Grace Singleton, co-managing partner of Zingerman’s Delicatessen, and I persevered through internet issues (at times it sounded like we were talking to each other through fast food drive-through speakers from the ’80s) to talk about everything from her culinary background to what’s ahead in the new year at the Deli. She shared what it’s like working with her fellow managing partners, Rick Strutz and Rodger Bowser; her passion for understanding issues (and fixing them); and her favorite items from around the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (ZCoB). 

Jason Ujvari
Zingerman’s Creative Services Design Manager

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Jason: Where did your career begin before you came to Ann Arbor?

Grace: I grew up on the east side of Cleveland and went to culinary school back in the late ’80s. That was when culinary schools were just starting to be a thing. There weren’t a lot of them. Johnson & Wales University and the CIA [Editor’s note: That’s the Culinary Institute of America, not to be confused with the government’s Central Intelligence Agency] were around. I went to Paul Smith’s College, which is way upstate New York in the Adirondack Mountains. The college has a lot of land (over 10,000 acres) and a small student population (under 2,000 students). A friend who went to U of M got a big kick out of that because there were that many people just in his dorm!

After I graduated, I started off my culinary career and worked for a couple of really good organizations. I worked at Stouffer’s restaurants. Yes, that Stouffer’s. Back in the day, Stouffer’s used to have hotels, restaurants, and frozen food—all three separate divisions. From there I went to the East Coast, and, fun fact, Rick’s family owns the property in Baltimore that I was working at, though we didn’t meet each other until many years later.

I wanted to get back to the Midwest and I really wanted to own my own place eventually. So, I got a job with C.A. Muer Corporation, a well-known restaurant group, and was a dining room manager at Big Fish in Dearborn. After a few years, they transferred me to Ann Arbor to be the general manager of the Gandy Dancer and I fell in love with the city. I really just thought Ann Arbor was great. I liked that it was big enough to have some interesting things going on but small enough that people all knew each other. I knew about Zingerman’s because I would go to the Bakehouse to buy Chocolate Cherry bread. That was what lured me in! And, working in the industry, I heard lots of great things about Zingerman’s. So when a friend told me about an open position at the Deli, I applied and got the job as the manager of the specialty foods department. Rick and I were hired within a week of each other!

Jason: You’re one of three managing partners at the Deli. What’s it like working with Rick and Rodger?
Grace: It’s great. We all have our own separate areas of responsibility, but we overlap some and we cover each other. We’re a good strategy team. When we’re working on things together, we are great at talking things through, playing devil’s advocate with each other, and coming up with better solutions.

Jason: Is someone more creative and someone more business-focused or does it just depend on what you’re dealing with?Grace: Yeah, it’s kind of a mix. It’s interesting. We took a personality test, I forget if it was Myers-Briggs or another one, and the coach we were working with at the time said, “Wow, this is weird, all three of you are like the same!”
I think Rick is our negotiator. He loves talking to people and trying to figure out a deal. So he’s the one who’s coordinating things. Rodger is a process king. He is super good at it. I can come up with a list of all the tasks that need to happen to get something done, but I’m horrible at putting them in order. So I can go to him and say, “I know I have to do all these things. Which comes first?” And he will be the one who’s like, “This, this, this.”

Jason: Sounds like a great symbiotic-type leadership going on over there.

Grace: It’s nice to have three people with that big of a place to cover each other. Especially since we like to make sure we have at least one partner there every day of the year we’re open.

Jason: What do you think they would say it’s like working with you? Grace: I don’t know. I tend to say I’m good at finding errors, which is helpful and annoying all at the same time. I tend to look pretty far out. And I try to be really connected to the culture and make sure we’re taking care of everything for the staff. Rick does a lot of that, too. So it’s just a different angle of it. Rick is more the person you call at 3 am because he answers his phone no matter what. And I’m the one who’s like, “Hey, how do we set this up so that more people can do it?”

Jason: You’ve been a part of some major changes at the Deli—overseeing the Gold Level LEED-certified Deli expansion project, opening the Zingerman’s Greyline event space, introducing virtual tasting events for fans around the country during the pandemic—all while continuing to lead the day-to-day of Deli catering and retail specialty foods. Any other big changes ahead?
Grace: For years, Rick, Rodger, and I have been working on figuring out a point-of-sale (POS) solution. We started with paper carbon copies, then converted to a “real POS” after the build-out that was a point-of-sale system with KDS (kitchen display system) screens. Now, post-pandemic, we’re at a point where we get all of these orders in from third-party vendors and we need a new solution, we need a tech stack [Editor’s note: The programming languages and frameworks used to develop a website or software]. We’ve been working hard on that for almost two years, trying to find the right solution because there are a lot of options out there, but none of them do exactly what we need them to do.

Since the pandemic, Rick and Rodger and the whole front-of-house and sandwich line teams have worked really hard on finding a way to get extremely accurate quote times for people, and we’ve come up with a system to do that. Folks don’t have to stand in line anymore: They can come in, place an order, and if the wait is an hour and a half, they can shop or walk around the neighborhood. Or they can call their order in or place it online! So now there’s an electronic line, which is still a little confusing to guests if they come in and don’t see a line but there’s still an hour and a half wait.

Anyway, we’re closing in on a solution. I think we’ve made our selection of which system we’re going to use. It’s been a long haul to find the one. We’re going to be working really hard to implement that and get it in place before April or May. 

Other than that, we’re doing some renovations. Our “new” building went up 12 years ago, so it’s getting a little tired and it’s a big property to manage. We need to do things like replace ceiling tiles and redo floors. We also had to redo all of our plumbing. That was a sad realization, but yes, all the plumbing had to get ripped out and redone, mostly in the new building. So, that’s been quite a problem.

Jason: Oof, I’m really sorry about that. Aside from the new POS solution, is there something that you’re really looking forward to this upcoming year at the Deli?Grace: Last year we implemented a Waste Awareness Month. We built it into our annual plan to repeat that, though we’ll probably do it a little bit differently this year. Mid-winter is a nice time of year to look at our systems and processes and identify waste. We’re trying to get all of the eight wastes of Lean listed for everybody so they know what they are, can be aware of them, and then make suggestions for change. It helps get people thinking about waste in a different way. So, I’m excited to do more work on that as I think usually the second and third year you do something it gets better.

Jason: What aspect of your role do you find most rewarding?
Grace: It’s always fun when you’re on the other side of a successful day. The day before Thanksgiving, we had 270 catering orders—people getting their turkey dinners, breads, and pies for the next day. There’s a lot of planning and logistics that go into it, and at the end of the day, you’re tired as heck. But when it goes well, that’s always fun. 

I also always like a little bit of a puzzle. So, if something is going wrong, I like to get down to the root cause, figure out how we got there, and then figure out what we can change to help make it better in the long term.

Jason: And kind of spinning off of that, is there something over at the Deli you’re most proud to be a part of?Grace: I think, in general, the tenure of the people we’re working with is quite exceptional. We have people that have been with us for years and years and years. We have people that have left and come back. There’s a lot of benefit from people knowing the systems, recipes, and quality standards. It’s quite a good group of people. They help each other. If they see a guest who’s not sure what to do, they just jump in and go for it. That’s a wonderful thing.

Jason: Just as a side note to compliment you and your entire team on that, I had several of your managers in my Leadership Development Program and they all pretty much said the exact same thing that you just did. 

Jason: Let’s do a couple of fun ones. What’s one of your favorite things to eat over at the Deli?Grace: The cheese blintzes. We don’t have them on the menu very often, but they are one of my favorite things. And then for a sandwich, I would say #74 Dave’s Open Road.

Jason: What’s your favorite non-Deli ZCoB item? Grace: I’m currently in love with the Bakehouse’s Chocolate Rugelach. I just love the texture of that pastry. And then you can’t go wrong with the Roadhouse’s Fried Chicken or Miss Kim’s Tteokbokki. There are just so many good things across the ZCoB. I am so spoiled. 

Jason: What do you like to cook when you’re at home?Grace: Lots of veggies, stuff out of my garden as much as I can or stuff from the farmers market. I pretty much do all my shopping at the farmers market and at Argus. I like to use vinegar in a lot of things because it gives it pizzazz. So I am definitely the vinegar gal. There are some recipes up on the Deli’s blog about vinegar. I have at least six different vinegars in my cupboard, usually four olive oils, and three different kinds of peppercorns at least. And then one of my favorite things to cook with right now is the Piment d’Ville from Boonville Barn Collective. It’s a company out in California that is growing chile peppers like you would get from the Basque region in France. It is my favorite seasoning right now.

Jason: Your dogs have made an appearance in the background a couple of times. Can you tell me about them?Grace: I have three Brittanys. I have a 2-year-old, a 10-year-old, and an almost 16-year-old. We go running every morning. Now I run two miles with the young ones and then come back and do a mile walk with the oldest one. But we used to all go running three to five miles every day.

Jason: I know you like to cycle, too. Do you have a favorite bike path that you run or ride on?Grace: Yeah, I live right near Mary Beth Doyle Park, so I always go down and run around the park. There’s a nice little route and it’s my nature fix for the day. There’s always blue herons and white egrets and ducks and geese and turtles and all kinds of stuff down there. 

Jason: Alright, Grace, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. One last question before I let you go: Is there an inspiring moment or event that you’ve had here at the ZCoB you want to share with everyone?Grace: That’s a good question. In general, the inspiring moments keep coming. To me, a lot of it is the work we get to do with producers and really getting to know them. When I went to culinary school, it was all about being consistent and having the same product. And then I got to Zingerman’s, and I started really understanding more about the variances that happen in produce and other products throughout the year. They’re agricultural products, so the sun and the weather and the rain and so many other factors impact them. And it’s inspiring to get to know the producers, the care that goes into the products, and how they have to deal with all the different things that can impact the quality—and why variety and quality should actually be celebrated from year to year! For example, this year’s olive oil crop is going to be really different than last year’s. There was a bigger crop and the weather was different. That’s fun to me, and that’s just everyday inspiration that we keep stumbling upon as we work with these producers and support them.

We’re governing with grace… and Grace (Grace Singleton, that is!)

“Is Zingerman’s still run by its founders?” you ask. That’s a great question. We’ll answer with a tale, both old and new (just like our pickles!). What began with the Delicatessen, founded in 1982 by Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig, now includes 11 food and service businesses, 18 managing partners, 800 employees, and a council of leaders among leaders (hang tight, we’ll explain that in a minute).

An Overview of Zingerman’s Governance

Since 1994, the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (ZCoB) has been steered by our Partners Group (PG), a group that includes Ari and Paul, the ZCoB’s managing partners (the individual business owner-operators), and staff partners (staff members who own a Community Share; they serve two-year terms). As Ari explains:

It’s where we govern the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses—we use consensus decision-making there to lead the organization. The PG makes decisions on organization-wide issues, like deciding to approve our new 2032 Vision or our new Statement of Beliefs. Or if there was, in a strange sci-fi sort of scenario, just for conversation’s sake, let’s say a global pandemic, the PG is where we would decide how to deal with it.

One important piece that the 2032 Vision outlines is the ZCoB’s evolution of governance:

… we’ve seen a successful transition from Ari and Paul as founders heading the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (ZCoB) to a mode of governance that will last beyond the tenure of any individual. While long-time ZCoB leaders continue in important roles, a couple of new “generations” of insightful, collaborative folks have stepped forward.

That mode of governance is the Zingerman’s Stewardship Council, a five-member group created in 2020 as part of a succession plan to transition the leadership of the organization from its founders to the other managing partners. To be clear, the Partners Group isn’t going anywhere, rather, as Ari says, “The Stewardship Council is filling the role Paul and I have filled for many years as ‘leaders among leaders.’” He adds:

Our main focus in doing this work with the Stewardship Council is, by far and away, looking at how we can do what we do here at Zingerman’s ever more effectively. We want it to be a way to help lead the ZCoB in becoming an ever-bigger contributor to the community of which we’re a part. We want to support succession and inspire future success. We’re committed to creating a governance model that will help both the organization and everyone in it to thrive for many decades to come.

The original council members include Amy Emberling, Zingerman’s Bakehouse co-managing partner; Toni Morell, Zingerman’s Mail Order co-managing partner; Tom Root, Zingerman’s Mail Order co-managing partner; Ron Maurer, Zingerman’s Chief Administrative Officer and Zingerman’s Service Network managing partner; and Ari Weinzweig. Council members serve three-year terms, and just like the Partners Group, decisions are made using consensus. In June of 2023, we reached the end of the first set of three-year terms. The Council has been designed so that one of these original managing partners will come off each year—the first was Ron Maurer who has his eye on retirement in 2023 after more than two decades with the organization—and a new one is selected. Ari explains how that happens:

Our agreed-upon process for selecting members is that Paul and I, as co-founding partners, consult with our staff partners (since they’re not eligible to be on the Council) and others whose views we value, to make the decision. After a LOT of conversation, and honoring what we believe is the best decision for the organization, we chose the next member. 

This time, Ari and Paul offered the spot to Grace Singleton, co-managing partner of Zingerman’s Deli since 2004. Grace knew from the beginning that she was destined for a life full of food (and she may or may not have thought the food industry would be glamorous thanks to a New Orleans restaurant where she received special treatment, sitting at the captain’s table and sampling Frangelico (a hazelnut liquor) at the age of 13!).  Grace received her culinary degree at Paul Smith’s College in New York and managed restaurants across Ohio (we don’t hold this against her) and Michigan.

She found her way to Ann Arbor for the role of general manager at the Gandy Dancer and became a fan of Zingerman’s Deli. Eventually, she made the jump, calling it “the very best job in the food industry,” and in 2004, she stepped up from retail manager to co-managing partner. Since then, Grace has overseen the gold level LEED-certified Deli expansion project (2010–2014), the opening of Zingerman’s Greyline event space (2016), the addition of virtual tasting events for fans around the country (2021), and more, all while continuing to lead the day-to-day of Deli catering and retail specialty foods. (Impressive, right?!) Of this new role and her latest opportunity to impact the Zingerman’s organization and the Ann Arbor community, she says:

I’ve been here for more than 20 years and I’m really invested in the transition of our CEO’s roles. Ari in particular set the stage with his dedication to doing business differently and how we govern is an important part of that. I look forward to working toward our future with this committed group.

Want to read more? Ari wrote about Grace’s addition to the Council and the work of the Stewardship Council in Ari’s Top 5, his weekly e-newsletter, saying, “Success leads to succession work which, when done well, helps create more success. It’s a very virtuous and very inspiring cycle to be a part of.”

One of my favorite things about gardening is the sense of accomplishment I get when I see the growth of the plants as the buds and flowers form, and we have the chance to start harvesting. We got a bit of a late start this year with the Deli’s edible landscape, but we’ve already picked red kale to use as a garnish on some of our catering trays, we have lots of basil ready, and we’re just starting to see the jalapeno peppers and cherry tomatoes coming in.

Alex and Jen have been hard at work, trimming back the old overgrown bushes (such hot work for a very hot summer!), and planting more annuals, as well as adding trellis and supports where needed, and of course this year has included lots of watering.  We’re hoping it rains sometime soon.

In my last post on the subject, I shared the vision of the edible landscape and the types of things we want to plant here. I also wanted to share the story of where the things we plant are sourced from.  We don’t have a big budget for our landscape, so we have multiple different sources for the things we grow. There’s a selection of flowers, herbs and lettuce that are transplanted from my home garden—I started saving lettuce seed a few years ago, and brought some of the excess seeds I had and planted them in our rooftop garden barrels. If you have ever tried saving lettuce seed, you’ll know that the lettuce flowers are very beautiful and attract lots of different bees, and once they go to seed, there is a lot of it—so it’s good to have a friend or two to share them with. I also brought in this rudbeckia variety called golden glow, it’s one of my favorites as it stands up to 6’ high and has beautiful yellow flowers. You’ll find it tucked in behind the kids area, and to the right of the next door if you’re looking at the front of the Next Door cafe.

We’re lucky to have two different local seed companies in town Ann Arbor seed company and Nature & Nurture Seed Company.  They help provide seeds that are best suited to our climate as well as provide a diversity of seed varieties for us to plant.  Ann Arbor Seed Company is committed to open-pollinated vegetable and ornamental seeds that are all cultivated in Washtenaw county.  Nature & Nurture Seeds sells only seed that are heirloom varieties, non GMO, and organic or sustainably grown, and they provide seed for many heirloom and Slow Food Ark of Taste varieties. There’s been a steady decline in the number of independent seed companies in the US over the last 30+ years (see image below), (here’s an article from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition) and with that decline comes a lack of biodiversity, and a homogenization of what is being grown, which leads to a lack of flavor diversity also.

Flavor is the driving force behind all of our food decisions at Zingerman’s, and our desire to find the best tasting food also goes hand in hand with finding foods that are from less well known and usually more difficult to grow varieties. Local independent seed companies help support the planting of diverse varieties and increase the flavor diversity available to growers.

When we want to plant starts, rather than using seed, I most often buy my starts from Frog Holler Farm located in Irish Hills  MI. They come to the Saturday and Wednesday Ann Arbor Farmers’ Market, so it’s easy to walk over and buy from them, and they also have an incredible variety of plant starts including many heirloom varieties.  I use them a lot for my home garden as well, as they have many unique varieties of plants that are hard to find elsewhere, and I find that their starts seem to do better than the ones I’ve purchased elsewhere. They are my go-to for padron peppers, sweet Italian peppers, and multiple different varieties of Heirloom tomatoes.

Speaking of peppers, we planted quite a lot of jalapeno peppers up in our rooftop olive oil barrel test garden.  The plants are doing well, and our new design for the olive oil barrel reuse seems to be working better than what we tried last year. We’re excited to see all the small peppers on the plants—they are loving this hot summer and they get lots of sun up on the roof.  If all goes as planned we’ll be able to harvest the peppers when the first ripe peaches show up at the market (usually late July/early August) so we can pair them together in our salad case. It’s one of our most popular seasonal items, Jalapeno Peaches. You can check out our our “What’s in the Salad Case” page that’s updated daily to see when they’re available!

Welcome to Cooking with Grace! This is where Grace Singleton, a managing partner at the Deli, shares her favorite products and delectable home cooking tips with us. This week, she’s making the most out of some ripe, plump Michigan tomatoes!

Summer tomato season is here, and I always try to eat as many of those beauties as possible before it’s over. Although the go-to tomato salad everyone knows is the caprese with fresh mozzarella and basil, there are plenty of other alternative flavor combinations you can try.

We tasted Zingerman’s Creamery Aged Chelsea at one of our meetings this past week (one of the perks of working at Zingerman’s Deli is that we usually do food tastings at our weekly meetings), and I was really blown away by how great this cheese was tasting. I decided to use it in my tomato salad.

Zingerman’s creamery recently finished a very big renovation to their production and retail spaces, and all of their cheese has been tasting exceptional. They even won an award at the annual American Cheese Society awards last month! I brought some Aged Chelsea home this week, and after a trip to the Ann Arbor Farmer’s market Saturday, I paired it with local Michigan tomatoes, onions and a little olive oil, vinegar sea salt and wild pepper. I know most people understand how great fresh tomatoes are when they come into season—the flavor and texture is so very different than what we can get the rest of the year. But, the same seasonality and flavor variation also goes for onions (and potatoes, too, but that’s a topic for a different blog post).

Because onions store well under the right conditions, we don’t often get to taste fresh onions. However, this time of year when the farmers all have onions at the market, they are usually freshly picked and tasting much different than the onions we get the rest of the year. I’ve known several people who will eat a fresh whole onion like you eat an apple!

Summer is the best time to just play around with different flavor combinations and ingredients. If you can keep some basic (really flavorful) pantry staples in your kitchen, like extra virgin olive oil, traditionally made wine vinegar, good sea salt and black pepper, you can experiment with all sorts of very tasty flavor combinations depending on what’s in season and available at your local markets and farm stands.

Here’s the recipe:

Michigan Summer Tomato Salad
2-3 of your favorite fresh tomatoes
1/4- 1/2 of a new crop sweet onion
5-6 1/4′ slices of Zingerman’s creamery aged Chelsea
3-4 tablespoons Petraia extra virgin olive oil
2-3 teaspoons Gardeny Cava rose vinegar
1/4 teaspoon Trapani sea salt from Sicily
several grinds of Epice de Cru Wild Pepper from Madagascar

Slice tomatoes a little over 1/4-inch thick- lay on serving plate slightly overlapping

Cut onion slices about 1/8-inch thick, lay onion over tomato slices. Taste the onion to test the flavor—if it’s a strong onion, you may want to use a smaller amount of onion to tomato. If it’s a fresh sweet onion, you can use equal amounts of onion and tomato (if you like onions!)

Drizzle the tomato-onion layer with extra virgin olive oil—enough to coat the fruit, but not leave a big pool of oil on the plate.

Sprinkle sea salt and medium-ground wild pepper over the onions and tomato, then finish with a sprinkling of vinegar. You want to splash it across the whole surface, but again, just enough to lightly coat the mixture and not leave much excess pooling on the plate. Sprinkling the vinegar on after the salt and pepper disperses the spices and blends the flavor across the whole dish.

Slice the Chelsea into 1/4-inch slices and then cut them into small bite size pieces. Sprinkle the pieces across the top of the dish and garnish with fresh herbs or flowers as you like—thyme, basil, parsley or chives would be nice as would fresh nasturtiums, or garlic chive flowers which are just starting to bloom in my garden.

Enjoy!

You’ll find much of what you need for this dish at the Deli. Just ask!

It’s the best time of year to go to the farmers’ market, in my opinion. There are so many fresh vegetables and fruits that I end up staggering back to my car, juggling several different bags of fresh produce. Since it’s been a little hot lately, one of my favorite things is to make a big salad to snack on midday or serve alongside my lunch or dinner. One of the simplest ones that I find myself making quite often is a fresh cucumber amd tomato salad.

I start with fresh cucumbers. I like to remove the seeds, so I cut them in half lengthwise and use a spoon or small scoop to remove the seeds. You should also taste a slice of the cucumber. Right now, they are young and fairly tender, but later in the season the skin can get tough and bitter. If you don’t care for the flavor or texture of the skin, just use a vegetable peeler to remove some or all of the skin before cutting the cucumbers into bite size pieces.

I like to coat the cucumbers in just enough olive oil to coat them, adding  a little salt, fresh ground pepper, and any fresh or dried herbs. In this version, I used some fresh thyme leaves. Once that is combined and lightly coated with oil, add a few shakes of vinegar to the bowl and re-toss the cucumbers. One again, tasting the cucumbers is your best bet for getting the ratio of olive oil to vinegar that you like. I prefer a more tart flavor, so I go a little heavy handed on the vinegar. You can also add a little sugar if you like a sweeter version, or choose a fruity, less acidic vinegar for your vinaigrette.

Once you have the right flavors in the cucumbers, toss in the tomatoes to coat them (the tomatoes are more tender, so I like to mix them less so they don’t break apart) and any other fresh ingredients that you like. I had some flowering lavender, and I added just a few of those as well as some purslane that I’ve just started trying to experiment with. I love the tender and firm petals the purslane has—they make a nice contrast with the crispy cucumber and the softer tomatoes.

You can cut the cucumbers any way you like them, generally keeping the pieces bite size. Same goes for the tomatoes. To me, cooking is all about experimenting with different flavors and textures. I often find myself randomly looking through my cupboards and my herb garden as I’m deciding what flavors I want to combine, which is pretty dependent on what mood I’m in.

Cucumber & tomato salad recipe
cucumbers (depending on size and your appetite, one cucumber can generally feed two people)
fresh tomatoes ( I used grape tomatoes cut in half, but you can use whole tomatoes and chop them into bite- size pieces)
olive oil (I used Petraia from Italy)
vinegar (I used Rozendal hibiscus and Gardeny cava rose)
sea salt
fresh ground black pepper
any other fresh or dried herbs or flowers you want to add

Welcome to Cooking with Grace! This is where Grace Singleton, a managing partner at the Deli, shares her favorite products and delectable home cooking tips with us. This week, she’s making pasta!

One of the benefits and responsibilities of my job is to test product samples. I recently had the chance to test out a new Italian pasta sample that we received, and had a few random things in my refrigerator that I wanted to use up. (Yes, I had a whole whitefish in my crisper that I didn’t have a plan for…and the remaining jar of piquillos from a post I did a few weeks ago). The smokiness of the fish, combined with a light cream sauce and fresh asparagus, made a pretty and delicious meal.

This pasta is traditionally made, using bronze dyes to make the shape—it’s 100 percent Italian grown semolina flour and has the IGP (Indication of Geographic Protection) seal on the label. The gnocchi sardi shape is one we don’t currently stock at the Deli, and I liked the small size (less than 3/4″ in length). I also liked how all the ridges held onto the sauce and were easy to eat. We’re talking to the producer and distributor, so if all goes well you may see this on our shelves sometime in the coming year. Until then experiment with other pasta shapes—a similar size would be the orchiette, though it has a flatter and more open rounded shape.

Ingredient for this dish:
1/2 package pasta
olive oil
1 bunch asparagus cut into 1 & 1/2″-2″ pieces
1/2 medium- large onion 1/2″ dice
4-6 cloves fresh garlic-1/2″ dice
1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs (parsley & thyme were used but feel free to substitute others)- save some for garnish
4-6 piquillo peppers 1/4-1/2″ dice
1 cup smoked whitefish broken into 1″ pieces (if you buy a whole whitefish this is the yield from a 1.25 lb fish after removing the skin and taking the meat off the bones)
1 cup Calder cream top milk (if not using cream top milk, you may want to use a mix of half & half and whole milk to have a richer mouth feel)
zest and  juice of half a lemon
1/2 cup pasta water
salt & pepper to taste

Serves 3-4, depending on hunger levels!

Procedure:
Bring salted water to boil for the pasta. Before draining the pasta, be sure to save a cup of the cooking water to use later in the dish.

In another pan, saute the onions in olive oil until translucent, add garlic and asparagus, and cook until asparagus is just cooked through. Add the milk, the fresh herbs, the drained cooked pasta, and 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the pasta water. Keep this over low to medium heat until it just begins to simmer. Add piquillos, smoked whitefish, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Stir gently to combine and taste for salt and pepper. If the consistency is too thick, add more pasta water as needed.

Garnish with a sprinkling of fresh herbs and enjoy!