New Pi Cedar Rapids Update – July 2

New Pi General Manager Matt Hartz updates us on our Cedar Rapids store project progress:

A big crew’s hard at work on our future Cedar Rapids home!

Allison carries in the first food delivery to our future Cedar Rapids New Pi store – we brought lunch for the construction crew!

The space is truly being transformed, thanks to our general contractor, Ryan Companies, our mechanical contractor, Modern Piping, and our electrical contractor, Nelson Electric.

Kent from Ryan Companies and Jon from Nelson Electric getting ready to dig in.

The floor is now criss-crossed with trenches to accommodate the mechanical infrastructure necessary to make a modern supermarket function. All our refrigeration equipment and retail coolers are ordered and expected by the end of summer. We’ve been working with Alliant Energy to be a model of energy efficient design choices.

The combination of modern retail coolers (many with doors) and LED and high-efficiency fluorescent lighting will yield a store that takes at least 1/3 less energy to operate than our Coralville store! (The two stores are about the same size.)

Right now it’s all about plumbing infrastructure!

We are still on schedule to open in late autumn, though we won’t be able to announce an exact opening date for a few months yet. After our Cedar Rapids store is open, we will be turning our focus to making upgrades at our Coralville store! We will be installing the same high-efficiency lighting package and some of the same new refrigeration fixtures that’ll be in the Cedar Rapids store, as well as a nice downstairs seating area for the deli.

– Matt Hartz, New Pi General Manager

Erin’s Humble 32-Bean Gem

[Enjoy New Pi Iowa City customer service star Erin McCuskey‘s guest post on the wonders of our 32-Bean bulk mix! –Allison]

The dark days of January are here. What for again?

I often have to remind myself that this post-holiday month is for a time of slow renewal. Like a bulb waiting for spring, we can hide out in our dens and fashion our own regeneration for the new year. For me, it’s also a great time to make slow-cooking food and watch long movies.

I’ve been touting a humble gem from our bulk department for some time: our often-overlooked 32 Bean Soup Mix. It’s one of those great hearty recipes that can be vegan, vegetarian, or for omnivores. Last time I was purchasing the soup mix for my family, I asked my cashier – Store Team Lead Mike Gustaveson – if he had tried it, and he looked up at me with conviction in his eyes and said, “This is my favorite thing we sell in the whole store.”

My recipe for this soup has varied over the years, depending on what I have and/or how much prep I want to put in. Last time I made just the basic recipe it turned out with this lovely tomato-gravy background for the beans that were cooked to a perfect al dente. The next day it was an excellent topping for an egg in a basket – and would also be great on a cake of polenta.

Guest blogger Erin and one of her favorites from the 32-bean mix.

Which bean in the mix is the Rattlesnake bean? Or the European Soldier? The Tongue of Fire – is that even real? The mix’s ingredient list is really incredible, and it happens to be fairly low sodium (and you can take it home with you for a very reasonable $4.99/pound).

Put it all on the stove, watch the first half of Barry Lyndon, and wait for the magic to happen.  If you’re cooking with a ham shank, watch the whole film, and then enjoy.

Pair with:

Peace Tree Black River Gumbo Stout (a seasonal local beer). Stillwater Artisanal Folklore is a fine choice as well. [Both available at New Pi Iowa City.]

Earl Grey Tea with lemon.

Mixed greens salad with Annie’s Sesame Shiitake dressing or New Pi’s house-made Japanese dressing.

New Pi’s Pain Puttanesca bread, sliced and toasted under the broiler with olive oil.

Green & Black’s hazelnut currant dark chocolate.

Erin’s Basic 32 Bean Soup

One cup of 32 Bean Soup Mix easily serves four.

Use a stockpot or Dutch oven for best results.

1 dry c. 32 Bean Soup Mix (in the New Pi bulk section)
splash of olive oil and/or pat of butter
1 medium yellow onion
3 medium cloves garlic
1 quart broth plus about 3 quarts of hot water
OR
about 2 T. Better Than Bouillon (see broth note below) plus 4 quarts hot water
12 or 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes, per your tomatoey preference

optional (but certainly desirable if not vegetarian!): ham hock or shank
(There is none better than our local Beeler’s ham shanks, stocked in New Pi’s meat freezer.)

vegetables of choice (see below)
spices & seasonings of choice (see below)

Veg. options:
mushrooms
celeriac or celery
carrots (note that there are already some dried carrots in the mix)
leeks
parsnips
red pepper
jalapeño
sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes)

Broth options:

Better Than Bouillon (we carry chicken, beef, and mushroom) is a great product to have in your fridge – very versatile, and you can make as little or as much broth as you need. It tends to be a bit stronger-flavored than boxed broths, hence my lighter recommendation.

Spice options, to taste:
cayenne pepper
Worcestershire sauce
lemon juice
vinegar
bay leaf
parsley
thyme

Sauté the diced onion in your choice of oil and/or butter. Keep the pan on the low side of medium and add any chopped vegetables. Stir and allow vegetables to release some of their water.  Keep the heat low enough so it doesn’t brown.

When the onions start to become translucent, add the chopped garlic (I am a convert and now just use the garlic press). Let the garlic cook for just another minute until it releases its flavor. Add the soup mix and sauté the mix with the vegetables for about a minute.

Add broth and/or water. Bring to a hard boil for about ten minutes.

Add the ham hock and reduce to a low simmer.  Add any of the suggested additional spices, keeping it to pinches and dashes.

Cook 2-3 hours.

If cooked with a ham shank, remove it from the pot, pull the meat from it, and return it to the pot. Add the can of tomatoes about twenty minutes before serving (this brightens up the color of the soup from bean-brown to a warm red).

Salt and pepper to taste.

Erin’s Pesto: Where Mystery Meets the Mundane

[New Pi Iowa City customer service star Erin McCuskey’s been celebrating local basil and researching pine nuts. Enjoy her guest post on the wonders of pesto! –Allison]

As the cicadas sing their late summer song, my basil plants are ready to be harvested. While our garden has survived a fire, drought, deer, and blight, these plants have a voracious tenacity that is to be admired.

The leaves make an easy addition to many dishes, but I think basil shines brightest when made into pesto. The ingredients are few, but the powerful zing of the sauce registers somewhere on the side of sublime.

In the planning phase it all sounds so good until you find the container of pine nuts in the store, look at the price and ask, ‘Ten bucks for this small container?” And therein lies the rub—a plant that grows like a weed here in Iowa must be matched with a nut from far, far away that seemingly costs as much as semi-precious stones.

So why bother with buying pine nuts?

The simple answer? They make the best pesto. Pesto, loosely meaning to pound or crush, is a traditional Italian sauce made with a mortar and pestle (Julia Child is rolling in her grave as I tell you a blender or food processor works just fine.)  I am convinced that a small magic happens when basil and pine nuts collide. All the hot summer sun soaked up in the pregnant leaves of the basil bursts around the dense, creamy, coolness of the pine nut; the resulting flavor envelops any chosen vehicle in a divine, mysterious alchemy. Finally, I understood why this recipe is so prized.

But why are pine nuts so expensive? Year after year, it is a question I have tried to satisfy with the standard “because it is rare and worth it” answer. But at almost thirty-three dollars a pound, I needed to know more. The deeper I delved into the history of the pine nut, the more complicated the answer became. The demand for pine nuts—a product that has been a source of food for many cultures for thousands of years—collides with the shrinking natural resource base which yields them. This tiny nut thus becomes a symbol for the current state of the volatile global food market.

Pine nuts are a wild crop. In the context of products sold at New Pi, this is a very elite distinction—I can think of only a handful of things that fit into this category (like morel mushrooms or wild salmon). The fact that we manage to carry them year round is amazing, considering the work it takes to get them on the shelf.

There are many pine species around the world that produce edible nuts. There are, however, only a few kinds that can be harvested for commercial use, and their availability can fluctuate wildly from year to year. In the U.S., the pinyon tree has been deforested to the point where their nuts are not available commercially. Around the globe, seasonal conditions, natural disasters such as fire or infestation, and human-induced pressures such as deforestation and destructive harvesting all contribute to volatile pricing.

Erin! New Pi Iowa City customer service star.

The pine nuts New Pi carries are imported from Russia via New-York based Tierra Farms. When I contacted Joe Citek from Tierra, he confirmed that their buying plan for the nuts varies from year to year. The Siberian nut they sell currently has been chosen for its tiny but robust nature. Gathered from Siberian pine in old growth forests, the nut must germinate for 18 months, and a tree might require 40 years to produce harvestable nuts (though it can live 800 years). When the nut is ready to be harvested, each kernel must be extracted from a tiny shell. It is dried naturally and kept cool to prevent spoilage—a process which ensures they are raw. This endeavor takes time and must be performed by hand.

In the end even Mr. Citek admitted, “I am not positive of the exact growing region of the Siberian pine nut that is exported to New Pi.” Thus is the nature of a wild crop. Those tiny kernels come from literally and figuratively a mystical, unnamed place. While the source of every product should be identified, the food map is so vast and wild it cannot be entirely delineated. The small kernels of the faraway pine nut are as mysterious as my homegrown basil leaves are mundane. Let the two meet, and see the small miracle of pesto happen.

Erin’s Pesto

Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated July/August 2013 issue

1/3 c. pine nuts
3 medium garlic cloves, unpeeled
2 c. (not packed) fresh basil leaves – about 4 oz. or 2 very large handfuls
1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
6-7 T. olive oil
1 T. lemon juice
salt, to taste

1. In a pre-heated medium skillet, toast pine nuts and unpeeled garlic cloves. Stir attentively for about five minutes. The fragrance from both will bloom as they brown. Set aside on a plate to cool.
2. Peel garlic and chop coarsely.
3. Combine basil, Parmesan, oil, pine nuts and garlic with a pinch of salt in food processor or blender for about a minute. (The Parmesan provides a salty background, so only add more salt after tasting.)
   Toss with al dente pasta, spread on sandwiches, combine with boiled red potatoes, or anything else. Store in a glass container in refrigerator. Makes 4-6 servings.