I am delighted to be asked to write about food for The Observer, and am excited to explore the food culture in the Shepherdstown area. Some people are ecstatic to attend a new theatre production or to stumble upon an obscure antique store; I get a thrill from learning about cressy greens, an old-timey field green, from the man in the local hardware store, who also sells seed for it, or finding out that my Spanish neighbor makes the most delicious classic potato, onion, and egg tortilla (and I’ll share the recipe). I have been involved with food for my entire working life, beginning at age 14 picking blueberries for a Massachusetts farmer and subsequently working in professional kitchens, cookbook publishing, food and agricultural policy, and most recently, farmland conservation in Connecticut.

I owe my love of cooking to my mother, who taught me to make her famous Hungarian chocolate cake, and my father, who gave me my love of gardening and fresh vegetables. I am happy in the kitchen and am inspired by cooks past and present, my friends who like to cook and share recipes, and the advice and ideas from food writers in my cookbooks.

In the rolling landscapes surrounding Shepherdstown, people are growing, cooking, importing, and eating an incredible variety of food, and I am eager to tell their stories. I will seek out our local heroes who farm for a living, the transplants striving to reproduce the comforting foods of home, and the cooks and eaters who are willing to share their quirks, passions and prejudices.

Foraging

The Very Best (Local) Cookie

The irresistible aroma of warm chocolate and vanilla streaming from an unremarkable storefront in the Hilldale Shopping Plaza on Augustine Avenue in Charles Town is the only clue that a very good bakery is in the neighborhood. TheBestCookie.com makes premium cookies and scones primarily for its burgeoning mail order business.

Founder and cookie designer Marcia Flanagan, a stickler for quality and integrity, believes in using the best ingredients, organic when possible, most of which she obtains from Potomac Whole Foods. She makes her cookies with custom milled organic flour, organic eggs from a Pennsylvania farmers’ cooperative, Plugra butter, Belgian Callebaut chocolate, and French Valrhona cocoa. “Our cookies are hand-shaped. No other bakeries of our size do that,” she said.

Marcia and her husband Tom Small, who also run a catering business called Comfort Cuisine, established the website for the business in 1999, when Marcia was recovering from a debilitating bout of spinal meningitis. Since they got the bakery under way in 2000, the business has grown exponentially each year. Now they are on the verge of franchising the business and expect to establish their first outlet in the next few months.

The website lists 12 cookie varieties, such as chocolate-chocolate chip cherry, cashew butter, and oatmeal. The “killer” ginger snaps contain no eggs, a plus for the allergic. In addition, the bakery offers pecan tartlets, scones, biscuits, and a few specialty items. Nutrition information about the cookies is available on the package labels but not on the website.

Because she uses no preservatives, Marcia recommends freezing any uneaten cookies three days after their arrival, and defrosting them at room temperature before eating them. “Whatever you do, don’t microwave them!” she says. “It ruins the texture and makes them tough.”

TheBestCookie.com serves only one restaurant and plans to keep it that way. “It’s too hard to maintain quality control with all the variables in restaurant kitchens,” says Marcia, “but we are proud to have the Lebanese Taverna as a customer.” The vegetarian restaurant chain, with outlets in the D.C. area, won the Washington Post’s 2006 Readers’ Choice Award for Best Vegetarian Restaurant for the third year running.

Although most of her sales are mail-order, Marcia happily serves walk-in customers, provided that they call ahead. If you call before noon, your cookie order will be shipped out the same day, or you can pick up your freshly baked cookies later on in the afternoon. Bags or tins of the cookies range in price from $18 to $75, plus shipping. Aficionados can join the cookie or scone of the month club on-line, and the website promises to send a free tin of cookies to each one-hundredth person who signs the guest book.

For Valentine’s Day, and for local customers only, Marcia will make special-order individual chocolate cakes filled with raspberry butter cream and covered with ganache, a rich coating made from chocolate and cream.

Sales tend to fall off after Christmas and during Lent, when penitent cookie lovers resist TheBestCookie.com’s temptations. Likewise, by the time bathing suit season rolls around, the bakery receives far fewer orders from its bulge-battling customers.

Marcia’s commitment to detail at TheBestCookie.com, from insisting on using premium European butter and chocolate to having her flour milled to her specifications, is deliciously obvious. Which is why TheBestCookies.com’s customers keep coming back for more, and why the high standard is worth the price.

TheBestCookie.com

130 Augustine Ave., Unit 60

Charles Town, WV 25414

Tel: (304)725-3533

Overheard: Panera Bread

The hilarious and irreverent stylists at my hair salon, brimming with gossip, are always on the lookout for the new place in town for breakfast, lunch, and entertainment. Their favorite new pick is Panera, a chain bakery and cafe rising from a sea of asphalt next to the Home Depot in the Potomac Marketplace off the new Route 9 bypass in Ranson. The store opened the day after Christmas. In addition to its signature selection of fresh-baked artisan- style breads, Panera offers breakfast items, salads, sandwiches, pizza, soups, and a full range of coffee drinks.

Panera works hard to be a friendly neighborhood place and appears to offer fresh, healthy hand-made fare. Beware, however, if you are counting calories and your intake of sodium and saturated fat. At 870 calories, Frontega ® Chicken Panini will supply nearly half your daily caloric needs, 96 percent of your Daily Value (DV) of sodium and 63 percent of your DV of fat—if you require the 2000-calorie daily diet of an average sedentary office worker. Sixty percent of the sandwich’s 12 grams of fat are saturated but contain only a trace of transfats. Top that sandwich off with a 16-ounce, 570 calorie Grande I.C. ™ Mocha and you have exceeded the recommended fat and sodium limits for the entire day and some of the next. Calorie and fat-wise, you are better off with the Low-Fat Chicken Noodle Soup, but it still packs a salty punch with a DV of 45 percent. Fortunately, if you are motivated to research what you’re eating, Panera’s website provides nutritional information for every item it sells.

This cozy, sunny, moss and sepia-toned spot boasts comfy booths, free wi-fi service and a cheerful gaggle of helpful young women behind the counter. It’s one of the few places around offering a respectable bagel. The friendly staff will toast your freshly baked bagel to your liking, but you’ll have to spread the cream cheese yourself.

Panera Bread

Potomac Market Place

72 Oak Lee Drive

Ranson, WV 25438
Tel: (304) 728-3000

Pasta with Winter Arugula

I live with a man who adores arugula salads, and he almost always orders one when we eat out, even if it is not on the menu. If there is arugula in the kitchen, the chefs in town will indulge his passion. They know it by heart: The Carlos Arugula Salad, with sliced apples or pears, goat cheese, walnuts, and dried cranberries, olive oil only, please.

Last September I planted arugula in the garden that my friend Bill generously created for me on his property in Uvilla. When I turned over the ground in November to put in a cover crop of rye, I left the arugula to grow. A few weeks before Groundhog Day, Bill called to tell me that he shot a groundhog grazing on the rye grass–from his bedroom window. I was touched by Bill’s gallantry, though such casual armed defense of my garden was a bit unnerving for this Connecticut Yankee.

On the internet, I discovered quite a few recipes and precise instructions for preparing a groundhog for cooking, which involves excising glands from high inside the forelegs and in the small of the back. If the teeth look worn down, you should soak the skinned animal in a big vat of salted water for a few days before you cook it, to remove the wild taste. Chicken Fried Groundhog is on my to-do list, after I get a surgical scalpel.

Apparently groundhogs don’t like arugula–I found it untouched. I harvested enough to make arugula with pasta, a favorite in our household. Winter arugula, which becomes sturdy and sweet in the cold, is terrific in this quick pasta dish. If you don’t grow your own, you can often find washed, packaged arugula in the grocery store labeled as baby roquette.

Pasta with Arugula

This recipe is derived from New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman’s “The Minimalist Cooks Dinner.” I double the amount of garlic and arugula that he specifies.

The heat of the pasta will wilt the arugula, reducing its volume considerably. For a variation, substitute several big handfuls of very fresh chopped Italian parsley for the arugula.

4 tablespoons good olive oil

4-6 large garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

6 to 8 anchovy fillets, chopped

Approximately 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest (optional)

4 packed cups arugula, washed, dried, and coarsely chopped

1/2 pound spaghetti or linguini, or other strand pasta

Salt

Put a large pot of water on the stove to boil. Meanwhile, put the oil into a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and stir until the garlic sizzles. Add the anchovies, grate in some lemon zest, stir, and turn off the heat. Put the arugula in the pan.

Salt the boiling water and stir in the pasta. Cook the pasta until it is just tender, drain, and add to the skillet. Toss the pasta with the ingredients in the pan, add salt to taste, and serve immediately