Tracklements

Starting out in Amherst, MA., as a basement & backyard operation (with the bathtub thrown in on occasion) with a whiff of single-malt fueled encouragement from Duncan Stewart in Ullapool, Scottish Highlands, our "business plan" was, and has been, "Just keep at it! But for various reasons, "keeping at it" has a way of taking on a life of its own, wi... th unanticipated twists and turns. After getting some terrific press notices and developing a sturdy mail-order business in the Northeast, our move to Ann Arbor and then into retail, was a major sea change, but one that made it possible to develop new products such as our hot-smoked "kippered" salmon and the home-run miso/mirin/tamari marinade-cured smoked salmon. At the same time, we have developed an avid following of seasonal specialties--warm-smoked sea scallops and sable, Finnan haddie over the winter and holiday season, and smoked fish salads during the summer. For the last several years, we have also featured a rotating repertoire of "heat and eat" dishes, as well as smoked and/or vraised meats such as pulled pork, pork cheeks, duck legs and our well-loved brined, smoked, thick-cut, cook-at-home pork chops. We have added smoked trout and cheeses to our weekly mainstays, and also have rotating items such as poussin and whole, on-the-bone mackerel which we make available as weekend specials. We have a very small staff, which doesn't change often, but each person over the years has brought new ideas and/or expertise, so we continue to try anything we find interesting and delicious that we think will be a good fit for the shop and our customers. Chicken liver mousse and kimchi meatloaf are two examples of big hits. We continue to think about new and complementary cures for our salmon--recent additions to our mainstays are pastrami (staff favorite!), Bengali 5-spice and Ras el Hanout, which was, to our delight and deep appreciation, featured along with our gravlax in Florence Fabricant's Front Burner column in the New York Times, April 1 st . No joke. "Our Story" ...Read More