never had a chance to experience what it's supposed to taste like. Had a lady last week ask if I still had any of the zucchini dish they'd been offered the previous day (and pointedly ignored). I guess the rest of my cooking had earned a little trust. Since it was something served cold anyway, I brought her a slice from the fridge. She was ecstatic...and told me I should never have told her husband it contained any form of squash...he would have loved it. You win, you lose.
I will continue to tout locally raised produce (which has been sparse with the drought this year). If some guests miss out...maybe they'll notice the others scarfing it down.
PT - I think it's great you were able to stock enough blueberries this year. I couldn't justify the gas to drive that far east, counting on the blackberries we (normally) get locally. The only place I could find that had any had the scrawniest, saddest looking canes and the berries were scarce. Most places had absolutely nothing. I loaded up on peaches from one orchard - they're all put up as pie filling and in syrup. Hopefully, next year will be a better season.
 
You do find yourself watching what people eat. I found a beautiful spinach chicken sausage, that is perfect for breakfast. When I slice it and put it on the plate by itself, half of my guests do not touch it. I can take the same sausage, cut it into three pieces and place it on a piece of canadian bacon, and everyone eats it. It's not the food, it's what the guests percieve.
 
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