Mums, Merlot and Moroccan Spiced Lamb

Everyday Wines becomes part incubator, part European market
Pot & Box bouquets for sale at Everyday Wines.

Pot & Box bouquets for sale at Everyday Wines.

Economic development doesn’t always hinge on bureaucracies or government funding. It also happens organically, when small businesses find ways to help each other blossom.

You can see that phenomenon in person at Everyday Wines, a Kerrytown shop owned by Mary Campbell. She’s now providing space for two other businesses – Pot & Box and A Knife’s Work – to sell flowers and food there, giving the store the feel of a small European market.

Lisa Waud, owner of Pot & Box, started selling her collection of organic, Fair Trade flowers from Everyday Wines’ space on Tuesday. The bouquets of ranunculus, spider mums, kangaroo paws and roses, plus pots with orchids and amaryllis, sit in a green wooden cart just inside the shop’s door. You might see her flowers elsewhere in the Kerrytown Market & Shops, too. Upon discovering that Mike Monahan of Monahan’s Seafood likes tulips, she made a bouquet of pink tulips for his counter this week.

And in the front coolers of Everyday Wines you’ll find a selection of take-out food, prepared by the chefs of Campbell’s former business, Everyday Cook, which closed this summer following a long and ultimately unsuccessful bid to get a regular liquor license from the city. Jay Haamen and Brendan McCall now run A Knife’s Work, a catering business that in late October also began selling prepared dishes at Everyday Wines.

Their menu changes each week, and they post the week’s dishes on their website as well as on the Everyday Wines site – prices range from $6 for soups and side dishes, to $13 for hearty entrees. Here’s this week’s menu, through Saturday:

  • Moroccan Spiced Lamb, Kale and Smokey Tomato Soup
  • Roasted Sweet Potato and Stewed White Beans with Sage Mustard Vinaigrette
  • Pork and Chicken Liver Country Pate with Cornichons and Asian Mixed Greens
  • Garlic, Onion and Bay Braised Fingerling and Amish Purple Potatoes
  • Slow Cooked Red Wine Pot Roast with Roasted Carrot, Parsnip, Turnips and Crispy Bacon
  • White Wine, Herb and Garlic Braised Chicken with a Fall Vegetable Ragout
A selection from this week

A selection from this week's take-out menu of A Knife's Work, sold at Everyday Wines. The containers are biodegradable and compostable.

Maria, one of the contributors to the local food blog Gastronomical Three, picked up on the offerings almost immediately, when she happened to stop by Everyday Wines on Halloween: “One entree hardly qualifies as criteria for a review, but let me call this an excited and favorable mention. In other words, the smoked paprika braised pork shoulder with amontillado sherry and stewed white beans was really good. As in we each took a somewhat harried bite, suddenly slowed down and went mmmmm.”

Campbell gives kudos to Kerrytown Market & Shops for giving her the flexibility to incorporate these other businesses into her store. She sees it as an incubator, providing a storefront venue for these startups as they grow. She also sells handmade cards made by Melanie Boyle of Cleverlotus Design.

All of these enterprises feed her business, too, Campbell says. It brings in more customers who might, for example, buy an entree and pair it with a nice bottle of wine – and she’s happy to provide suggestions on what might complement the meal. Maybe Merlot and some mums?

Lisa Waud, owner of Pot

Lisa Waud, owner of Pot & Box. She's selling organic, Fair Trade flowers at Everyday Wines in the Kerrytown Market & Shops.

3 Comments

  1. By jack sprague
    November 14, 2008 at 3:57 pm | permalink

    Wow – great article. I didn’t know this existed – and I consider myself “downtown foot traffic.” I’m glad to see the retail outlet for top-end culinary product when I want something special without the overhead of actually dining out !

  2. By Leah Gunn
    November 14, 2008 at 4:07 pm | permalink

    I hope they all join Think Local First and get into the directory and on the web site – this is just the kind of news we need.

  3. By Stewart Nelson
    November 15, 2008 at 12:15 pm | permalink

    This is exactly the type of creativity that we need! It demonstrates why the role of local government should be to empower these business and make it easier for them to do business here. Of course hind sight is 20/20, but this makes me wonder what we lost when the liquor license went to the golf course?