Valley Cafe

Today we had occasion to eat lunch over at the Valley Cafe in Marquette. I’d heard good things about the food for quite some time, and my only disapointment is that I waited this long to enjoy their wonderful food.

It being Sunday, I naturally had the Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding. Naturally? Yes, because the Valley Cafe is owned and operated by Lisa Quested, who moved to Marquette after originally growing up in the Cornwall area of England. The meal was every bit as good as what I had in Bristol, England, 3 weeks ago, and was one-quarter the price to boot! Sheryl had the Fried Chicken, and declared it to be better than two well-known chicken places in Salina.

We finished our meal with a trip to the dessert bar; unfortunately for Sheryl the Butterscotch Pie was gone, but the Peach Cobbler was very good indeed! We noted for future reference that the Valley Cafe also offers a Chicken Curry with Rice dish, the classic British Fish & Chips, and more. The menu is flexible, so you might call ahead if you’re looking for something in particular, but based on our experience today I think you’d get a great meal no matter what specials were being served.

Oh, and the cool part came at the end of the meal when I mentioned to our waitress how well the Roast Beef compared to the meal I had in Bristol. She said, hang on, Lisa will want to hear this; so I got to meet and chat for a few moments with the owner of the Valley Cafe. Cornwall is not too far from Bristol, and I felt something special about having a southwest England connection right in my own back yard. No big deal in the city, but these connections are part of what make life special out here in the middle.

The Valley Cafe is located at 114 N. Washington, Marquette, Kansas. For more information call: (785) 546-2353.

I don’t remember where I found this image, but it does demonstrate a certain skill. I’m guessing it was taken in the midwest somewhere.

Julia Childs, in the corn:

I came across this picture of a Harley carved out of chocolate and wanted to share, especially with my brothers, one of whom recently purchased a brand new Harley Davidson motorcycle.

As it turns out, the bike was carved by famous artist Jim Victor who works using a variety of media. In the food carving arena, besides chocolate he’s well known for his cheese carvings

and butter carvings.

A month or so ago I came across an interesting web site that led to the creation of the Butterfly cake shown below. Back in the 1950’s or 60’s the makers of Baker’s Angel Flake coconut produced a multi-page, full color recipe book. Of course, each recipe prominently featured coconut, but the title of the booklet’s title tells the whole story: “Animal Cut-up Cakes“.

Our daughter Lisa has an appreciation of all things butterfly, and when I saw this recipe I knew what we were making for her birthday. It was fun to make and everyone at her party enjoyed the flaming butterfly cake*.

::

*No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you; we left off the coconut topping this time. But hey, Baker’s still got a free plug and we got to enjoy the cake.

Power lunching in Japan:

The one shown above is for Moneka, who loves PPG!

There are another 1/2 dozen or so of these imaginative creations available for your viewing pleasure.

Thanks to memepool for the link.