SHARING ZINGERMANS

UNIQUE APPROACH
TO BUSINESS

PONTIS POINTS TO A BETTER FUTURE FOR SLOVAKIA

For 2 years in a row, Ari has been invited to Slovakia to speak at a conference organized by the Pontis Foundation. What follows is an interview with Lenka Surotchak,
Director of the Pontis Foundation. A remarkable person leading an organization thats doing remarkable work.

ZINGTRAIN: Can you tell us a little bit about the Pontis

Foundation and your role there? How did Pontis come into
being? What is its mission?
LENKA SUROTCHAK:

The Pontis Foundation was established in 1997. Pontis means a bridge. We bring together people, organizations and countries to achieve positive change in
Slovakia and beyond.
Our work in Slovakia is focused on addressing our countrys most
pressing problems: education for the 21st century, eliminating
corruption and lack of transparency from public life, improving
the lives of people with disabilities, and youth unemployment.
In Slovakia, we are the driving force behind corporate social
responsibility development, corporate and individual philanthropy, corporate volunteering and related pro bono services.
We achieve all of this by connecting and motivating individuals,
communities and companies, and giving them the tools they need
to take control of their own lives and to be responsible for themselves and their surroundings. We also created a portal
dobrakrajina.sk to enable US citizens to give tax deductible donations in support of Slovak projects.
Beyond Slovakia, we transfer the knowledge we have gained
from Slovakias transition towards democracy and prosperity to
selected foreign countries. We are helping to build strong civic
societies in the Western Balkans, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, and
in Kenya. And finally, we work to develop public awareness that
Slovakia is a country of global citizens.
My job (and hobby!) as director of the Pontis Foundation, is to
help lead the Foundation, support my colleagues and make sure
that we have all the right people and resources networked and
secured. I truly love and believe in what we do.

ZT: How did you first hear about Zingerman's and ZingTrain?
LENKA: My colleague, Pavel Hrica, read about the Zingermans
Community of Businesses in Bo Burlinghams book, Small Giants,
about companies that choose to be great instead of big. Then,
he came across a reference to Zingermans as the coolest small
company in America in Inc. Magazine and he was intrigued. He
started looking for more information about you and discovered
that there is much more than just great food ZingTrain, books,
an email newsletter, and he got hooked and then told us about it
and many of us were hooked ... I guess, forever.

ZT: What was it that attracted you to us?

LENKA:

Shared love for great coffee and good, healthy food ...
although that actually came later. First, thanks to Pavel, some of
us became huge fans of Aris books and the Zingermans Approach
to Business. We signed up for your email newsletter. And then we
invited Ari to Slovakia and the rest is history.
Last summer, I was very fortunate to have been able to visit
Zingermans. I started the day at the Zingermans Coffee Company
where, out of nostalgia for a past Pontis project, I chose a cup of
the Kenyan blend to have brewed for me.
Then, I met Ari on the bench in front of the building and we talked.
He took me to one of your weekly Open Book management meetings inside. I eventually toured other parts of Zingermans and
spent a few hours with Maggie and the ZingTrain staff. Somewhere
along the way, I had a second cup of coffee.
At Pontis, we are huge coffee lovers, and just like the taste of that
great coffee lingered in my mouth all day, so did the experience
of being at Zingermans. I could not wait to be back the next day!

ZT: How did Ari end up coming to Slovakia for your conference? What impact did his presentation have at the conference?
LENKA:

When Aris third book about Managing Ourselves

came out, we at the Pontis Foundation started dreaming about
bringing him to Slovakia.
We felt certain that Aris wisdom and the ideas and practical
exercises in the books would be excellent messages for all our
constituencies. And so we wrote to Ari, and Ari, being wonderful
and generous, agreed to come!
That first time, we asked Ari to talk to our corporate partners
about Zingermans 12 Natural Laws of Business and the Energy
Crisis in the Workplace and to our NGO partners about Visioning.
The ideas that Ari presented resonated deeply with the audience,

and also the team at Pontis.

During that first visit, Ari also agreed to meet with a small group of
exciting young business owners who Pontis was hoping to shape
into a Small Giants style network. To our surprise, what emerged
from that conversation with Ari was that their main concern was
finding good employees and bringing good customer service to
Slovak restaurants and coffee houses!
And thats when we knew we really needed to bring Ari back. It
was thrilling to see all the momentum and engagement that we
saw emerging from that first visit!

ZT: Tell us about that second visit.

LENKA: By now, thanks to our friends at the Martinus bookshop, more people in Slovakia had read (and loved!) Ari's books
and we loved them. Once we got to experience Aris competence
and humanity in person, our senior staff made a very unanimous and conscious decision to maintain close ties with Ari and
Zingerman's. Inviting him back for a second visit just felt like an
obvious next step. And we feel that there is a mutual spark among
us.
For Aris second visit we chose 3 topics:
Customer Service, based on the previously identified interest
from the Slovak business community.
Open Book management, an important and new topic for us
but one that I could not stop talking about since seeing it in
action at Zingermans. The more we learned about its benefits, the more we wanted to share it with our larger business
community.
Visioning. This time to a very different audience than our NGO
partners. The audience in the second year were top multinational and Slovak businesses about 250 people who come to
our Central European Corporate Responsibility Summit.

ZT: Youve now been exposed to many of our core business practices - Visioning, Customer Service, Open Book
Management. How do these practices translate in the social and
political climate and culture that you operate in? Are the ideas
easy to embrace? Or are they challenging?
LENKA: Zingerman's Ideas the way you do business is very
relevant to our culture. And we also like the Anarchist link to our
neighbor, Hungary! Even though we have our own kind of challenges, the ideas transferred immediately and just felt right.
The ideas that Ari presented are so transformational and timely
that they do not need a specific political or geographical context
to be relevant. There might be specifics that do not literally translate. For example, in Slovak restaurants we do not serve water
unless it is requested, and so the way that Ari describes practicing leadership in his essay The Art of Pouring Water would not
work. But the core point Ari makes of being around, observing
the environment, connecting with the customers and at the same
time being helpful, translates really well and would be incredibly
powerful if practiced in Slovakia.
The other powerful thing about the way Ari presents his ideas
is that he has a real gift for expressing very complex concepts drawn from many different sources and synthesized through his
mind, heart and experience - in clear, tangible and understandable ways, making them manageable and approachable for everybody and then he gives us simple recipes to implement those
ideas! Its remarkable!
We just ordered Aris 4th book The Power of Beliefs in Business.
And I truly hope that Ari will be back within the next two years
to help the Pontis Foundation achieve our vision for Slovakia via
the power of beliefs.

ZT: Pontis has adopted Open Book Management, the way we

run all the Zingerman's businesses. Tell us about why it appeals
to you. How was it to implement? How is it changing the way
you work?
LENKA: We have grown over the last 15 years from a three person organization into an almost fifty person one with many more
programs, projects and initiatives. Our systems and processes are
still trying to catch up with that growth!

us that we need to strengthen the infrastructure and processes of

the organization so that they support our growth.
And at the same time we wanted to be sure that we continue
having an impact and that no matter what role people play in
our organization, they understand the full picture of where the
Foundation is going, what the goals are, how we will know that
we achieved them, and also how our financial health is. And
Open Book management seemed like the perfect way to do that
while also embodying our open and collaborative spirit.
We used our vision to identify our key performance indicators
(KPIs), which was in and of itself a powerful exercise! Over the
first 2 quarters we identified some indicators that we needed to
change and others that we should have been tracking - its definitely a learning curve.
The most appealing thing about Open Book management has
been how it has kept us focused on our goals our indicators
talking about them having our scoreboard up on the wall for
everyone to see. Without Open Book we would never have been
able to look at our financial health, our KPIs, our entire organization in a single snapshot and more importantly, we would not
have been able to ensure everybody on our staff had that same
snapshot of where we are.

ZT: The Pontis Foundation's vision for the year 2020 is one of
the most inspiring and thorough visions that we have read. Tell
us about Visioning. Where did you learn about Visioning? Why
did it appeal to you? How did you go about creating a Vision
for the Pontis Foundation? How is it impacting the work you
are doing at Pontis and the work of your clients?
LENKA:

The way we have designed Pontis Foundation's Vision

2020 we really have to attribute to Ari's visit. We methodically
followed Zingermans Recipe for Creating a Vision of Greatness.
I have been with the Foundation for 14 years, and this has been
my third time (and style!) creating something called vision, but
only the first using the Zingermans Approach. The first time, we
just used a strategic planning model. The second time, we went
through such a complicated and structured process and were so
focused on wanting it to be perfect and detailed, that when we
were done we could hardly find the strength to implement it.
When we wrote the vision for 2020 using the Zingermans recipe,
it was truly the first time that we all felt quite energized, happy
and inspired at the end of the process. We had on our hands
something truly great, something worth waking up in the morning for; worth even sometimes sacrificing time with our families
for We believe this vision is worth trying to strive to achieve
and that if we do, it will bring a better life and future to many
people in Slovakia.

ZT: What is one thing you would like everyone to know about
Slovakia?
LENKA:

Slovakia is a great place to live and visit. Its people

are talented, innovative and we love fun. Slovakia's history is
rich and our nature is beautiful. With only 5 million inhabitants,
Slovakia is proud to be currently presiding over the European
Council of the EU for the first time in its history. Being able to
contribute to something bigger than ourselves and striving for
excellence has been a driving desire for many generations of
Slovaks. (And the food is really good!)

ZT: If you could give one message to progressive businesses

across the world, Lenka, what would that message be?
LENKA:

Every business has an incredible impact on all of its

stakeholders, and must challenge itself to run not just as a profitable business, but as a social business via philanthropic contributions to social causes, contributing resources and expertise to
solving social problems, or providing opportunities or products
to the segments of society that are most in need.
There is, in fact, a larger mission that all businesses must share to eventually make this planet a better place. Thank you so much
to all of Zingerman's and Ari for sharing your wisdom with us and
the rest of the world.

While the Pontis Foundation is an organization teeming with passion, innovation, creativity, and greatness, it has become clear to

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

My Beliefs Abo

Excerpt from Ari Weinzweig's New Book, Zingermans Guide to Good Leadin
What follows is a piece that comes from near the back of the new bookZingermans Guide to
Good Leading, Part 4: A Lapsed Anarchists Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business. As I
worked on the book, I became ever more amazed at the power that our beliefs have in our lives.
Pretty much every action we take, every statement we make, is based upon what we believe.
If we change our beliefs, we change our actions! And also the reactions of those around us.
When I was preparing the recipe section for the book, I realized that beliefs are at play in my
approach to food and cooking as much as they are in our business work. The list below are my
own beliefs. Many will, Im guessing, resonate with you simply by dint of the fact that youre
reading Zingermans News. Others might catch your attention. Either way, I encourage you to
take the time to dig into your own beliefsabout food, cooking, yourself, your life, your business, the world. What Ive learned doing this work in the last few years has had a significant
positive influence on my life and my workand they were already pretty darned positive in
the first place!
Heres to more good reading, good leading and good eating to come! In the new book, I share
a recipe for changing ones beliefs. What follows are some beliefs that might change the way
you approach recipes.
Beliefs are just as much at play in the kitchen as they are anywhere else. What we cook and
what we put on our tables are basically the sum total of a series of interlocking and overlapping beliefs. The beliefs of the people who grew or produced the raw materials we buy
(fresh, canned, bottled, milled, or dried) and the beliefs of the those who sold them to us at
the store, at the farmstand, or online. If you grow your own ingredients, that says a lot about
your beliefs as well, whether about gardening or gathering in the wild or farming 40 acres.
If we take Claude Bristols quote about beliefs and bring it into the kitchen, the principle is
equally applicable. Bristol said: As individuals think and believe, so they are. Ill extrapolate:
As individuals think and believe, so they cook. Our beliefs dont cook our food, but they do
call our culinary shots.
My own beliefs have changed drastically over the decades. I grew up with rather unremarkable feelings about food and almost none (that I can remember, at least) about cooking. Like
every kid, I liked what I liked, wouldnt eat what I didnt. Best I can recall, I was neither particularly picky nor overly adventurous. I grew up eating off a list that I can now see was essentially the epitome of mid-20th-century industrial menu making. Kraft macaroni and cheese
in the dark blue box; Mrs. Pauls frozen fish sticks (with the tartar sauce in the little plastic
packets); pale orange American singles (first in layered stacks, then as plastic-wrapped slices);
presliced loaves of white bread; boxes of cinnamon-frosted Pop-Tarts; fruit cocktail out of the
can; Tang, Tater Tots, and Twinkies; Nestles Quik or, my favorite for a while at least, the less
famous but fabulously pink Strawberry Quik. None of which, of course, would be remotely
considered nowadays for a Zingermans menu. I have no desire to eat any of them today. But
their memory makes me smile.
Back then we ate so matter-of-factly industrial. At the time, it all seemed completely unremarkable, which tells you a lot about the beliefs about food and cooking in middle America
in the middle part of the 20th century. In our family, the idea of local referred mostly to
area codes or the lanes (as opposed to express) on the highway that allowed you access to
exits. I have no idea if a farmers market existed anywhere within 100 miles of our house. We
shopped at either the Jewel or at Dominicks. Meals were consistent if not even close to the
quality standards Ive come to count on every day in my full-flavored bubble of an ecosystem
here at Zingermans. Food was sort of mundane, reallyhardly central to our existence other
than the human requirement to eat. And Jewish holidays. Every Friday night my grandmother
used to cook all the traditional Eastern European Jewish disheschicken soup, chopped liver,
potato kugel, and the like. Same for Rosh Hashanah, Passover, and latkes at Hanukkah. Other
than that, it was pretty much a midcentury, mostly modern, all-American meal plan. Happily,
we never went hungry.
One twist on the construct is that we had a kosher home, which meant that many foods (as
well as many combinations of food) were completely out of bounds. I was very focused on
what Id now call freedom from those culinary codes. Mostly the restrictions just made me
madI really wanted to eat a cheeseburger. But its interesting how deeply sunk the roots
of some beliefs can be, even when we dont know it; as rebellious as I was, the idea of eating exceedingly illicit options like bacon or oysters back then was so taboo as to be almost
unimaginable.
My mother was a caring and considerate woman who was trying to do the right thing for her
family. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin, read widely, taught school, and gave
generously of everything she had. Cooking, however, was neither her passion nor her forte.
She did, at times, experiment with exotic foods such as zucchini, but I think she mostly just
got pushback for her attempt to get out of the box and quickly withdrew to what we were willing to eat without whining. Mostly, our meals were mainstream.
Others out there, I know, ate more interestingly, but we were certainly not alone. Food writer
and historian Laura Shapiro explains that in the late 19th century Americans were pushed to
think differently about foodto be scientific, to simplify cooking without regard to taste, to
adopt the first industrial products such as ketchup and Jell-O. Prepacks started to replace
made from scratch. These are the types of commercial innovations that I can imagine Rocco
Disderide somewhat uncertainly stocking on his shelves back in 1902. For more on this, check
out Shapiros superb book, Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century.
In her next book, Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America, she continues the story. She details how women of my mothers era were pressured to change their
beliefs about food and cooking. Many, like my mom, had grown up with their own immigrant
mothers cooking the foods of the old countryin this case, the stuff my grandmother prepared so regularly. But in the postwar years, mass marketing pushed homemakers to drop the
messy foreign foods of the past and feed their families properly by choosing industrial consistency and control in lieu of the low-quality variability of the rough-around-the-edges peasant foods theyd had previously. By that point, Shapiro says, it wasnt just ketchup or canned

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

soup, it was packaged food moving right to the center of the plate. The change in thinking
was already pretty widespread, and now Americans were ready to accept that macaroni and
cheese could mean opening a box.
Backing up to the late 19th century, farmers who went to town to shop would often have gone
to general stores, spots that sold everything from groceries to animal feed, seed, clothing, and
linens. There were also specialists. The 1887 Jubilee Cookbook, published in Ann Arbor, has ads
for fine teas, coffees and spices at the Palace Grocery on North Main Street; Edward Duffys
Coffee opposite the post office; Walter Toop, a baker and confectioner; and another of the
same, known as L. Gerstner. T. E. Nickels, the leading dealer in fresh, salt and smoked meats,
was billed as the finest meat market in the city. Mr. Nickels legacy lives onthe Nickels
Arcade remains a landmark today, off State Street, on the west side of Campus.
Corner groceries such as Disderides were somewhere in between the general store and
the specialistssmall neighborhood shops in which the owner worked the counter, knew the
clientele, and often (as the Disderides did) lived upstairs or maybe just down the block. The
proprietor, or their family, frequently waited on the customers themselves. House accounts
were commonly carried for locals, which would be settled up either weekly or monthly.
The industrial 21st-century version of the corner grocery is probably the impersonal, shop-ina-box convenience store, often fronted by gas pumps. Corner groceries, of course, still exist in
old neighborhoods in big cities and also in some small towns. In many ways, when we opened
the Deli, we functioned as one. Large self-serve supermarkets of the sort my mother shopped
in converted to cash and carryno more personal accounts, no more owner to serve you as
you did your shopping. For me, mid-century city kid that I was, those big grocery stores with
dozens of long aisles, glass-doored freezer sections, and tall shelf fixtures were the norm.
The shift to supermarket shopping changed everything; as Laura Shapiro says, many people
city folk at leastreduced the odds of culinary error by shifting to factory-made standardized
products. The perceived rough out-of-control edges of earlier eras were squared off, and
the variability of seasons subverted in favor of straight lines and consistently, tightly sealed
plastic packages.
In some ways, buying food this way reduced the workload and stress of the housewife. What
could go wrong when dinner was made by combining cans or when dessert meant unwrapping
a package of Twinkies? Increased consistency, lower prices, and better packaging became
the order of the day.
I can only imagine what Emma Goldmanwho loved well-prepared food would have had to
say on the subject. If shed been born 50 years later, she and I might well have met at some
Slow Food event. Its not hard to imagine her preaching forcefully about protecting heirloom
apples instead of advocating for anarchism.
Unlike me, writer Mimi Sheraton grew up in a family in which full-flavored food and skilled
cooking were greatly valued. She went on to become one of the best-known food writers of
our era. And yet, the social pressure she felt as a kid to straighten things out was still very
strong. Talking about her love of the Old World food her mother made, she writes, I remember the embarrassment I felt [at school] at the rye bread sandwiches and how I wished for
neat, squared-off sandwiches on packaged white bread, which I considered more American
and, therefore, classier. Going back to Rollo Mays the opposite of courage is conformity,
the mainstream American kitchen lost courage more and more home cooks conformed to
mass-market consumer trends. The belief that were supposed to fit in is a powerful force.
Evenor maybe especiallywith food. As Sheraton explains, The problem with the rye bread
was its shape, the standard loaf that tapered towards both ends. My mother cut it on the diagonal to make large slices, and no two slices were the same size, so the edges of my sandwiches
did not match. They were, I thought, sloppy Jewish sandwiches.
In order to fit in, many women changed their beliefs. What happened in the 50s, Shapiro
says, was that for the first time probably in the history of the world, it became possible for
ordinary, not-rich women to decide whether or not they wanted to cook. The food industry
was eager to step in and make that decision for them, of course, and the advertising was
pretty powerful. That was the setting in which I grew up in the suburbs. Processed foods
ruled the day.
Millions opted for industrial. Industry, in turn, made millions. Monocropping and mass-market manufacturing followed. A half-century later, the country is still in recovery. Fortunately,
there were some holdouts. There was, Shapiro says, still the appeal of real foodingredients
you could touch and smell and taste. The American kitchen became a battleground of beliefs
about love, family, health, responsibility and status. My mother wasnt one of them, but there
were women who never strayed from what theyd learned from their mothers and grandmothers. Much of it would have been the kind of cooking thats now held in high esteem in so many
parts of the culinary ecosystem. (It was, of course, mostly women; men in that era, it was commonly believed, should not be cooking, other than an occasional holiday barbecue.) Shapiro
says that those women held firm, long enough to give Julia Child and Alice Waters and a lot of
other peopleyou at Zingermans includedthe time and space to create the alternatives and
niche markets that now make it possible to find honest food, not everywhere but in a lot more
places than we would have dreamed possible half a century ago. The result? Thirty-four years
after we opened, a whole lot of people believe that the full-flavored, traditional food that is
the focus of everything we source, sell, and serve at Zingermans is worth the time, effort, and
cost. Those sloppy Jewish sandwiches are now the centerpiece of the Zingermans world.
And that embarrassing rye bread with the rounded ends and rough edges is one of our signature products.
My own beliefs about food and cooking have clearly come a very long way during the course
of my life. What was once a rather unremarkable routine that ensured survival is now the
centerpiece of my existence, something that sustains me physically and financially, intellectually and emotionally. Everywhere I go now, good food is an essential element of my existence.
Here are a few of the beliefs that I hold that drive myourwork with food at Zingermans
and my own cooking at home.

out Cooking

ng, Part 4: A Lapsed Anarchists Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business

The best cooking is a lot like leading a good organization. If you get great ingredientsi.e.,
peopletogether, get to know them, honor them for what they are, and use effective basic processes that let their personalities shine through, good things are likely to happen. In business,
it can make for a healthy organization. In the kitchen, it might well just make for a delicious
dinner!
Anyone whos interested can fairly quickly tell the difference between bad, good, indifferent,
and excellent. Many people Ive met say they cant. But guess what happens when you have
that belief? You got it! If you believe you wont be able to taste the difference, the odds are
high you wont. If you change those beliefs, and open your mind to appreciate the differences
between delicious artisanal fare and mediocre industrial offerings, Im confident you will. In
fact, Id say its almost impossible not to. Given the choice between marvelously good and runof-the-mill mundane, anyone whos attentive will be able to tell the difference in a heartbeat.
Trinidadian historian C. L. R. James said, Any cook can govern. I agree with him. I also
believe the opposite to be true: Any governorno matter their political affiliationcan learn
to cook. Cooking is a skill anyone with an interest can do well. It starts with beliefs. If were
afraid of cookingas we are of so many unfamiliar things in our liveswe will find mostly
faults: in our own ability, in the recipe were trying so hard to follow, or in the quality of the
ingredients we bought. When were looking for trouble, we will quickly see where we fell short;
many of us just worry and wait for culinary miracles that never come. By contrast, when we
have a positive belief that anyone whos interested in learning and willing to work a bit can
easily learn the basics, good food will likely follow.
The anarchist belief that the means we use must be congruent with the ends we want to
achieve applies in the kitchen as well. Trying to make something super tasty out of stuff that
doesnt taste good on its own is nigh impossible. Its about 8,000 times easier to cook delicious
food if you start with great, top-notch, full-flavored raw materials.
Good cooking is, ultimately, about being ourselves and letting the ingredients be themselves.
Alice Waters says, When you have the best and tastiest ingredients, you can cook very simply
and the food will be extraordinary because it tastes like what it is. I agree 100 percent! Her
short sentence sums up 34 years of Zingermans culinary history.
If you stick to simple, down-to-earth, delicious stuff, then really anyone with some access to
good ingredients can make marvelous meals. By contrast, fancy dishesones that are beyond
our current cooking ability and acumenall too often fall flat. When they do, confidence
erodes and belief falters. Mediocre meals generally follow.
Knowing the story behind the food is, I believe, essential to being able to cook it in a way
that honors what it is and brings out its best. In the same way that one cant manage people
without knowing who they are and what moves them, I dont think one can really do culinary
justice to even the simplest ingredient and their own cooking without taking time to find out
more about how the food came to be what it is. Studying the history, the geography, the politics, and the economics that go with every ingredient and every recipe, bringing food, cooking,
and culture alive, takes time but its well worth the effort.
Learning the foodways of any people is one of the best methods I know to honor who they
are. Reading cookbooks is an intriguing way to enter the belief systems of cultures around
the world. When you learn the cooking and eating traditions of a given culture, youre honoring the people who are a part of it, and you will come much closer to understanding their
struggles, successes, and sensitivities. Both empathy and good eating will probably ensue.
Putting together a really great mealnot fancy, just delicious and well suited to the occasionis really about the self-fulfilling belief cycle. Alice Waters, writing about Chez Panisse
chef David Tanis, said, He understands that creating a meal means creating your own reality.
Good ingredients almost always emerge from good ecosystems. Its hard to find delicious
food grown sustainably over a period of years without it coming from people who care about
their soil, their community, their crops, quality, and flavor. Dan Barbers farmer friend Jack
says, Industrially produced grains, vegetables, and fruits taste of almost nothing because the
nitrates [in the soil] have crowded out the minerals. The good news? It can be much better!
The development of flavor, and the health of the plant, are the same freakin thing. You dont
get one without the other. If I treat the soils microorganisms right, if they have everything they
need to prosper, theyll do the work for me. At that point you just need to put it on the plate,
basically.
Better food will almost always cost more money. Its not true that all expensive food tastes
good. But it is true that low-priced products are less likely to be amazingly delicious. Is there
a range of workable quality levels for those who have limited food budgets? Of course! How do
we make the best-tasting foods more affordable? I dont have an easy answer. My approach
is to try to create more jobs that pay better so people can afford to buy food thats sustainably
grown.
One way around the cost issue is quite simply to grow our own. We trade our time in the garden against lowered costs. This is why projects such as Melvin Parsons We the People Growers
Association are so positivethey let people with limited financial resources have access to
land on which to grow something delicious and nutritious.
Just to show you the correlation between good cooking and so many of the other beliefs in this
book, heres a bit more from Alice Waters, sounding a lot like an anarchist: The most common
way people give up their power is by thinking they dont have any. And speaking of radical
change, check out the title of one of her recent (and highly recommended) books: The Art of
Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution. Calm confidence in the
kitchen makes a big difference. Anxious cooks press too hard and then feel like failures when
what they prepare seems somehow less than perfect. They tentatively try to follow recipes as if
they were adhering to standard operating procedures for safety in a nuclear plant. But cooking is a craftits no more an exact science than is managing your employees. Enjoyable, not
exacting and exhausting. Learn the basics of cooking; take time to taste, practice tasting,
learn to trust your palate, be patient and pay attention to what youre experiencing, and let
your intuition help you bring together flavors that work well. If you need to choose between

what tastes right to you and what the recipe says, close the cookbook and go with your gut.
Starting simple will lead to increased odds of success. A great grilled cheese (good bread, good
cheese, and a frying pan) with a nice salad (vegetables from the farmers market) with good
olive oil, vinegar, sea salt, and freshly ground pepper make an amazing meal. Overreaching
trying to follow recipes for fancy dishes youve never before experiencedis like buying a violin to play Beethoven for the first time in front of 500 friends and family on Christmas Eve. Its
too much! Try it alone first, or with a close friend, where you can keep calm and let the cooking
come slowly and gently without a lot of pressure to perform.
For me, cooking is a personal thing. Eating is an intimate act. Honoring your palate and
your preferences, getting to know your own cooking, with care and dignity, becomes then
an act of mindful self-awareness. Its also all about art! And as artists David Bayles and Ted
Orland write, In large measure becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself,
which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work
distinctive.
Like anything else, learning to cook and eat well takes intention and practice. We dont get
good at anything without working at it. Cooking and eating are no different. The more we pay
attention over time, the more wisdom we accumulate. Its not magic just mindful practice.
Gary Snyder says, [R]epetition is not necessarily an enemy. Because every time you do something its different. . . . Being too interested in always having things new and interesting is to
miss the point. When it comes out of a box or a can, repetition can be boringwe know what
well get every time. But when we use artisanal foods, fresh produce, or heirloom vegetables,
nature contributes complexitythe tomatoes taste different, the texture of the bread changes
with the weather, the flavor of our coffee is impacted by the water and method used to brew it,
the choice of salt for our salad alters the entire eating experience.
With that in mind, though, Ive learned that repetition in the kitchen can turn out to be riveting. If you caringly cook scrambled eggs 18 days in a row, youll surely notice the varying
nuances with each days dinner. Your eggs will be lovingly different every single day. If you
start with good eggs, the odds are they will taste even better. Actually, why not try different
eggs every evening? Each detail matters. As Snyder says, We need attention to doing things
well. I agree. If you want to really get into it, take notes: the utensil you use; whether you add
cream, milk, water, or nothing at all; the heat and shape of the pan; the fat in which you cook;
the pepper you grind (or dont) to sprinkle on top. As Gary Snyder adds, Its what the artist
brings to it in a new way. By the 18th evening, you will nearly be an expert.
I believe very strongly that simple dishes, made with great ingredients, prepared by cooks
who respect their raw materials and have even a modest understanding of the basics of cooking, will almost always taste terrific. Some of my favorites include:
- Slices of artisan bread, toasted and topped with a fantastic extracontinued on pg. 7
virgin olive oil, eaten while still warm.
- A bowl of stone-ground oatmeal topped with your choice of natural muscovado brown
sugar, real maple syrup, artisanal cane syrup, or great buttera beautiful way to start
your morning. (Rocco Disderide, by the way, loved oatmeal and ate it nearly every day.)
- Fresh vegetables from the farmers market tossed with good olive oil, sea salt, and a bit
of fresh garlic, then oven roasted at about 450F for half an hour or so.
- Two slices of great bread and some farmhouse cheddar grilled till its golden brown and
eaten hot from the frying pan.
- A pound of locally dug potatoes, steamed or boiled till theyre tender, smashed and
eaten with good butter or olive oil, some sea salt, and freshly ground pepper.
- Top-notch artisanal pasta tossed with really good Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, an
excellent extra virgin olive oil, and some freshly ground black pepper.
- Great salad greens, a pinch of sun-dried sea salt, a small bit of well-aged naturally
converted vinegar, and a bit more of that good olive oil.
- The Tanzanian Kyela rice that we get from Shawn Askinosie, the proceeds of which go to
provide school lunches for kids at the Mababu Cacao Cooperative, cooked simply in water
with some sun-dried, natural sea salt.
- Same goes for the grits from Glenn Roberts at Anson Mills or the polenta from the Marino
family in the Italian Piedmont. They take time to cook, but the cooking couldnt be simpler. And they taste terrific.
- A BLT made with Nueskes bacon (or any other artisanal bacon), ripe summer tomatoes,
good bread, and four leaves of fresh lettuce.
- A few slices of well-made salami or cured ham (served at room temperature, where their
flavors will best come through) and a little salad with a good loaf of bread.
- Fresh fish, sprinkled with the Indian fennel seed we score from the folks at pices de Cru,
sauteed at medium heat till its just done, then dressed with a touch of delicate olive oil.
- A couple squares of Shawn Askinosies dark chocolate laid between two slices of buttered sourdough bread, fried in a medium hot skillet till its golden brown and the chocolate is softbest dessert ever!
There are thousands of other optionsdifferent cuisines, different ingredients, different
days. The key again is starting with good stuff and taking it from there. Are any of these meals
impeccable? Of course not! Perfection sounds inspiring, but its almost impossible. Gary
Snyder says, Art is never perfect. Neither is great cooking. It just tastes really terrific! So, in
the same way that I learned to get past my perfectionism by writing more quickly when I get
anxious, Id recommend the same strategy for cooking. When it starts to feel uncomfortable,
dont cut backrelax if you can, buy better ingredients, cook more. Take in the smells. Savor
the flavors. Appreciate the colors and the sounds. Enjoy.
(For more on this approach to cooking, see Zingermans Guide to Good Eating.)

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

200's the Charm!

A Celebration of the Roadhouses 200th Special Dinner

The fact that were about to host our 200th Special Dinner is, in and of itself, rather remarkable. That the event coincides with the week of the Roadhouses 13th anniversary makes it all
the more noteworthyin an industry in which well over of new startups shut down within
a year or two of opening, its no small thing to be here, busier than ever, so many years down
the road. On behalf of everyone at the Roadhouse and in the Zingermans Community, thank
YOUwithout an amazing community of caring customers, none of this would be possible!
(This same month is also the 25th anniversary of the Bakehouse! A doubly remarkable feat!)
The special dinners are, of course, just one small piece of what we do at the Roadhouse. But
they really are ... special! For me, theyre sort of a perfect storm of what we work hard to do
at Zingermans every day. The bringing together of terrific traditional food, unique menus,
interesting and intelligent speakers from diverse backgrounds, a good dose of intriguing culinary and cultural education, and a room (or sometimes two) full of interesting and interested
people, coming together on one of the weeks least appreciated nightsusually a Tuesday or
Wednesdayto make for one very remarkable evening!
With the benefit of history and hindsight, Im glad now that we had the wisdom or luck to
decide to number the dinners. Its easy to lose perspective, to forget where we came from,
or how far weve come. One dinner follows another, which follows another still and another
after that. But having each event numbered makes it easier to note the exceptional nature of
this, our 200th in the series!!
Its particularly moving for me because the very first dinner was done by my good friend Molly
Stevens whose book, One Potato, Two Potato, co-written with Roy Fennimore, had just come
out. Mollys been back a couple times sinceall her books are highly, highly recommended.
If you like to cook and you dont have Braising and Roasting, hustle out and get your hands
on a copy now.
When I think back on all the great people whove willingly graced our dining room and our
kitchen, its a pretty cool thing: Marcie Ferris speaking on southern Jewish cooking traditions;
Glenn Roberts from Anson Mills on old school grains; Rolando Beremendi from Manicaretti
Imports talking about pasta and pork; Andy Hatch the master craftsman from Pleasant Ridge
Reserve cheese; and Tony and Julie Hook, whose super-aged cheddars we celebrate. Its really
quite a remarkable line up of the whos who of traditional food! In the last year alone weve
had bakers and chefs from central Sicily making special loaves of Pane Nero and hand rolled
Sicilian couscous; weve hosted Ann Arbors own Fidel Galano cooking his familys fabulous
Cuban American recipes; Jimmy Galle has come in to talk about the incredible Gulf fish we
buy from himhe knows every boat he buys from and makes sure the catch is cleaned, iced,
packed and on its way to us within hours of docking. Weve had folks from Foleys fish in
Boston and bacon maker Allan Benton. Weve welcomed our amazing spice purveyorsthe
world traveling, terrifically interesting de Vienne family of Montreal. Weve celebrated the
foods and cultures of New Mexico, New England, New Orleans and the Ojibwe people. Weve
had beefsteak dinners with Ann Arbors nationally-known culinary historian, Jan Longone,
as guest speaker. Weve celebrated presidents and pork, African American street food, done
the foods of the Treme neighborhood in New Orleans with friend, writer and Lolis Eric Elie.
Im inspired just reviewing the list! Oh yeah, I dont want to forget the amazing evening when
Adrian Miller came in from Colorado to speak on African Americans cooking in the White
House, which happened to fall on same exact evening that President Obama was inaugurated!
Our 200th dinner features special guest, friend, author and all-around good person, Amelia
Saltsman. Her books include The Santa Monica Farmers Market Cookbook and The Seasonal
Jewish Kitchen. Of the latter, Alice Waters writes, Amelia Saltsman has a warmth and a
vibrancy that comes through beautifully in this book; her recipes capture the aliveness of ripe,
seasonal ingredients, the importance of our farmers, and the diversity of flavors in Jewish
food. Given that this years special dinner comes close to Rosh Hashanah, the height of the
Farmers Market season here in Michigan, and the apex of the Cornman Farms tomato harvest,
Amelias expertise will be welcome on all fronts. I hope you can make it to this years dinner;
to come taste the terrific tomatoes that Alex, Mark, Amanda, Autumn, Chelsea and Tommie
have been growing all summer; to meet Amelia; connect with old friends and make some new
ones at the same time. Everyone who comes will go home with good memories, happy tummies, and a half dozen or so new culinary memories. Oh yeah, and a commemorative menu
with a recipe from Alex and another excerpted from Amelias book. If youre thinking of coming, dont dallythe event is pretty sure to sell out! And even if we pick up the pace, its still
probably four or five years 'til we hit #300.
In closing, I want to thank everyone: customers, crew, Alex, the rest of the Zingermans
Community, and of course, all of our special guest speakers over the years. Its a great thing
to be part of such a special community, one that can appreciate and support such a series of
unique, one of a kind events. Thank YOU! Heres to special dinners, good learning, good connections and good food!!

THE TOMATO DINNER

FEATURING AUTHOR AMELIA SALTSMAN

September 13, 7- 9:30 pm $85
Zingerman's Roadhouse, 2501 Jackson Ave., Ann Arbor
When the Roadhouse opened in 2003 Chef Alex had a vision for hosting monthly dinners
featuring specific regions, cuisines, chefs and authors that brought together our community to enjoy a great meal and hear great stories. Thirteen years later we are honored and
humbled to be celebrating Special Dinner #200. It is fitting this dinner falls in the peak of
the harvest season and is just 2 days before our anniversary of opening our doors.
To celebrate we have invited back to the Roadhouse award-winning cookbook author
Amelia Saltsman. Author of The Santa Monica Farmers' Market Cookbook and the newly
released The Seasonal Jewish Kitchen, Amelia's passion for making the connection
between seasonal, small-farmed foods and real-life meals makes her the perfect guest
speaker and collaborator on the menu with Chef Alex.

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

Here are some celebratory thoughts

from a few of our great
guests over the years:
Chef Alexs food is interesting,
delicious, approachable, and
full of soul. The patrons
they always seem to be into the
moment and sincerely excited to
be there. The sense of community
somehow I think that is a trait that
is typical of Ann Arbor for some
reason. Put all that together and
you get a special nightI know mine
have been - Jimmy Galle, Founder
and owner of Gulffish
I cant describe the thrill of working with
the Roadhouses talented staff, who knew my
books better than I did. Not until those Zingermans
dinners did I really understand the flavors of what I was
writing. It was also pure joy to meet the enthusiastic and loyal guests who attended
the dinners, including my beloved colleague and friend, culinary historian Jan Longone
and her husband Dan. Before the evenings ended, we had all become Zingerman's family. Many thanks to everyone at the Roadhouse and congratulations as you celebrate
the 200th Special Dinner!!! - Marcy Ferris, Author Matzo Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales
of the Jewish South
I have nothing but good things to say about Zingerman's Special Dinners. I enjoyed
all I have been to, and especially have been humbled by the response to those dinners
that I actually spoke at. I think the most exciting and well-received were The Beefsteak
Dinners. I think we did that one several times, always to great audiences. I think we
even had a group of Canadians come one year. Chef Alex outdid himself, as always.
I also was delighted with The Mark Twain Dinner. The dinners for African-American
Month including the sagas of Malinda Russell and of Black Caterers in Philadelphia
were also very well received. - Jan Longone, culinary historian
The aromas of creative cooking, along with the buzz of excitement before
our event are standouts in my memory. Then the astonishing realization that
everyone, staff and guests, were fired up and shared a passion for learning.
- Glenn Roberts, founder and owner, Anson Mills
The two words that come to mind are Celebration and Community. I really
enjoyed working with Chef Alex on the menus for my two cookbook-themed
dinners, especially when it came to featuring local farmers and their products. Most of all, I loved the sharing, convivial spirit of the dinners themselves.
- Molly Stevens, author of Braising and other amazing cookbooks
Its rare to find ourselves in such good company when were on the road. For a few
years now, the de Vienne family has piled into a rented minivan and endured the
12-hour drive from Montral. Exhausted from a long day of driving, we happily end
our journey at the Roadhouse. It is always warm, friendly, and satisfying. Weve visited a few places around the US promoting our spices, and the Roadhouse is the only
one where we dont feel were working: were just sharing a nice meal with friends.
Everyone, from helpful waitstaff and knowledgeable cooks to interested diners and
spice lovers, is bursting with enthusiasm. People asking about spice origins, use, history, lore, techniques, favourite dishes, whatever, it all really reminds us why we love
selling spices so much in the first place. - Steve Allison, Epices de Cru

And some words from our dinner attendees:

What I enjoy most about Roadhouse special dinners is the opportunity to learn more
about a particular cuisine or food while enjoying a delicious meal in the company of
family and/or friends! Dinners that are especially memorable for me: the Hawaiian
luau, John T Edge's fried chicken dinner, Molly Steven's Roast dinner, and the recent
Cuban BBQ dinner. - Maggie Bayless
The tomato dinner. My favorite summer dish is a Caprese salad. The tomato dinner is
a Caprese salad blown up to the size of the Big House. The colors were stunning - red,
pink, green, yellow, purple. Lovely fresh mozzarella. Basil, scenting the air. Olive oil.
A bit of balsamic but you barely need it because the tomatoes are so ripe. I wanted to
steal one of those standing racks of tomatoes and take it home, just for me. I know
Alex made great dishes, but I still dream about all those tomatoes. - Micki Maynard
The thought and special preparation that Alex puts into these festive theme dinners!
We love Alex's descriptions of the background and preparation of each special dinner.
His love of celebratory dining is contagious. We've also enjoyed the people with whom
we've been seated. - Carl Simon and Bobbi Low
The Roadhouse special dinners are special to me not only for their fabulous food but
also because they weave the story of the food, the people who cook it, and the culture
it comes from into a connected whole. The events are special for the opportunities
they give us: the chance to try new foods or foods prepared in new ways, to meet new
friends, or to celebrate with friends we already know. And of course, the Roadies are
all wonderful, providing great service and going above and beyond to help without
being asked. I feel like I'm having dinner with family every time.
-Jane Blumenthal

Attending to Agriculture:

Seed Selection, Feeding the Soil and Sustainable Price Structures

Wendell Berry, who keeps an insightful eye on the American landscape (both literally and figuratively), once wrote, When you find a farmer or a forester who has united the inescapable economic
concern with an equally compelling interest in ecology, that is when you had better stop and take
notice. I am lucky to work with one of those people. Ive tried to stop and pay attention. This piece
is written in the hope that a few others might pause and take notice, too.
That might, in a way, be easier said than done. Everywhere we turn, theres a lot going on. Politics,
kids soccer games, shopping lists, violence, social change. I cant think of anyone I knowhere at
Zingermans or in the world at largewhos walking around wondering if theyll have enough to keep
themselves busy tomorrow. As insightful writer and presenter Virginia Postrel posits, The fundamental economic fact of contemporary society is that attention is scarce.
To some extent I agree. But then again, I dont. Its a bit of a paradox, I suppose. Id argue that while
its often hard to get people to devote their attention to anything in particular, the truth is that most
of us have plenty of attention available to put to use in making our lives into something truly special.
If, I should add, we decide were going to. As Sam Keen writes in Inward Bound, "We are seldom
too tired to do what we really want to do." When we want to focus, Im fully confident it can still be
done. In fact, Id argue youre proving the point that focus is still possible in a positive way merely
by reading this article!
Still, its not always easy to find the things we might benefit from paying attention to. Even here
within our own little Zingermans Community, theres so much going on that its easy to miss any
number of important elements of our ecosystem. Cornman Farmsthe agricultural part, at leastis
easy to overlook. Unlike the majority of the places in which we do Zingermans business, our ten
acres of agriculture get no daily visitors. You cant come by to grab a loaf of Bakehouse bread
and you cant get a cup of Cornman blend coffee. You cant easily bring your friends from out of
town for lunch, and you dont stop by on your way home to pick up a couple of heirloom tomatoes.
While we hold magnificently marvelous weddings in the beautifully restored barn and farmhouse at
Cornman Farms, no ones actually trekking the half mile through the trees to our fields to get next to
one of our tomato plants. The truth is that unless you pay close attention when youre eating at the
Roadhouse, or youre really up to speed on the secrets of the Zingermans community, it would be
easy to miss the fact that we even have a farm.
Farms generally dont get famous, so were not alone. Best I know, theres no James Beard award
for farm of the year and the press doesn't publish Top Ten Farms Not to Miss in 2016 lists. In
the grand scheme of everything we have goingPresidential visits, articles in USA Today, renovation projects at our Southside businesses, a new book on Beliefs, another book coming from the
Bakehouse, ZingTrain classes being taught in Bratislava - some raised beds and a few bushels of
heirloom tomatoes may not be the first thing that catches your attention.
And yet, I believe, ever more strongly every day, that the agricultural work at Cornman Farms
is truly one of the most meaningful organizational accomplishments we have had in our nearly
35 years of doing business.

A Suburban Look at Sustainable Agriculture

Personally, I grew up with only a bit of the two things Wendell Berry was writing about bringing
together. Economy and ecology were, I guess, present, but hardly front and center. Our middle
class was much more focused on school, politics, and community activity than it ever was on money.
Ecology back then was barely a word, at least in the world I was moving in. Though my mother was,
I now realize, a bit ahead of her timeshe was recycling long before there was curbside pickup. My
grandmother, in her own, old world way, was as well. She saved everything it seemed like, though
probably more out of experience with poverty than frugality. Doorknobs were regularly replete
with used rubber bands and drawers were filled with saved plastic bags, other peoples pens, safety
pins and bobby pins. However, farming was really far out. To me, as a child, food came from the grocery store. I dont think I ever gave much thought as to whether one tomato was any different than
any other. The farm I knew best was the scientific one at the Museum of Science and Industry. It
was the era, perhaps the peak, of industrial farming. Chemicals, straight lines, pesticides and power
from dams and nuclear plants were going to save the world.

The Fall of American Farming

While the idea of farming as we do it at Cornman Farms has been getting more attention of late in
the artisan food world, the truth is that most of the last 150 American years have been spent trying
to get away from the farm! In the 1830s, when the house and barn were built, over three quarters of
the population of the United States lived on a farm. In 1882, the year that Rocco Disderide arrived
in the U.S. from Italy, about half the countrys population lived on a farm. By the time he opened his
shop in 1902, in the current Zingermans Deli space, that number was down to a third of the people
in the US. By the time we opened the Deli in 1982, it was down to a tenth of thatonly about 3.4%
of Americans lived on a farm. By the time the farmer Im going to talk about started farming in the
early aughts, it decreased by half again. To make the picture even bleaker, by the time we started
farming at Cornman, nine out of ten American farmers were dependent on off-farm income to make
their living.
All of which helps make clear that, back when we opened the Deli, college graduates were not racing
to establish themselves as farmers. Getting a small sustainable farm started is not now, nor was it
then, a quick way to find fame or fortune. In a society fixated on speed, old school agriculture works
the other way around. The pace of feet in the soil agriculture is slow. A snails pace compared to
most economic activity. However, to move faster would be incongruous; out of sync with the natural
systems we all admire. As Wendell Berry writes, the gait most congenial to agrarian thought and
sensibility is walking. It is the gait best suited to paying attention, most conservative of land and
equipment, and most permissive of stopping to look or think. Machines, companies, and politicians
run. Farmers studying their fields travel at a walk. In that sense, maybe it makes sense that its
taken me so long to put explore my thoughts on our farm.

The Story of Cornman Farms

The farmer Im taking notice of hereper Wendell Berrys beliefsis also a chef, and also the managing partner at the Roadhouse. Alex Young came to work with us fifteen years agoone year of
transition into the organization by serving as the kitchen manager at the Deli, then, as planned, moving on to be the chef and partner at the Roadhouse. I dont think that Alex grew up in a farm setting
either, but at least he spent much of his youth in northern California where local produce and nature
are a lot more prevalent than they were for me in the squared off streets of Chicago. Alex moved his

family here to settle down in Dexter where his wifes family had been farming since the early part of
the 19th century. While his own upbringing was one of near constant shifting, the Arnold family had
been on the same land for nearly two hundred years!
This September, the Roadhouse will celebrate its 13th anniversary. Alex and crew have won a James
Beard award for their work; theyve been written up in numerous publications, the most recent of
which was a rather large and gorgeously glowing piece in USA Today by best selling author Larry
Olmstead. (Check out Larrys great new book Real Food, Fake Food!) The Roadhouse has been on
TV half a dozen times, in the local press many more than that. Food writers from across the country come to speak at special dinners featuring their cookbooks (see page 10 for your opportunity
to attend one of these events). While the agricultural work on the farm gets a few lines in all the
articles, it rarely takes top attention. I guess the agricultural work is a kind of like the drummer in
a famous band. The chef is the lead singer. While the drummer sits in the back and keeps the beat
going, the singer gets all the attention.
The funny thing here is that in our case, the drummer and the singer, the chef and the farmer, are the
same person. Alex does both. The chef at the Roadhouse didnt just decide to buy from local farms
(also a great thing mind you), he actually started one!
What is now an entire farm started as a hobby. Alex used it as something to take his mind off the
stress of figuring out how to run a very large, very high-quality, restaurant. At the time he started, I
remember Alex catching flak for taking his attention off the restaurant by doing something unrelated. But for Alexit gave him a whole new perspective on what it meant to be a chef and run a
restaurant.
Even still, farming wasnt high on Alexs bucket list. He was a chef. He loved to cook. Hed cooked
all over the U.S. and Europe. He was good at it. He told me that one of the first times he cooked for
other people was when he was 13 and his parents went out of town and he invited a few hundred
people over for a BBQ. (That was the event at which the barbecue sauce we now all know as Alexs
Red Rage had its beginnings. Hes been tweaking it regularly ever since). In the early years of the
Roadhouse, he used to sit on his porch, just up the road from where his wifes relatives had started
farming. he told me "That was my wishing tree. I used to sit out there and think about what it would
be like to have a farm. I thought it would be cool to have a farm one day. At that point though, it was
probably more about the idea of having a farm than it was of doing the actual farming. Not that he
was opposed to hard workrunning restaurant kitchens is hardly a leisure activity. But hed never
farmed, never had a real sense of what was involved.
Somehow, early on in the stressful times that accompany nearly every restaurant startup, Alex had
the idea to go out in his backyard and start growing some tomatoes. Over time he added a few other
vegetables as well. One day he brought a few things in to the restaurant and started doing what he
knew how to do best, which is cook with them. Spotting a regular customer sitting up front at the
chefs counter, he brought out some of what hed prepared with the fresh produce. He still talks
about that momentwhen he experienced the emotional and culinary connection of watching a
customer eat what hed grown. Reflecting back on the good Mr. Berry, it strikes me that this was the
momentor at least one of themwhen Alex first united the inescapable economic concern with
an equally compelling interest in ecology.
Mark Baerwolf remembers those days: Id worked as a cook around town for years, and I came to
the Roadhouse because Id read Alexs description of what he wanted the Roadhouse to be in an
article in the Ann Arbor Observer. Hed explained how he wanted to explore American foodways by
using local and organic produce, if possible. He and I started talking veggies and tomatoes because
we both had gardens. He invited me out to see his backyard garden and I never left. Ive worked
with Alex and the garden since 2006 while also working as a cook at the Roadhouse. Id work during
the day at the and head off to the restaurant for the evening. But Ive been full-time on the farm
the last three years. I am the best version of myself out in the garden, and Ive met the nicest people
from farming.
Over the last decade, what started as digging a few rows of tomatoes has turned into a ten-plus-acre
farm which produces multiple tons of produce for the restaurant. Cornman Farms is an integral
piece of what we do at the Roadhouse. I dont conceive of Cornman Farms as a purveyor to the
RoadhouseI imagine it as the back prep kitchen of the restaurant. To me, its not much different
than the pit or the cutting table where we prep fish, or cut up whole sides of beef. Its just part of the
processour processof producing really good American food.
The connection between simultaneously growing our own vegetables in order to cook them in our
own restaurant is a big shift in beliefs. This is not the way its been done, at least not in the second half of the 20th century. Thats not an overnight shift to make. As biologist Julian Huxley, the
brother of Aldous Huxley, author of the aptly-titled for the purposes of this piece, Brave New World,
said in 1961: It is hard to break through the firm framework of an accepted belief-system and to
build new and complex successors, but it is necessary.
Alexs insight, his willingness to twist the viewing lens, to shift his beliefs, makes very good sense.
In an industrial restaurant, most of the food arrives already prepped, in boxes, cans or bags. One
step up (in my judgment) would at least take whole commercial produce into the kitchen to work
with. A better kitchenthe kind we would want to work withwould take the fresh produce, where
possible, from farms with whom they have a relationship, and work with them to offer what was best
in season. Certainly there are now a fair few places around the area, and many more around the
country, who are doing that.
What Cornman Farms has become for the Roadhouse is, in my mind, merely taking that process one
step further in the quality chain. The Roadhouse doesnt just prep fresh produceit grows it! In
my fantasy, the farm would literally be located right out the back door so that people from the prep
kitchen could walk out and talk to the folks growing in the fields. I think about asking the prep
cook to run out back to pick some more tomatoes! But since we arent likely to be able to turn the
Westgate Mall parking lot into a patch of organic produce, I think this is about as good as were
gonna get for the moment. And Ive been in some big hotel kitchens where it takes as long to walk
from one side of the building to the other as it takes to drive all the way to Dexter.
Sidenote: My quip about parking lot produce was a bit too quick. The Cornman crew actually has
some great looking produce growing liberally around the restaurant. The parking lot has corn,
sunflowers and a few herbs all on hand. And folks do come out as needed to pick a bunch of mint
for cocktails, herbs for salad, etc. It makes me smile every time I park near the dumpsters and see
a spread of beautiful sunflowers standing tall right next to it!

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

Flowers and French Peppers

- COMING SOON! -

Turning all this passion into a financially workable model isnt, as you can tell already, all that easy.
The key has been finding things to grow that we feel great about, things that taste special enough
to allow us to charge what we need to charge, that get the attention of food lovers who eat them.
One way is flowers.
Amanda is all about them. Amanda Maurmann grew up in Ann Arbor (her father, Gene Hopkins was
one of the architects who worked on the first Deli expansion back in 1986). After a number of years
out east, she moved home and started working at the Roadhouse. Her passion for agriculture soon
shifted her to working on the farm. You can see, and feel, her commitment in every conversation.
Shes growing nearly 100 varieties of flowers on the farm.
Finding old school, organic flowers, flowers that arent laden with pesticides, flowers that look
beautiful and are sustainably grown, is harder to do that, one might think. Most flowers you and I
see outside the farmers market are the floral equivalent of industrial food. I get so upset when I
see industrial flower growing, Amanda said. Flowers cry out for bees and other pollinators, but to
get those perfect blooms in mass plantings often times they spray, and end up killing the good with
the 'bad', not to mention spraying it on the farm workers, too..."
While few consumers realize it, 80% of flowers sold in the US are imported, often from places with a
lot looser and more dangerous agricultural policies than ours. What Amanda is experimenting with
on the farm is something thats aligned with the way we approach our food. Old varieties that look
lovely, that enhance the look of the land, and if you buy them, your table, too.
Sidenote: To that end, the Roadhouse has, while the flowers are in season, started offering them
to you when you make a reservation! If youd like a bouquet of these old school flower arrangements waiting on the table when you arrive just let us know next time you book. I can pretty
much guarantee you will win friends and influence whomever you brought with you to dinner!
Or lunch! Or brunch! Or just for afternoon oysters and sparkling wine! When you do, remember
what Amanda told me: We would not be here if it wasnt for flowers. Flowers are to attract the
bees and the bees pollinate the plants. Its totally mind-blowing!

Agriculture and Economy - Paying the price

All of this, I would imagine, sounds rather inspiring. It certainly does to me! The challengeaside
from the enormous amount of work it takes to restore the soil, choose the seeds, grow it all and
harvest itis trying to figure how to make the money work. Its again, easier said than done. Ive
been turning this over in my head, gently, without sending myself into a total tizzy, much the way
the crew at Cornman work the land. Thoughtfully, purposefully, with care, and with the intent of
sorting out whats really best over the long haul. Its not about quick fixes. Its about sustainability
of food and finance. About bringing every element of existence into alignment, leaving our world
both in business and with raised bedsbetter than we found it.
Heres what I wrote a few years ago in Part 1 of Zingermans Guide to Good Leading:
Paying the Full Price Up Front
I think that this idea of staying in business bleeds into a topic that hardly anyone ever really
wants to talk aboutcharging enough for our products for our business to actually be financially
viable over the long term. The funny thing about this is that even in the world of sustainable
food production, there are still a whole lot of folks pushing for ever lower prices. Which is certainly their prerogative. Its not like Im an advocate of raising prices on principle. Nor have I ever
thought that life is all about maximizing your financial return. And I definitely dont think higher
prices should be used to cover up inefficiencies.
But the reality is that higher prices that allow healthy, sustainably minded businesses to do all
the things were talking about and still stay in business are, I think, a good and necessary thing.
By contrast, driving prices down at all costs is the exact model that we all say that we want to
get away from in the food world. And we know what happened there. Personally, I think back to
what Michael Pollan wrote in a piece for the New York Times Sunday Magazine entitled Unhappy
Meals. Among his principles of healthy eating, number five is pay more, eat less. He goes on to
explain that:
The American food system has for a century devoted its energies and policies to increasing
quantity and reducing price, not to improving quality. Theres no escaping the fact that better
foodmeasured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond)costs more, because it
has been grown or raised less intensively and with more care. Not everyone can afford to eat well
in America, which is shameful, but most of us can: Americans spend, on average, less than 10 percent of their income on food, down from 24 percent in 1947, and less than the citizens of any other
nation. And those of us who can afford to eat well should. Paying more for food well grown in
good soilswhether certified organic or notwill contribute not only to your health (by reducing
exposure to pesticides) but also to the health of others who might not themselves be able to afford
that sort of food: the people who grow it and the people who live downstream, and downwind, of
the farms where it is grown.
Having worked in the food world for nearly 30 years now Im still shocked and awed to hear, over
and over again, stories of restaurants and retailers that were generally considered to be big successes who, it later turns out, never made any money. Although some of them charged high prices,
they ran cost of goods numbers that simply werent viable, yet struggled along for years anyway.
Some survived on infusions of cash from corporate parents, wealthy-from-other-work owners,
or public stock offerings. Others stayed in business, in part, by not paying themselves a salary,
either because they didnt need the income or because there wasnt any cash to pay it.
To the consumer, of course, these businesses look perfectly healthy. And the prices they charge set
a standard that others see as the norm. But the problem is that using these failing businesses as
a benchmark is akin to setting your weight target by looking at fashion magazines. In either case,
the model (sorry, pun intended) is not very likely to be sustainable. It survives, maybe even looks
glamorous for a bit, but eventually starves and collapses. And, in the process, it leaves the world
around itstaff, suppliers, customers, and communityworse off than when it first arrived on
the scene.
What that means to me on the upside is that we have to have the courage to charge what we need
to charge to stay in business in a healthy way. That we have to back that up by delivering great
experiences to those we interact withstaff, suppliers, community, shareholders, and of course
customers. We have to share what we take in with all of those groups, so that everyone gets something positive out of the work that we do in order to create the kind of abundance were committed to delivering. We have to back that all up even more by using good business practices, careful
costing, and effective purchasing, so that were not wasting cash that customers contribute to
our cause.
To me, thats the crux of what sustainable business is all about. Staying in business in order to
sustain the lives and livelihoods of the people and the producers of our community.
Well, Ive now worked in the food world for nearly 40 years, but theres nothing else in what I wrote

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

A unique new arrival from our friend Majid Mahjoub in Tunisia

Chetoui olivesan ancient variety unique to Tunisiaare handpicked, then pressed within
hours using traditional methods. Left unfiltered to preserve its natural integrity.
Named after Majids wife Onsa, a wonderful woman and an outstanding cook. The oil is delicate but delicious. Majid poetically describes its flavor as lavishly generous and fragile.
Particularly delicious with fresh fish, salads, soft cheese, vegetable sautes and pouring over
freshly cooked pasta. Were honored to offer this fine oil for the first time in the U.S., and
excited to be able to eat it ourselves every day!
Expect to see this unique oil on shelves at the Deli in late October!

then that Id change now. In fact, I might even say it more forcefully. Whats the point of doing all
the work if we arent going to charge enough to cover what it costs us to do the work in the first
place?
Its a key part of Wendell Berrys beautiful statement up at the top of this piece. When you find a
farmer or a forester who has united the inescapable economic concern with an equally compelling
interest in ecology... Its the combination of the two thats so special. Just having a high interest in
economics alone leads to the unsustainable stuff that most anyone reading this essay has already
long since come to view with suspicion. Having a compelling interest in ecology alone might lead
you to appropriately recycle, reduce your carbon footprint, and support ecologically-minded nonprofit organizations. The point here though is to unite the two. Ecology and economy. Each
without the other is unlikely to get us very far. At least not very far in the direction we want to go.
While the country is happily moving up minimum wage and helping entry level folks move closer to
making a manageable living (theres still a long way to go, mind you), the reality is that most small
farmers dont even get that. When you own your own place, your own business, you don't get paid
by the hour. I think thats a good thinga vocation, a passion, something you really care about isnt
something you punch in and out for. While most of the folks in this country who care a lot about
food, are all for increasing the amount of acreage managed by sustainable farmers, the reality is
that most of those have a hard time making ends meet.
Im determined to change that. Or, at least, I want to try. I believe that we can, in the same way that
weve worked to make artisan bread baking, cheese-making, sandwich-making into a sustainable
business, I dont know why we cant do the same with farming. The work that Alex, Mark, Amanda
and everyone on the farm is doing is exceptional. When we started at the Deli in the early 80s,
lets just say that artisan cheeses and olive oils were selling for a lot less than they are now. We pay
a lot more and, consequently, we also charge a lot more. The same is true for other traditionally
made foods. People started to price their products not on the market price, but on some reasonable estimate of what they actually cost to produce. Did they push the envelope of what many folks
thought that a piece of cheese or a bottle of olive oil ought to cost? Of course they did. But they
did it anyways. If we really value what theyre producing, then it only makes sense to pay a price
that allows them to make a modicum of a living.
Growing heirloom tomatoes doesnt win headlines but it might just make a huge difference in the
way we eat, and live, what happens on the planet and inside our bodies. When I talk about charging
enough to cover costs were not talking about covering some huge salaries. Just the same sort of
"good-for-our-industry, not-that-high, compared-to-many-other-industries," kind of pay rates we
try to pay here. And benefits like health care, paid time off and other things that most professions
pretty surely take for granted.

Farms and Finance

To be clear, Im not remotely the worlds expert on small-scale, sustainable agriculture. Im just an
outsider: the city kid who likes to cook and still feels comforted by the smell of warm asphalt in the
sun, trying to figure all this out. Best I can tell though, the reality of most farming work is that its
based on a couple of economic models that I dont really want to emulate:
a) pay migrant laborers below minimum wage
b) get interns who will do the work for room and board this isnt a terrible model. It allows new
folks to learn so theyre basically getting important education without having to pay for it.
c) families living on off-farm income then doing a LOT of work on-farm for no real pay because they
believe in what theyre doing, believe in agriculture and are deeply committed to maintaining their
craft and their land.
With all due respect, Id like to try a different model. One in which maybe no one gets rich, but in
which the economic framework is as sustainable as the soil and the produce were working to grow
in it. To set the strangeness of that structure into context: take out farmer and plug in pretty
much any profession you want - attorneys, actuaries, accountants, automakers - imagine that they
all had other jobs in order to make their profession work financially. Even the thought of it makes
me laugh, though not really for good reasons.
Its not an easy box to get out of. In her introduction to the New Farmers Almanac, Severine von
Tscharner Fleming wrote that, yes, labor is expensive and yet too cheap, food prices are higher
than people can afford and yet lower than reasonable cost of production. Its all a bit paradoxically problematic. Which, frustrating as it seems at first, isnt necessarily such a terrible thing. As
Alfred Kazin wrote: Mans life is full of contradiction . . . a contradiction that is faced leads to
true knowledge. I look forward, then, to the creative energy we can unleash if we can sort out a
healthier set of beliefs. Together, Im convinced, we can figure this thing out.
In our next issue we'll further explore the intersection of ecology and economics on Cornman
Farms.

By Val Neff-Rasmussen
My first grits story is about disappointment. I tried them, they were bland, I moved on.
Im not the only one. When Glenn Roberts, the founder of Anson Mills, started calling
chefs across the country to sell them his stoneground, organic, heirloom grits, he was
met with universal derision. Chefs laughed at the idea, or they just plain hung up on him.
But luckily for us, Glenn didnt give up easy. He kept calling. Eventually, some of them
started to give the grits a shot. First on board were the chefs in Charleston and Atlanta
theyd grown up with grits and were bowled over by the huge flavors of Glenns heirloom
grains. Eventually chefs around the country started to take note, and today you find
Anson Mills grits on menus at restaurants like Alinea in Chicago and The French Laundry
in California. In fancy restaurants, the fact that grits are no longer a national disappointment is almost entirely thanks to Glenns evangelism.

GLENN IS SOMETHING OF A CULINARY PIONEER.

Hes spent the last two decades scouring the South for flavorful old heirloom plants; ones
that have long since been forgotten by farmers because they were too slow growing or
too labor intensive. If you talk with him about his story, hell say things to you like Im
stupid enough to drive 268 miles to taste collards that no one outside of the Bradford
family has tasted in 200 years. (Youre probably thinking what I am: that doesnt sound
stupid, it sounds like a pretty fun adventure!) He found his first heirloom breeds of corn
by staking out small towns like a DEA agent. Why? The reason people were still growing
those old, difficult to harvest breeds is because they were the best for making (illegal)
hooch. Once folks got used to him, hed start asking them about their corn. I drank a
lot of white lightning, he recalls. You can make really good moonshine with old dent
varieties of corn they're called "dent" because of a small indentation in the top of each
kernel. Dent corn is fairly soft, making it excellent for mashing to make whiskey. But,
more importantly to Glenn, it also makes it an ideal candidate for stone ground grits.

GRINDING WITH A STONE MILL IS KEY.

Until the end of the 19th century, farmers in the south used to take their grains to local
stone mills to grind them into cornmeal. By the middle of the 20th century, the stone
mills had been replaced by roller mills. With a roller mill, the bran and germ of the corn
are removed and the rest of the kernel is smooshed and ground into bits. The germ is
where most of the flavor is, in part because it has fats. However, fats go rancid over time,
and by removing the germ you get a product that lasts basically forever, but tastes like
nothingor worse, like disappointment.
By grinding with a stone mill, the grain stays more intact and the pieces end up being a
little less homogenous. Thats a good thingit means that the germ isnt removed and the
grits have way more flavor. Another advantage to stone mills is that they dont heat up
like roller mills. Just like with olive oil, which tends to taste best when its cold pressed,
heat is the enemy of flavor when grinding corn. Too much heat will cook off some of
the essential oils and aromas in the corn, removing flavor. At Anson Mills, they grind on
granite mills. To be doubly sure that the corn stays cold during milling, they freeze ita
technique Glenn found buried in an old document about an 1850 crop of yellow dent
corn.
Of course, having the germ also means that Anson Mills grits can go rancid if stored
improperly. To keep them fresh and delicious, we store them in the freezer here in our
warehouse. Theyre fine at room temperature for a little while, but to keep them fresher
longer, you should store them in the freezer at home, too. When youre ready to cook
them, you can take them straight from the freezer to the pot.
You could cook up a normal pot of grits with water, salt, and butter. Or you could make
Grits & Bits Waffles.
These waffles have been a favorite on the brunch menu at Zingermans Roadhouse for
years. They were first made in Georgia, where the story goes that Dutch immigrants that
had migrated south from New York with their waffle irons would toss last nights leftover grits into their breakfast waffles the next morning. This might qualify as
the worlds most complex waffle recipe, but its also perhaps the worlds
most delicious.

Val Neff-Rasmussen

GRITS & BITS WAFFLES

Recipe by Ari Weinzweig

excerpted from Zingerman's Guide to Better Bacon

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups water
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup Anson Mills (quick-cooking) grits
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
4 eggs

1 cups whole milk

1 pound sliced bacon, cooked and
coarsely chopped
6 ounces good cheddar, shredded
Maple syrup and butter to taste for
serving

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar and baking powder and set aside.
2. In a saucepot, bring the water and butter to a simmer. Before the water
comes to a boil start adding the grits, stirring steadily until incorporated. Add
the salt and stir well. Reduce heat to low, cover and continue to simmer for
30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add more water if needed.
3. While the grits are cooking, separate the eggs. Set the yolks aside in a dish,
and refrigerate the whites.
4. When the grits are done (you can always cook them longer than half an
hourtheyll continue to get creamier the longer you cook them), remove
them from the heat; transfer to a large mixing bowl and let cool to 110F. Stir
the egg yolks into the grits one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
5. Add the milk and mix well.
6. Add the flour mixture, mixing until just combined.
7. Beat the cold egg whites in a mixer or with a hand beater to medium peaks.
Gently fold the whites into the batter and mix gently. Chill for at least 1 hour
prior to cooking. (Note: the batter can be made the night before and stored
in the refrigerator until youre ready to start cooking.)
8. When youre ready to eat, pour the batter into a preheated and welloiled Belgian-style waffle iron, and add a generous bit of chopped bacon
and shredded cheddar. (We use 1 cup of batter with cup each of bacon
and cheddar.) Close the waffle iron and cook until golden brown. Remove
the waffles from the iron and place on warm plates. Sprinkle more chopped
bacon and shredded cheddar over the top of the waffles. Serve with good
butter and real maple syrup.
9. Repeat until all the batter, chopped bacon and grated cheddar have been
used.
Serves 4 to 6 as a main dish.

Available at the Roadhouse!

The Feed is a deeper look into the foods we sell at Zingermans.

Each issue focuses on one product. Find more stories online at thefeed.zingermans.com.

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

Back to school
with Zingermans

Help your favorite student feel right at home in their new college digs with a gift
from Zingermans Mail Order. Each gift box is packed to order, delivered directly to
their door (or, at least, to their mail room), and, if shared, is sure to make them at
least 150% more new friends.

Order online at zingermans.com or by phone at 888-636-8162

Munchies
Gift Box

When I was in college,

my thoughtful mother
sent a gift of food near
exam time. Then I got
all A's. Cause or coincidence? Why risk testing it?
Our cartoon gift box includes Ann
Arbor Tortilla Chips, Fundidora
Salsa, Cashews with Lime Leaves,
Virginia Diner Peanuts, John
Macy's Cheesesticks, Zingerman's
Peanut Brittle and a Zingermans
Magic Brownie.

FREE SHIPPING

Theyve moved out of the dorm. They are

renting a six bedroom house with nine
other people. Its starting with cheer and
promise. You know there will be
trouble, though. Send them a gift
while theyre still in the honeymoon phase, while they can win
friends over with food. Well
pack our colorful gift box filled
with vittles they can all fight over:
Rustichella spaghetti, Il Mongetto
tomato sauce, Koeze Peanut
Butter, Coops hot fudge,
Rayes mustard, Chi-racha
Hot sauce, butter-toasted
peanuts, ground High Flier
coffee, a Sourcream coffeecake, a
couple of brownies from Zingermans Bakehouse and a Sharpie
marker so they can write their name on everything.

SHIPS FOR FLAT RATE

U of M Peanuts

Big, fat, perfectly cooked Virginia peanuts. Ill go out on a limb and say theyre
my favorite nut ever. We've got them
two ways, packaged in a tin emblazoned
with a big University of Michigan block
"M." The first way is straight-up salted.
The second is coated in butter and
sugar. The butter forms a crispy, caramel-like jacket and the sugar sweetens them just a little.

SHIPS FOR FLAT RATE

ISSUE # 256

The loft has been constructed, the fridge

is tiny and theres an illegal hot plate in the
corner. Freshman move-in is complete! No
matter where your favorite college student is studying, theyll need some tasty
treats to make friends and impress that
cute English major down the hall. We pack
non-perishable winners in our colorful
gift box that your typical student can use to
break the ice and become wildly popular:
Koeze peanut butter, American Spoon preserves, Banana bread and eight brownie
bites from Zingermans Bakehouse.

SHIPS FOR FLAT RATE

Deans List
Gift Box

Dorm-Warming
Gift Box

SEPT-OCT 2016

Mo Frechette
Managing Partner at Zingerman's Mail Order

KIDS GROUP

BACK TO
SCHOOL LIST
Hey parents! Zingerman's Delicatessen has all you
need to make your back to school lunches extra
special for foodies of all ages!
Insulated lunch bags

Ortiz tuna tins

Koeze peanut butter

American spoon cherry
berry jam

Zingermans Candy
Manufactory multi-pack
Zzang bars

Hungarian mild salami

Bagel chips

Zingermans Bakehouse
pretzel sticks

Pimento cheese
Zingermans Bakehouse
graham crackers

A visit To the

OUR ALUMNI
GROUP

American Cheese Society

Annual Conference
In the last week of July, we spent 4 lovely days in Des Moines, Iowa at the American
Cheese Society's annual conference. The ACS is a cheese lovers dream come truewith
a diverse mix of attendees, you meet cheesemakers, distributors, cheesemongers, and
people who just love cheese! The conference features cheese competitions, learning
opportunities, and - oh yes - the chance to eat so much cheese that by the end of the
weekend, you might actually pass up a cheese course! It was a week filled with visits to
La Quercia in Norwalk, IA for some top-notch, 4-year-aged, acorn-fed prosciutto, and
Maytag Dairy for a good old-fashioned midwestern hoe down. Well leave it to your
imagination as to how much sweet corn we consumed.
For cheesemakers and wholesalers, the conference is an opportunity to pitch your
products to cheese shops and restaurant cheese programs all over the country. Paul
relished getting together with some of the folks weve been selling cheese to from
all across the country for years, and forging some new partnerships with others. This
years Meet the Cheesemaker event featured over 80 producers, all sampling out
their products. As our cheese shop manager, this is one of the ways that Tessie scouts
out new cheesemakers and new products to carry. The event is only a few hours long,
so its good to go in with a goal in mind. This year, she was on the hunt for some new
sheeps milk cheeses for the shop, as well as some unique American originals to showcase for the holidays. Want to check out some of her other finds from this years conference? Join Tessie on Thursday, October 27th for a tasting to celebrate American
Cheese Month, featuring some of her new favorites!
The other integral part of this gathering is education. This year Tessie had the opportunity to take the Certified Cheese Professional exam. From the American Cheese
Societys website - The ACS Certified Cheese Professional Exam (ACS CCPExam)
the only exam of its kind encourages improved standards of comprehensive cheese
knowledge and service, offering professionals in the cheese industry the opportunity
to earn the distinguished title of ACS Certified Cheese Professional, or ACS CCP. The
exam covers everything from the influence feed has on milk quality all the way to the
best pairings to suggest for a variety of cheeses. As a cheesemonger, it pushed Tessie
to learn more about the whole cheesemaking process, moving beyond the things that
10 years behind the counter has taught her and into the fascinating details of the biochemical processes that turn humble milk into delicious cheese! Well find out in early
September if Tessie passed the exam, and if you are out by the Creamery, stop in to say
hished love to tell you more about the experience!

Thanks, from the team at Zingerman's Creamery

IS OFFICIALLY UNDER WAY!

Hi everyone!
The Zingermans Alumni Group is officially under way! Thank you so much for being part of it!!
Getting the Alumni Group going is one of the things Im MOST excited about in the ZCoB right
now. Thinking about all the cool connections, the creative and supportive community building, the chance to help former and present ZCoBers by sharing resources has my mind racing
the possibilities seem literally almost endless. Im excited! I hope you are, too!
Author Neil Gaiman says that good stories should change you. What the world now knows
as the Zingermans story has been created by many thousands of great people over the last
nearly 35 years. Each of us has impacted the others; even the people you may never have
worked with, folks who were part of the ZCoB before or after you were here yourself, have
had an impact on what we are as an organization. Each one of us has impacted what we do,
influenced the food we prepare, shaped what we serve and sell, been a part of developing the
unique ways in which we relate to other organizations around the world. In the new book
Part 4 in Zingermans Guide to Good Leading series, on the Power of Beliefs in BusinessI wrote
a lot about viewing organizations as ecosystems. Understanding that every element of an ecosystem is pretty surely being impacted by every other element. And how its much easier to live
a healthy and rewarding life when one is part of a healthy and productive ecosystem.
Of course, in nature, each ecosystem is made up of many smaller ecosystems, and at the same
time is a part of other, larger ones. The Zingermans Alumni Group is a way to effectively place
us all into a larger ecosystem, without intruding on the other ones of which were a part. This
one is particularly intriguing to me because it bends back into time as well as along broad
(world-wide, really) lines. My hope is to connect people who made sandwiches back in the
mid-'80's to people who are making them today; folks who baked back in the early days of the
Bakehouse to the folks who are minding the bench, the mixer and the ovens today.
My own story is completely interwoven with many thousands of great folks whove worked at
the ZCoB over the years. From the first day I met Paul and Frank back at Maudes, to Maggie
getting a job there not long thereafter, to all the people who helped get us going to the many
managing partners, and Community Share owners, sandwich makers, bakers, bookkeepers,
baristas, caterers, cleaning crews, coffee roasters, servers, drivers, cheesemongers, merchandisers, illustrators, designers, HR, IT, payroll, holiday staff, full time, part time, temporary, short
term, long term ... there are rich and rewarding relationships that extend now, literally, all over
the world. Im honored and humbled to be some small part of all that. And Im totally jazzed
that were now creating a systemmatic and organized way to help keep, and actively enhance,
these conversations and connections. In a nutshell, thats what the Zingermans Alumni Group
is all about.
In the coming months and years we will, of course, learn and improve on what weve got going
already in these first few months. This is just the beginning, and as we know from Natural Law
#11 (from Part 1 of the Guide to Good Leading series of books) it takes a lot longer to make something great happen than most people think! But were in this for the long haul! Looking forward
to connecting with you soon!

September
Aged Chelsea

October
Little Napoleon

Inspired by some of our favorite cheeses

from the Loire River Valley in France,
the Aged Chelsea is a mold ripened goat
log coated in edible vegetable ash. The
ash helps draw moisture to the cheeses
surface, developing a well-balanced flavor while providing an appealing dark
grey exterior. At room temperature, the
Chelsea oozes richness and its creamy,
spreadable texture releases the naturally
gentle flavor of the goat milk.

The little cheese with a big complex. The

Little Napoleon is made by very gently
hand-ladling delicate goat's milk curd
into molds to allow for proper drainage
and the fullest flavor development. This
small, mold-ripened goat cheese has a
butter colored rind, which will develop
slight blue mottling with age. When very
young (two weeks) this cheese has a soft
creamy texture and a gently acidic flavor.
As it reaches middle age (two to three
weeks) the cheese is semi-firm and develops a full, savory flavor. At one month,
the cheese is firm to hard with a very pronounced goat flavor.

The Chelseas striking visual appearance

makes it perfect for slicing into discs on
a bias and arranging on a cheese plate.
Because of its delightfully creamy-yetdense texture, this cheese is a perfect candidate for baking inside of puff-pastry. Its
more robust than traditional bries, and its
ashed rind results in a beautiful presentation once cut open. The Chelsea is magnificent when eaten with a crusty baguette
and served with one of the slightly-sweet,
white wines of Michigans Traverse City
areaMurmur by Left Foot Charley and
Pinot Grigio by Bowers Harbor are two
great pairings for this one. Both are available at the Creamery!

Whatever age you enjoy it, the Little

Napoleon is just perfect with a freshly
baked baguette from our next-door
neighbors at Zingermans Bakehouse!
When they are young and creamy, this
cheese pairs great with sweet preserves
like fig jam, and as the texture firms up
with age, you can crumble on a salad with
pecans and roasted squash for a beautiful fall salad. Pair the Little Napoleon with
an American-style Lager. We really like
Detroit's Lake Brothers Brewing's Lager!

According to a traditional French rural

legend, if you cut the smaller end of the
Bche (log) first, the goat whose milk was
used to make the cheese will dry up. So,
for the sake of our farmers, please start at
the larger end!

3723 Plaza Drive, Ann Arbor 734-929-0500 zingermanscreamery.com

travel to

next spring!

May 8-18, 2017

Walk Central Market Hall, Budapests homage to food, tasting as we go
Visit a distillery to taste a range of plinka (fruit Brandy)
Learn the richly varied cuisine, including Jewish foods
Create traditional dishes in a hands-on cooking class
Experience the scenic Tokaji wine region
Discover why Hungary has been called the land of 10 million pastry lovers!

$5,800/person sharing a room $6,200/single

Learn more & register at zingermansfoodtours.com

foodtours@zingermans.com | 888.316.2736

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

BOOK A SPOT AT ANY ZINGERMANS EVENT

Cheese Classes, Tastings & Tours!
Our events are intimate affairs where our cheesemakers and cheesemongers share their
passion for great cheese and great cheesemaking. We hold these classes right next to
where we make our cheese and gelato, and sometimes bring in our favorite food makers
from around the area to share their stories with you. To get the inside scoop on all of our
events, sign up for our e-news at zingermanscommunity.com/e-news.

3723 Plaza Dr. 734.929.6060

www.zingermanscoffee.com

3723 Plaza Drive 734.929.0500 zingermanscreamery.com

ZINGERMANS
CREAMERY CELEBRATION

Whether were pulling a shot for you in our caf on Plaza

Drive or sending you off with a bag of fresh roasted beans,
our passion is to source, roast and brew great coffee. Our
classes are designed for the coffee novice and nerd alike
and aim to help everyone learn about everything it takes to
turn a great bean into a great cup of coffee.

WINE & CHEESE 101

Thursday, October 13, 6-8pm $35/seat

Thursday, September 15, 6-8pm $30/seat

Join us for an evening celebrating the cheeses and gelati
that we produce here at Zingermans Creamery! Well taste
through a variety of our cheeses, talking about the farmers
that provide our milk, favorite recipes using our cheeses,
and the aging techniques we use to bring out the best flavor
in each of our cheeses. Well also taste some of our beloved
gelato, including a couple of our summer flavors that are
going on vacation soon! As always, well have some great
bread, salami, and pickles for the table to complete the tasting experience.

BEER & CHEESE 101

Thursday, September 29, 6-8pm $35/seat

What goes better with cheese than beer? More cheese! With
the ever-increasing number of great breweries and craft
beer, it can be hard to know what to look for in choosing a
beer for your cheese. Well talk about the brewing process,
major styles of beer, and some of our favorite cheeses to pair
up with each style. Well even end the evening with a beer
and gelato float!

Cheese and wine is a classic combination, but the options

can be dizzying! Join our cheesemongers as we give an overview of the wine world, with tastes from some of our favorite cheese-friendly wines paired up with delicious artisan
cheeses. Well talk about how to pick a great pairing, producers of the samples we taste, and give you the confidence
to wow your guests at your next gathering!

FALL FOR AMERICAN CHEESE!

Thursday, October 27, 6-8pm $30/seat

No, not the kind that
comes in pre-wrapped
squares! Join us as we
celebrate
American
Cheese Month (October
every year)! Our Shop
Manager, Tessie, was
at this years American Cheese Society annual conference
(see her story about the experience on page 13) and sleuthed
out some of the best cheeses out there right now! Shell talk
about the state of American cheeses, some of our favorite
producers, and why we love these cheeses so much.

BREWING METHODS

Sunday, September 4th, 1pm-3pm

Sunday, October 23rd, 1pm-3pm
Learn the keys to successful coffee brewing
using a wide variety of brewing methods from
filter drip to syphon pot. This tasting session will
explore a single coffee brewed 6 to 8 different
ways, each producing a unique taste. We will demonstrate the
proper proportions and techniques for each method and discuss
the merits and differences of each style.

COMPARATIVE CUPPING

Sunday, September 18th, 1pm-3pm

Sunday, October 2nd, 1pm-3pm
Sample coffees from Africa, Central and South America, and the
Asian Pacific. We will taste and evaluate these coffees with the
techniques and tools used by professional tasters. This is an
eye-opening introduction to the world of coffee.

2501 Jackson Road 734.663.3663 www.zingermansroadhouse.com

Zingermans Roadhouse hosts special dinners that highlight old favorites, new
finds, celebrated chefs and traditional American foodways. Our dinners are
family-style affairs that deliver really good food with a little history on the side.

THE TOMATO DINNER FEATURING

AUTHOR AMELIA SALTSMAN
Tuesday, September 13th, 2016 7pm
When the Roadhouse opened in 2003, Chef Alex
#200
had a vision for hosting monthly dinners featuring specific regions, cuisines, chefs and authors
that brought together our community to enjoy a
great meal and hear great stories. Thirteen years
later we are honored and humbled to be celebrating Special
Dinner #200. It is fitting that this dinner falls in the peak of
the harvest season and is just 2 days before the anniversary of
opening our doors.
To celebrate we have invited back to the Roadhouse awardwinning cookbook author Amelia Saltsman. Author of The
Santa Monica Farmers Market Cookbook and
the newly released The Seasonal
Jewish Kitchen, Amelias
passion for making the
connection
between
seasonal, small-farmed
foods
and
real-life
meals makes her the perfect guest speaker and
collaborator on the menu
with Chef Alex.

MY BELIEFS ABOUT COOKING

WITH ARI WEINZWEIG
Tuesday, October 5th, 2016 7pm
$75/person (price includes food,
tax and gratuity. Beverages additional)

When food and business, creative cooking and innovative

organizational design, positive beliefs and a wonderful evening all come together... you have a very special, special meal
in the making.
All of the food and drink at Zingermans are, of course, significantly influenced by those beliefs. Traditional full flavored
food has been at the core of what Zingermans has been about
since Paul and Ari first opened the Delis doors in 1982. This
dinner will take those beliefs and tune them up even tighter.
This evening, we take Aris essay on his beliefs about cooking from his newest book, Zingermans Guide to Good Leading,
Part 4; A Lapsed Anarchists Approach to the Power of Beliefs
in Business, and put it into practice. Ari and chef/partner
Alex Young have put together a special menu that brings Aris
beliefs into full focus.
The evening will include a talk by Ari about how his beliefs
about food and cooking have been formed, how theyve
changed over the years, and how theyve been put into play at
Zingermans over the last three and a half decades. This firsttime event is sure to get you thinkingabout your own beliefs
about food, cooking and life in general, as well as about how
good good food can really be.

Save the Date for our

ANNUAL BEER
& CHEESE DINNER!
Tuesday, October 25th @ 7:00 pm

10

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

#201

#202

422 Detroit Street 734.663.3400

www.zingermansdeli.com
Zingermans Deli tastings are designed to give you
an insiders view of the foods that weve searched
the world for. Youll often meet the folks who
make it and leave with a mouthful of flavor and a
new understanding of everything from olive oil to
sardines, cheese to chocolate.

31st ANNUAL PAELLA PARTY

Sunday, October 9 11am-2pm
On the Deli Patio

Paella Presentation at noon: The

show is free the Paella is sold
by the pound.
Our 31st annual celebration of
the fabulous foods of Spain culminates with a two-grill Paella
throwdown on Zingermans Patio.
There will be a special presentation
on Paella at noon, then Chef Rodger
and his crew deal out the goods:
three kinds of traditional Paella
Chicken & Chorizo, Seafood, and
Vegetarian, all grilled over mesquite. Those in the know
will be lined up for the padron peppers. New to the occasion this year: a kids table featuring Pa amb Tomquet,
jamon serrano, quince membrillo and Manchego.

10TH ANNUAL
HALLOWEEN HOOTENANNY
Thursday, October 27 4-7pm
On the Deli Patio
Tickets $5 in advance/$8 at the door

The Hootenanny is a fall-themed, Zingermans style celebration for kids. A fun evening of Halloween treats and
activities! There will be Pumpkin Drawing, Kooky Cookie
Decorating and more! Whether youre meeting to share
costumes and a play date or just stopping by on your way
home from school, we welcome you to stay and play for
a while! Youll enjoy music and complimentary snacks
as you participate at your own pace. Costumes are not
required, but they are encouraged!

T AT EVENTS.ZINGERMANSCOMMUNITY.COM
Hands-on Baking Classes
BAKE! is our hands-on teaching bakery in Ann Arbor, tucked between
Zingermans Bakehouse and Creamery. At BAKE!, we share our knowledge and love of baking with the home baker community, seeking to
preserve baking traditions and inspire new ones.
We offer dozens of different bread, pastry and cake classes in our very
own teaching kitchens. All of us at the Bakehouse know the joy and
excitement of baking something really good and sharing it with friends
when its hot out of the oven. Youll leave BAKE! with the food you made
in class and the inspiration and skills to bake at home!

Sign and browse our menu of more than 60 classes at

3723 Plaza Dr. 734.761.7255

www.bakewithzing.com

www.bakewithzing.com

PASTA MAKING

Wednesday, September 14, 6-9pm $75

You can make your own fresh pasta at home! Well teach you
the versatile recipes for Southern Italian semolina pasta and
Northern Italian egg pasta, as well as classic marinara sauce.
We'll also demonstrate making a fresh pesto sauce. Youll get
hands-on practice with various pasta rolling and shaping techniques. These can be the inspiration for all the pasta creations
you can dream up at home.

SAVORY PIES 2.0

Saturday, September 24, 1:30-5:30pm $125

A new batch of recipes for tasty savory pies from around the
world!
Tourtiere: Canadian pork pie
Fatayer: Middle eastern spinach pies
Piroshki: Farmers cheese filled pie from Russia and Ukraine
Well share the history and cultural significance of these baked
goods, too!

MINI MAMBO ITALIANO:

ITALIAN BREADS
Wednesday, October 19,
5:30-9:30pm $100

If our Mambo Italiano class is

the grand tour, this is more
like a trip to Little Italy. All
the fun and flavor in half the
time. Well make ciabatta
bread from Puglia and focaccia from Genoa. You'll learn
all the techniques of mixing,
kneading, shaping, proofing and baking these yeasted
breads at home. From the
tender chewiness of ciabatta
to the olive oil infused decadence of focaccia, soon you
will be saying 'Viva Italia!'

Farm Tours, Special Dinners and Classes

Several times a month, we open our doors to welcome you to the
Cornman Farms Experience. We offer farm-to-fork dinners, cocktail and cooking classes, and farm tours.

PEAS TURN UP THE BEET

EVEN LOUDER!

Thursday, September 15 @ 5-11pm $75

Join Community Farm of Ann Arbor and Zingermans Cornman
Farms for an evening of farm-fresh fun! A benefit for Chrysalis,
the educational arm of Community Farm of Ann Arbor, this event
will feature delicious, REAL food from the farm gardens (and from
Zingermans!), and live music from renowned bands. Community
Farm of Ann Arbor is an organization that grows homegrown
fruits and vegetables for 100 member families. Chrysalis is the
educational arm of Community Farm of Ann Arbor that sponsors area school field trips, cutting-edge workshops, and future
farmer training for young adults. Paul Bantle and Annie Elder
and their apprentices will be in attendance to meet and greet
you for a lovely evening celebrating Chrysalis and education in
agriculture! Eat well, learn a little, laugh a lot and support one of
the causes that makes Ann Arbor such a special place.

HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES?

IN COCKTAILS, OF COURSE!
Thursday, September 22, 7 - 9:30pm $75

Michigan is the nations third-largest producer of apples. In a

typical year, nearly a billion pounds of apples are harvested!
While we now enjoy this fruit in pies, it was originally planted
by the American colonialists out of necessity, to be made into
hard cider, as the water was considered unsafe to drink. Tonight
well explore apples in all their cocktail-making glory: in applejack (a liquor similar to whiskey, but made from apples), in
cider, in syrups, and fresh. Well discuss the journey of apples in
America while guests each make, and then enjoy, three cocktails
that each celebrate apples in a distinct way. Well snack on light
fare prepared by the farms own chef, and guests will end the
night with a newfound love of apples in alcohol, as well as all
of the recipes and the skills needed to recreate these cocktails
at home.

An award winning event venue

in Dexter, Michigan.

Corporate Events
We pride ourselves on our level of service, quality
of staff, impeccably maintained venues and grounds,
and our attention to detail.
Cornman Farms offers enjoyable interactive and custom hands-on corporate programming. From private
corporate dinners to custom retreats, we deliver a
unique experience for all guests.
Corporate Retreats
Employee & Client Appreciation Days
Corporate Dinners
Holiday Parties
Interactive Cooking Experiences
Integrated hands-on farming activities
Bring your employees to the countryside for a fun
and unique experience!
Corporate Packages Start at $2,500.

THE RESURRECTION OF RYE

Winter Weddings

An Exploration of Pre-Prohibition era cocktails using

Northeast Americas Original Whiskey
Rye was at one time the most prominent whiskey in the United
States. At the time of his death, George Washington produced
more rye than any other distiller in America. By the mid-1800s
it had become the most popular whiskey in the northeastern
states, particularly in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Prohibition
shut down rye production in the United
States in the 1920s, and
it might have disappeared completely if
it hadnt remained a
favorite of Al Capone
and other bootleggers.
Despite the underground demand, the rye
whiskey industry never
recovered. That is, until
now. In the last decade
dozens of rye whiskies
have been introduced to the American market. Some are brand
new, and some are revivals of centuries-old recipes. This is the
spicy, complex, robustly full-flavored whiskey that many classic cocktails from the 1800s/early 1900s were built upon. After
nearly a century of being modified to utilize whatever substitute
spirit was available, we can now truly appreciate these cocktails
as they were meant to be enjoyed generations agofull of notes
of spiced fruit, pepper, and sophisticated whiskey flavor. Well
gather in the barn and enjoy three pre-Prohibition classic cocktails while enjoying light fare made by the farms talented chef.

Imagine your winter wedding set on 42 acres of

pastoral charm...experience the warmth of our 1834
Farmhouse and 1837 Barn set against the romantic
backdrop of a winter wonderland. Sip hot cocoa
beside our crackling fireplaces, take in the ambience of a winter wonderland...while surrounded by
the love of your closest family and friends.

Thursday, October 20, 7 - 9:30 pm $75

8540 Island Lake Road, Dexter 734.619.8100 cornmanfarms.com

Our Red Barn Winter Wedding Experience is

designed for up to 100 guests and is available from
November through March. Your winter wedding
experience includes:
Exclusive venue
rental from 10am to
Midnight

Three-tiered wedding
cake from Zingermans
Bakehouse

Bar & beverage service for 5.5 hours

All essential classic farm rental items

including linens, tables,
chairs, china, silverware, glassware and
servingware

Hot chocolate bar

Zingerman's Coffee
& Rishi Tea stations
serviced throughout
the day
Zingermans Candy to
compliment after
dinner coffee service

Elegantly distressed
farm furniture rentals
Farmhouse concierge
Valet service

For more information:

www.cornmanfarms.com
email: cornmanevents@zingermans.com
call: 734-619-8100

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

11

ROSH HASHANAH SPECIALS

HapPy New Year from everyone at Zingermans!

Let The Deli Do The Cooking This Holiday!

Available for pick up and delivery starting
October 2nd at noon. Call 734.663.3400 to order!

Lemon Herb Roasted Whole Chickens Herb Roasted

Tasty whole-roasted birds rubbed with fresh herbs
Market Fingerling Potatoes
and lemon. (No hormones. No antibiotics. No funny

Herb roasted market fingerling potatoes. That is

kinda all we need to say. No need to over do it.

stuff.)

Roast Beef Brisket

Longtime staple of the Deli. Marinated and braised
for hours with herbs and garlic. Served thick-sliced
with a side of beef gravy.

Lamb and Honey Stew

Straight from the Zingermans Guide to Good
Eating (pg. 378), lamb slow-cooked with rosemary
honey, Spanish saffron and organic potatoes.

Sweet Carrot Tzimmes

Roasted Beet Salad with

Pomegranate Dressing
and Bitter Greens
Pastrami Knish
Our best knish yet. Handmade dough with Pastrami
and potatoes.

Special Rosh Hashanah edition of tzimmes made

with sweet organic carrots, slow-cooked with dried
fruit and spices. We are making a big tzimmes!

Lemon Couscous
Hand rolled Tunisian couscous in a lemon herb
dressing and Marcona Almonds.

This is just a small sample

of the feast were preparing.
Go to www.zingermansdeli.com
to see the complete menu and call
734.663.3400 to order!

Get the New Year off to a Sweet

Start with Handmade Candy!
Bring Home A Limited Edition Rosh Hashanah
Super Zzang! Bar
Try the treat Oprah called Chewy, crunchy, sweet, salty, and highly
addictivethis luscious handmade candy bar puts the vending machine stuff to shame. Big enough for the whole family to share!

Peanut Brittle And Chocolate Covered Peanut

Brittle

Honey SalE!

biggest selection of single origin honeys!

All honey 20% OFF

Limited Time Rosh Hashanah
Breads and Pastries!
Buckwheat Honeycake - Sept. 28 - Oct. 12
Made from a long list of luscious ingredients, including a
healthy helping of buckwheat honey from a beekeeper in
the Pacific Northwest. With a big, bold, fruity flavor, the
buckwheat honey adds extra zip. Add in freshly cracked
eggs, golden raisins, toasted almonds, fresh orange and
lemon zest, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and a few secret ingredients, and youll get the New Year off to a good
start.

Moroccan Challah - Sept. 28 - Oct. 12

A sensually spicy North African way to ring in the New
Year, this is the challah of the Moroccan Jewish community. Rich, egg-based dough sweetened with honey, woven
into a beautiful five-braid loaf, and then rolled in generous
amounts of anise, poppy, and sesame seeds.

Challah Turbans - Sept. 28 - Oct. 12

These challah rounds come in small and large sizes and two
varieties! With or without Myers Rum-soaked raisins.

12

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

Choose your pleasurejumbo runner peanuts cooked perfectly in

our deep amber, butterscotch-rich, shatteringly delicious brittle, or
all of that covered in amazing dark chocolate. On second thought,
why not some of each?

Sesame Halvah

Were taking candy, and halvah, back to the days before industrial
food production. We toast and grind the fresh sesame seeds ourselves and mix it by hand in small batches. Ours is the only handmade
halvah that we know of in the U.S. There are no shortcuts to flavor!
Toasted fresh sesame seeds, dense and dark muscovado brown sugar,
pure Michigan honey, and naturally harvested coarse sea salt all combine to make our halvah radically more flavorful!

Traditional Jewish Pastries

Gift-Boxed for the Holidays!
Rugelach
Rugel means royal in Yiddish and Rugelach is
definitely the royalty of traditional Jewish pastries. We make a butter and cream cheese dough
and wrap it around very special fillings. Our
handsome gift box is filled with a pound of these
royally good cookies. Choose from half dark
chocolate ganache & half red raspberry preserve,
or half apricot & half currant walnut.

Marvelous Mandelbread
Biscottis Eastern European cousin! Mandel
means almonds in Yiddish, and these are loadednot laced but literally, loaded with toasted
almonds. Made with sweet butter, fresh eggs, lots
of fresh orange and lemon zest, and scented with
real vanilla. Just the aroma alone is enough to
make us excited about these traditional cookies.

Visit Zingerman's Roadhouse for a special Rosh Hashannah dinner

available from September 29th to October 5th
- Cornman Farms' spinach salad with Michigan apples
& sweet pomegranate vinaigrette
- Sephardic braised beef with dates & apricots
- Sauted halibut cheeks, honey glazed carrots w/ black cumin &
sauted spinach (I feel our guests will appreciate this over fish heads)
- Olive oil poached salmon served over braised leeks with marinated
roasted red pepper garnish
- Apple & Community Farms honeycomb board
- Black eyed peas as well as roasted squash

ZINGERMANS EVENT SPACE

100 N ASHLEY ST., ANN ARBOR 734.230.2300 ZINGERMANSGREYLINE.COM

September

APPLE CHAI CIDER

We're really excited to offer, for the first time here at Zingerman's
Coffee Co., a unique and delicious, hot spiced cider. A lot of folks
spice their cider with one or two spices, typically a little cinnamon or clove, but we took our spice game to a whole new level
with Rishi Tea's Masala Chai. The warm cider really comes alive
when mingled with this flavorful riot of black tea, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, black pepper, clove, and vanilla. Come get yours!

October

PUMPKIN AND SPICE LATTE

It's back again! As always, our featured drink is more than just a
neat syrup. Our signature pumpkin and spice latte contains real
pumpkin and an invigorating house blend of allspice, cardamom,
cinnamon, and clove. Welcome back, Fall!

HOST YOUR PARTY AT GREYLINE!

Zingermans newest events space is here, and perfect for your next holiday party! Located in the heart of downtown
Ann Arbor, this unique venue can accommodate up to 190 strolling guests and has everything you need to throw the
best party of the season.
Right now were busy booking holiday parties for November & December, and were excited to help plan your party
as well! Zingermans Catering has planned baby showers, wedding receptions, corporate team building exercises and
seminars, birthday parties, anniversary parties and business meetings with the really great food and service that keep
our guests coming back year after year.
Whether youd like a strolling appetizer and cocktail mixer as a 'thank-you' to your best clients, or a plated, five-course
dinner as a reward for your staff, were looking forward to hearing from you and making your vision a reality. Youll be
able to plan from possibilities as varied as classic Zingermans Deli sandwiches to the Fennel Pollen Pork we make from
the hogs of local Michigan farms! Zingermans Catering will custom tailor a menu to suit the tenor of your event and
send along our all-star service staff to make sure everything runs perfectly.
Want more information on this beautiful venue? Visit www.zingermansgreyline.com, or better yet, stop by at 100 N.
Ashley and see it for yourself! To start party planning, just give Zingermans Catering a call at (734) 230-2300 and one of
our friendly Catering staffers will help walk you through the initial planning steps, and assist in turning your vision into
an event your guests will remember for years!

Plan Your
Tasty Tailgate

September

BURUNDIKAVUGANGOMA
A mildly sweet coffee with flavors of cherry and peach. The
name Kavugangoma comes
from the washing station in
Northeastern Burundi where
this coffee is processed.

October

ZIMBABWE
PEABERRY Tanganda Estate
A nice coffee with floral aromas
and subtle hints of fruit, creamy
and rich in body. Tanganda
Estate currently has 2000 hectares of Tea Gardens, 400 hectares of Coffee, Macadamia and
Avocado Plantations.

3723 Plaza Drive, Ann Arbor 734-929-6060

zingermanscoffee.com

With Michigan celebrating its 137th football season on the gridiron, weve
been planning tailgates since June. Call soon to plan your meal at the Big
House! Check out our 2016 Tailgate menu. We offer everything from Deli
sandwiches in our classic red bags to burgers and hot dogs grilled right
before your eyes!

Big Ten Blowout

Featuring our tasty chili dogs, our popular Piri
Piri chicken wings, old-fashioned potato salad,
fruit salad, veggies and dip, baked beans, drinks
for everyone, and delicious fruit crisp for
dessert.
$30/person

Grab and Go Tailgate Bag Lunch

Includes a Zingermans Deli sandwich, Zapps
chips, Black Magic Brownie and a pickle neatly
packed in an easy-to-carry bag.
$16.50/person
(add a bottle of water or Coke product for $1)

CHOCOLATE COVERED
ESPRESSO BEANS
Panned by hand at Zingerman's Candy
Manufactory using Zingerman's freshly roasted
Espresso Blend #1 coffee beans. These chocolate covered beans are strong flavored and
surprisingly nutlike. Powerfully addictive. And,
we up-cycled coffee sacks in the packaging!

Make your event an upright success and score big with our Tasty Tailgates!
www.zingermanscatering.com or call (734) 663-3400 to speak to one of our savvy salespeople
Delivery is available but we also offer curbside service so you dont have to wait in line or find a place to park!

Currently available at Plum Market (including Plum DTW),

Zingerman's Coffee Co., Zingerman's Roadhouse.

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

13

Available starting at 11am all month long!

SEPTEMBER
STAFF BBQ CHICKEN

OCTOBER
WILHELM'S WURST

1/2 chicken rubbed with

pices de Cru's "Staff BBQ"
spice, grilled local corn
smothered in Calabrian chili
butter, and your choice of
case salad side.

Celebrate autumn with a

plate heaping full of The
Brinery's Stimulus Package
green cabbage and caraway
seed sauerkraut, crowned
by a pair of traditional
Bratwursts. This classic
Bavarian combo is jazzed
up with a dollop of German
mustard and served with
your choice of side from our
salad case.

$15.99

$15.99

SEPTEMBER
ETHNES LEMON PEPPER BLEND

Most lemon peppers out there are made by seasoning black pepper with lemon extract. The pices de Cru offering is
something else altogetheran all-natural lemon pepper. A combination of black and green peppercorns with Szechuan
pepper, Thai lemongrass and the citrusy Andaliman pepper from Sumatra. The aromatic blend was born from Ethn
de Viennes obsession with the bold and pronounced citrus flavour of Andaliman pepper. Ideal for seafood, fish, salad
dressings and poultry. I love, love, love it, especially on fried fishcalamari are especially excellent! Really good on
steakcrushed, rubbed into the meat and then sauted up for a wonderful steak au poivre. Really good in stir fries, or
ground onto a Banh Mi! Speaking of fries, its great ground and sprinkled onto French fries too! Same for fried zucchini!
Guaranteed to liven up anyones cooking. If you like lemon and you like pepper... what more can I say? Stop in and ask
for a smell today!

OCTOBER

SHICHIMI TOGARASHI

Traditional Japanese Seven Spice Blend

Brand new at the Delia taste of Japanese tradition thats come in after a stop off in Montreal.

SEPTEMBER
THE SUPER Z

OCTOBER
JOHN'S BIG KID PB&J

Introducing...the greatest,
tastiest, most intense, most
confident turkey sandwich
EVER. The Super Z is a sandwich of illogical extremes
- but undeniably awesome
- like its namesake.

Food Gatherer's Auction

Winner!
Designed out of a fondness for satisfyingly simple
sandwiches, this months
feature raises the bar on
a classic pairing through
really great ingredients....
and the fact that it's grilled
in butter! Koeze Kreme-Nut
peanut butter & Esch Road
Mixed Berry Preserves are
layered atop grilled challah, to create the epitome
of extravagance!

$15.99

Roasted turkey breast,

Applewood-smoked
bacon, Vermont Cheddar,
Coleslaw, Hot Mustard
and Roasted piquillo
peppers on Toasted
Sourdough

$7.99

SEPTEMBER
MATIZ SARDINES

OCTOBER

We're featuring the plump

and juicy sardines from
our friends at Matiz, who
specialize in getting only
the very best seafood from
Galicia in North-Western
Spain. Choose from their
regular sardines or try them
with a bit of added lemon.
Both of them are as exciting and delicious as they
are versatile. They are great
in almost any dish you can
think of.

Founded in 1853, the

Conntable factory produces some of the best sardines. These simple, no nonsense classics from Brittany,
France are cleaned by hand,
fried and packed in velvety
extra virgin olive oil.

14

ISSUE # 256

CONNTABLE SARDINES

Shichimi Togarashi is THE spice blend of every day

eating in Japan and is now starting to serve the
same purpose in Ann Arbor. In the last four days
Ive put it on salad, potatoes, eggs and fish, and I have
a feeling far more applications are going to appear
to me in the coming weeks and months. If Im not
careful Ill end up like our importer, Marika de
Vienne, putting this classic Japanese spice blend
on pretty much everything. Shes pretty passionate
about it! Its insane! she told me. Putting it on anything works. One thing about Marikashe doesnt mess around.
When she says something is good, I take her at her word! Shes right about this stuff. Open the tin and stick your nose in.
The aroma alone is enticingly exotic.
What is Shichimi Togarashi? Its a blend of spices and flavors that are, together, totally unfamiliar to most American palates. But I warn youonce you start using it, you may develop a bit of an addiction. Its got a complex, enticing, sexy,
superb flavor. Sometimes its referred to as Japanese seven spice.
Check out the ingredient list: Korean chili pepper, sesame seed, dried mandarin orange peel, dried yuzu peel, nori seaweed (from Quebec no less?), Sansho peppercorns (the mouth numbing Japanese ancestor of the better known Sichuan
peppercorn), and ginger.
Shichimi Togorashi may, at first, be a bit hard to pronounce for those who arent familiar with Japanese culture, but using
it at your table couldnt be easier. Open the tin, sprinkle liberally, and enjoy! Its excellent on pretty much anything.
Fish, salads, brothy soups, thicker stews, noodle dishes, chicken. Really, I like it just on a bowl of white rice. Fried eggs,
sauted or stir fried vegetables. Although the blend itself is special, its not something to reserve for special occasions.
In Japan its an everyday occurrence. I would equate it more with salt and pepper on the table as a given in any typical
Western society, Marika explained. It can be used to spice up just about anything, so everyone has some at home.
Because it is a finishing blend, to be put on dishes after they have been cooked (its not really used during cooking), it is
truly unique and unlike any of the other blends.
While its easy to eat, Shichimi Togorashi is not easy to put together. Marika gave me the behind the scenes sense of
things: As one of three people who makes the blends, I can tell you that this one is the most time consuming and precise
recipe we have. Because this blend is ready to use and is traditionally made ground to order in spice shops in Japan, each
ingredient has to be ground either by mortar or electric coffee grinder, several times, over and over to get the perfect
consistency, before being combined. A half kilo can take up to two hours of man power to make. If youre thinking in
retail terms, thats about two hours to put together enough for a mere twelve tins! Like most things Japanese, Marika
adds, it takes patience and meticulous attention to detail (totally worth it). It took a lot of work for the de Viennes to
put it together. It took many years for us to find all the ingredients used in this blend, as it has the highest proportion of
spices that we did not have on hand before we made it. Because of this blend, we now also sell Chimpi orange flakes, Yuzu
peel and hemp seeds. It is the only blend we have with seaweed, which we proudly source here from the St. Lawrence
River.
Im only just beginning to learn about Shichimi Togarashi, but its already clear to me that its something pretty special.
One thing I know for surethis is not just another commercially-concocted-by-someone-in-the-marketing-dept.-blenddesigned to build sales. Its a grounded, centuries old Japanese eating tradition. To me it is the truest expression of one
of the guiding principles of the way we do our spice business at pices de Cru, Marika shared. Don't change how you
cook, just add spices to the recipes you already know how to make. I agreethat little tip is one of the best things Ive
learned in recent years. When you buy great spices like this, the only thing you really need to have on hand is a mortar
and pestle to grind them if theyre whole, and then something to sprinkle them on. Spices, as Marika already said above,
this, can be used just like salt and pepper. Add to taste at the table!
This really is a something special in the culinary world. If well known spice blends like Berbere, Curry, Old Bay and Cajun
are at the very soul of a dish, Shichimi Togarashi is the "je-ne-sais-quoi" that enhances 90% of the recipes in anyone's
any given repertoire. Translating Marikas French description of this staple Japanese spice blend... Ill say, Shichimi
Togarashi is the inexplicable essence of excellence.

SEPT-OCT 2016

Available at Zingermans
Bakehouse, Roadhouse
& Delicatessen

Pecan
Raisin Bread
Our Pecan Raisin bread is definitely not your average, squishy, sweet raisin bread. The New York Times
agrees, saying ours redefines the category. We
begin with our naturally leavened bread dough that
has a touch of sour flavor. Then, each loaf is packed
with a half pound of red flame raisins and toasty
pecans! To say it is a little bit of bread holding the
pecans and raisins together wouldnt be too far off
base. From the outside you can see little bumps and
tiny cracks from those ingredients peeking out on
the crust. When you slice into a loaf, you can clearly
see all of the ingredients that pack such a flavorful
punch. The process of making and baking a batch
takes about 17 hours from start to finish. You really
can taste the difference!
We certainly have had time to perfect our recipe. We
began baking pecan raisin bread when we opened
1992. It was part of our original lineup of artisan
breads, which was a radically new thing around here
at that time. Were so happy that pecan raisin bread
has stood the test of time and has remained one of
our best selling loaves for more than two decades. It
has surely been a part of so many good meals and so
many family get togethers.
Caution: This loaf will ruin you for all other raisin
breads. And its perfect for just about anything, anytime of day.

You can find the Pecan Raisin bread all across

the Zingermans Community of Businesses:
Over at Zingermans Delicatessen, its the shell
for chicken salad and local sunflower sprouts on
the Abras Nutty Yardbird sandwich.
At Zingermans Roadhouse on their wildly
popular brunch menu, you can ask for a slice of
pecan raisin toast.

For all of our aspiring bakers out there, we also

offer a naturally leavened breads class at BAKE!
(the hands-on teaching bakery at Zingermans
Bakehouse) where you can learn how to make
the Pecan Raisin bread. That's right! We'll give
you our recipe, if you're up for the challenge.
Dont miss your chance, coming up in October
and again at the end of January. Check out the
schedule at bakewithzing.com

Margaret's Sweet
Wheat Bread
September 23 & 24

Chocolate Challah
Bread
September 28 - October 12

Blueberry Buckle
Septembe 9 - 11

Maple Leaf Cookies

September 23

Craquelin
Brioche bread with
Grand Marnier soaked
sugar cubes & orange
zest
September 9 & 10

Honeycake
September 28 thru 12

Green Olive Paesano

Bread
October 14 & 15

Chernushka Rye Bread

September 16 & 17

Moroccan Challah
Bread, with honey,
poppy, sesame and
anise seed
September 28 - October 12

Somodi Klacs
Hungarian cinnamon
swirl bread
October 21 - 23

Challah Turbans
with or without rum
raisins
September 28 - October 12

Rosemary Baguettes
October 28 - 30
Lemon Poppyseed
Coffee Cake
October 27- 30

20%

whole ofF
cak
& slice es
s!

september

october

24 CARROT CAKE

DOBOS TORTA

We peel and grate forty pounds of carrots to make one batch of this cake.
All those carrots add an incredible
moistness and a fresh sweetness to
the cake. Combine them with toasted
walnuts and aromatic spices and you
get a great cake that's totally delicious
on its own. Cover it with a generous
amount of cream
cheese frosting
and it becomes
irresistible.

Pronounced [dohbosh], this traditional

Hungarian
coffeehouse torte
was created in 1887
by well known chef and confectioner
Jzsef C. Dobos (18471924). It's five
thin layers of vanilla sponge cake and
dark chocolate espresso buttercream,
all topped with pieces of crispy dark
caramel. Taste one of Hungary's most
famous tortas!

Traditional Jewish Pastries

Gift-Boxed for the Holidays!

Buckwheat Honeycake - Sept. 28 - Oct. 12

Rugelach

Made from a long list of luscious ingredients, including a

healthy helping of buckwheat honey from a beekeeper in
the Pacific Northwest. With a big, bold, fruity flavor, the
buckwheat honey adds extra zip. Add in freshly cracked
eggs, golden raisins, toasted almonds, fresh orange and
lemon zest, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and a few
secret ingredients, and youll get the New Year off to a
good start.

Rugel means royal in Yiddish and Rugelach

is definitely the royalty of traditional Jewish
pastries. We make a butter and cream cheese
dough and wrap it around very special fillings.
Our handsome gift box is filled with a pound of
these royally good cookies. Choose from half
dark chocolate ganache & half red raspberry
preserve, or half apricot & half currant walnut.

Moroccan Challah - Sept. 28 - Oct. 12

Marvelous Mandelbread

A sensually spicy North African way to ring in the New

Year, this is the challah of the Moroccan Jewish community. Rich, egg-based dough sweetened with honey, woven
into a beautiful five-braid loaf, and then rolled in generous amounts of anise, poppy, and sesame seeds.

Biscottis Eastern European cousin! Mandel means almonds in Yiddish, and these are
loadednot laced but literally, loaded with
toasted almonds. Made with sweet butter, fresh
eggs, lots of fresh orange and lemon zest, and
scented with real vanilla. Just the aroma alone
is enough to make us excited about these traditional cookies.

These challah rounds come in small and large sizes and

two varieties! With or without Myers Rum-soaked raisins.

Black Olive Farm

Bread
September 2 & 3

Zingermans Mail Order ships pecan raisin

loaves all over the country to bread lovers and
gift recipients alike.

Erev Rosh Hashanah is Sunday, October 2nd

Challah Turbans - Sept. 28 - Oct. 12

September & october

When you make a trip here to Zingermans

Southside, stop in to to the Bakehouse and pick
up a fresh loaf Or try our Pecan Raisin Crisps.
They really compliment fresh goat cream cheese
from our neighbor, Zingermans Creamery. Or ask
them for a taste of what special cheese theyd
recommend pairing them with that day.

ROSH HASHANAH SPECIALS

Limited Time Rosh Hashanah
Breads and Pastries!

We have made some great specialty breads and pastries over the years
that developed their own small followings, so we bring them back for a
weekend here and there just for fun. If youre looking for a little adventure,
check out this calendar.

september

october

PAESANO

FARM LOAF

The
traditional
bread of the
Puglia
region
of Italy. Pass
it around the
table for ripping and dipping in great olive oil, soup
or pasta. Everyone likes this bread.
We'll put money on it.
Was $6.29, Now $4.50

Imagine sitting around a French farmhouse table waiting for dinner to be

served-- this would be the bread they'd
bring out. It has thick crust and soft
white chewy interior with a flavor that
tastes of toasted wheat.
Was $6.29, Now $4.50

ISSUE # 256

SEPT-OCT 2016

15