This week is all about shameless self promotion (well,
Taste-full Tours promotion). I promise there will be recipes too. But for those
of you who haven’t already heard the story, Laura and I started Taste-full
Tours because we love good food, respect great food artists, and want to share
our favorite places and stories with other people who also possess this love
and respect. We readily admit this
is partly selfish – our motivation is drawn somewhat from our desire to keep
the little, local guys afloat so we can patronize them. I can’t imagine my personal food world
without Supino Pizzeria in Eastern Market. My family would go into withdrawal
if we didn’t have our multi-weekly Zumba fix. And Laura G will drive from Royal
Oak to Rochester in the middle of the week for no other reason than to get an
almond croissant from the Give Thanks Bakery. These are just a few of the many incredible food spots in
Detroit for which we are grateful.
So where’s the shameless self promotion? Here it is: this weekend, Saturday,
March 6th Taste-full Tours is embarking on our second “Taste-full
Favorites” tour which will carry us all over Oakland County and beyond. We
still have some spots left on the tour, and we REALLY want you to join us! Laura and I have spent the last year
exploring so many wonderful places and it is a shame not to share them.
So come on people, it’s the first weekend in March. Let’s face it, it’s still winter in
Detroit, and you can’t possibly have that much to do that would top spending
your Saturday eating, tasting wines, and being entertained by us! And, you have the added bonus of
learning some great stories and meeting some amazing people. These are people more dedicated to making
food than to making money, so motivated by sharing family recipes and making people
happy with their offerings that they spend unthinkable hours every week running
their small businesses. We want you to meet them. They are rare in these days of corporate domination and
enormous conglomerate-run “farms”.
For example, Tim Castaneda, our great friend from Zumba Mexican
Grille in Royal Oak is at his restaurant every day, overseeing the business he
opened ten years ago (which has since been hidden behind a massive brick loft
building on Main St., just north of 11 Mile). He comes from a long line of
restaurant owners, most recently Old Mexico, run by his family. He makes his
guacamole from scratch, sometimes a couple times a day. They use all their own
spice blends and even fry their own chips and taco shells, which are made from
tortillas delivered fresh daily from Mexicantown in Detroit. At Zumba they
don’t cut corners, their kitchen and cooler are always clean (which is more
important and less common than you’d like to know!!) and they work hard, really
hard, many hours a day to keep things going. Tim knows more people than a New York socialite and is eager
to introduce you to everyone sitting around the restaurant, in the off chance
you might need the business services they offer. In fact, if it weren’t for Tim
there would be no Taste-full Tours – it was Tim who introduced me to Chris
Ramos who owns the Night Move bus we travel on! Tim and his staff deserve our business
- which is fine because the food is great! They will always be a stop on any
favorites tour we do!
And wait until you meet the owners of Kashat Market in Oak
Park. Imad (he goes by “John” for his non-Arabic clients!) is charming and
gruff at the same time. The last time we were there he had just finished
working a whole day in his little spice/nut/bread/olive/cheese/dried fruit/etc.
filled shop on the corner of 9 Mile and Coolidge. He had just finished working
a whole day (which is not at all unusual for a small business owner) two days
after he had had surgery. He was
tired and no doubt sore, but there he was, joking and talking, challenging one
of our tourists to take home one of his curry spice blends and “just try to
figure out what’s in it”!! He is
proud and determined, and though his business has had up and downs over many
years, he is still there with a loyal clientele. Kashat’s baklava is delicious, but my favorite things to
purchase there are their Naan-style bread with sesame seeds (usually still
warm, and soft and crisp at the same time), their house-made hummus, and the
little tiny Syrian cucumbers. The
cukes are crisp and delicate, and sliced up, wrapped in the bread and slathered
with the hummus, make the most wonderful sandwich. They sell baby pine nuts, and all manner of nuts, at
un-heard of low prices, and they have several varieties of labneh – Middle Eastern
yogurt cheese – that makes the best tsatziki you’ve ever had. Be sure to check
out the amazing selection of dried fruits they carry – my favorites are the
strawberries and peaches. And
because of all these things AND the fact that I love how my clothes smell when
I leave there, they will also be part of our favorites tour.
Those are just two of the reasons you should join us this
weekend. I’ll let the rest be a
surprise. While you’re deciding
whether to stay home and catch up on your laundry and dusting, do keep in mind
that Laura and I often bring samples of our favorite goodies on the bus so
folks can try delectables from places that we can’t make it to in our
relatively short time frame. And
frankly we feel a tour like Taste-full Favorites should be at least 8 hours!
But since there is no way we’ll get to ALL our favorite spots we’ll be bringing
some great treats on board so there will be plenty of noshing between stops.
I’ve included some recipes I know you’ll enjoy. The tsatziki is a modified
version of one I learned years ago from Shanny Apodaca of Simply Good in
Birmingham. If you want a leisurely evening at a delicious demonstration
cooking class OR a truly good tuna-fish sandwich, you should check them out.
So get yourself a large container of Labneh from Kashat. Then
go home, shovel the snow off your grill and get outside. Do the grilled
vegetables using the method I’ve attached, make yourself a batch of my roasted
garlic aioli (be sure to use really good fresh eggs – I have an excellent
source if anyone is interested) and the tsatziki and hunker down with a
multi-grain baguette from Avalon International breads and call it dinner. Don’t forget the wine. A nice red would
be good if you use hearty vegetables. Speaking of wine, Cloverleaf Fine Wines on
Main St. in Royal Oak is having a HUGE inventory reduction sale all this week.
Stop by their beautiful shop and tell them Laura and Laura sent you.
If you’ve been properly enticed and wish to join us this
weekend, you can email us at
Laura@taste-fulltours.com, or just
go to our website and sign up at www.taste-fulltours.com. We’d
love to spend the day with you J
