Prime Beef Giveaway: What Would You Do with 130 Pounds of Prime?

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Hannah Howard

The grand opening of our tenth store in Woodland Park is upon us. June 6!! And so it’s time for another grand contest to celebrate the grand occasion–we will once again be giving away a whole hindquarter of prime beef. That’s a whole lot of beef. About 130 pounds, with a retail value of approximately $1200.

At Fairway, we get really excited about USDA Prime Meat. And rightly so. USDA Prime is the highest grade a cut of beef can receive. Only about 2% of meat in the United States is graded as USDA Prime. Continue reading →

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Where Steve Jenkins Is Eating this Week: Quickie Recs

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Steve Jenkins

Steve JenkinsHakata Tonton at Grove and 7th ave south.  Drop-dead fine; hard to get a table.  You will be the only gaijin in the joint.  No better Japanese food anywhere.  Their table hotplate-cooked Tonton Hotpot is so good that as soon as you have finished it off, the waitress brings a measure of rice to add to the broth left in the bottom of the pot, and then she smooshes it around to absorb all those flavors.  Very reasonable prices on sake, too.  Continue reading →

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Mother’s Day Ode to Shopping with Mom

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Hannah Howard

As a kid in Baltimore, Saturdays were big days. My mom and I would bid my dad adieu and off we went on a magical, mystical grocery-procuring adventure.

First was the sunny farmers’ market in my neighborhood, Charles Village. The streets were full of vendors selling jams and jellies, bright cherries and peaches in summertime, baskets of arugula and lush, leafy things, stalks of asparagus in spring, shiny eggplants and elephantine zucchini. There were always cheerful men playing guitars, shaking tambourines, singing.

Continue reading →

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Talking Coffee with Benny Lanfranco, Fairway’s Master Roaster

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Hannah Howard

We roast over 800,000 pounds of coffee every year, in small batches, with so much care and love. Benny is the man behind the whole operation, sourcing the finest beans straight from earnest farmers, and importing them direct so the quality and price are incomparable.

Benny’s been working with coffee since the ripe old age of 13, when he pitched in on his neighbor’s coffee farm in the Dominican Republic. A few decades later, he’s scouting the world for the very best coffee, bringing it to to Fairway, and making sure it gets roasted impeccably to bring out full and nuanced flavor. Benny says it the best himself:  Continue reading →

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Melodie: Laura Chenel’s Newest Chevre Lights Our Fire

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Hannah Howard

Most of our favorite cheeses—the ones we crave, the ones we brag about, the ones that grace our tables when our good friends come over—have been around for centuries. Monks have been busy making Tete de Moine in the Swiss Jura Mountains for some 800 years; Parmigiano-Reggiano dates from the middle ages. That makes Camembert, first crafted in Normandy in the late 18th Century, a relative baby.

So when a brand new cheese gets hatched, our ears perk up.

American cheeses are new by definition. We are teenage cheesemakers to Europe’s sage grownups—experimenting like crazy, discovering our identity. Continue reading →

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Moonlight and Silver Dollars in Vermont: Our New Pancakes

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Lori Levy

We have a hit.  Our Fairway Pancakes just hit the stores two weeks ago, and one thing is for sure, you love them- really LOVE them.  We couldn’t be more delighted about that.

Can you imagine how many pancakes we ate this year in our quest for fluffy perfection?  Our launch couldn’t come fast enough.  Pitchers and catchers had already reported and we were in the final throws of March Madness.   I packed up my two junior taste testers, ages 12 and 15, and headed north to Vermont to watch the packing of our four new Fairway Pancakes: Classic, Buttermilk, Multigrain and Chocolate Chip.

Irene left her wicked mark on the beautiful state of Vermont a mere eight months ago. The kids and I had been up there visiting with dear friends on Labor Day weekend.  The destruction was absolutely incredible. Businesses and houses we had passed on our way up on Friday simply no longer existed by Monday.  Many of the roads we had travelled were gone, too.  What heartbreaking loss and devastation.

Continue reading →

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Why Local Seafood Rocks: Tony’s Take

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Hannah Howard

Spring has sprung! And so it’s time to feast on fish caught from nearby newly-warm waters.

We took a minute to pick the brain of Tony Maltese—the man behind our fresh-as-can-be seafood department—to find out why he’s so excited about local fish.

Continue reading →

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Rocking Out With Great Cheese at Rock Stars

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Hannah Howard

Me and My Friend Piave at the 74th Street Cheese Counter

I don’t miss working in restaurants too much. I certainly don’t miss arriving home with achy feet at 3 AM. But I do miss the opportunity to get to be part of culinary revelation—“I do like goat cheese!”—or “this polenta changed my life.” I got to orchestrate little moments of happiness. This made me happy.

When you sell a bottle of kickass Tuscan EVOO that tastes like funky olive juice, the gratification is delayed. Perhaps the customer will come back and rave about the stuff, which they’re now using to anoint every single morsel that comes from their kitchen. Maybe not. But you don’t share that moment with them, that heady first bite where they throw their head back in gustatory glee.

Continue reading →

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Joy Found in Non-Food Items at Fairway: We Love Weleda

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Steve Jenkins

There are things for sale at Fairway that may not provoke your gastric juices, believe it or not.  One of them is a German line of toiletries that is bringing to us such delight that we must tell you about it.

WELEDA, probably pronounced ‘VAH-lay-duh’ by a German-speaking person, offers spritz deodorant, either wild rose or sage, in a glass bottle.  The scent of each will
transport you, and actually make you look forward to your morning and evening toilette.  This deodorant takes you out of town, and sometimes that’s exactly what we really want.

And if you must enquire, yes, they work just fine. Continue reading →

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Our Gorgeous New Catalan EVOO

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Steve Jenkins

Fairway is shamelessly in love with many Things Catalan. We have a great love affair going on with Things Catalan.  It has been going on for years.

Our fine artisanal barrel-shipped vinegars made from sparkling cava, from Priorat red wines, from Catalan vermouth and moscatell wine.  Timeless. Barcelona.  Roman Tarragona.  Penedes and the Priorat – their lovely vistas and smashing red wines.  Vic and its pork products.  Garrotxa and its cheese.  Empuries and its Greek and Roman ruins.  La Costa Brava.  Gaudi and Dali.  The anchovies of Escala.  We could not care less about Ferran Adria, but that’s us.

So imagine my trepidation when this container of our literally brand-new ‘house’ Fairway extra-virgin un-filtered Catalan arbequina olive oil arrived.  Would it taste and smell as good as it did when I chose it?  Would the great Pere Mateo of Olis De Catalunya manage to pull this off at the price I demanded?  Am I going to be disappointed? Continue reading →

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