Love shared around the table through a nourishing meal

We have been partnering with the Berkeley Chamber to host quarterly networking lunches where people can meet and greet over a meal.  What is great about these events is that it is bringing people who are working in Berkeley together and connecting with others who are working.  

Handcrafted all you can eat lunch buffet is provided. This lunch focuses on how we can streamline a sustainable meal with local ingredients.  A meal like this won’t bog down a person’s productivity and is going to be full of more flavor. That is the focus of The Table Catering. Finding the best flavor by using what is grown closest to home and promoting local partners. 

This week we featured an orecchiette pasta with Stemple Creek braised short ribs.  A regenerative ranch feeding all its beef grass, the meat brings such a strong beef flavor to any dish.  I love using braised beef in pasta because of its tenderness and the sauce coats so well.  Cooked greens bring color and more tender texture complexity and it is topped with gremolata made from meyer lemons from our own backyard.  

One thing I learned when pairing this dish with a side of green beans in a salad. I blanch the beans in a salt water bath along with aromats of coriander, lemons, chile, garlic and olive oil.  And when the beans were done, then in went the pasta and the flavor it brought to the pasta was so complimentary.  

And green beans are also a great seasonal vegetable. This week we featured Dirty Girl Produce.  I bought some green beans from Berkeley Bowl to compare, just to see the difference.  And wow, this vegetable does need to be bought close to off the vine as possible. 

When eating raw the first flavor both taste like a green bean.  Visually, Dirty Girl beans were thicker, firmer, and brighter but that is probably due to it being fresher.  Other flavors start to come out more for the farmer’s market bean though and that’s the difference.  Paying more for a vegetable means you are getting more out of each bite. There is so much going on in just a raw bean and frankly I would rather buy from the market and eat beans less often to just enjoy the flavor of these beans.

Furthermore, if I really fall in love with a food, I would then figure how to grow it myself to capture what it takes to appreciate the value of a vegetable and free myself of having to pay such a larger price each time I want to eat it. 

But perhaps this is the evolution for anyone’s life when they find something they fall in love with. And when it comes to food, that is my love.  But that is a love I want to share and bring to the community I am surrounded by. And wish to help others be apart of what it takes to be a part of the process. Because we all need to eat and we know good food helps us live better and longer quality of lives even though we may not get to it or have access to it.