Lea este artículo en español aquí.
With a lifetime of cooking experience dating back to helping her grandmother Frances Guerra make ravioli in her back kitchen, Megan Ward is bringing her passion for Italian cuisine to the community with Salt + Peppertree, her online meal service specializing in authentic pastas and sauces that are simple but fresh and filled with flavor.
Two months into the launch of her business, Ward will showcase her products on June 7 during an alfresco dinner at Hollister’s Suncoast Organic Farm. Diners will choose from lasagne, layered with Italian sausage, spinach, and fresh mozzarella, as well as sourdough spaghetti with meatballs in pomodoro sauce and gemelli with spicy vodka sauce, just a small selection of her fresh offerings.
“It has been a while since I have done anything like this,” Ward said. “Suncoast is an incredible place, and it’s like everything that is great about Hollister: the views and the fellowship and the community.”
Ward is no stranger to cooking for a packed house: after deciding that a career in an office was not for her, she opened Main Street Bistro on San Benito Street in 2002, offering a menu of sandwiches, salads, and soups.
Besides her spinach salad with cranberries and walnuts and a line of breakfast burritos, the most popular menu item was a chicken sandwich with herbed mayo, served on focaccia bread with grilled zucchini and fresh mozzarella.
“The combination was just good,” Ward said. “And people loved it. Just today, a school receptionist told me, ‘Every time I see you, I think of that chicken sandwich that you used to make. I still have great memories of that place.’”
Reggiano Parmesan. Photo by Robert Eliason
Feeling she needed more flexibility in her life and schedule, she closed the bistro in 2007 and started Thyme Catering. The complications of raising three boys caused the closure of that business five years later.
“I was working while the kids were at home,” she said, “They had evenings, weekends and holidays off, and that was my busy time. I wanted to try something else that aligned more with their lives.”
Starting as a substitute teacher in the Hollister School District, where her husband Kip Ward serves as interim superintendent, she has been teaching special education students for the past five years.
A chance encounter with a co-worker wearing a “gorgeous sweater” rekindled her interest in cooking for others and provided the impetus for Salt + Peppertree. The co-worker told Ward that knitting was her hobby and she had made the sweater herself.
“She asked what my hobby was,” Ward said. “I said, ‘Cooking for people.’ Before, when the kids were growing up and had friends over, that kind of satiated that need in me. But I was about to turn 50, and I felt cooking was something I needed to revisit.”
Opening her new business, she named it after her family’s Pepper Tree Ranch—the home of her father Al Guerra’s Guerra Vineyard and Cellars and the Hollister Concert series.
“Salt and pepper are two of my favorite ingredients,” Ward said. “I just love our ranch, and I intend to do some flavored salts when I get around to it.”
She purchased a La Monferrina pasta machine with brass dies, designed to withstand the high heat of the process. Ward owns half a dozen dies that extrude the dough into classic shapes, such as flat lasagna sheets, spaghetti, gemelli, campanelli, fettuccine, and fusilli.
La Monferrina pasta machine dies. Photo by Robert Eliason.
And while she doesn’t remember making pasta with Grandmother Frances, she keeps her pasta as authentic to Old Italy as she can.
“There are only two ingredients,” Ward said, “It’s just Durham wheat flour and water. The dies create rough edges that absorb the sauce more effectively, and when everything comes together, it cooks fast. Just two minutes in boiling water.”
Ward said that one trick to perfect pasta is not to discard the pasta water too early.
“You slightly undercook your pasta,” she said, “and then use a bit of that water to kind of finish cooking the pasta in the sauce so that it really absorbs all of it. Undercook instead of overcook.”
Ward offers six different pasta sauces, includinga favorite dish of Anthony Bourdain’s called Cacio e Pepe, which is a mix of grated pecorino romano and ground pepper; Pesto Cream with red pepper flakes; Aglio + Olio, made with garlic, extra virgin olive oil, and red pepper flakes; and pomodoro, with tomato, basil and extra virgin olive oil.
The Alfredo sauce is a favorite of Suncoast co-owner Lisa Jensen, who praises the simplicity of the recipes as well as the quality of the ingredients.
“Megan gives you a big old block of parmesan and butter,” she said, “and the instructions on how to make it. I don’t know how to describe how delicious it was, but everything about her food is top-notch.”
Fettuccine and Vodka Sauce. Photo by Robert Eliason.
The vodka sauce is one of Ward’s best sellers, a creamy combination of vodka, minced onions, tomatoes, cream and parmesan cheese. Red pepper flakes add a back-of-the-throat heat that builds in the finish and lingers.
“It is so good and very bright,” she said, “ It’s a little more interesting on the taste buds and I like the spiciness of it.”
Ward is currently experimenting with the ingredients of her pastas, creating a sourdough version as a nod to a current food trend.
“I gave it a try,” Ward said, “and it came out good. You can smell it when it’s raw, but it isn’t a particularly strong sourdough taste. There are supposed to be health benefits to sourdough in helping you absorb nutrients.”
She will be serving the sourdough in spaghetti form at the Suncoast dinner. The event started with Jensen offering Ward the use of her commercial kitchen to stage a collaboration at the bakery.
“Serving a large number of people is chaotic,” Ward said. “And you really have to work on timing. However, I’ve done it many times. And I have a strong pull to get back to doing this kind of thing, keeping things simple and working together.”
Fettuccine and Vodka Sauce. Photo by Robert Eliason.
Salt + Peppertree
Order through the website for delivery or pickup.
Salt + Peppertree is also on Instagram
La Pasta Viva — Alfresco Dining Under the Stars!
At Sun Coast Organic Farm on June 7
South Bay 6310 Southside Road, Hollister
Tickets are $55 a person
Two seatings are available, at 4-6 p.m. and 7-9 p.m.
Recommendations for future Eat, Drink, Savor articles can be emailed to roberteliason@benitolink.com.
BenitoLink thanks our underwriters, Hollister Super and Windmill Market, for helping to expand the Eat, Drink, Savor series and give our readers the stories that interest them. Hollister Super (with two locations in Hollister) and Windmill Market (in San Juan Bautista) support reporting on the inspired and creative people behind the many delicious food and drink products made in San Benito County. All editorial decisions are made by BenitoLink.
We need your help. Support local, nonprofit news! BenitoLink is a nonprofit news website that reports on San Benito County. Our team is committed to this community and providing essential, accurate information to our fellow residents. Producing local news is expensive, and community support keeps the news flowing. Please consider supporting BenitoLink, San Benito County’s public service nonprofit news