5 Things: February 1st, 2019

This year already feels like it’s going by too quickly. Welcome to the first 5 Things of February.

1. We closed early due to cold!
   We consider ourselves a pretty hearty bunch around here, but unsafe conditions and general lack of business due to the -100°F or whatever windchill (cold stories are not dissimilar to fishing stories), had us closing down the shop at 1pm on Wednesday.Generally, we try our best to be here for you in all forms of weather, but there comes a point where risking frozen appendages and cars breaking down in parking lots far from home just isn’t worth it.
2. Experiments with snack sticks!
   

   
   Bison buddies are one of our most popular items. People love snack sticks, it turns out. Presently, we have a lot of time on our hands, and a lot of space in our coolers, so the smokers are going buck wild in development. Today they’re smoking Beef & Bacon Adobada Buddies and Sockeye Salmon Buddies tomorrow. Next week, rumor has it they’ll be throwing together Bacon Cheeseburger Buddies. And I don’t think they have any plans of slowing down. They’re going to keep churning out these new flavor creations until something—please forgive me—sticks.
3. Porketta special and soup/chowder specials!

   We switched up our Thursday daily special this week. Using the same roll as our hot pastrami special, we topped it with thick-cut hot porketta, sliced cabbage, and fennel-garlic-herb aioli. We’re going to be running this special again, so if you’re sore about missing the first round, come down next Thursday.On Monday, we brought a favorite Northern Waters Restaurant recipe to our deli and offered Lake Superior Lake Trout chowder. The frigid weather seems to call for hot soup, so for the foreseeable future we’ll be offering $8 bowl/biscuit specials on Mondays, then $4 cups and $6 bowls until the week’s batch is gone. On top of all that, it seems like every week there are new treats to try around here, whether they be cookies, meat sticks, soups, sandwich specials, sides or sauces. To stay on top of our daily experiments, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

4. Last week of the Breakfast Club!

   The first installment of our Sandwich Lab monthly specials is nearing its end. The Breakfast Club, a Clubhaus variant described by its creator as “unctuous and balanced,” will be available through the weekend, and relinquishes its spot on our menu for the next installation in the Sandwich Lab series: The Wagner. While the Breakfast Club might yet make future appearances in our deli, we will undoubtedly pretend to forget about it after Sunday. If you haven’t tried it yet, don’t let the opportunity slip. I’ve heard this Sunday is supposed to be “warm,” and a great day to try something new.

5. Sugar Plum & Hey Sweetie gift boxes!
   V-Day is just around the corner, and we’ve got some special gift boxes designed especially for the lovers out there. These boxes are also available for pick-up and delivery in town. “Hey Sweetie!” — $48 + standard shipping. From the product page:
   
   
   LET US HELP YOU APPRECIATE YOUR SWEETIE. A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY. THAT’S WHAT WE’VE LEARNED. LITTLE MOMENTS, SMALL GESTURES GRANDLY RECEIVED, EXTRAORDINARY OR MUNDANE, THEY ALL MAKE UP THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF YOUR SWEET LIFE AS TWO. SEND SOMETHING MADE SLOWLY, WITH LOVE AND APPRECIATION FOR THE PROCESS. OUR “HEY, SWEETIE” BOX INCLUDES SMOKED LAKE SUPERIOR LAKE TROUT, BLACK PEPPER & CORIANDER SMOKED SALMON, REGIONAL CHEESE AND CROCCANTINI CRACKERS.
   
   Sugar Plum — $50 + nonperishable shipping. From the product page:
   
   
   OUR FAVORITES PACKED TOGETHER FOR YOUR DELIGHT AND CONVENIENCE. THIS BOX FEATURES OUR OWN HAUSMADE DELICACIES, AS WELL AS LOCAL FAVORITES, FOR YOUR LOVED ONE

Here is a lovely photo of an unboxed Hey, Sweetie box

Gosh! That last one was a little vague. Let me tell you a bit more. The Sugar Plum comes with Dark Chocolate Malted Milk Balls & Sugar Plums from Hepzibah’s Sweet Shoppe, Fabbri Amarena cherries, Rosemary Croccantini crackers, and a salamini, all packed up in one of our red Smokehaus totes.

 They’ll probably update that product page while I’m working in the deli today. Don’t @ me.

And here is an adequate photo of a Sugar Plum box, taken by Yours Truly, and not by our skilled visual media team.

5 Things That Happened This Week at NWS

The Breakfast Club. 

On Monday, we launched our Sandwich Lab campaign.

The Breakfast Club is a fresh new take on the Clubhaus, and the first of nine monthlong specials we'll be running this year. Visit the event page for more details.

The Adisalad.

For those of you resolving to eat healthier this year, we're with you. So we're adding a new salad to our menu: The Adisalad. Named after Adison, it's creator, and inevitably a confusing pun, this salad is something I look forward to every shift. Yes, your dear blogging friend is hooked. We're in the process of training our staff to make it, but the official launch will be soon. Allow these unedited photos tide you over.

More box liners.

I am full of regret for forgetting to snap a few photos, but on Monday we had an awesome time moving nine(-ish?) boxes of box liners. Each box of liners is about 6' x 4' x 3' (source: my subjective memory) so they are obviously quite maneuverable and really more of a job for one person, but we all chipped in anyway. Here's a throwback photo of the room in which we store them. It is not so full anymore.

This sky over the canal. 

Sometimes the Sun comes out and makes early winter mornings not so bleak.

Kimchi. 

Here's a visual of the size of a kimchi batch. This pile is just about finished. It will ferment for a week before it is packaged. The Adisalad features our kimchi and sauerkraut.

10 things To Keep In Mind This Holiday Season

Mail Order Season has officially begun –for us that means our volume of shipments goes through the roof and this year we’re sending more boxes than ever. A team of about 2 turns into a team of about 10. A once quiet office turns into a loud machine of box making, choice 90s tunes, taping boxes, carefully hand-packing boxes, labeling boxes, and waving at the Fedex/ UPS guy as he takes our boxes into the world. Boxes are crammed in every available place – and we’re restocking hundreds daily. We’re doing everything we can to bring our deli to your doorstep, but there are some things for you to consider during this holiday season.

#1. Meats typically ship frozen. When ordering the larger meats, like 7 pound Hams and 4 pound Porkettas, think about the timing of your event. You may need an extra day or two for the meat to thaw before you can lovingly prepare it for your guests.

#2. We do everything we can to get your order to you as quickly as possible, but weather and Fedex/ UPS operational issues are out of our control. Typically, you can receive orders from us pretty quickly. For orders placed by noon Sunday-Tuesday, we ship your order the next day (if product is in stock). For those in Minnesota, we also ship on Thursdays. Food is shipped FedEx 2-day, UPS 2-day or FedEx Ground, UPS Ground so that it arrives cold on your doorstep. From time to time, Mother Nature gets in the way of the 2-day shipping timeline. And every so often FedEx / UPS experiences technical issues or trucks break down. It’s so unfortunate when this happens, but we’ll be in touch with you, and happily replace an order if it arrives warm, or extend some other nicety depending on your situation. We’re here to help.

#3. Sustainability is very important to us. We understand that shipping our products across the US has a negative impact on the environment. We’re doing our part to help, and we hope you will too. Your cardboard box with our logo on it is recyclable – just make sure to take the packing tape off and dispose of it. All of our boxes are packed with a “Jean Jacket” liner. They’re soft and squishy, and biodegradable! They can be thrown out or you can take the polyfilm off the liner and compost the blue denim fibers inside. As for the ice packs, please reuse if possible. Use them in your lunch box, on a picnic, or keep in your freezer for just the right occasion. If you need to dispose, their contents are 100% water soluble.

#4. Give us a call when needed. We’re not robots here. We like to think we’re pretty helpful actually. If you have a question regarding an order, just give us a ring. If you’ve got a question about where your package is, also give us ring, we can easily track your package.

#5. Ordering online is the way to go when possible. Our website ordering process is very smooth. And we’re always looking for ways to add new things to the experience. When you order online, you’re more likely to get coupons emailed to you as well! 15% next order? Yes, please!

#6. Use and care of our products is now included in the yellow slip that comes in your box. If you haven’t noticed that bright yellow slip, check it out! Use and care for our products is as follows:

• Smoked Fish – Fully cooked and ready to eat. Enjoy or freeze within 3 weeks of date on package.

• Smoked Meats – Fully cooked and ready to eat. Enjoy or freeze within 1 week of receiving.

• Salumi – Shelf-stable. Best kept in butcher paper, in your cupboard. Discard or eat rind, slice as needed and enjoy within 1 month.

• Raw Sausages – Not cooked. Cook as desired, ensuring internal temperature reaches 155 degrees. Use or freeze within 1-2 days.

#7. All of our food is hand-made. We are not a factory. We are a small shop. We hand-make all of our products in small batches. The path of the product from raw meat to fully smoked to being packaged up for nationwide shipping is quite a process. We take pride in this process, and we put love and creativity into every step of it.

#8. Many people love to send our food as gifts during the holidays, but don’t send it as surprise! Since the food must remain cold, it’s good to let the recipient know it’s coming. They’ll want to grab that box as soon as it comes and move the food to their refrigerator. It’s also good to point out here, that we don’t require a signature for delivery. It’s important that the food be dropped off and received as soon as possible after drop off. If we required signatures, it’s more likely the transit time could be extended beyond 2-days, and more likely the food would become spoiled.

#9. We vacuum seal most of our smoked fish and meats. We do this for many reasons. It’s a safe way to transport food for shipping and it looks nice too! If the seal breaks during transport, you mustn’t worry, it’s still safe to eat. Only if the food arrives warm should you throw it out, and call us right away.

#10. Check out some of the newly added items in our Mail Order department! We are now selling the a 3 pound Porketta and Smoked Berkshire Ham (10#) . We also kept our wildly popular Cajun Finn Kit and Northern Bagel Kit. Think of these as the perfect addition to a special occasion, or the creative alternative to a birthday cake! We’ve got our merchandise ready to ship. Whether it’s a Cajun Finn Tee, Northern Waters Smokehaus Magnet or a Classic Rick Allen Tee; we’ve got you covered. Find these in the “Gifts” section of our website.

Ok, that’s it for now lovely people – those boxes don’t pack themselves! Place those holiday orders soon, and remember we’re always here to help.

5 Things

Today I feel as though a veil has been lifted from my eyes. As I wandered the three levels of NWS HQ, observing and probing my co-workers with questions about the tasks at their hands, I realized that the small company I began working for nearly five years ago, and the small spaces I have haunted for the same amount of time are expansive and dynamic and chaotic enough that they can still surprise me. Today, I’d like to talk about my impressions and interactions while floating about pestering my co-workers, then hit you with some good ol’ advertisement. Let’s go floor by floor:

1. 3rd floor: I entered the office and immediately saw two new faces hard at work. I haven’t even caught their names yet, they were so embroiled in their work, digging out items from the deep freeze, vacuum-sealing chunks of salmon, and taping shut fully packed boxes. The mail order department processed 87 orders this week alone, and they are still just at the foot of the mountain that is our holiday mail order season.The surroundings toe the line of order and chaos. Zip-tied bundles of flattened boxes are piled high in canted and zigzagging stacks top a labyrinthine arrangement of shelves. The wall of product label sticker spools is functional, if disorganized. This week, twenty pallets of recycled denim box-liners were delivered to DeWitt-Seitz and our off-site storage area. 4ish- by 3ish- by 6ish-foot boxes of them are stacked in the office, and various corners of the floor. We have even requisitioned a room down a winding path of hallways that I had not travelled before I began researching this week’s blog to stack our boxes and liners, which is filled to the ceiling/skylight. This is not my first Winter here. I know what to expect. It still struggle to imagine the extent of the activity that will occur in this small office suite over the next month-point-five.
2. 1st floor: Upon entering the deli, I was asked to join a mini-band. Unsure exactly what that entailed, I withheld my decision and awaited their explanation. A mini-band, it turns out, is a band of individuals of any size which specializes in small instruments: mandolin, “tiny drums,” jaw harp, ukulele, kazoo etc. I was recruited as the hypothetical toy piano specialist. We probably would have had a song written within minutes had a line of customers not appeared. The future of the band is unclear, but it feels good to be exposed to these sorts of ideas on a regular basis.
3. Loading dock: Pine bough is easily one of the best scents in the entirety of olfactory stimulus, and this week is the transition time into Winter decorations at DeWitt-Seitz Marketplace, so walking through the loading dock behind our shop (a roughly one-hundred times a day occurrence) has gone from mundane task to repeated entanglement with the Sublime. Right outside of our backdoor there is a stack of wreaths. I hope they hold off on hanging those wreaths a few days longer at least, because I don’t want to be the weird guy sniffing them once they have been hung.
4. Basement: When I made it down to the basement, the production team was setting up to handle a massive volume of cabbage. In less than two hours, they told me, they’d have begun the pickling of 150 lbs of sauerkraut. Three of them divided up into one cleaner and two cutters.In my assumed mode of fascination, I asked, “what do cutters do?”“They cut,” was the curt response. “Would you like to know what the cleaners do,” they followed up.I bit.“They cut too.”After a good laugh at my foolishness, I learned that before the cabbage is cut, salted and left to pickle, the heads are thoroughly cleaned so that there are no contaminants in the mix or on the cutting boards. Sauerkraut pickles for a month before it hits our shelves and sandwich line. Our kimchi ferments for a week before we package it.Also in the basement, I found the mop closet still under construction, and snapped a photo.There are many lessons to be learned in the smokehouse proper, as the folks working down there have countless hours of hands-on experience creating the amazing food we sell.I also found a few purple tomatoes among the heirlooms. Purple is my favorite color, so this pleased me.
5. Good ol’ advertisin’: There is a new mail order porketta option available this season. Previously, our porketta was available online in whole 4 lbs increments. Now it is available in 3 and 4 lbs increments. This is great for those who are shopping with a budget, or simply don’t have quite as many mouths to feed. Our porketta has been featured in Bon Appetit magazine and has been featured on many of my daily sandwich creations lately. It is simple to work with but highly versatile, made with the highest quality berkshire pork, seasoned to perfection and slow-roasted in the smoker.For a very limited time, we have smoked ciscos in stock. If you've been craving them, stop in this weekend, because they go fast.One final note before you go: Monday, November 19th is the last day of our mail-order turkey special. Any purchase of a whole turkey breast made by Monday will come with a free 8oz tub of crayo.

Catch you next week, Thingerinos.