[Northkeep] While others were off at the war . . .
Jennifer Carlson
talana1 at hotmail.com
Tue Mar 23 19:21:11 PST 2004
I hope everyone had a good time at the war. For those of us who stayed
home, it seems to have been a pretty quiet week. Save that there was a
grand opening you all might want to check out.
Last Wednesday, after a seemingly endless wait, I finally got to walk
through the doors of the new Market Grocery and Deli in the Kingspoint
Center at 61st and Yale. Id been panting for it to open ever since they
broke ground, and my brother had told me about how great the Market hed
visited is.
It has been worth the wait.
According to the article in Wednesdays Tulsa World, the Market doesnt
intend to compete with traditional groceries like Reasors and Albertsons
and Wal-Mart. This isnt the place you go to do the weekly shopping,
although they carry milk and Velveeta Shells n Cheese. You go here for the
special stuff.
They pride themselves on customer service. A manager, seeing me frantically
taking notes and apparently mistaking me for a reporter, gave me several
minutes of her time, and we had a good chat about their inventory. She had
no idea anyone in Tulsa might be interested in historical cuisines, and was
even more surprised at the things they carried that food historians might
come to them for.
You probably wont go there for the produce, unless youre picking up
everything else for a meal at the same time. They do carry a few unusual
items, like fresh oyster and woodear mushrooms, Russian banana potatoes and
baby pattypan squash, but everything else you can find at Reasors or
Albertsons. The custom salad bar, however, you will want to check out.
The deli has an obscene selection of cooked foods: lasagna (5 thick at
least), porkloin en croute (in pastry), Thai crab balls, coconut shrimp,
grilled portobellos, skillet corn bread and bread pudding, along with the
more usual fried chicken, whole roasted chickens, and potato salad. They
even have al fresco tables outside if you want to eat there. Just stop off
in the espresso bar for something to drink first.
The meat counter will take your breath away. Largely because the prices
would choke a horse. However, they sell gourmet, top quality, aged meats.
You can get most of the same cuts at better prices elsewhere, though it is
hard to find a grocery that sells French style standing rib roast (for those
who know the difference, or care). On the other hand, they do sell such
hard-to-find items as uncured bacon, and other packaged meats that are
nitrate-free.
Next to the meat counter is a sandwich counter, featuring Boars Head meats
and making all sorts of specialty sandwiches and burgers.
The fish counter has both fresh and frozen fish and shellfish bivalves as
well as crustaceans and live lobsters. Need a whole snapper, salmon, or
even a small shark? Again, the fish is pricey, but hey, this is Oklahoma,
and youre going to pay top dollar around here for anything that isnt
catfish or canned tuna.
The cheese case has all those oddly named cheeses they talk about on the
Food Channel and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Tucked in this section
they also have pates and packets of smoked salmon, including genuine
Scottish salmon. Mmm.
And just in case you dont have the utensils and cookware to do the
ingredients justice, you can buy French ceramic cookware, a by-gum fish
steamer, and proper copper pans. They also offer cedar grilling planks,
olive wood spoons, silicone oven mitts, and so forth. I foresee buying a
lot of Christmas presents here.
The bakery alone makes the trip worth it. Working from left to right, you
start, next to the espresso bar, with the usual snacky type goodies
cookies, muffins, etc. Then a case of Joseph Schmidt truffles (pure evil),
followed by a case of beautiful little desserts you normally only see in Bon
Appetit or a documentary about some great European hotel: little chocolate
cups and tarts and such, the for a special occasion kind of thing. Then
come the artisan breads, those beautiful, rustic loaves that youd give your
eye teeth to be able to make for events. And in a rack under that
particular display, youll find dinner-plate sized wheels of Scandinavian
cracker bread. So who needs to bake bread for an event?
The dairy case has mostly ordinary stuff milk, cottage cheese, sour
cream, and so forth, but in the next cases over, the frozen foods, you can
find phyllo dough. They have DiGiorno pizza, but their hot-pockets type
frozen sandwiches include such selections as spinach-and-feta. The ice
cream aisle was too crowded to get a look at, but rumor is they carry
gelato.
The shelves filling the rest of the store are full of all sorts of really
keen things. One aisle has imported foods, labeled by country of origin.
Under Britain youll find jars of Devon double cream, tins of McManns
Irish Oatmeal, teas, jams, even Violet Crumble. From other countries you
can purchase jars of Polish sauerkraut, boxes of Turkish Delight, German
mustards and soup mixes, Hungarian paprika (not the same as the stuff in our
American chili powder by a long way), French cornichons (tiny pickles), and
unrefined sugar cubes from India that, pounded or ground, would be a perfect
substitute for the sugar in period recipes. The spices offered include
whole cardamom pods, whole nutmegs, and pink peppercorns.
The snack food aisles include familiar and exotic chips, imported meringue
cookies and macaroons, canolli shells, etc., etc. Theres a Jelly Belly
display, 21 colors of M&Ms, and pretty much the complete Lindt chocolate
line.
When youre running through south Tulsa, take half an hour and check this
place out. Its the kind of place that makes you want to go home and try
cooking something new.
Talana
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