Winning
Winterlude
Recipes
ew things please guests more than a special treat from your kitchen. Savvy Innkeepers create signature dishes that
are part of the lasting memory that brings guests back again and again. Our guests were predictable in any season. If they smelled our signature cookies being baked they were at the kitchen door smiling like children and happy to wait for the warm cookies to appear.
Your signature can be anything that fits the experience you are creating from a “to die for” jar of cookies to fresh fruit picked from your orchard, maple candy from your own sugar house, honey nut bars made with your urban roof top honey or, how about a fresh popped bowl of popcorn fragrant with truffle oil and your favorite local sea salt.
I think you get my drift. Get outside that premade cookie box and create something that says something about the experience you offer. It can be as simple and easy as a bowl of popcorn or as over the top as fresh breakfast strawberry almond shortcake from your garden and larder. Dessert for breakfast you say? Yes I do say and our guests loved every sweet special bite.
Today’s travelers share millions of food pix on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat et al. Food frames every travel experience from food truck tacos to Florentine Frangelico gelato. Travelers tell their stories through their food experiences. They relish the opportunity to share a food “find”, and to be the first to taste something memorable.
It seems a wise use of your time and considerable talent to identify your signature dish. The key is to make it fresh, local and outside the box. Something only found at your Inn. Make use of unusual ingredients or combinations (popcorn, truffles and locally smoked sea salt anyone?) Then serve it up in person, on your blog, and/or in a quick (15 – 30 second) video. The magic happens not just with guests but with the food and travel media who like nothing more than tell the tale. If you are courting the media use an ingredient or two foraged from a local farm or forest. Partner with a local small business that supplies a key ingredient and tell the story of your joint venture to delight travelers.
Once you find that signature dish keep it coming. Guests will long for it, request it and return to taste it again and again. All the more reason to keep it simple and keep it coming! As marketing goes, it’s a bargain that withstands the test of time.
Fresh Truffled Popcorn
Ingredients for 8-10 generous servings:
1 ½ cups organic popping corn
5 tablespoons white truffle oil readily available in your market
3 tablespoons European style cultured butter
1 tablespoon smoked sea salt or your favorite
Preparation:
Time, start to finish, 10 -15 minutes including assembling ingredients.
We found a local company harvesting sea salt and smoked it in batches with oak and apple wood chips. It keeps forever in a sealed glass jar. You can buy many flavored and naturally colorful varieties of mineral sea salt that work well with the truffles.
I used a heavy bottomed 6-8 quart dutch oven to pop the corn. It takes only about 5 minutes to pop it this way and the difference in taste and texture from microwaved popcorn is night and day. Fresh popped corn won’t turn mushy or get tough when tossed with the butter and oil mixture even when it sits for a while.
Heat 3 tablespoons of the truffle oil in the dutch oven on medium high for 2 minutes. Add the popping corn, cover and wait to hear the first pops. Shake the covered pan gently as the corn continues to pop. This prevents burned and unpopped kernels. Turn off the heat when the popping slows to an occasional pop. Keep the lid on.
Heat the remaining oil and the butter in the microwave just until the butter is melted. Drizzle over the popped corn and toss with a large spoon. Sprinkle on the salt and toss again. Put the popped corn in a pretty glass bowl and serve. It will happily sit on a side board or in your guest pantry for hours. Offer little paper bags or paper cones available on line or at the local party store, so guests can carry away a serving.
Carol Edmondson is a former Innkeeper and founding member of AIHP with 12 years of successful Innkeeping under her belt who, as a partner and principal consultant with InnAdvisors, works with Innkeepers to help them improve their ROI by owning their market and even finding their signature dish.
Your Signature Dish
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