Evelyn's Blog - Taste of Gourmet

Thanksgiving Friday Gift for YOU...

Today is said to be the biggest shopping day of the year!  One of our Taste of Gourmet Consultants is having a Tasting today in South Carolina and she's calling it "Shop in your Seat and Not on your Feet!"  What a great slogan!  Stay comfortable while you shop for great food gifts (and get to sample too!)

So if you are thinking of going shopping this weekend...I have a 10% Discount code for YOU to use.  Use it on our website to order gifts or goodies for yourself.. Or use it in The Crown in Indianola, to get 10% off any Taste of Gourmet items you pick up to carry away yourself!

The 10% Discount Code is GBWEN and is valid through December First.  You'll find a box to enter the Code online - You can order for yourself or order a dozen or more individual gifts that we will ship out for you with a hand written gift card!  We make Christmas gifts easy!

When you are in The Crown, just tell us you saw the Discount Code on my Blog and you'll get the 10% off! We'll even gift wrap your presents for you!  Food from Taste of Gourmet is a Gift of Love....Always the "right size" and never has to "find" a place on the bookshelf!  Make this Christmas Delicious!   (I forgot to tell you...Jennifer is selling Toys and Books at 25% off on Friday and Saturday...Ya'll come see us at The Crown this weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We all have so much to be thankful for....our family....our health....our churches...our friends....the freedoms we are blessed with in America!  May we never take our blessings for granted and always give our thanks to God, each and every day, for all that He has given to us! 

Cooking with my grandmother....

Cooking with my grandmother is one of my most precious memories.  From the time I was very little and perched on the kitchen counter, Momo would always let me "help" with anything she was cooking!  And everything she cooked was always perfect!  I'm not being nostalgic...it was just plain perfect!

I love making Momo's Rice Pudding with Sage and Prescott.  They can break the eggs and tear the one piece of bread and stir everything together perfectly too!  They really like "buttering" the baking dish with their fingers!  Izabela and I made Rice Pudding in Maine this summer. Carter wasn't interested yet...but he will be!

Tomorrow Sage and Prescott will be helping me with our Thanksgiving Dinner.  Together we'll be making Bananas Foster with our Caramel Pecan Sauce and Sage's stuffed eggs!  Sage asked for Roast Beef (she's a bit of a picky eater) so we'll have Chimmi roasted potatoes and fresh asparagus tossed with Garlic Herb Butter and Yorkshire Pudding and gravy.  We'll serve Jezebel Sauce with the Roast (I love that kick of horseradish!)   I know it's not traditional Turkey and Dressing, but it's what the kids wanted and that's the most important thing to me!

Take the time to make memories for your family with delicious food and time spent together at the dining table. Take time to pray, eat, talk, laugh and just enjoy being together.  Thanksgiving should make precious memories for you too! 

A meeting place to enjoy.....

That's what some of our guests said yesterday about The Crown! The group of four precious ladies were from Clarksdale, Greenville and Itta Bena and chose to meet in Indianola to visit over lunch and then shop!

Two other groups told me that lunch at The Crown was always delicious and so comfortable...peaceful...no rushing...time to linger over dessert and coffee...and visit!  We had guests yesterday from Leland, Lake Village, Madison, Brandon, Iowa, Washington D.C....and of course Indianola! 

We want you all to enjoy your visits to The Crown!  Bring the children (they are welcome to read in the book corner and play with the Sand Box toy that Prescott loves.)   The Crown really is a Family Affair and we love having you all as our guests!

Have Fun......

My Daddy was a mess - always teasing and laughing and enjoying life to the maximum!  He was a lot of fun.  Several times in the last few days, I've seen old friends of his (or their children) at The Crown and we've told some stories on our parents and laughed (and cried a little.)

The one thing Daddy always said to me when I left the house, as a teenager, an adult and until the day he died....He said, "You have fun!"

And you know....I do have fun!  I love my work at the Plant, I enjoy being at The Crown, I love working with our Taste of Gourmet Consultants! I'm blessed because I learned from my Daddy to "Have Fun!"  To smile!  To enjoy everything that I do!  Watching the sunset or watching Sage and Prescott play checkers, or working madly in the Plant making sure all the orders are going out correctly....I have Fun!   

And now I say the same thing to my children and my grandchildren!  Have Fun!  Have Fun doing whatever it is you are doing... a job, a meeting, school, everything.  You can choose to enjoy and Have Fun at whatever you are doing!  Choose my Daddy's "Have Fun!"

Presents you can EAT.....

That's why Taste of Gourmet makes such great presents!  You KNOW that everyone loves to eat.....and at Taste of Gourmet, we make it so easy to have speed-scratch food hot from the kitchen!  Presents don't get any better (unless you only like diamonds I guess!)

Fill your own "basket" with a soup, a bread, a pie, a dip...a Simple Supper Gift.

Wrap a muffin tin with a Sweet Potato Muffin Mix.

Wrap a pie pan with a Praline Pie Mix.

Buy a tortilla warmer and pop in a Suddenly Salsa Mix.

A round cake pan with a Bayou Bread mix

Put a can of apples (or pumpkin) on top of an Apple Cake Mix.

Wrap a can of tomatoes with the box of Suddenly Salsa.

Add a Dollar Store spatula to a Mississippi Mud Cake

Or a Royal Fudge Sauce with a Mud Cake Mix....

The list can go on and on and on....If you have ideas, let me know!  Food is always a Gift of Love!

Talk about economical.....

There is a LOT of talk on TV about keeping costs down on everything from food to fuel consumption!  Call it frugal or economical or being cheap....it is just plain SMART!  

I am so proud of our Taste of Gourmet products!  Using our mixes and our sauces is a great way to eat well, eat healthy, eat deliciously and eat economically!

Let's just take New Orleans Style Beef as an example!   The mix will flavor 5 pounds (that's right FIVE pounds) of beef!  This is not one meal for 4 people (or even 6 to 8 as we say in the catalog - unless they are all football players during the season!)  I measured out 16 GENEROUS servings from my cooking pan!  SIXTEEN servings!  And the flavor......yum - yum!

After supper Thursday night I divided the "bonus" Beef into freezer tubs of servings for two and four!  Now Tony and I can enjoy a really fast supper - just heat the Beef and cook some rice or pasta or grits (my favorite choice) to serve it over!  Add a salad and some bread and you have ANOTHER yummy meal in no time and at a great price! 

Price IS a factor.  Yes - the New Orleans Beef Mix costs $9.95.  You add an 8 oz. can of tomato sauce and 2 tsp. beef boullion granules (I like the Wylers for price and convenience!)   My beef chuck roast this week was $2.39 a pound - $11.95 total for the meat.  The whole crock pot full of food cost me about $23.15 and with 16 servings that is only $1.45 per serving!

$1.45 per serving for a delicious fresh serving of New Orleans Style Beef, cooked at home, and it only took me a few minutes to put into the crock pot!  Cooking doesn't get any better or easier than that!  Look at the Suppers Made Simple pages on www.tasteofgourmet.com for other ways to serve the New Orleans Beef too...  Taste of Gourmet can help you keep food costs down!  I promise!

"Go to eat at The Crown...."

Two great new friends from Houston, TX came in for lunch today.  They were on a week long motorcycle trip around the Deep South - perfect riding weather for them today!  They told me, "We were here a couple of years ago, and we tell everyone, 'If you are anywhere NEAR Indianola, Mississippi, you have to go and eat at The Crown!"

You can't get any nicer words that those!  Or any nicer guys who were so enthusiastic about everything they were nibbling at the front and eating at the table!  They really enjoyed my Dessert Table just perfectly - slivers of SEVERAL pies and English Sherry Trifle and Pavlova!  They even tried to lure Faye away to Houston to keep making them Pavlova!  Sorry, Faye is staying in Indianola ya'll!  But I did give them the recipe!

We had fun with them (talking about butter and good food) and they did go to the B.B. King Museum after lunch!  I know they enjoyed the Museum because their motorcycles were still there an hour and a half later!  We love welcoming friends to The Crown!  Come back again real soon guys!

What's your favorite.....

When someone asks me, "What's YOUR favorite Pie (or Dip or Sauce..)?  I always answer, "Whichever one I'm eating!"  And that's the truth!  I love them all!  Each Pie or Dip or Bread has it's own unique flavor!  

I love to stand around the sampling table at The Crown and talk to my guests about what THEY like best!   The Peach Pecan Pepper Preserves over cream chees e always get raves - the Deliciously Dill Dip is so fresh... Sometimes people just stand right in front of the Smoked Catfish Pate and don't move until 5 crackers later!  I love it!

It really makes me happy when people enjoy my food!   What we serve at The Crown and what we prepare at the plant in jars and boxes for people to enjoy all over the country! 

That's my VERY favorite!  People enjoying my food! 

  

Lunch is "light" at The Crown...

A light lunch can mean "Light on the Pocketbook" or "Light on the Fat and Calories!  Did you know that lunch at The Crown is BOTh of these things?

We've had several calls lately asking, "What sort of prices do you charge for lunch?"  They have read about us or seen us on a TV show and were just curious.  (One sweet couple came in a couple of weeks ago who had seen the show on RFD TV that was first aired two years ago.)

Our Full Meal - Salad, main dish and vegetable, hot bread, the dessert table, tea and coffee is just $10.95!  You can have a sandwich or a salad plate for just $7.95 including hot bread, tea and coffee (add the dessert table for just $2.00 more.)   The Crown's lunch is a bargain - great value for money and always delicious!  The Crown is definitely "LIGHT on the Pocketbook!"  Just compare it to what you pay for lunch at a fast food place!

And the meal itself can be "Light in Fat and Calories!"  It's your choice. We offer chicken and catfish salad plates, Great Grilling Chicken Salad, and Creole Catfish Cake Salad with one hot Catfish Cake sitting on top. Even vegetarian plates!  Then sandwiches like our low fat Chicken Berry Bar-B-Que Sandwich, Chicken Salad Sandwiches, our Royal Roast Beef, the McDaddy Sandwich with sausage, onion and bell pepper (okay - not so low fat but yummy just the same!)   And all with your choice of green salad, fruit, our marinated cold slaw, home-made potato or vegetable salad!  Lunch can be as light as you want it to be!

Granted - we cook with butter - real butter!  And our Chicken and Catfish Allison is famous for flavor, but we can control what goes onto your plate - just ask!   Customer service and fresh, real food is what The Crown is all about!  Come to Indianola and experience The Crown!