Mussels Mariniere et Provencale

Mussels Mariniere with a Provencal twist, this dish starts with sliced scallions and minced (Small Farm) garlic sweated in butter with chopped parsely and basil. Stir in a little tomato sauce before turning the heat up and adding some dry white wine.

In goes a couple of pounds of cleaned, debearded mussels -a quick stir- and on goes the lid. Five minutes later, all but one of the mussels are open and opaque. The closed mussel is discarded and the rest are served with salad and toast points.

Delicious. The Super Stop & Shop in Hudson, MA has an interesting seafood department. Sometimes the display of seafood looks exactly like you would expect the seafood to look in a supermarket display case. Keep in mind that this is New England and the competition for fresh seafood is abundant. Seafood lovers who are used to the display at places like Captain Marden's
are not likely to be impressed by a supermarket seafood department.

Somehow, Stop & Shop is putting some exceptional seafood on the shelf. Not always. Not even regularly, but often enough to make the seafood department a regular stop when you make your way through the store. Since they expanded the Stop & Shop to a Super Stop & Shop, the likelihood of spotting a beautiful wild-caught salmon fillet or some fresh sea scallops has made it well worth looking. You might be disappointed, but you just might change the menu for tonight.

These mussels were very clean and fresh. The 2 pounds of shellfish contained not a single one with a broken shell and all but one opened during steaming. One or two mussels were a little gritty, but they were all firm, fresh and flavorful.

It would be preferable for customers not to have to carry around yet another plastic card in order to pay non-artificially inflated prices at Stop & Shop and preferable to not be "earning" Stop & Shop gas credits at a gas station 20 miles away. (That means paying more for milk and bread to "earn" so called credits that expire before there is any chance of redeeming them.)

The Stop & Shop marketing department is working hard to rip customers off for a little bit here and a little bit there, which is a lot of money when you have as many customers as Stop & Shop does. Actually, to be precise; Stop & Shop is a subsidiary of Royal Ahold. (They own Giant, Peapod and a number of grocery related businesses globally.) The marketing schemes might be Stop & Shop's work but it might just be Royal Ahold's.

The seafood department is worth a look.

Beef & Broccoli

If you are a reader of this blog then you know that I am an Idylwilde farms regular.

Lately, my usual tab at the checkout has been less than $50.

You know what that means don't you - daily visits. Well, not on Tuesdays.

Feeding people with food allergies means the prepared foods section of the market is usually a minefield rather than a time-saver. However, this minefield, and certainly this has been the case for me, can be a goldmine. Everything in the prepared foods section was prepared with ingredients available within 50 yards or so.

Two points to consider here: One is the story of the grocery store chicken and the other is the story of "it will only contain what you add" if food allergies are an issue.

Consider the organic grocery store chicken: It comes to the market almost whole and recently dispatched. If it doesn't sell whole, it is cut up, a little bit older, and a little bit more expensive. If it doesn't sell cut up, the chicken is marinated or cooked, a little bit older and more expensive.
Extrapolate at will.

Before I review the selections at the meat chiller, I check out the prepared foods. I do not want the prepared foods, because they do or may contain prohibited ingredients, but that does not mean they are without value. Indeed, the prepared foods are inspiring. I find myself checking the prepared foods before I look to the fresh proteins. Tonight was no exception. The Beef & Broccoli was inspiring.

Ginger, carrots, red bell pepper, carrots, scallions, baby bok choi, and out-of-frame beef tenderloin, all from Idylwilde. The garlic was, of course, from Small Farm in Stow.


First, cook the beef and set aside. (Butcher Block teriyaki sauce makes an excellent marinade.)

Minced ginger and garlic first followed quickly by peppers, carrots. bok choi, scallions, oyster sauce and chicken stock.

Stir in steamed broccoli and finish with green scallions, blanched snow pea pods
and maybe some wasabi crunchy salad toppings.

No unwanted ingredients, all fresh and organic ingredients.

See you at Idylwilde, but not on Tuesdays.

Slow roast chicken with Yukon potatoes and English peasY

Slow roasted chicken: There are dozens of variations on this recipe but they all end up with essentially the same formula. 350-375 for 1/2 hour, 200 for an hour and 400 for 1/2 hour. Don't stuff the bird or truss it. That's it-slow roasted chicken. Moist and tender and flavored however you flavor it.

A lover of 40 clove chicken and in particular, the bonus resulting roasted garlic makes this one a favorite.