Treat yourself to meals made from really good groceries.
A sampling of delicious offerings from Goodstone Inn & Restaurant in Middleburg.
When restaurants closed their doors this past spring due to coronavirus, not only were chefs out of work, but the local farmers and producers they typically support were stuck with quality ingredients that had no home. Some restaurants responded by offering their goods for purchase to the general public, so you can cook with the best ingredients at home.
For example, in May, the Goodstone Inn & Restaurant in Middleburg started a drive-through grocery menu to offer artisan ingredients curbside. Home cooks can choose between seven themed boxes, including chef’s essentials, gourmet, fruit, and more. Visit Goodstone.com/Dining to see the grocery and to-go menu.
The Goodstone’s chef, Jan Van Haute, also promotes local producers on his blog, Haute-Season.com. Among them is The Furloughed Chef, an artisan meal kit project created by Javier Arze, the owner of Huntsman, a food distributor in Vienna. Essentially a gourmet-level CSA, The Furloughed Chef delivers chef-made products, locally farmed produce and meats, and specialty add-ons to your door. Recent offerings include fresh pasta from chefs John Wood and Nick Stefanelli in Maryland, and quail eggs from Beaver Creek Farms and Nightingale Ice Cream sandwiches, both in Richmond.
When attempting five-star meals at home, Arze says to start with simple recipes. “What makes these ingredients what they are is their freshness and how local they are—I’d say to keep that as authentic as possible. Our ingredients speak for themselves and are packed with flavor. Keeping it simple is an easy way to get the most out of the ingredients!” he says.
Need ideas? Huntsman’s Instagram page has photos of dishes made from the curated ingredients. And, Arze and the chefs involved are developing recipes with the ingredients that are simple enough to replicate at home; think Hello Fresh—but local. “While this might have started during the pandemic,” says Arze, “we are committed to keeping people supplied with fresh, local ingredients and other gourmet options for the long run.”
