Everyone is talking about slow food and organic ingredients, and all-scratch. These are all principles we have had in place since we opened. Slow food means using ingredients from the area and treating them with care, taking our time and not using any convenience foods. A perfect example of slow food is our beef pot pies. We take big, lean cuts of beef and painstakingly trim it of fat and sinew, carefully brown the ruby red cubes and then slowly braise them in wine and Guinness for three hours. While that is braising, we make beef stock from roasted bones and vegetables (another 4 hours). After that, we add slowly carmelized onions and mushrooms and thicken the sauce the way your grandmother used to. We have to let it cool for several hours before we can make it into pies. We chop fresh herbs to add to our crust, of course we make it by hand as well. After we assemble them, they are baked in our ovens and given to you. All in all, it takes an entire day to make beef pot pies. All of our meats that we use in our sandwiches are slow roasted in our ovens- no deli meats for us!
Organic is better!!! There are several wonderful organic growers in the area that provide us with as much produce as we can use. There are studies which state that it is best for our bodies to eat foods from our area as they will help us combat the allergens in our natural environment. Unfortunately, tomatoes don't grow here in the winter so we do have to get some organics from California.
All-Scratch is a term you will here popping out of our staff all the time. It means that we make everything from raw ingredients in our store. We don't bring in frozen bread and bake it off, we don't use any frozen tart shells or custards in pails for our tarts. When we make lemon meringue pie we zest the lemons, squeeze the lemons and stand over the stove for at least 30 minutes making the filling. Our pie shells are rolled by a human, filled with pie weights and baked; then filled with the most delicious lemon curd. Then we beat the meringue and top each pie with billowy white mounds before baking it again for a golden crown. Again, it is a slow process but necessary to our commitment to all-scratch baking. I once asked a cook if she cooked from scratch; she replied, "I scratched my behind while I read the directions on the box!" At Holly's, we take the utmost pride in the ingredients we use, the methods we follow to prepare our food, and even in the customers who choose to put quality over convenience. Next time you wait while we tie your box with ribbon, think of this article and remember, we worked hard on what is inside; it deserves more than just a plain cardboard box.
