Get Squashed at Yellow Door Pumpkin Bash: November 14

Tis the season for pumpkins! So come get squashed at Yellow Door's Pumpkin Bash on November 14. Bring a pumpkin dish to pass and a recipe to share. Bake your favorite tried-and-true, or get nutty with a new dish. Everyone is welcome!

When? November 14
Time? 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Where? CCK's kitchen location @ Free Methodist Church on Werkner Road in Lyndon Township, just a wee bit north of downtown Chelsea

A donation is suggested to support Chelsea Community Kitchen. All proceeds benefit the CCK! More details to come.

September 23: Everyone gets a yellow market bag for One Year Celebration

A year ago, a little seed was planted after a visit to SELMA Cafe in Ann Arbor. (Read cool, recent article about SELMA here.) Jane and Janice proposed the same crazy idea for Chelsea: a weekly breakfast fundraiser to (1) cook up local ingredients and share farm resources with Chelsea residents and (2) raise funds for a nonprofit organization to grow agriculturally-minded businesses from the farm up. More than $10,000 was raised in one year. The new Chelsea Community Kitchen was the recipient of the goodwill and net proceeds.

A little group of volunteers who repeatedly expressed, "We think we can, we think we can..." bonded together to keep Yellow Door truckin' for a year. A garden was planted by 7 Dirty Virgins and, along with dedicated promoters, shoppers, cooks, servers, greeters, Flos, silverware organizers and cleaner-uppers, Yellow Door presented Thursday delicious dishes for the Chelsea community.

Now, it's time to celebrate Yellow Door's one year of, "We did it!" Everyone who comes for breakfast gets a yellow market bag, big enough for leftovers, your mutt Millie and a bushel of apples. Dress code: yellow, if you have it. Casual, as always. No RSVPs required.

The BIG Breakfast REVEAL for Thursday's 1st Anniversary Celebration:

Peachs N' Cream Stuffed French toast

• Stuffed with local cream cheese
• Topped with homemade peach preserves
• Michigan maple syrup
• Calder Farms butter
• Homemade crème fraiche
• Bacon
  

Pork Shoulder and Sweet Potato Hash with Fried Egg

• Spicy roasted red pepper sauce
• Brown butter thyme cornbread
• Apple slice garnishes
  

Pumpkin Bread and Yogurt Smoothie

Beverages: Local apple cider and grape juice; coffee & tea

Ingredients from:

• Greystone Creamery
• Calder Dairy
• Ernst Farm
• Tantre Farm
• Kapnick Orchard

What is Yellow Door?

Yellow Door is an *underground* breakfast destination* in Chelsea, Michigan, which is open every Thursday from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Dishes are prepared with fresh-from-the-farm ingredients. Your donation of $10-15 for breakfast benefits Chelsea Community Kitchen, a training center and incubator for food entrepreneurs.

Yellow Door is completely run by volunteers. Volunteers are the heart of Yellow Door. Our volunteers donate an hour (or many hours) to ensure communication, shopping, menu planning, food prepping, cooking, greeting and serving seamlessly occurs each week. Interested in volunteering? We'd love your involvement. Email us at: meetatyellowdoor@gmail.com.

What (and who) else do we love? ('Cause we're full of it.) We love to feature *celebrity* chefs in the Yellow Door kitchen. What do we mean by celebrity? Celebrity is anyone who can cook up a sigh-inducing, I love Michigan for its agricultural bounty dish. Your Grandma may be a kitchen whiz with eggs. Or, maybe your neighbor makes the best breakfast pasties this side of the Big Mac. Super. Contact us! And, yes, we feature chef celebrities like Chef Craig from Common Grill and Paul Cousins, both renowned for their stylish dishes bursting with panache, as well as local flavors. (Hmmm... we'd love to have you both back soon in the Yellow Door kitchen!) You see, we love a variety of celebrities. Get in touch with us today.




* We're not really under the ground. (Geezzzz, breakfast underground? A little too dark and damp for me. We're hush-hush in regard to location. Hint: we're close to downtown Chelsea.)

Give a hand: please volunteer to keep Yellow Door going

Yellow Door exists because of volunteers. We have amazing guest chefs (such as Craig Common of Common Grill, Barbara Wilson of Mindo Chocolate, Paul Cousins, Annie and Paul of the Ann Arbor Community Garden and our Yellow Door regulars), stellar hosts in Janice and Todd, shoppers in Dawn and Jane, prep cooks and day cooks in Deb, Jane, Dawn, Judy and others.

Debi ensures we have volunteers at Yellow Door cooking, serving, greeting and cleaning. Janet helps behind the scenes with ensuring linens are cleaned, and she pitches in on clean-up duty. Angie manages the financials and donations, greets and serves. Mully greets, serves and offers sage advice to the 7 Dirty Virgin gardeners who grow veggies for Yellow Door. Sharon (that would be me) sends the weekly newsletter, updates the Yellow Door blog, snaps photos and serves. Bernadette and Lisa are great on clean-up duty, and a handful of others chip in as their schedules permit. Every effort is so very much appreciated --- and needed to make Yellow Door run! It's because of volunteers that Yellow Door has raised $10,000 and the Chelsea Community Kitchen is benefiting from the net proceeds of this fund-raising effort!

Last fall, Yellow Door was launched to connect community members, introduce fresh Michigan agriculture and raise money for Chelsea Community Kitchen. If we can grow our volunteer foundation, we're sure to keep Yellow Door open and the community spirit alive for in-season Michigan breakfasts. Become part of the team. Email us at: meetatyellowdoor@gmail.com.

This Thursday: Renowned Chef and Community Advocate Paul Cousins Cooking at Yellow Door

Paul Cousins is a masterful chef and well-respected, long-time advocate for this region. We're thrilled that Paul is cooking in the Yellow Door kitchen this Thursday to help raise more funds for Chelsea Community Kitchen -- and fill us with his artful fare.

Yellow Door is a must-visit this Thursday. Feel like summer on the inside after eating Paul's tantalizing, in-season dishes:

* Poached eggs with a cream of leek sauce, fresh shell peas, toast rounds and brown sugar glazed bacon. (Eggs: Back Forty Acres / Cream: Calder Dairy / Bread: Mill Pond Bread / Bacon: Ernst Farms)

* Brunch Torte with swiss chard, smoked ham and gouda cheese. served with whole wheat toast and jalapeno green pepper jelly. (Swiss chard: Tantre Farm / Ham: Legacy / Cheese: Greystone Creamery / Bread: Mill Pond Bread / Jelly: Homemade by Paul Cousins)

* Buttermilk blintzes filled with cream cheese, topped with a spiced rhubarb-strawberry compote, creme fraiche and served with brown sugar glazed bacon. (Cheese: Greystone Creamery / Cream: Calder Dairy / Bacon: Ernst Farms)

* Apple-pear coffee cake (Westwind Milling Company).

* Rhubarb-Iced Tea

Many of you may already know Paul or spent many nights dining in his former restaurant. For those who don't know him, Paul was the owner and chef at Cousins Heritage Inn in Dexter for 17 years. He was also instrumental in saving historic Gordon Hall in Dexter and has been actively involved in community affairs for years.

Join us on Thursday to wave at Paul, and linger over his fabulous fixins'.

Food Safety Classes this Summer

Are you a beginning food entrepreneur looking for a class that will certify you as a Food Protection Manager?

Chelsea Community Kitchen (CCK) is offering a two-day ServSafe Food Protection Manager Certification class three times this summer. The training fulfills the Michigan Food Law requirement to have a manager certified in food safety in each food service establishment.

CCK offers the classes on weekend days:

* Friday evening, 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. & Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
* Choose your weekend: July 30 & 31 and August 27 & 28.

The fee for the class is $200. This includes the cost of the ServSafe materials, a valuable reference for you after the class as you apply for your license.

Interested? Send an email to info@chelseacommunitykitchen.org and mention the class you want to attend. In return, CCK will send detailed information about how to enroll.

Yellow Door donates another $750 to CCK!

A HUGE thank you to you (yes, you!) for dining with us each week, and to our volunteers who make it happen. Due to our terrific teamwork, we donated another $750 to the Chelsea Community Kitchen. Yahoo!

Learn more about the CCK here: www.chelseacommunitykitchen.org

Take-out, stay-in @ Yellow Door

Yellow Door is open every Thursday from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m.... this local foods Thursday destination is an easy way to get your weekly fix of foods cooked and dished up using ingredients grown in Michigan, or creatively crafted by Michiganders.

Bring your own plates for convenient take-out -- just let us know you're in a hurry. We *heart* our local business owners and hope you can enjoy Thursday take-out. Stop by for a quick dish to go! For those who can linger -- stop in, stay, pour a second (and third) cup of joe and say, "Hello!"

All of you help us raise funds for Chelsea Community Kitchen. Super cool. Thank you to our volunteers, too.

February 27 teen cooking event to benefit Chelsea Community Kitchen

Old World New Cooking School (of Chelsea) offers free "be a French chef!" class in Chelsea on Saturday, February 27, 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., for up to eight teens, as a benefit for the Chelsea Community Kitchen.

If you enjoyed "Ratatouille" and thought you'd like to be the rat chef genius, here's your chance. Eight teens pile into two different cars, with adult supervision, and race to Ann Arbor to shop: A2 farmer's market, Zingerman's, Monahan's, etc. Eat lunch. Back to Chelsea to the Yellow Door. Prep! Prep! Music, laughter, big knives, mincing, dicing, much learning, much fun. Make the sauce! Adjust the seasonings! Make it perfect!

At 7:00 p.m., the guests arrive. (Up to 30 guests, so RSVP today!) Appetizers must be ready! Tables must be set! Light the candles! Serve the wine! The guests are seated and... as Lumiere said, "Dinner is served." Poisson au Beurre Blanc. Boeuf Bourguignon. Porc Rillette. Ooh-la-la... très fancy-schmancy.

Only room for eight teens -- size of the kitchen and considerations of safety permit no more. If this is a success, other classes and dinners will probably be offered. Please share this with any teens or parents of teens who might be interested.

To dine with us this evening, RSVP with Dawn at: meetatyellowdoor@gmail.com. To sign your teen up for this fun cooking experience, RSVP with Jeff at jeff@prenevost.com.

Suggested donation of a minimum $25 per seat. (What a deal!) Drop off your payment at Yellow Door or send a check to Yellow Door, c/o Dawn Thompson, P.O. Box 431, Chelsea, Michigan 48118.

Learn more about the Chelsea Community Kitchen project here: http://www.chelseacommunitykitchen.com/

What a grand Grand Opening!

The kitchen bustled, the pork shoulder hash ran out, the coffee brewed to the last drop and the people celebrated a really cool breakfast fundraiser for Chelsea Community Kitchen. Yellow Door's Grand Opening was, indeed, grand!

Laureen greeted guests and Angie served up a freshly-juiced apple-pear blend. The cooks - Deb, Mully and Tracy - whipped up the freshly made hash, turkey sausage and pancakes. This week, I tried the zucchini-cherry bread accented with a side of blueberries, and caught up with Marsi and Bill Darwin. The artists and Morel-hunting experts offered to take me in the spring to their super, special, secret hunting grounds. (I wonder if I'll have to be blindfolded???)

Chef Craig of Common Grill dashed in for breakfast. Many chair sponsors, including Maria and Chris Jacobson, savored the experience and Ginger enjoyed the autumn view from the cozy window table.

Next week, expect freshly-harvested cranberries -- harvested Wednesday -- from DeGrandchamp Farms to be featured in at least one of the breakfast options.

Chelsea Community Kitchen Tasting Picnic

Under a bright, yellow sun, Chelsea Community Kitchen hosted a summer tasting picnic today at Timbertown park. A handful of food entrepreneurs prepared tastings of their fresh, artisan foods, including chicken and black bean quesadilla, wine jelly and granola.

Chelsea Community Kitchen, opening soon in Chelsea, offers a commercially-licensed, shared-used kitchen facility, as well as business development and educational opportunities. Contact director@chelseacommunitykitchen.com for more information.

A toast to Yellow Door

Counting down the days to when Yellow Door officially opens in Chelsea, Michigan, on October 15, 2009. Every Thursday morn, we're all invited to Yellow Door. It's a gathering of family and friends (that means you!) and your family and friends to savor yummy, delicious local farm-fresh foods prepared by volunteer chefs from the area. You probably won't see orange juice on the menu (er, well, that's because oranges can't grow in Michigan!); though, apple juice should be a staple beverage. A donation to the Chelsea Community Kitchen will get you a heaping of a breakfast serving. Children are welcome and I'm assured that coffee will be served, even though, we know, Michigan's climate is not suitable for a coffee plantation. Few exceptions will be made, so don't expect sliced bananas to accommodate any meals.

Yellow Door is the brilliant idea of Jane Pacheco and Janice Ortbring (who, along with hubby Todd, has opened her home to breakfast in Chelsea every Thursday morn behind their yellow doors). The weekly fundraiser reflects the successful breakfast venue in Ann Arbor called Selma's Cafe, which has raised thousands of dollars for local charities.

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There is a distinguishable difference between a freshly, plucked blueberry from a U-pick blueberry farm and a blueberry that has been shipped more than a thousand miles to reach your home. Let's make a pact today to seek out local foods (and wine). The taste is notable and Michigan's farmers benefit from your business. Let's be passionate for our Great Lakes state together. We're so lucky to live in magnificent, delicious Michigan, the United States' second most agriculturally-diverse state.