On the Road again........

We give our guts and glory to pull off flourishing road shows each year all over New England. It gives everyone a chance to observe first hand what is brand new in the culinary world, along with samplings of the old time classics as well. It’s no piece of cake for us, especially since we set our standards higher with every show. Our sales team can’t pass time by quick enough to go and try the new delights. Trying new things equals selling power and we all know selling is a fun sport indeed! We are holding six road shows over the course of the next 8 months.

April 29- Freeport, ME April 30- Meredith, NH

June 2- Plymouth, MA June 3- Nantucket, MA

September 8- Albany, NY September 9- TBA

Keep your calendars marked so you don’t forget, because we foresee them to be gigantic hits! Some vendors that will be featured in most of them are Nueskes, Vermont Butter & Cheese, Foodmatch, Kabobs, Drakes Pasta, Tribeca Ovens, Cabot, Ciao Bella, and Ducktrap, to name a few. Our road shows will include plump piles of an array of products; you will taste everything from Andouille to Zahtar seasoning. You can experience snazzy demonstrations from top chefs, as well as from our featured creative food companies. It would be grand if purchasers, owners, and savvy chefs alike could take a day, even a couple hours, to make time and join us. There’s no two ways about it! This is a fun and beneficial recess from your daily lives. Wouldn’t it be great to bring something new and exciting to the kitchen by gearing up for the seasons to come?

Be sure to check our website periodically for updates and information. It features photos from previous road shows so you can take a peek as to what you should be expecting!

Wendy Matthews

The Scoop on Salads

Here in Woburn, we have the liberty to get our hands on pretty much anything chefs and purchasers need in order to be diverse from each other. With just a quick 10 minute trip into the wonderful city of Boston, we experience a whirlwind of excitement. Where to go? There are too many choices. But one thing is certain. Our trucks must make a pit stop into Newmarket Square everyday to get our hands on Boston Salads, to ship from our humble abode to yours.

Chefs enjoy and trust these prepared deli salads because they are made in small batches and utilize minimal preservatives. Both these factors contribute to quality and consistent taste. They are conveniently stored in five pound white tubs, easy to serve from, store, clean, and even reuse. With over 40 different varieties, there are two words that chefs will always associate with Boston Salads; fresh and consistent. That’s exactly why we purchase their food pretty much everyday of the week. Even though you may be jumping out of your socks at the thought of these tasty salads, they do need 2 days lead time in order to process for your desired shipment date. Patience is a virtue, and it’s definitely worth it.

Wendy Matthews

"Gus" for all of us!!

Term: Asparagus

Definition: Simple four syllable word but not so simple to obtain at a decent price that won’t break the bank.

Gear up for the long holiday weekend ahead. For this week only, our produce buyer Brian is throwing a steal of a bargain in your face and I bet you don’t know whether to smile or frown. Smile because the prices are extraordinary, or frown because this deal only lasts one week. Whether you consider the glass to be half empty or full, you must take part in our special deal. Dole and Bailey has 11# cases of all varietals of asparagus in stock and always guaranteed fresh. So start boiling your water, and get blanching!

813290 Pencil Thin
813320 Standard
813340 Jumbo
813330 White

Call your sales representative for more details. Have a great week!

Wendy Matthews

C'Est Cheese

Over the last decade or so, a certain dairy product has become a trendy item on menus all over Boston. Cheese is no longer considered a small snack served with Ritz crackers to hold starving bellies over until supper time. It is considered part of dinner; let it be as an appetizer, dessert, or even part of an 8 course meal. Pairing it with fresh grapes, berries, figs, olives, prosciutto, and/or candied nuts truly makes it a course on its own, along with toasted baguette or homemade crackers. Cheese boards are huge hits as well, usually for banquets & weddings. The coolest thing in the world is getting creative with a cheese marble. It utilizes skill, style, and patience, and receiving lots of “oohs” and “ahhs” from guests rocks too. Try Vermont Butter & Cheese Company. The geniuses over there learned the authentic approach to making cheese by spending months at a time in France. From learning things first hand, they brought to life a genuine creamery in Vermont using cow and goat milk sourced from local farms. Some of their famous and award winning goat cheeses are hand formed, some are aged with ash, some are retail packed, but all are absolutely delicious and rich with flavor. VBC appreciates great tasting artisanal cheese, which is exactly why they’ve been in business for close to 25 years.

Popular items:
570280 VBC Goat Logs 10.5 oz each, 12 per case
570310 VBC Mascarpone 5# each, 4 per case
570410 VBC Bijou Goat 2 oz each, 15 per case

Wendy Matthews

Sweet Molasses

As Wendy has already announced, it’s Dole and Bailey’s 140^th birthday. This got me to wondering what life was like back in 1868 when D&B was just a sprout. I did some googling and found out that 1868 was quite a year, with Wyoming becoming a US territory, the discovery of helium, and the adoption of a nation-wide standard system of screw threads. But I still wanted to know what people were eating back then, as they enjoyed their newly standardized screw threads and floating, helium-filled balloons. So I dug a little deeper and found out that 140 years ago, food in New England was simpler and more rustic than what we see today. Even so, there was already a well-established cuisine based on what was local, fresh, and abundant.

Take seafood for example: The bounty of the Atlantic was as much a part of New England’s culinary heritage then as it is today. Stewed or baked cod, haddock, bluefish, and striped bass were common fare. So too was an array of shellfish preparations—littlenecks, quahogs, oysters, scallops, and mussels were all popular items, steamed, stewed, or eaten raw.

As for produce, the summer and autumn harvests were the two competing big shows. Summer with fresh corn, peas, beans, and eggplants; autumn with apples, pumpkins, squashes, gourds, and cranberries.

Molasses was the most common sweetener of the times, shipped into Boston from the Caribbean by the boatload. And with all that molasses oozing around, New England was one of the world’s leading rum producers.

So it looks like here in New England we’ve come a long way, but haven’t forgotten our roots—just like Dole and Bailey has over the last 140 years. I hope the next 140 is just as exciting, and delicious!

Dan Landau-Taylor

Happy 140th

Not only is this time for new beginnings, resolutions, and all that good stuff, but it is an important landmark for Dole and Bailey. January marks history. It is our 140^th birthday. Not sure if many of you were aware of this or not, but Dole and Bailey is the oldest, continuously run family owned business in the country. We are also one of the only companies still standing that grind and our own hamburger in the same facility where our sales force is hard at work. We are a close knit business, a “family,” and pride ourselves on giving the best service possible. We constantly got each others backs and that’s what makes us an even stronger team.

As the best gesture able to give, we are dedicating this new year to Bud Matheson. He started working for Dole and Bailey as a butcher, and from there he did sales runs in Boston, created customers, and turned it into a multi-million dollar empire. Some accounts he created back in the day are still, to this very day, clients and friends of ours. For everything that he has accomplished over the last five decades, for all the goals and hurdles that he has overcome with dignity, and for all the help and respect that he has shown his children and his employees here at D&B, we thank him from the bottom of our hearts. It’s been a very long run for him, and with his optimistic support, we will bestow the same motivation onto him like he did for years before us.

140 years in, and we still got it!!!

Thanks for everyone’s love and support.

Wendy Matthews

A taste of Italy

Academia Barilla, specializes in foods characterized only as “authentic”. They offer Americans a delightful line of products that we should be so proud to be able to acquire from an international source. Their items are D.O.P. certified, which translates in English as “Protected Denomination of Origin.” These products are exclusively produced in particular, limited areas of certain regions of Italy. At Dole and Bailey, we hold tight a close relationship with them because those who order their products will never stop doing so. We have a number of products that we always keep on hand. Choosing between the array of balsamic vinegars and extra virgin olive oils is a task, to say the least. Each encompass a certain personality trait with different flavors and aromas depending upon the geographical region it hails from. To make things even better, their cheeses are insane! The Parmigiano Reggiano is a compact, bold cheese, and available to us at an 18 month tenure. Other choices are Pecorino Toscano and Gran Cru, both of which contain beautiful blends of completely different spectrums of aromas.
The folks at Academia Barilla are old school and I like that. My favorite product from them is the Prosciutto di Parma. I’m going to try to explain why this prosciutto is considered to be held on a gold pedestal over the rest. Academia Barilla has strictly trained personnel who put all of their attention towards the care of their stock and their diets. They also follow a set of strict guidelines, all of which are time sensitive, in order to achieve the most satisfactory product ever. They age the proscuitto from 18 to 24 months, over which time the cured meat gradually matures. All products are chosen from professional blind taste testers. The finish product will be nothing less than a beautifully marbled mass of the most elite cured ham in all of Italy. Engulfed with sweet flavor and low salt content, it is so compact that it melts within moments of hitting the tongue.
Slicing a leg of prosciutto results in soft sheets of silk on a serving platter, ready to eat as is. It could also be served with fresh melon or roasted and glazed figs as an appetizer. Enhancing the flavor by accompanying this dish with chunks of Tuscan Pecorino is also a fabulous choice. It’s simple, yet makes a statement on its own.

As the wise men say, things get better with age!

Wendy Matthews