COVID 19 Chapter 1 A great business neighbour Root Cellar · Tuesday March 17, 2020 by colin newell
This letter was sent out by Root Cellar Market within the last few days – it’s brilliant – it deserves a full read.
So these are interesting times, and before I forget, we have adjusted our business hours and will be closing at 7pm effective immediately.
Also…your specials are at the end!
As I knelt on the floor of my store today, marking off the recommended ‘social distancing’ boundaries for our till line up, trying to infuse a bit of lightness into our customer’s day by writing friendly reminders on the floor… I had one of those ‘is this real?’ moments. Am I really kneeling on the cement floor as customers walk around me, asking people to respect personal space for the safety of others. I never thought I would write #personalspaceisthebestspace in relation to the running of my grocery store… but here we are, all of us, in this together.
Before I lose you with my long winded message, I’d like to speak to ‘panic buying’. Please STOP. We aren’t seeing it here, and for that we are grateful. This causes unnecessary stress on the supply chain, on staff in stores, and renders others without. I want to assure you that we do not have supply chain concerns, we will be here for you, with food on our shelves. You will however, notice a few compromises being made in our store due to lightened staff levels, we ask for your understanding as we prioritize everyone’s health and safety by having fewer staff on shift at any given time, (for example, we will not have baggers on our tills, and you will see a few less options here and there in order to accommodate our increased sanitation procedures).
There’s no course for this in business school (I didn’t go). But should there be? Probably not… what there should be is a course on trusting your instincts, in engaging with your team & your customers to ensure that their needs are met and their fears are abated. This is what we are focused on right now. On ensuring that we are doing ALL that we can within our resources to represent our space as local entrepreneurs, as grocers, as friends, family and parents with the utmost integrity.
We assure you from the bottom of our hearts that your health & safety is of our utmost priority. We are grateful that as a small business we can respond with immediacy to our rapidly changing circumstances. Today for example, following the provincial news briefing, we immediately removed all customer seating from our store. Thanks for coming, but please move along, for the health and safety of all.
Our current circumstances and recent call for all to ‘social distance’, will deliver quite a blow to our island economy, first to the small businesses that define our culture here in Victoria. As a member of the small business community we feel that it’s our obligation to urge you to make mindful decisions when choosing where you spend your dollars.
We can only speak for our own store, where our customers thus far have impressed us beyond belief with their overwhelming support, and their rational shopping habits, allowing us to manage the slight increase in sales volume without making huge compromises.
Think also of your grocery list as you write it, we are a small business, so is Fatso Peanut Butter, so is Golda’s Pesto and Saltspring Jam, not to mention the farmers growing this season’s local produce, about to be abundant. These companies need sales, need healthy staff, and need our support to stay afloat. We cannot IMAGINE a world without these products (among so many others) in it but the fact of the matter is that when life resumes normalcy, many of our favourite places to shop & eat, and our favourite products to buy may not exist when that time comes.
We urge you as always to vote with your fork and with your dollars. Our community of small businesses, growers, makers, bakers and shakers needs us right now. Mindfulness is contagious.
We all need to eat, and though many of you have gone out of your way to stock your pantries, the need for food, particularly fresh food will be ongoing. Many cannot afford to stockpile, others prefer not to, a lot will just want a reason to leave the house.
Please be aware that our staff have been trained to be mindful of social distancing when going about their daily tasks. You are less likely to be approached while shopping; please know that we want to chat with you and lend a hand, but as a result of our efforts we may appear less friendly than usual, we assure we are not!
We are currently open 8am-7pm, 7 days a week. Our busiest hours of operation are from 11am-5pm, with our highest customer counts from 2-5pm. Avoid these shopping times if you can.
We are strongly suggesting that the first hour of the day 8-9am is the ideal time for the elderly or vulnerable to do their shopping (if they don’t have someone to do it for them). Our customer volume is low, our staff levels are high and our store will have been freshly sanitized. We will not turn you away but If you are a low risk individual we suggest that you honour this window of time if you are able, out of respect for those in our community that are comforted by this accommodation.
Shop alone, not as a couple or a family if you are able. The fewer bodies in our store at any given time, the lower everyone’s rate of exposure.
Make your shops larger and less frequent. If you have always been a 3x/week shopper, consider becoming a once a week shopper. Just plan ahead.
Shop for your friends, family & neighbours, (particularly the vulnerable) take turns running errands for each other, again, the less bodies in circulation in the community the greater impact we are having on flattening the curve.
Use a shopping buggy instead of a basket, ‘social distancing’ isn’t human nature. The nature of a shopping cart’s size will ensure distance between you and other shoppers & staff.
Clean your hands before and after leaving the store, be mindful that coming in with clean hands reduces risk for all staff and customers sharing the space. We have a well equipped customer bathroom available, and a limited supply of sanitizing stations.
Amongst the constantly changing social climate, we want to take a moment to remind you that we are still running our Island Food Caring Campaign. While this may feel like a nuisance, we urge you to consider the vulnerable, the hidden hungry in our community during this unsettling time. Imagine, if on top of the instability we are all experiencing, you also didn’t know where your next meal was coming from. Everyone’s food sustainability commitments are being tested right now, we stand firmly planted behind ours, and pledge to DOUBLE ALL CUSTOMER DONATIONS to Island Food Caring made between now and March 22nd at our tills. Those in need, need us more than ever. I am a huge fan of the beautiful words below … we need to BE THE HELPERS right now.
Commercial Drive Vancouver - Life in the coffee time-tunnel · Saturday February 1, 2020 by colin newell
My take on Here comes the Sun…” Colin and Sean McCool on Guitar and Vocals
Here-Comes-The-Sun-V14.mp3Way back in 2008, I popped into Cafe Roma on Commercial Drive in Vancouver – a cafe that has a lot of history for this part of Vancouver and for me, some fond childhood memories!
One sunny mid-week Spring day, Dave, a contributor to the CoffeeCrew.com website, and I sampled the espressos and cappuccinos and tasted some delightful locally baked treats.
It reminded me of a unusually hot June of 1968, some 40 years earlier, as I walked down East 6th Avenue, Vancouver, towards Commercial Drive.
This was the first trip off of Vancouver Island and what started as a day trip turned into an overnight adventure as mom decided to hook up with some cousins in the big city.
Mom, who grew up in a multicultural enclave in Montreal, Quebec, had brought me over to Vancouver for the weekend to visit the Pacific National Exhibition and to see a big city for the first time. And what a cultural shock it was for a 11 year old to see something so different than sleepy small town Victoria.
Mom’s cousins lived on East 6th Avenue around 3 blocks from Commercial Drive – a big old character house the likes of which I had never seen before. The original block of houses remain in Vancouver to this day and walking the tree lined sidewalks in 2018 is like a memory drenched trip through a time tunnel.
On a Saturday morning in June 1968 I started the day with my young cousin Dennis by heading out for an exploration.
Only in the late 60’s would it seem perfectly normal for a couple of 11 year olds to head out into the urban jungle for a look see.
Turning onto Commercial Drive on this sunny Saturday late morning, Dennis and I walked down wide sidewalks past Italian delis, corner grocers and bustling cafes.
The street was full of life. Everything seemed brighter, louder, busier and decidedly more fragrant. For a naive kid from small town Victoria, I might as well have been on another planet.
The aroma of strong coffee, cured ham and fresh fruit drifted over the concrete beneath my feet. I stopped for a moment in front of a busy cafe. It seemed to be packed with men, young and old, entangled in a circle of loud conversation and broad hand gestures. They spoke Italian, a language my Montreal raised mother used with me when she was displeased.
A young couple caught my eye. They seemed disconnected from this humming umbilical of community.
A girl, likely in her twenties, wore a canary yellow sun-dress and her male friend, donned a wool suit. The suit seems softened by a few years worth of wear and somewhat sticky considering that it was a hotter than usual summer. Between his sips of strong looking coffee from an impossibly small cup and her demurely drawing from something that looked like a milkshake, they talked in a musical banter – words only they appeared to understand.
Dennis grabbed my shoulder and pulled me along. I looked back at the couple nodding and laughing. The girls hair moved up and down held in place by a daisy-yellow hair broach. Walking again, Dennis steered me into a green grocers hardly a door away from the cafe. With 90 cents in my pocket, a lot of money in 1968, I bought a chocolate bar, some pixie-sticks (fizzy candy in a paper tube) and a cola.
We exited the store and turned left towards the cafe again.
Caffe Roma is now buzzing louder as we strode towards my cousin’s avenue. The table where the young couple sat was now empty save for a cup and a glass. I spot them exiting onto the boulevard, hand in hand, her dress burning a permanent image into my mind, the itchy smell of his suit offering contrast. They vanished into a pulsating hive of urban humanity – a Saturday morning blend of shoppers, smokers, the odd smattering of fashionably clad hipsters and one wide-eyed child – me.
I look in the cafe window again flashing forward to the present. I stand outside of Caffe Roma on Commercial Drive and time has stood still just for me. The reflection in the window looks alternately young and slightly older.
Clouds pass by offering a broad selection of flattering light. CoffeeCrew contributing member Dave watches me for a moment before holding the door.
“Colin, let’s get some coffee…” he says.
The smells and sounds of the the Cafe and the street envelope me like an old gloved hand. For a moment I hold in my palm the paper tubes of fizzy candy and a half-eaten chocolate bar. Dave asks again, “What are you going to have, Colin?”
I order my usual when I am in a cafe for the first time – double espresso and a snack. In this case, they have very tasty looking apple turnovers. I get one.
The intensity of the Italian coffee and the tangy sweetness of the pastry are the perfect match. As I sip the beverage and feel the caffeine perking within me, I can almost hear the whispered conversations of the young lovers from so long ago at a nearby table. Where are they now? Have the years been kind? Most likely, their grandchildren are half-grown up, much as I was in 1968. I think about my marriage, now almost 2 decades in length, and how in places like these, time just stands still.
In the final moments before we leave for our next stop on the drive, the owner pops by to gather up our spent cups. I tell him the coffee is fabulous. His expression is priceless and without words – a combination of ‘of course it is son…’ and ‘I have a cafe to run today…’
As we step onto the still vibrant sidewalk of Commercial Drive, two ten year old boys approach on skate boards. One sails past me like a low flying seagull.
The other swishes to a stop and is immediately hypnotized by the activity in the cafe, the noise, the smells, the starling chatter of the old men.
The cycle continues season by season, year by year through the generations. We are thankful for our memories and the time we have ahead of us. Thanks for the memories Vancouver!
A few months later in 1968, Jimi Hendrix would play a stellar concert at the Pacific Coliseum and a couple of weeks before I arrived in Vancouver Robert Kennedy would be assassinated in Los Angeles during his presidential bid. Here in 2018, Caffe Roma is now part of the history books – but while in Vancouver, you can visit The Drive – Do so. You will be glad you did.
A Musical tribute…
My take on Here comes the Sun…” Colin and Sean McCool on Guitar and Vocals
Here-Comes-The-Sun-V14.mp3Garden end-of-summer Pasta with fresh basil and cherry tomatoes · Saturday October 19, 2019 by colin newell
This time of the year, as Summer fades to Fall and Fall to Winter, a whole window of seasonal cuisine opens up – It’s time to get out to the garden and see what is fresh. And what’s fresh in our garden in October are the last of the tomatoes and lots of basil!
Grab some fresh pasta, broth, white wine, mushrooms and some amazing Parmagiano Reggiano cheese and get ready for great tastes!
Ingredients:
12 medium sized cherry tomatoes
3/4 cup fresh Basil chopped
6 large mushrooms sliced thinly
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1/4 cup of white wine
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
2 servings Penne pasta
1/2 cup Parmagiano reggiano cheese
Salt, Pepper and Italian seasoning to taste
Directions -
Put pasta on to boil
Saute pan on to heat with a splash of olive oil and butter.
Saute mushrooms – season with salt and pepper
5 minutes before pasta is finished cooking, pop the halved tomatoes into the pan.
Add Italian seasoning – and extra pepper if necessary
Added 1/4 cup of white wine to steam tomatoes – add 3/4 of the Basil
Let cook down for 1 – 2 minutes and add the chicken broth.
Making Pasta!
Summer-Pasta-2020.mp3
Look! New content! Sourdough waffles! · Monday August 5, 2019 by colin newell
Hey there strangers and friends. Long time no see.
One of my most popular recipes are my dairy free waffles It is a blog best seller.
These easy sourdough waffles are a byproduct of looking for one more twist on my 2008 sourdough starter – a starter that has tolerated neglect and abuse the likes of which would likely violate the Geneva convention.
Truth be told, I have not made waffles the entire time we have lived in our new house. That is over 5 years waffle free at home. Terrible.
My waffle maker (grill) has been languishing in the basement cold room the entire time. It needed an aggressive cleaning. Today I took it outside and put in on the sidewalk and cranked the heat. It had more blackened grease and ash on it than than a heat shield on the Space Shuttle. Anyway, all cleaned and time to dive in.
Day One (the night before…)
1 cup sourdough starter (fed that day)
1½ cups unbleached white flour
1 cup water
Next morning.
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons melted butter
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons sugar, optional
Instructions
Combine sourdough starter, flour, and water in a glass mixing bowl.
Depending on thickness of your starter you might have to adjust water. Cover and let sit overnight.
The next day preheat and oil your waffle iron.
Stir all remaining ingredients together (salt, baking soda, vanilla, melted butter, eggs, and sugar if desired) and pour on top of the sourdough mixture.
Stir with a fork until combined.
Cook in waffle maker until golden brown… usually 3 or 4 minutes depending on the iron.
Top with butter, fresh fruit and Canadian maple syrup.
This waffle mix makes stupendous pancake batter – depending on your sourdough starter, the cakes and waffles have a tangy twist as well as a gentle sweetness. All things equal, you can take or leave adding the sugar.
Colin Newell is a 20+ year blogger, editor creator of coffeecrew.com and a foodie about town – town being Victoria B.C. Canada.
