Ari remembers our friend, Laurey Masterton.

I first met Laurey Masterton when she came to ZingTrain, probably fifteen years ago. From the beginning it was clear that she was a special person, her energy and her drive to make a difference were such positive forces in the world.  Over the years Laurey came back many times, to write a long term vision, to learn about Servant Leadership, to find out more about Open Book Management.  Any time I met someone from Asheville, I would mention her and get a big smile in return—it seemed like everyone in the town loved Laurey. Whether it was with her business, in supporting cancer research, helping her staff members, contributing to the community, Laurey was intent on using her gentle presence to make a positive difference.  In the process she took on, and beat back, her own cancer many times.  Her most recent cause was honey and bees—as bees have become endangered due to disease and ecological issues, Laurey took them on as another of her causes.  She became so inspired that she wrote a book about them. And it was the release of that book last fall that triggered our plans to host Laurey here at Zingerman’s for a couple of honey-centric events.

Five days before she was due to arrive in Ann Arbor, I got an email from Adam Thome, long time manager at Laurey’s, that she wasn’t feeling well and that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for her travel.  We decided to go ahead with dinner at Zingerman’s Roadhouse anyway.  Laurey’s slogan for all these years has been “Don’t Postpone Joy!”  Given that, it seemed silly not to proceed apace, as I’m sure she would have wanted.  Two days before the dinner I found out that Laurey was in hospice. The next morning she was gone. Her departure is a loss for the Asheville community, her customers, staff, family, and many others around the world who were impacted by her positive presence.  To really understand what Laurey did for her community and how cherished a person she was there, take a look at any her Facebook page, her business page, and the Laurey’s Catering website. She will be missed.

If you’d like to make a donation in Laurey’s honor, consider the Save the Honeybee Foundation or the Honeybee Preservation Foundation. 

Here are some photos from the Beekeepers Dinner held at Zingerman’s Roadhouse

Interested in learning more?

• Community Farms page.
• National Honey Board.
• Michigan Beekeepers Association.
• Southeastern Michigan Beekeepers Association. 
• US Beekeeping Associations list. 

1. She grew up in Vermont. Her parents were innkeepers and often cooked dinners for up to 45 people, including inn guests. Laurey attended her first such dinner at age 16 months. She wrote a memoir looking back at this time called Elsie’s Biscuits: Simple Stories of Me, My Mother, and Food. This is where she developed her love of good food.
2. While in college, Laurey discovered the theater department and after graduation, she embarked on a 10-year career as a Theatrical Lighting Designer for various theater productions in New York City. She left New York to become an instructor for Outward Bound Asheville, NC.
3. She quickly realized that Outward Bound was not her calling and, at the suggestion of her sister, started a catering business in 1987. The business soon expanded to include a cafe and in 1990, she moved Laurey’s Catering and Comfort Café into downtown Asheville as a part of a wave of city renewal.
4. Faced with the frustrations of being a small-business owner, Laurey says she was on the verge of quitting when she decided to retool. She credits the Zingerman’s Experience seminar at ZingTrain with helping her develop a new vision for the business, and turning things around.
5. Laurey is an avid bike-rider, and often participates in benefit rides for various non-profit organizations. She is s three-time cancer survivor and has trekked across the Continental US (3100 miles!) to raise research money and awareness for ovarian cancer. She works with the LiveStrong Foundation to help with support, counseling and assistance for cancer survivors.
6. She became interested in honeybees while catering an event with Project Honey Bee. She went to beekeepers school, began raising bees, and even did a TED Talk on the subject of bees. A strong advocate for raising awareness of the integral part that bees play in our ecosystem, she has written a cookbook called, The Fresh Honey Cookbook, featuring a chapter each on 12 different honey varietals. The book is full of recipes, and interesting information about bees, pollination, and honey. She currently serves as spokesperson for the National Honey Board.
7. Laurey likes to improve on recipes calling for sugar by using an interesting honey varietal. Her favorites are: avocado, sourwood, poplar, tupelo, and chestnut.

Ari talks meat with Joel at Zingerman’s Roadhouse

Ari: How did you get so enamored of butchery?
Joel: One of my very first jobs was at a little market in Chelsea, Michigan. It’s not there any more. But I loved it so much. I never, ever, ever was like “I have to go to work.” It was a butcher shop. They had some produce and some dry goods and stuff. It’d been there forever. We had great relationships with customers. There were all these regulars that came in all the time. It was like a conversation that continued for years.

A: So you’ve been around meat for a long time?
J: Yeah. I’m a meatasaurus. I probably eat more meat than I should. But I love it. I brought this in for you to look at. [Hands Ari a book.] It’s called The Hotel Butcher and Garde Manger and Carver; Suggestions for the Buying, Handling, Sale and Service of Meats, Poultry and Fish for Hotels, Restaurants, Clubs and Institutions. “An expression of the practical experience of one who has spent thirty years in all branches of kitchen, pantry and storeroom work; also as steward and buyer.” It’s from 1935. I love this book.

A: What do you think about the beef at the Roadhouse?
J: The meats are fantastic here. All of the steers we’re buying are out in the pasture the whole time. No feedlot beef. I think that we’re so incredibly fortunate to get the beef that we get in. Our meat supplier says that he hasn’t had beef this good come in this regularly ever. One of our family farmers goes out to 20 something farms and hand selects the animals. And he loads them up and works with them in the field. Making sure that the fields are being rotated properly. He does meticulous beautiful work. Better treatment of the animals too. I went down there and it was very refreshing to see that it was exactly what I was hoping for. I got to meet all the people who do the slaughtering. The holding pen lets them chill out and be comfortable for their last few days. When I visited they made sure that we were very quiet—even talking about them, they wanted us to move fifty yards away. They want them to be relaxed and not stressed out. Plus, we have 6 to 8 steer a year are coming off our own Cornman Farms in Dexter. It’s raised by us on Island Lake Road. Some of it comes to the farm from 4H auctions and we finish them the last 4-6 months in our fields.

A: What makes the difference between this beef and what other restaurants are serving?
J: Our dry aging program is pretty neat. It’s certainly a more expensive way to prepare and serve beef but the flavor’s well worth it. The dry aging . . . I like to use the analogy of cooking stock down to concentrate its flavor.

A: I often compare it to aging cheese. Does that make sense?
J: Yeah. The more moisture is lost the more you concentrate the flavors. We age the beef for burgers for two weeks. The flavors are already concentrated. With the steaks we continue to age up to about four weeks. I like ‘em a bit older even. But this is a good place to be.

A: And we’re only buying whole animals right?
J: Yeah, all the beef that goes onto the Zingerman’s Roadhouse menu is butchered in the back off the side. We don’t really buy boxed (pre-cut) beef the way most restaurants do. We’re one of the only places that’s buying whole animals. We work with the whole side of beef. We have a whole cooler for the aging. It could be bigger though! We’re serving so much.

A: Given the variability of the food business it can’t be that easy to manage the supply?
J: One of the trickiest parts of my job is to maintain a steady flow of meat. We use almost two steers worth in a week. We have to have burgers and barbecue all the time. So we have to manage the menu for all the other cuts. It’s kind of like a chess match.

A: What does the aging process do for the meat?
J: In the beginning the sides lose one pound or so of water a day. At that stage they’re about 700-800 pounds. The first week to ten days is when you’re losing the most. So by the time we get the beef, it’s been aged two weeks and it might have already lost nearly twenty pounds of weight. And then it keeps losing weight as we age it longer. After you’ve aged an animal the surface has to be cut off. So you lose that too.

A: What do you like about cutting meat?
J: It’s an art form for me. I really enjoy making things. I really enjoy taking something big, a side of beef that’s one big piece and then making all these beautiful steaks and cuts of meat out of it. I have a lot of fond memories of cutting meat from my first job at that market. It’s something that for me is comforting. I also really enjoy the logic puzzle that you have to be able to piece together what cuts to use in order to manage the menu and not have any waste.

A: So with all that work can you really taste the difference?
J: You really can taste the beef. You take a nibble of this and twenty minutes later you’re still tasting really good flavors. The burger is also a very tricky thing. There’s a certain amount that you need to have every day. We only have x amount of animal. You have to be creative and understand what the different parts of the beef will do. I make a blend of the different cuts. It’s got great flavor. And then we cook over oak on the grill.

A: Anything else you want us to know?
J: To be able to use a whole animal this way is pretty neat. Most places they’re getting in boxes of beef and putting it through the grinder. It’s not very traditional. The box beef came in in the late 70s. The craft that is butchery is a dying art now. It’s so neat to be a part of place that nurtures that tradition and encourages it. That makes it not just a thing of the past. There’s maybe three hundred people in the state that can break a steer down. People think meat just mysteriously shows up in the store. But people work hard for it. I’m just grateful to be in a spot where I can do this kind of work with this quality of meat.

A: I think it’s almost a little floral. Does that sound right?
J: Yeah, absolutely. It is quite a bit of difference. The average meat that you buy at the supermarket is a “wet age” where they’ll take the animal right to the cutting room floor. They have a team of folks that are systematically breaking the animals down and the meat goes right into the plastic cryovac seal. It will “age” there. There are a number of studies that show that in the plastic the beef can gain tenderness, but you don’t gain any flavor. In fact sometimes you get some off flavor from the plastic. But you’re not losing the water you do with dry-aging the way we do it. So the cost is lower. You’re taking a 776 pounds of steer and you’re selling it in 776 pounds of product. They sell the bones too.

A: What about the burger?
J: We grind it every day. It’s always freshly ground. And we do all our patties by hand—most places force the meat out through into the patty shape. But that breaks down the fats and the texture. We grind it a bit coarser so you have to chew the meat and get the full flavor. We have a recipe, but it’s not a science. It’s a craft. We use the trimmings from the steaks. One batch of burger is 11 pounds of which 2-3 are aged steak trimming. It’s more flavorful meat at that point. We want to keep the aged flavor but in a burger we don’t want it take over the flavor completely.

Stop by the Roadhouse and taste it for yourself!

This past Wednesday, Zingerman’s Roadhouse was honored to host the 9th Annual African American Dinner. The event was a benefit for the African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County. The AACHM was established in 1993 to research, collect, preserve and exhibit cultural and historical materials about the life and work of Black Americans in Washtenaw County.

The menu for the dinner was comprised of dishes that are part of the traditional African American food pantheon, and reflect the wide and varied origins of these foods. Ari described the origins of these staples, both from the new world, as well as Africa and Asia. For more about the foods served at the dinner, check out Ari’s description of the menu. 

Next, Ari turned over the mic to Dr. Willis Patterson University of Michigan Professor Emeritus of Voice. Dr Patterson is the founder of the Our Own Thing Chorale an Ann Arbor choral organization that has provided free voice lessons for promising Ann Arbor youth for over 30 years.  Dr. Patterson was also one of the subjects of the AACHM’s Living History Project in conjunction with the Ann Arbor District Library.

Dr. Patterson introduced Kiera Turner, who sung a traditional spiritual titled, “I Talked to God Last Night.” The spiritual, said Dr. Patterson, served as a fitting benediction before the meal.

Next, Joyce Hunter and Deborah Meadows, President and Vice-President of the AACHM respectively, talked about the history of the museum, it’s long search for a suitable permanent home, and the museum’s Living History Project and Tours of Underground Railroad sites in Washtenaw County.

After the speakers, dinner was served!

After a sumptuous feast of heart, traditional foods, we were treated to an array of desserts. Interestingly, the historic sweet potato pie recipe called for the filling to made with sliced, rather than mashed, sweet potatoes, in the same manner as an apple pie! We also tasted thick rice pudding, and a wonderful peach cobbler.

Like all good meals, it was a time for greeting old friends and meeting new people.

And, of course, for lots of photos to revisit the dinner later on.

Want to help the AACHM reach it’s goals? Every contribution helps!
Here are five ways you can help today!

See you next year for our 10-year anniversary!

Take a Class at BAKE!

BAKE! is our hands-on teaching bakery in Ann Arbor. 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.

Check out the full schedule and register for classes here

9th Annual African American Foodways Dinner

Tuesday January 14, 7:00pm
Zingerman’s Roadhouse
The African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County presents: A Culinary Cultural Experience

Our community is rich with African American culture, history and knowledge and at our 9th Annual African American Dinner we will celebrate the African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County. The AACHM was established in 1993 to research, collect, preserve and exhibit cultural and historical materials about the life and work of Black Americans in Washtenaw County.
From recently filmed Living Oral History interviews, to the Underground Railroad Tour, discover what local African-Americans witnessed, experienced, and contributed to building the community we share today. Chef Alex has created a menu highlighting the journey of seven of our families, sharing their history through food.

Reserve your seat here

Breakfast, Books and Business with Ari Weinzweig

Thursday, January 17, 7:30am-9am
Zingerman’s Roadhouse
Breakfast served at 7:30 am, Event is from 8:00 am to 9:00 am.

Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 3, A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Managing Ourselves includes Secrets #30-39 and will explore our belief that some of the most important work we do to build great organizations and lead rewarding lives is the work we need to do inside. The book includes essays on our approach to managing ourselves, mindfulness, leadership at the four levels of organizational growth, personal visioning, why the way the leader thinks will be manifested in the way the organization runs, creating a creative organization and more. You’ll also hear from Zingerman’s staff, we’ll be inviting employees from around the organization to engage Ari in a dialogue about Zingerman’s, building the business, being part of this organization and how you can apply Zingerman’s approaches to help strengthen your organization.

Reserve your seat here

Home Espresso Class

Sunday, January 19, 1-3pm
Zingerman’s Coffee Company

Get the most out of your home espresso machine. Learn more about what goes into making a café- quality espresso. We will start with an overview of the “4 Ms” of making espresso, followed by tasting, demonstrations and some hands-on practice. We will also cover some machine maintenance basics as time allows. This is a very interactive workshop and seating is limited to six people.

Reserve your seat here

Cheese from the “Flyover” States

Friday, January 17, 7:00pm
Zingerman’s Creamery

Did you know that cheese is made in Minnesota, Iowa, the Dakotas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Missouri Come taste some of the best cheese being made in the U.S. from the most unlikely places. We will taste 7 great American cheeses that you are unlikely to find anywhere else.

Reserve your seat here

The Secret Life of Preserves: Featuring Noah Marshall-Rashid from American Spoon

Tuesday, February 4th, 630pm
Zingerman’s Events on Fourth

For over thirty years, the folks at American Spoon in Petoskey, have elevated preserves beyond the supermarket variety that sits for months on the refrigerator door. Noah and his family use only fresh fruit and craft their preserves by hand to preserve the maximum amount of flavor from early glow strawberries, damson plums, sour cherries and more. Spend a cozy winter evening with Noah to hear the American Spoon story and taste the spreads that have made American Spoon a Michigan icon.

Reserve your seat here

Valentine’s Day Chocolate & Bourbon Cocktail Hour – 2 seatings!

Friday, February 14, 6pm to 7pm OR 8pm to 9pm
Zingerman’s Events on Fourth

A sample flight of bourbon hand-picked by our very own in-house aficionados, paired with chocolate and confections made by Joan Coukos of Chocolat Moderne. The perfect complement to a dinner with your sweetheart.

Reserve your seat here:
1st seating at 6pm 2nd seating at 8pm

Brewing Methods

Sunday, February 16, 1-3pm
Zingerman’s Coffee Company

Learn the keys to successful 
coffee brewing using a wide
 variety of brewing methods from
filter drip to the syphon pot. We 
will take a single coffee and brew it 6
to 8 different ways, each producing a
unique taste. We’ll learn the proper
proportions and technique for each
and discuss the merits and differences of each style.

Reserve your seat here

Single Varietal Honeys: Featuring Author Laurey Masterton

Tuesday, February 18th, 6:30pm
Zingerman’s Events on Fourth

Single varietal honeys come from bees that eat the nectar of only one kind of flower. Laurey Masterton, author of The Fresh Honey Cookbook: 84 Recipes from a Beekeeper’s Kitchen, will guide us through tastes of her favorite single varietals, and we’ll experience the amazing differences in flavor that each delivers. She’ll also help us understand how each varietal can be used to create unique and tasty dishes. If you thought all honeys are pretty much the same, this is the tasting for you.

Reserve your seat here

A Beekeeper’s Dinner Featuring Author Laurey Masterton

Wednesday, February 19, 7pm
Zingerman’s Roadhouse

Honey is honey, just that simple. But the life of a bee and making the honey is not. Did you know a hive of bees will fly over 55,000 miles to bring you one pound of honey? And that one pound of honey came from two million flowers? Considering one honeybee will only make about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her entire lifetime, that is not a simple task.
Chef and spokesperson for The National Honey Board, Laurey Masterson, author of The Fresh Honey Cookbook, joins us to enthusiastically teach us the benefits of using and eating honey. We’ll be tasting different honey varietals, honey from different regions and of course, using honey to prepare many of Laurey’s vibrant recipes and delivering amazing dishes to the table.

Reserve your seat here

Comparative Cupping

Sunday, February 23, 1-3pm
Zingerman’s Coffee Company

Sample coffees from the Africa, Central and South Americas, 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 of the world of coffee.

Reserve your seat here

A Fundraiser for the African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County

The 9th Annual African American Foodways Dinner is happening this coming Tuesday, January 14 at 7pm at Zingerman’s Roadhouse. Here, Ari talks about the menu choices for the dinner, and their history within the African American cooking lexicon.

The Menu!

Cornbread Harriett Tubman

Cooks in slave kitchens prepared wheat bread and biscuits, but rarely ate much of them. Adrian Miller quotes former slave Anna Miller, “White flour, we don’ know what dat tastes like. Jus’ know what it looks like.” Cornbread was called “John Constant;” wheat bread was “Billy Seldom.” The recipe we’ll be preparing for the dinner comes from The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro, published in 1958 by the National Council of Negro Women. Vivian Carter, honorary president of the organization grew up knowing Ms. Tubman and was adamant that she loved this recipe. It’s made with fried salt pork that’s blended with fine yellow cornmeal, some white flour, a bit of baking powder and soda, sour milk, eggs, salt, and brown sugar.

Hoppin’ John

Although we’re a few weeks into the month of January, Hoppin John is still THE dish that you want to be eating to ring in the New Year. Legend has it that the more black-eyed peas you can eat the more good luck you’ll have in the year to come. If you aren’t familiar with Hoppin’ John it’s a simple but classic dish of black-eyed peas, rice, and pork of some sort. Judith Carney writes that, “Although Hoppin’ John is a Southern dish, its contours are distinctly African, with two main ingredients and origins linked to the slave dwellings and plantation kitchens of the South. Hoppin’ John is traditionally prepared alongside plates of collard greens.”

“Crowder peas” is the formal family name of this bean, and black-eyed peas are the best-known member of the family. The actual tradition of Hoppin’ John seems to have started with red field peas actually, not black eyed peas. The latter were just more readily available. Fortunately for us, Glenn Roberts is growing old style Sea Island red peas, which are DELICIOUS! Given Hoppin’ John’s simplicity—field peas, pork and rice— there’s no way around the obvious; the better the beans the better the dish.

There are a number of standard explanations for the name Hoppin’ John. One is that it’s from the French pois pigeon (or “pigeon peas”). Another is that New Year’s and the serving of the dish come close on the heels of the feast of St. John the Evangelist. I’ve also heard it attributed to a children’s game about a one-legged (hence, hopping) slave named John. Adrian Miller cites a New York Amsterdam News article that said, “In Harlem and Chicago’s South Side, they say that “Eating peas is just for coins. Collars and other greens bring folding money. And pig, all part of the pig, will make you healthy, wealthy and sharp.” This meal has all three, so hopefully you’ll have a very successful 2014!

Collard Greens

Judith Carney writes that, “A signature ingredient of the food- ways of Africa and the diaspora is greens. Perhaps no other cooking traditions feature them so prominently. In West Africa there are more than one hundred fifty indigenous species of edible greens,” and greens were used to thicken soups (sesame, hibiscus and, of course, okra). There, they were generally cultivated, cooked, and sold at markets by women. That tradition continued in the American South—unlike field crops like corn, cotton or rice, greens were commonly grown in kitchen gardens from whence they could be easily added to the cook pot.

At the Roadhouse we cook large quantities of collard greens every week. We simmer them for hours with lots of applewood smoked bacon and pigs feet, and serve ‘em with a bottle of pepper vinegar on the side. Secret tip: ask for a bit of extra pot likker on the side. It’s the “broth” in the pot from the cooking of the greens. Three hundred years ago it was often given to slave children to give them much needed nutrients in less-than-ideal living conditions. Today it’s worth having some just because it tastes so good.

Carolina Gold Rice

Both rice and rice-growing techniques came to South Carolina from West Africa. It was one of the biggest “contributions” (if a forced expropriation of knowledge and skill can be called a “contribution”) of enslaved Africans to Southern agriculture, financial success and foodways. At the Roadhouse, we serve Carolina Gold rice from Glenn Roberts and Anson Mills. It is THE varietal that would have been grown by en-slaved Africans, and then African American sharecroppers in South Carolina in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It got its name from the golden hue 
of the ripe rice stalks in the fields and it’s a romantic image, but there was
nothing romantic about the work that enslaved Africans did to make the rice a reality. Rice growing and hand-harvesting is extremely difficult work under the best of conditions, and they were working in anything but good conditions. Carolina Gold rice was so highly esteemed it was shipped to the royal courts of Europe. Rice growing dominated South Carolina agriculture and eating. Everything about this rice is exceptional—its history, its modern day revival after 75 years of being out of production, the way it’s being grown and processed by Glenn and the crew at Anson Mills, and, most importantly, the way it tastes.

Candied Yams

The name “yam” is actually of African origin. It’s a large tuber that’s remains one of the main starches eaten in West Africa to this day. Yam growing was carried by enslaved Africans to South America, but the tubers never took in North America. Although botanically the two have nothing in common, the name was misapplied to the American sweet potato. What we know here as sweet potatoes probably originated in Peru. Europeans encountered them there and brought them back to Europe. There, as Adrian Miller explains, “the sweet potatoes were not the food of the masses by any means; in fact they were considered such a rare and expensive delicacy that only royalty and the wealthy could afford to eat them.” They were often prepared as the English did another orange vegetable, the carrot, by “candying” them with sugar. Sweet potatoes were critical for survival in cold winter months. Adrian Miller writes that, “Many slaves and share-croppers talked about constructing and maintaining sweet potato ‘banks.’” And he quotes Natalie Joffe’s study of African American food habits in the 1940s in which she explains that sweet potatoes “are regarded by tenants as exactly similar to the urban worker’s store of wages’ except that the potatoes are surer.” With all of that history of their integral role in the poor person’s southern kitchen, it’s no surprise that “yams” or sweet potatoes have stayed a featured dish in the African American culinary repertoire.

Mac ‘n’ Cheese

Obviously there was nothing 
like it in West Africa, as there was
 neither wheat nor cheese to be
had. But Adrian Miller is adamant 
that it’s a classic of African American 
cookery. As he explains: “Over two centuries, macaroni and cheese became ‘mac ‘n’ cheese,’ a soul food favorite, because African American cooks have been called on to make the dish in wealthy and poverty stricken kitchens alike. For soul food cooks, mac ‘n’ cheese had multiple identities as rich people’s food, a special occasion food, a convenient comfort food, a meal-stretcher, and a poverty food.”

Macaroni and cheese in the South originally would have been eaten only by the European elite. Jefferson is generally credited with bringing the dish back from Europe. He was ambassador to France from 1784 to 1789, and also spent time in Italy. He was major devotee of good food and fine cooking. He sent his slave James Hemmings (Sally’s brother) to be trained in the best kitchens of Paris. He also brought back a pasta-making machine and Parmesan cheese. In the U.S. the tradition was solidified as more Italians came over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Adrian theorizes that the large Italian community in New Orleans exposed the even larger black community to the dish, and its popularity spread from there. In the end, Adrian writes, “African Americans chose this foreign, European food and elevated its status within the black community. Today mac ‘n’ cheese can be considered a ‘black thing’ because African Americans adopted the dish so success- fully that its ethnic origins were completely forgotten.”

Read part 1 of the menu!