It’s been a busy week around here, thanks to some great reviews:
Seattle Magazine’s Allison Scheff wrote a nice roundup of some of our new products. Anyone who mentions Allison’s story while in the shop will be invited into our test kitchen to sample all of the items that she wrote about.
The Queen Anne View blog’s Laura Fonda wrote a great story. She touched on many of the things that I think make us distinct. Check out her story here. We certainly want to serve the entirety of Seattle, but we are particularly excited to get to know our Queen Anne neighbors. Our neighborhood might just be going through a renaissance. Come see us!
Thrillist Seattle also stopped by and liked what he saw.
And, Ronald Holden is at it again with this great story on Crosscut.
My mom is going to hate Surly Gourmand’s review. My introduction to Surly Gourmand was when he left a comment on this blog post. I was thinking: “wow, this chick has some serious dick envy.” It turns out that Surly is a man, a man comfortable enough with his sexuality that he admits his desire to lick our butternut squash oil off of Mike Tyson or a dog (to be fair, he also wants to lick it off your mom – he likes our butternut squash oil that much). This guy has tasted it all. One can assume from his review of our shop that he knows the decadence of what “angels fucking” tastes like and he’s also tasted the dregs: “a stale muffin that rolled around on the floor of a Penzey’s”.
I think his review is right on the money, except for when it comes to panforte. That might have been my fault. I started our panforte tasting with a flavor that is dusted with spices that are very strong. I can see why Surly imagined them to resemble something from Penzey’s floor. I obviously agree with his raves and I also agree with his assessment of our macaron mixes as being the most ridiculous thing we sell. I’m not being defensive, but want to explain my rationale: At our tasting panel, my guest panelists told me that entry-level bakers would appreciate the accessibility of the product since good macarons apparently are dependent on exacting measurements. I can definitely see what he is saying though — $16 is a lot of money for a small quantity of inexpensive ingredients. I won’t buy it either and I get it at cost. I figured that getting him drunk and stoned would get me a perfect 10 review, but I’ll take his 7.5 out of 10 and I definitely look forward to his return.
Also, we are very proud to have been mentioned by Mark Bittman in The New York Times Magazine as a trusted source for dried mushrooms in his superb story on how to use dried wild mushrooms. Bon Appetit’s December issue also included three of our dried chilies in their roundup of 50 essential pantry items and included our panforte (a “fruitcake puck” according to surly) in their roundup of Gifts that Wrap Themselves.
It’s been a good couple weeks of media exposure. I’m so grateful. Thanks to all for the warm welcome.