May is National Barbecue Month

People's love affair with outdoor cooking heats up in May during National Barbecue Month and the beginning of the prime outdoor cooking season. Having fun with family and friends is what grilling is all about. What sparks the mood for outdoor cooking? For some people it is the desire to be outside, for others it is cooking outdoors and for some, it is just the smell of delicious outdoor cooked food that gets their juices flowing. Whether spur of the moment or planned ahead we love to eat and barbecue outdoors.

Barbecue is a true American original with its roots in the South. Many different types have emerged, Eastern and Western, North Carolina, Memphis, Texas and Kansas City. Yes, the definition of barbecue twisted over the years. Grilling is cooking directly over flames and cooking meat. There is a distinct difference between grillilng and barbecuing, however. Grilling is done over the direct heat of a fire. The object is to sear the outside and concentrate the juices on the inside. The grilled flavor is caused by the searing, or browning of the outside of the food. The process is similar to that which forms the brown crust on a loaf of baked bread. Grilling is a healthful method of cooking because additional oils or fats are seldom used, and as the food cooks the fat renders out and drips through the cooking grate.

Barbecue on the other hand is the process of cooking meat, most of the time a large cut of tough meat cooked by the smoke on a hardwood fire at low temperature (210 degrees or less) for a long peroid of time, with doneness determined by the meat's tenderness. As for the stuff cooked ing the oven, or the crock pot, soaking in BBQ sauce, it is just plain old baked or stewed meat.

Let's leave all the debate aside and enjoy the month of May celebration. Here is what we offer to help celebrate the month with Barbecue and Grilling:

Southern Pork Barbecue - Made in Smithfield kitchens from the finest tender cuts, pulled pork is blended with a unique red barbecue sauce to create a zesty, versatile entree that can be served on a bun, over pasta or rice or all alone.

Carolina Style Barbecue - Smthfield's classic pit cooked "Carolina Style" select barbecue made with a vinegar sauce and a bit of "southern heat."

Chicken BBQ - Smithfield Barbecue made from fresh young fryer meat, hand-pulled from the bone and blended with their own delicious "made from scratch" grill sauce. 95% fat free it can be served hot on a bun or as an entree over rice or pasta.

Southwest Peppercorn Tenderloin - seasoned and rubbed with Southwest Peppercorn spices. After soaking the plank in water, just cook the tenderloin on the grill on the handy wooden plank and you're ready to serve and eat!

There are the sauces to put on the BBQ or grill with:

James River Barbecue Basting Sauce - Smithfield, VA is one of America's oldest and largest meat processing centers. What better place to find the perfect BBQ sauces developed by the meat experts. Their ever-favorite original "James River" barbecue sauce is unchanged since the 1950s. This is a wonderful all purpose sauce but especially as a condiment for pork.

Virginia Gentlemen Sauce Sampler - Bourbon Maple, Bo9urbon Teriyaki, and Bourbon Chipotle. These award-winning sauces with the traditional hunt scene labels are anything-but-traditional when it comes to the taste sensation you'll experience. Flavored with Virginia Gentlemen 90 Small Batch Bourbon, the perfect compliment to all your favorite pork recipes.

We even have a gift basket to celebrate the month and into the summer:Barbecue Time! It includes Virginia Gentlemen Bourbon Steak Sauce, La Provencale Cellars Apple Grilling Glaze, Jefferson Monticello Sparkling Apple Cider, The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg Hot! Southern Nuts, Blue Crab Bay Sting Ray Bloody Mary Mixer and Blue Crab Bay Crab Dip Kit.

We hope that you enjoy BBQ Month in whatever way you want.

Mom's Love Virginia Food, Part 2

Here's some more ideas for sending love from Virginia for Mother's Day. If a gift basket is not what you are looking to send for Mother's Day, how about a brunch gift box. We have several: Virginia Brunch Selections includes Byrd Mill Raspberry Pancake and Waffle Mix, Graves Mountain Strawberry Preserves, Blue Crab Bay Shrimp Dip Kit and Cream of Crab Soup, Southern Shore Specialties Crab Town Nuts and First Colony Colombian Supremo Coffee, Brunch Favorites includes Byrd Mill Cinnamon Muffin Mix, Graves Mountain Apple Butter, Blue Crab Bay New England Clam Chowder and Clam Dip Kit, The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg Hot!Southern Nuts andFirst Colony Surpremo Colombian Coffee and Spice Up Brunch includes Byrd Mill Lemon Blueberry Scone Mix and Cinnamon Muffin Mix, Graves Mountain Apple Butter, Monastery Natural Creamed Honey and The Peanut Shop of Willilamsburg New Orleans Style Spicy Peanuts.

Send Mom a charming keepsake Blooming Violets Tin, new from The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg. It's filled with chocolate Virginia peanuts, yogurt coated pretzels and chocolate blueberries. A perfect gift for Mother's Day!

How about a cake. Rowena's Rose Shaped Almond Cake combines the sentiment of roses with her signature flavor. Let Mom know she is a star and send her Rowena's Almond Star-Shaped Cake. If Mom is watching her sugar, Rowena's sugar free Almond, Lemon or Chocolate cakes are just as tasty as her originals.

Since Mom's so sweet, send her some sweets to enjoy with her Mother's Day breakfast. We have Graves Mountain Apple Butter, Orange Marmalade and several Preserves as well as six flavors of Monastery Creamed Honey. They are available in assortments, in gable gift boxes and in gift baskets. We have gift baskets of all preserves, all creamed honeys and a mixture of preserves and creamed honey. We also have gift baskets that include mixes to accompany the preserves and honey. Our Fabulous Fruit Basket includes three Byrd Mill Mixes, Graves Mountain Seedless Red Raspberry Preserves and Seedless Blackberry Preserves and Cherry Preserves and Monastery Creamed Lemon and Natural Honey.

So give Mom or send Mom some Love from Virginia.

Mom's Love Virginia Food

Mother's Day is Sunday, May 9, 2010. Yes, Mom loves chocolate and flowers. Looking for something special, send Mom food she loves from Virginia. At the Virginia Marketplace we have classic favorites such as Virginia hams and Virginia peanuts as well as innovative and unusual tastes from the finest Virginia gourmet companies. In this blog I'm going to highlight our unique gift baskets.

For the Mom who love's Virginia foods there's our Gourmet Treasures of Virginia! gift basket filled with Jefferson Monticello Sparkling Apple Cider, La Provencale Cellars Apple Grilling Glaze, Byrd Mill Raspberry Pancake and Waffle Mix and Byrd Mill Lemon Blueberry Scone Mix, Puffenbarger's Sugar Orchard Virginia Maple Syrup, The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg Hand Cooked Salted Virginia Peanuts, Graves Mountain Apple Butter, Blue Crab Bay She Crab Soup, and Blue Crab Bay Clam Dip Kit.

For the chocoholic Mom there's the Chocolate Lover's Basket from The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg, a market basket chock full of all their favorite goodies: The Peanut Shop's double dipped Chocolate Covered Peanuts, Milk Chocolate Covered Peanut Brittle, Milk Chocolate Covered Almonds and Milk Chocolate Peanut Clusters. They've also tuckled in a bag of of yummy Chocoalte Covered Pecans and Paula Deen Collection Mississippi Marsh Mud Cookies.

Send Mom the gift basket From the Heart! filled with Byrd Mill Breakfast Mixes and an assortment of sweets to go with them: Monastery Lemon Creamed Honey, Graves Mountain Apple Butter and Orange Marmalade and Puffenbarger's Virginia Maple Syrup.

Mom is sure to stir up some great breakfasts if you send her our new Stir it Up batter bowl gift set. A bright red melamine batter bowl with Byrd Mill mixes to "stir up" are accompanied by Virginia maple syrup, Monastery Lemon Creamed Honey, Graves Mountain Seedless Red Raspberry Preserves to njoy with them. Mom will remember you remember every time she uses her bowl!!

For the beach loving Mom we have an ocean themed basket Celebration at the Ocean! It's filled with Virginia treats: Jefferson Monticello Sparkling Apple Cider, Byrd Mill Raspberry Pancake and Waffle Mix, Graves Mountain Seedless Red Raspberry Preserves, Southern Shores Specialties Crab Town Peanuts, Chincoteague She Crab Soup, Blue Crab Bay Shrimp Dip Kit, and Ashman's Mango Keylime Seafood Marinade and Sauce.

Check out our other Virginia Marketplace gift baskets and gift baskets from Smithfield and The Peanut Shop of Willliamsburg. We'll be writing another blog soon about other Virginia foods Mom might like.

Maple Tappin" At Wintergreen, Virginia

When you think of maple syrup, you usually think of Canada and Vermont. We recently did a blog about the Highland Maple Festival in Monterey, Virginia. A lot of people don't know we have Sugar Maples this far south.

The high elevation at Wintergreen in Nelson County gave some folks at the Wintergreen Nature Foundation the idea to tap the maples and make maple syrup there. The Wintergreen Nature Foundation tapped the maples from Feb. 25 for 13 days until March 10. They got 30 gallons of sap out of 6 taps which they boiled down for 8 hours into about a pint of syrup. It turned out thinner than store bought, but tasty.

The Wintergreen Nature Foundation took a group to see the taps while the sap boiled down. Everyone got to enjoy the syrup on a pancake meal. They hope to do the maple syrup making again next year.

The Wintergreen Nature Foundation isn't selling their syrup, but we sell Puffenbarger's Maple Syrup from Monterey, Virginia in our Virginia Gourmet Gift Baskets and soon in Virginia Gourmet Gift Boxes.

April 2 is Peanut Butter and Jelly Day

Peanut Butter was first created by blending together ground shelled peanuts, vegetable oil and salt. Peanut Butter is the leading use of peanuts in the USA. Americans eat 3 lbs. of peanut butter per person every year. It takes about 540 peanuts to make a 12-ounce jar of peanut butter. The peanuts are first shelled, then roasted and the skins removed. Then they are ground into a smooth butter spread. Peanut butter must be at least 90 percent peanuts with no artificial sweeteners, colors or preservatives to officially be labeled peanut butter. It is sold as either "crunchy" or "smooth"/"creamy". It is used as a key ingredient in the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. For more information about peanut butter, check out our blog about Peanut Butter.

The peanut butter and jelly sandwich, (PB&J) also known as a peanut butter and jam sandwich in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is a sandwich which includes a layer of peanut butter and either jam or jelly on bread, commonlly between two slices, but sometimes eated open-faced, that is, with peanut butter and jam or jelly on each of two slices, eaten without putting the two slices together and without folding each slices of bread. the sandwich has the advantage that it does not contain any perishable ingredients, so it does not require refrigeration in hot weather, making it suitable for lunch bags. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich is very popular with both adults and children in the US and Canada. A 2002 survey showed the average American will have eaten 1500 of the sandwiches before graduating from high school. It's the classic salty-meets-sweet pairing that's found in many cuisines. Think of Chinese dishes like sweet and sour pork or American snacks Cracker Jacks.

The Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich is a high energy food, peanut butter being high in calories and fat, and jelly in sugar. Americans eat enough peanut butter in a year to make more than 10 billion peanut butter in a year to make more than 10 billion peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

The Virginia Marketplace is proud to sell all natural Virginia peanut butter from The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg. Their peanut butter is just that- peanuts, and maybe a pinch of salt. No added sugars. It can be purchased in several varieties: smooth, crunchy, salt free smooth or a try a sampler of all three.

We also offer a wide variety of preserves from Graves Mountain. Graves Mountain Lodge is nestled deep in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Syria, Virginia. Graves Mountain Lodge established its cannery in 1980. They use family recipes to make theri old-fashioned preserves unmatched for their quality and goodness. They cook their preserves in open kettles. The batches are kept small and each product is made as needed. They use the finest quality fruit, pure cane sugar and all natural seasonings in creating a product they feel is as good as "Grandma used to make." Most famous for the apple butter they make delicious preserves and jelly as well. We offer Strawberry, Peach, Seedless Blackberry, Seedless Red Raspberry, Cherry and Peach Brandy Preserves as well as Apple Butter and Green Pepper Jelly. They are available in groups of three, in samplers, in gift boxes and in gift baskets and as part of are other gourmet Virgina Marketplace Gift Baskets.

A Trip To the Virginia Maple Festival in Highland County

Even though maple syrup is associated with New England (where the Native Americans first taught settlers about this sweet delicacy), sugar trees grow in the Midwest an in colder parts of our state of Virginia, most notably Highland County. The region's higher elevations contribute to a late winter and early spring weather pattern of warm, sunny afternoons and crisp, freezing nights-a perfect combination for maple production! Monterey which is in the Allegheny Mountains, in the jutting northwestern tip of Virginia near the West Virginia border holds their Maple Festival in March. It is the southernmost region where maple syrup is collected.

This year the Highland Maple Festival was held March 13-14 and March 20-21. Take a step back in time to Highland County, "Virginia's Switzerland." Travel back roads and see meandering mountain byways to the annual Highland Maple Festival held on the 2nd and 3rd weekends of March. The Maple Festival has been an annual event in Highland County, Virginia, since 1958. It began when the Highland County Chamber of Commerce decided to stage a small "open house" at a maple sugar camp to promote the county's quality maple syrup, drawing an attendance of 600. Subsequent years saw demonstrations of open-kettle maple syrup production, the crowning of a Maple Queenn, the showing of Tol'able David, a 90 miute silent movie filmed in Highland County in 1921, a six-mile run, and in 1983, the opening of a Maple Museum.

Today, more than 60,000 visitors to the Highland Maple Festival observe the entire syrup-making process, starting with the collection of "sugar water" (maple sap) and unspoiled, rural region of Virginia to celebrate the "opening" of the trees and observe the process of maple syrup-making. Sugar camp tours provide a unique and educational experience that portrays a rapidly vanishing way of American life. They enjoy regular and buckwheat pancakes smothered with Highland-produced maple syrup served by local restaurats, schools, and Ruritan Clubs, buy additional treats (maple-flavored donuts, funnel cakes, apple dumplings, barbecued chicken, locally harvested trout dinners) from local church and line dancers perform and attend a craft show representing 130 artists and craftspeople from nearby states and buy anatiques and listen to Blue Grass music. The Highland County Maple Festival has become as important to the county's cultural heritage as it has to the survival of the area's maple sugar industry.

Here's a rundown of syrupy facts:
Many of the county's syrup producers still gather syrup the old-fashioned way - by drilling a hole in the tree, inserting a tap and hanging a bucket to collect the drips.

The modern technique of tubing and vacuum extraction is another common way to collect sap. Some sugar camps use both methods.

Sap is boiled for hours in a flat pan called the evapaorator. Water evaporates from the sap, leaving behind srup. It takes almost 40 gallons of pure sap to make one gallon of syrup.

I have been to the Highland Maple Festival several time. I've visisted several sugar camps, Puffenbarger's Sugar Orchard, Rexrode's Sugar Orchard and Sugar Tree Country Store and Sugar House. The two Sugar Orchard are near each other but are very different. The Rexrodes use the old-fashioned "open pan" system of evaporation as well as the newer wood-fired evaporation method wth miles of plastic tubing to gather the sugar water. Puffenbarger's operation was more modern. The Puffenbargers have rebuilt their sugar camp following a devastating fire in 2008. Puffenbargers uses a vacuum pump to increase the flow of sugar water and miles of plastic tubing to make it easier to gather. The process of maple syrup making is started by reverse osmosis and finished by oil-fired evaporators. Sugar Tree Country Store is located in McDowell. You step back in time in this authentic mid-ninteenth century country store with brass cash register, pot-bellied stove, and other antiques. They specialize in pure Virginia Maple Products produced on the premises. These include maple-covered nuts, maple sugar candy, and maple cream as well as maple syrup. They use a modern reverse osmosis concentrator and oil-fired evaporator to make their maple syrup. I listened to the talk about maple syrup and how they make it. Then we found out that it was going to take an hour to get a dozen hot maple doughnuts so we decided to get the few that were left. We rushed to eat them while they were still hot. Next time the first thing I'll do is order the doughnuts!!

I couldn't bring home any extra maple doughnuts this year but I did bring home Virginia Highland Maple Syrup for myself to enjoy and some jugs to accompany our other Virgina gourmet treasures in our gift baskets.

I hope to return next year when Highland County comes alive once again for the Maple Festival.

Chincoteague Seafood Soups, Chowders and Bisques

Chincoteague Seafood Soups, Chowders and Bisques are NATURALLY SEA-LICIOUS!! No MSG, No Preservatives and No Artificial Flavorings or Coloring. Five have been awarded the American Taste Award of Excellence Certificate. Manhattan Clam Chowder is chock full of fresh tender sea clams and sea clam juice, garden-ripe tomatoes, carrots, sweet peppers, celery, onions, and seasoned with spices. A vegetable lover's delight! Vegetable Red Crab Soup is a colorful combination of juicy crab meat, a kaleidoscope of fresh traditional vegetables - tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, corn, lima beans, carrots, onions, celery and a generous splash of seasonings...Simmering excitement from the Shore! Cream of Crab Soup features a careful blend of delicate crab meat in a rich cream base, with a hinat of sherry, and a tasty touch of creamery Grade A butter, celery, onions, and select spices...A delicious versatile specialty from the Shore! New England Clam Chowder is chock full of fresh, succulent clams and sea clam juice, bursting with garden-fresh potatoes, onions, celery, creamery Grader A butter, and savory seasonings. Lobster Bisque combines lots of tender Maine lobster meat with a unique cream base, lots of creamery Grade A butter, and a dash of sherry for a rich full-bodied flavor.

Their other soups, bisques and chowders are also NATURALLY SEA-LICIOUS!! She Crab Soup is a skilled blemd of a distinctive cream base, flavorful crab roe, delicate seasonings and a dash of sherry in the "Old-Fashioned" Carolinia Style, enhancing the succulent Blue Crab meat for a flavor you will savor. Crab and Cheddar Soup combines a unique cream base, lots of fresh, creamery Grade A butter, and delicate seasonings, and cheddar cheese in traditional Eastern Shore Style to enhance the selected Chesapeake Bay crab meat in every rich and creamy spoonful. Corn Chowder is a thick and hearty soup with selected kernels of yellow corn, potatoes, celery, onions, rich creamery Grade A butter, and delicate seasonings. A vegetarian chowder that you can serve with pride. Shrimp Bisque combines lots of tender shrimp with a unique cream base, lots of creamery Grade A butter, and a touch of sherry, in the "old Fashioned Southern Style" to enhance the tender, succulent morsels of shrimp meat in every rich and velvety spoonful. Clam Bisque combines fresh, tender sea clams and sea clam juice with a "fresh from the farm" variety of potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, sweet peppers, celery, and onions, harmonizing in with robust spices. Lobster and Cheddar Bisque combines a unique cream base, fresh, creamery Grade A butter, a touch of sherry, delicate seasonings, and lots of cheddar cheese to augment the tender, succulent morsels of Maine lobster meat in a every rich and velvety spoonful.

We sell selected Chincoteague Soups, Chowders and Bisques individually in a set of three cans and in a Crab Soup Sampler, Crab Soup Souper Sampler, a Bisque Sampler, and in a No Dairy Seafood Soup and Chowder Sampler , a combination of Chincoteague Manhatan Clam Chowder, Chincoteague Vegetable Red Crab Soup and Blue Crab Eastern Shore Clam Chowder. We also sell Chincoteague soups, chowders and bisques in sea-themed gift baskets and in other Virginia Marketplace gift baskets and gift boxes.