It was an interesting, if not slightly bizarre, week last week at The Mercantile. When the power went out on Monday, we were faced with trying to find ways to prevent spoilage. I ran out and rented a generator. We picked up our prayer rugs and plugged in our retail equipment. We scurried around with food and stuffed it into our retail cases to try and save Chef Samantha’s hard work and precious ingredients. San Francisco Coffee brought over all their dairy and a giant batch of banana bread still in a huge mixing bowl. We stuffed it all in and took a deep breath.
At the end of the day, the power came on after 8 hours. Despite our resourceful Girl Scout efforts, we still lost nearly all the prepared food in our deli cases and a considerable amount of raw ingredients. And, we lost an entire day of business! While we waited on our insurance agent to get back with us and process our claim, we spent most of the week looking around a sparse retail floor and an even sparser deli.
This presented me with an interesting dilemma when I was out running errands two days later. I popped over to Sam’s Club to pick up some bananas for the Sweetwater 420 Fest 5K race and some cooking wine for Chef. I found myself next to the produce aisle and browsing the frozen foods and dairy sections.
I stopped short when I came across large cases of Horizon Farms organic butter. “Now there’s a thought.” I murmured to myself. We had run out of our Mountain Farms Butter from North Carolina. “This could get us through the weekend.” I thought optimistically. “At least it’s organic,” I continued to justify. I stood there over my giant wire buggy and brushed my finger over the happy cow logo. I had read stories that Horizon Farms had been one of the first big businesses to capitalize on the growing market for organic foods. I had also read and heard that their practices surrounding “organic” had been called into question and even investigated.
“But it is organic. And that is what we do at The Mercantile.” I felt the dread take over of having to tell our guests that we had not yet been able to replenish our sweet butter from the Tennessee hills and that the power outage had caused us even more loss. But wouldn’t I regret bringing a product in that may seemingly match and promote our “brand,” yet was something I had personal and ethical concerns over? “But!” the devil said on my left shoulder, “It would help to make your sad little retail floor look like the abundant, healthy cornucopia you dream it to someday be?”
“No,” I thought to myself. I cannot take the chance of bringing in a product just to make things look better. I pushed my cart away and headed for the office supplies. I think the angel on my right shoulder actually lit up a cigarette and ordered a martini to celebrate over how I beat that little dude on my left shoulder down for once.
The very next day we ran out of romaine lettuce. I had to go to Restaurant Depot to pick up not only romaine, but also some beverages and supplies. Restaurant Depot is like a Sam’s Club except exclusively for restaurants. You can get EVERYTHING there. It’s always a mixed bag of tricks. I have picked up some good quality cheeses there before but have also been appalled by some of the disgusting, processed items found on the other side of the warehouse. They’ve got frozen hordearves; which makes Chef Samantha curse under her breath when she breezes by them; industrial sized cleaning supplies, pots and pans, plateware, everything! The best part is the huge refrigerated room the size of a basketball court. It holds just about anything a restaurant could use that is perishable.
I walked through the sliding door and looked up at floor to ceiling produce. Box upon box and bag upon bag of produce from all over the USA and different parts of the world. Every time I walk into that freezing cold room and encounter international visitors from farm fields unknown, I think of Barbara Kingsolver’s book
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the pertinent questions she poses. How many miles does your food travel before it lands on your plate? How many fossil fuels were consumed to bring you this item? But this is not about me and my meal. It’s about a business. When I pick up a case of romaine so we can continue to offer sides with our sandwiches, I think about the distance it has travelled and how it is now waiting on me or someone to take it and turn it around to try and make their living out of it. But the demands of my small, struggling business can’t always answer those questions the way I would like.
I feel conflicted like this on a daily basis at the shop. There is no way we could make The Mercantile run without access to the kinds of things Restaurant Depot makes available. When we have a great day with sandwiches and run out of romaine, I can’t run out the back and pull a fresh head out of the ground. I certainly can’t call a farmer for that as they are busy doing what they do best, planting and nurturing. When time is really short we can’t even call our corporate produce distributor and ask them to send us something from the locals list. Plus, many of them have outrageous minimums. (A lot of distributors do have local lists, by the way, and we always give those priority.) We have utilized as much local produce as we can afford, but sometimes, we’ve learned the term “local” is now being used and abused like the term “organic.”
I found a box of romaine lettuce from Colorado and threw it on my cart along with the bottled Coca-Colas (completely local!) and some Port Salut cheese. (not local, but we got Flat Creek Lodge in earlier this week!) Later that afternoon, I found myself washing and chopping that very romaine. I pulled back the leaves and there was dirt crowding the center of the stalk. I smiled to myself and felt happy to discover that despite my geographical guilt, I had managed to purchase some real, live food. I rinsed, chopped and spun for half an hour.
When the day finally ended and I sat down to dig my fork into Chef Samantha’s Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad that romaine was there again. The chicken was a fresh breast from a Springer mountain hen right out of Mt. Airy Georgia. The dressing was not homemade, but not bad either. The romaine! Wow! The romaine. It was crispy and sweet. It was actually the best romaine I had ever tasted. Chef Samantha agreed it was superior. It was not local and not organic, but the giant warehouse in the sky at least had somebody working for them buying high quality and fresh.
On Saturday afternoon the weirdness of our week continued to come knocking. We got a call from a production company that said they were filming a reality tv show and wanted to know could they film their cast shopping at The Mercantile?
“Of course,” we said. “Sounds like fun!”
Turns out a Grammy nominated artist has a baby sis and mom living in Atlanta and they are filming a show about them for BET. The baby sis arrived fashionably late with her low key fiancé, some really cool sunglasses and a production team. We had been told they were going to be shopping for ingredients for lasagna. We were poised and ready. I had rehearsed my march over to our San Marzano Marinara selection and put all of the pretty garlic bulbs at the top of the pile. When we got to our mark, he threw me for a loop by asking me if he could taste the sauce. What’s a shop keeper to do? I popped open the lid, grabbed a spoon and shoved it into his hand while fuzzy microphones leered over my head.
“That is very good. That is some seriously good tomato sauce” he said. “Can we get 3 jars?” Yay! Another convert to true tomato sauce!
When they wanted cheese I hopped behind the counter and cheerily pointed at my fresh cut parmesan blocks. I felt like Vanna White on too much
Whynatte! “We usually use it fresh. Out of the can.” Said R&B star’s baby sis. For the first time in a really long time, I stifled an impulse to get uppity about food. I wanted to say
“CAN! Can? Did you just say you eat cheese out of a can?” I bit my lip. Tasted a little bit of blood on that one.
“Can I taste it?” The low key fiancé either had a mantra going or had figured out I was intimidated by the microphones and therefore easy. In that instant when he popped that question, I remembered that food should be shared and often taught in the humblest of ways and shoved into people's faces and being told their would be a quiz later.
“Sure!” and I magically produced a pile of fresh shavings and started thinking fast what else I might could turn them onto. He popped it in his mouth and chewed.
“That’s good.” He said and looked a block over carefully. “We don’t have a cheese grater at home,” said baby sis. He looked disappointed and then turned his attention to the fresh mozzarella. I was making headway here.
“Would you like to try some port salud with Nutella?” I offered. “I don’t like chocolate.” Said the baby sis. “I don’t eat chocolate either,” chimed in fiancé. Clearly, I was getting cocky and needed to back down.
“Fine. I’ll eat it.” I popped the spoon of creamy cheese and hazelnut chocolate love into my mouth in defiance. So much for backing down. Plus, I was not about to waste it.
The baby sis displayed interest in our bread selection. Again, I magically produced a fresh slice of
Grateful Bread Company’s white sandwich loaf. “I am loving this bread.” She said after the first mouthful. I was delighted.
“It’s local!” Emily, a member of Team Merc was standing behind the cash wrap studying some complicated release the production team told her she must sign. “It’s baked locally and organically.” She added proudly.
“What is the name of this bread again?” our budding star wanted to know. “The Grateful Bread Company.” Emily repeated earnestly. “Well, I am grateful ya’ll have this bread! It is delicious.” A few minutes later she mentioned how she wanted some Country Crock to spread on it. ‘
Well, you can’t win ‘em all,’ I thought to myself. But, pretty soon, I had them trying Tuscan seasoning and Olive oil from Sardinia.
I know that girl went right down the road and got some Country Crock and happily spread it all over our special, local bread. But, I also know that bread made an impression on her. And that parmesan made an impression on her man. Is this what we do right now in this part of our journey? We take the small steps with the big setbacks and the big victories with little losses? Yes, I suppose it is. I may have to relent to a sparse retail floor and Chef Samantha may have to bring product into her kitchen that is not as local as she would like it to be. But, I figure if we keep ordering local grits and sniffing out local eggs and bringing in lovely, local items here and there when we can, eventually, get to that place on the map that says “You Are Here! You are here and you are occupying permanent space on a map you staked out with a very shaky compass."
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