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Last week, Derek from Speedwell Coffee came to our weekly General Manager meeting to teach us all about espresso via a cupping session. “Cupping” is a methodical way of learning about the flavor, aroma, and body of coffee beans and involves smelling and tasting the espresso through a series of precise steps: pouring perfectly-temperatured water over dry grounds, creating a crust at the top of the cup; breaking the crust and raking a spoon through the crust just so; slurping (and thus aerating) the finished brew. Roasters will often use cupping to test out new beans. My favorite part was Derek’s fervent…

Just in time for your New Year’s Resolution to eat more carrots! Spicy, sweet, and limey, it’s the only Clover sandwich to have a love letter written to it (by an avowed carnivore no less!) Paul dreamed up the Carrot Sandwich back in 2017: carrots two ways (habanero carrot hot sauce, roasted carrots), creamy feta sauce, cabbage lime slaw, and fried farro for crunch). It went through 3 versions before getting to the one you love today.

Some of you might remember Food Dev, a weekly meeting we had that was open to the public. It was a chance to peek behind the curtain, see how food gets on our menu, and maybe even suggest a few items yourself. We’ve been working on a Latte program at our HSQ restaurant (we’ve had espresso at Newtonville and Harvard Science Center for ages but we are rapidly bringing espresso to other restaurants in the form of a nifty, easy-to-use new machine). Tomorrow we’ll be doing a mini Food Dev Meeting all about Winter Lattes…

The Japanese Sweet Potato sandwich is coming back onto the menu. Enzo created this super-addictive sandwich after Farmer Ray had an extra good “bumper crop” of sweet potatoes and no outlet for them. Several years ago, I went with a group of staff members to watch Next Barn Over crew harvest our sweet potatoes, and I can still hear the sounds. Roots ripping, farmers laughing, boots squishing mud, iPhone cameras snapping. Quiet fields with the occasional pickup truck driving past. Some of the sweet potatoes were so big that year that the farmers were taking the kind of photos you’d take if you caught a big trout.