Buzz This.

Did you notice a change on the Relay site this morning?! Just be honest…you didn’t. It’s fine, I’m sure you were too busy Buzzing up a storm to focus on our little changes (thank you Google, yet again, for overwhelming my life with more information than I can ever take in).

Let me give you something to really Buzz home about: we have another new vendor!! C’ville Oriental has officially joined our Relay family of local stores and we are oh so happy to have them. They have your rice sticks, your soy sauces, sesame oils, and rice vinegars, your Foojoy tea and even a few loquats here and there! With all of these little foreign delights I’m getting ready to embark upon a whirlwind adventure of Asian culinary experimentation… Perhaps you could join me?

Annick and Jason will be adding more and more Oriental goodies in the next couple days, so keep an eye out for your favorites and do please let me know if anyone out there has an Oriental-inspired recipe to try out!

Sweet Success

Woo! Superbowl!! As I sit at my brother’s Superbowl party reflecting upon this surprisingly beautiful, busy day, I’m thinking about community. I guess it takes a good snowstorm to get everyone to come together…instead of grumbling and moaning all day, my entire electricity-less neighborhood picked up shovels, released their well-behaved dogs and got to work on the whole road. Old ladies shoveled sidewalks, young men shoveled old ladies driveways and all the dogs played leash-free while their owners chatted, smiled and shoveled. Oh Charlottesville…could this place be anymore more wonderful?!

Speaking of wonderful community…everyone on the Relay team deserves a giant pat on the back (and maybe an extra large cookie) for sticking through the stickiest part of the storm to deliver groceries our snow-bound customers. The joy on our new friends faces when we told them that we did, indeed, trudge through the storm to deliver their bread, milk and pies, made the whole endeavor more than worthwhile. No injuries, no broken cars, not even a cracked egg…total success and total team bonding. Arnie actually had to yell at us to FORCE us to take a lunch break (complete with the most delicious Belle Haven soup bowls filled with Rev Soup and Fruit Harvest cookies from the lovely bakers at Foods).

I’d like to send out a giant thank you to all of our team members (Arnie, Ted, Tom, Jason, Lance, Dennis, Nancy, and Annick and Neal for their emotional support while they were snowed in), our retailers (especially Shelia from Belle Haven who made it all the way from Scottsville and Ronnie/Tim from Meadow Run Farm who trekked all the way over the mountain), and our customers for trusting us with their precious snowstorm vittles. THANK YOU ALL!

Happy Snowy Superbowl Sunday to you all!