Alexe Van Beuren

The B.T.C Old-Fashioned Grocery in Water Valley, Mississippi is both meeting place and melting pot for the small Southern community. Owner and operator Alexe Van Beuren, and her chef extraordinaire, Dixie Grimes, dish out delectable delights while local residents dish on the weather, politics, and other sundry subjects. Visitors are always welcome. Alexe, raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, settled in Water Valley with her husband and children and decided that a deli-style grocery would be just the business to offer the little town. After more than a year of hits and misses, frustrations and successes, along with a passing parade of cooks, the B.T.C. was in need of some divine intervention. Along came Dixie, a Mississippi native, whose casual mien belies her culinary training and amazing kitchen creativity. "B.T.C" stands for "Be the Change"-a Gandhi quote, and an appropriate moniker for how the success of how the grocery/cafe has positively affected the business trade for the town. Reading the stories and anecdotes throughout "The B.T.C. Old-Fashioned Grocery Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from a Southern Revival" and salivating over the gorgeous food photos accompanying the recipes will have you longing for a seat at the cafe, perusing the menu and trying your best not to order one of everything. Here are just some of recipes to tickle your taste buds: "Italian Sausage and Mushroom Breakfast Casserole"; "Vegetable Beef Soup with Butter Beans"; "Dixie's Famous Chicken Salad"; "Ham and Horseradish Spread"; "Chicken Pot Pie with Parsnips and Roasted Leeks"; "Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Apricot-Apple Cider Glaze"; "Baked Squash with Vidalia Onions"; "Steel Magnolia Cake"; and a bonus recipe for "Dixie's Pickled Eggs". Local color, local flavor--down-home delicious.

Book Copy Gratis Clarkson Potter Publishers… (more)

I was so please to receive this cookbook for review, and even more please when I realized it was much more than a cookbook. B.T.C. is a story of real people, and a real small town grocer. Their story, both struggles and success, is beautifully written in a just a few pages sprinkled through the book. You will learn about their family, the town, their small-town newspaper, and their employees. You just can’t help but love this place and these people.

BTC is an old-fashioned grocery store in Water Valley, Mississippi that also provides sandwiches, soups, homemade mayonnaise, and much more. The recipes in the cookbook are by Dixie Grimes, and present an interesting mix of down-home simplicity and rich sophistication. The recipes are categorized by Breakfast, Soups for Every Season, Salads, Spreads and Sandwich Fixings, Casseroles, Mains, Sides and Southern Sweet Thangs. The recipes that immediately caught my eye are Vetra’s Three-bean Salad, Broccoli Salad, Artichoke and English Pea Au Gratin, and just about all of the soups!

This is not only a wonderful addition to my cookbook shelf, but an interesting story that brought to life the story of Water Valley, Mississippi.… (more)