Press
By Gloria Young,
Friday, Dec. 10, 2008
Steve Riccardelli and Amy Eldridge have been familiar faces at local farmers’ markets for the past three years, selling ready-made frozen meals, planned and prepared by Riccardelli.
Now they’ve opened their own café and market in Bowman.
“Things were going really well and we could see the opportunity to offer more kinds of meals and also have meals that were consistent with our approach to fresh and ready to eat,” Riccardelli said Monday. “It is an opportunity to bring some of the food that we sold at the farmers’ market to people so they can have access to it during the rest of the week.”
In addition to Riccardelli’s frozen selections, there’s a café specializing in soups, sandwiches and salads and a market area with fresh produce, meats, wines, artisan cheeses and specialty items from area farmers.
“We’re working with Natural Trading Company primarily for produce,” Riccardelli said. “We carry produce that is in season. It is what’s fresh — what has been picked that same day or week.”
Natural Trading Company’s Caren Hamilton says the business collaboration is an extension of a longtime friendship.
“First of all, we’ve known each other since our children were in our tummies,” she said. “Our daughters are in the same class at Live Oak Waldorf School and we have always been supportive of each other’s businesses.
And just because winter’s setting in, doesn’t mean a dearth in things fresh from the garden.
“We grow about 25 different things. Everything is organic,” Hamilton said. “There’s a huge variety of winter greens — kale, collards, chard, arugula, mizuna (in the mustard family).”
Then there are the root vegetables this time of year — carrots, beets, turnips —and some herbs.
“There are pea shoots, sunflower greens and winter squashes,” she said. “It’s all about orange and green.”
Visitors will also find mandarins and persimmons.
For Riccardelli, having his own restaurant means more space to expand his selection of pre-made offerings including tried and true favorites such as chicken pot pie and Thai coconut curry chicken.
The café specializes in lunchtime fare — soups, salads and sandwiches. Among the choices are quinoa salad, rice salad with baked tofu, chicken salad with peanut sauce and creamy potato salad. There are traditional sandwiches including turkey and Italian sausage and more original ones such as roasted vegetable and the Stagecoach sandwich made with vegetarian patties.
“All our sandwiches are named after part of the American River, some of the rapids and some of the trails,” Riccardelli said.
Sandwiches run $6.50 to $7.50. Soup is $4.50. The salads are $6 to $8 a pound.
Friends Karen Reitz of Auburn and Mary Cleary of Meadow Vista stopped in for lunch Tuesday. It was their first visit.
“He’s been one of my favorites since he was at the farmers’ market,” Reitz said about Riccardelli.
Cleary agreed.
“This is five star,” she said. “This will be a destination place for us.”
Riccardelli and Eldridge’s career in the food business came about gradually.
“It really sort of evolved out of a need that we had as a family with two working parents, looking for healthy nutritious food for our kids but not having a lot of time to do it,” Riccardelli explained. “I had kind of learned from my grandmother how to make big batches of things like ravioli, meatballs and lasagnas. We’d make those in big batches and freeze them. Then we started experimenting with other things like pot pies and quiches.”
Then it occurred to them that they probably weren’t the only ones looking for pre-packaged healthy meals.
“So we began sharing with people, gathering feedback and eventually decided to try it at the farmers’ market,” Riccardelli said. “ That was a great experience. We could talk to people about it and hear about it after they’d tried things. We’d gather all their suggestions and make changes and learn.”
Response to the latest venture has been very positive, he said.
“It has been really great, really supportive,” he said. “We have people coming in every day telling us they’re so happy we’re here. They feel like they’ve found their place.”