It has been a long time for a blog post. Too, long really. My apologies.

But I have a good excuse. I might even go so far as to call it a good reason. I took on a very large project, one which also has engaged almost all of my creative skills. One which has taken much more time than I actually anticipated, but none of which I regret at all.

The Tavern Café at the Rice’s Hotel/Hughlett Tavern is open for business! We got through our first two weeks and actually came out the other end feeling pretty good about what we are doing. Thanks to some outstanding and dedicated volunteers, we now have a place in Heathsville, VA to compete with the local Subway. Folks can come by and get a cup or bowl of soup and bread made from scratch three days a week: Thursday, Friday and Saturdays from 10 until 2.

And the soups and breads really are made from scratch starting with the broth/stock and the flour and yeast. As we progress, we plan to add more pastries and desserts as well as whole loaves of bread or bags of rolls and biscuits that folks can purchase and take home. Of course, we also offer soup for takeout as well.

Come the end of April, the plan is to add simple sandwich kits. These are bags that come stocked with a container of salad (like chicken, ham or egg), a couple slices of bread or a roll, toppings for the sandwich and a little side of house-made pickle. Some assembly is required, but only makes them more fun.

And around mid April, we hope to add gluten free products as well. That will depend, in part, on when we have volunteers available to make them, as we can’t bake gluten free products at the same time we have regular wheat flour floating around the kitchen during the regular bread baking times.

Unfortunately, I’ve not been doing much at the easel. But I feel like the light is at the end of the tunnel and I’ll soon be able to turn some things over to others and get my hours down from 40-something into the 20 hour range where they should be.

In the meantime, having a good time being creative in a different capacity.