Eric Brenner, executive chef and owner of Red Gravy, 23 S. Tejon St., took his chef, AD (Adriel) Hamlin, and the restaurant’s kitchen crew to St. Louis over the Thanksgiving holiday week.
The trip focused on eateries at The Hill, a neighborhood dominated by Italian immigrants and a place where Brenner honed his culinary skills. On the culinary trip, Brenner and his culinary team found inspiration for new dishes and a reminder of former recipes, which have resulted in a new menu at Red Gravy.
On said menu, it was gnocco fritto ($12.95) that caught our eye and won our taste buds. What’s not to love about crispy beignets, prosciutto, honey, olive oil and sea salt?
When we asked Brenner about the dish, he reflected lovingly, “That dish was actually on the opening menu at Red Gravy in 2016. It just took us nine years to get folks to trust us enough to try totally new dishes. That dish is from a restaurant called Acero. It has been on their menu since they opened in 2007.”
Brenner explained, “Gnocco fritto is a dish present in many regions of Italy but primarily Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany. We prepare the yeast dough and fry it in lard. We drizzle the fried bread with honey, our addition, then top with Volpi prosciutto, which is made in St. Louis. I think it’s an amazing dish and glad that we can share it with the city.”
With Brenner’s addition of honey, the delicious combination of sweet and salty prosciutto can be both an appetizer and a dessert.
Restaurant hours are 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Details: 719-635-7661, facebook.com/redgravyco.
Colorado Springs downtown fish restaurant opens for lunch, weekend brunch | Table TalkMonument food store expands
Taste of Life Natural Food Market and Prepared Meals, 18965 Base Camp Road in Monument, will have a grand opening for their expanded retail store 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday. The first 100 people coming into the store will receive a treat bag. Samples of several prepared meals and other goodies they prepare will be offered during the day.
Taste of Life is a family- owned small business. The store was founded by Donna and Ron Poelstra in 1997 when Donna was looking for an economical way to feed her family nutritious, healthy food.
“It’s pretty surreal to think of selling out of our garage back in the late ‘90s to now having such a beautiful kitchen and store,” Donna said. “Who would have thought?”
It all started when Donna was shopping for affordable food. The first item she found was all-natural chicken. But to get a wholesale price, she had to purchase a 40-pound case. She started getting that and bagging it up to freeze. Before she knew it, the word had spread to her friends about the great quality and reasonably priced fowl she was getting.
“Friends started buying 10-pound bags of chicken,” she said. Within eight years, she amassed an email list of over 500 families and was taking orders every three weeks.
That was the start of her co-op grocery, which she and her family operated out of her garage. She started researching and finding more foods, grains and produce she could buy in bulk and sell. In 2006 she moved the co-op business into a small house in Monument. The Poelstra family later moved the business to the larger space at Base Camp Road.
Fast forward to today and a larger warehouse-like space has been vastly remodeled with a dedicated USDA-inspected kitchen for preparing and freezing meals. There’s a dedicated gluten-free kitchen as well as a separate large bakery kitchen. The shelves and freezers are stocked and ready to welcome faithful customers as well as new patrons. Hours are 8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.
Details: 719-487-2858, tasteoflifestores.com.
contact the writer: 636-0271.