LET THE FOOD DO THE TALKING: FOOD SOURCE, CHEFERY & THANKSGIVING DINNER
Rose Fisher and Kevin Soares have developed an extraordinary habit of speaking without talking.
In fact, these multi-tasking parents of three-under-five, and owners of The Ham Stand, a Nevada City salumeria, can shout with total silence. It’s bewitching, and yet, with every bite I hear customers across wooden tables with arugula and roast beef dripping from their mouths declaring, “These are the best sandwiches in town.” “Have you tried their Cuban on Saturdays?” “Did you know Rose is a professionally-trained pastry chef?” “The new owners have done wonderful things.” It seems, for the humble couple, that word of mouth is drooling with merriment.
Changing the Protein Paradigm
Getting to know Kevin and Rose is a bit like peeling back the butcher paper on a Ham Standard, their signature sandwich stacked high with a trio of house made italian cold-cuts all dry aged and processed in-house with meat sourced directly from local farms AM Ranch and Nevada County Free-Range Beef. “Not only are we buying local products from local ranchers,” begins Rose, “but we’re a bit of a conduit for providing those products to a wider audience who aren’t going to be able to buy a whole cow or whole pig from these local providers. So we like to think of our storefront as a bit of a linchpin between local ranchers and our broader community.”
“There’s an intentionality to the products we serve,” adds Kevin. “Whether it be the quality of the meat, the way it was raised, the marbling, the intramuscular fat, the ecosystem of food (and the sourcing of well-chosen protein) is an important piece of our purpose, both as residents and small business owners; and, I think The Ham Stand plays a part in that, to the degree that we can. Small places like this do have the power to transform food systems locally. As it stands now, meat is pretty centralized in that a large area of land is provided meat from a smaller area of land. It’s largely uncommon to go into a town and get a sandwich served with meat that’s also grown in that town. But if more communities had a place where you could get meat locally, and not just meat, but meat products, that would make a big impact on the way that town relies on one another for food. So it’s cool to be part of a community where we can offer that.”
Bye Bye Vegan. Hello Julia Child
Butchery isn’t a common profession for women, but leaning into that title wouldn’t do justice to Rose’s accomplishments as a chef. An early addition to Flour Bakery in Boston (a business that now owns 10 locations and four cookbooks,) Rose is at home in an apron surrounded by stainless steel and a lobby (sometimes living room) full of hungry guests. “I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t cook,” she confesses, with a laugh. “This is what I do, all day, everyday. I cook here, I cook for my kids, I’ve never not worked in restaurants since I was 14. My mom kind of encouraged restaurant work, thinking that I would wait tables through college and then finally get a real job. What she did not expect was for me to still be cooking, and now owning a restaurant and catering business! I did go to art school in New England for a little while, but ended up dropping out to work in big restaurants where I could learn how to make all these incredible, super fancy meals. I was also vegan for a lot of this time and ultimately ended up breaking veganism because I realized if I wanted to do this, to really become strong in the kitchen, I needed to eat butter and lamb; I needed to be able to cook with all the available ingredients.”
The Ham Stand is a hole-in-the-wall eatery, which is only to say, it’s subtle, mysterious, and a bit of an anomaly in the volume and variety it produces––which makes their output an intriguing combination of experience and illusion. From dry-aging to catering, to soups, snacksticks, and sandwiches, Rose and Kevin are slowly turning the tide on what feels like The Ham Stand 2.0. “Kevin and I both take a ton of pride in what we do and we bought the store from the previous owner because there was a lot of experience and influence already. It’s not yet the shop that we would have created together, from scratch, but we’re slowly, and in small increments, changing it so that it is feeling more like our home.”
“There are pieces of meat we sell here that take three years to make,” adds Kevin. “The oldest cuts in the shop now have been curing since November of 2022. Most of the prosciutto takes two to three years, we have quite a bit that takes five months, the snacksticks take about two weeks, and then sausage is same day. When we bought the place it was still a long time before all the product was ours, and I remember feeling a great deal of pride when everything in the aging room was made by me, by my hands. Everything in the case, all the sausages, all the bacon, all the dry, cured products that take such a long time to make, it was all put there by me.”
Kevin, a long-time employee of The Ham Stand before their purchase in 2022, is that rare reader absorbing cookbooks like novels. The one who doesn’t just flip to the best photo and say, “I’ll make that,” but devours the introduction, the instructions on blanching, the variations and options in ingredients, cooking methods, and tips for further reading. “It’s a point of contention,” Says Kevin, his mustache framing a smile at Rose, “Because I like to leave them out, open, just ready to go. I studied philosophy in college, and around that same time my roommates and I realized it was cheaper to cook our own food than eat out so, being the library-oriented people we were, we figured out how to check out cook books for the year. So, I checked out Julia Child.”
A Feast without Fuss.
Thanksgiving from The Ham Stand
Without eliciting a collective sigh at the thought of preparing and cleaning Thanksgiving dinner, I will spare the list of incredible reasons outsourcing this labored holiday will ensure you spend equal, if not more time, besting your relatives at Charades while savoring maple glazed carrots, slow roasted greens, butternut squash with cashews and rosemary, and thick-sliced Turkey courtesy of The Ham Stand’s year-round catering service. “Mrs. Doubtfire would be proud!” laughs Rose. “But truly, we’ll do everything for you. We have the greens, the gravy, the potatoes, the charcuterie, the dessert––we can truly do it all, and we hope this creates a more convivial and relaxed environment for families who may otherwise be focused on whether or not they’re going to mess up the turkey or how many carrots they need for 11 people. Whatever the number of people you’re hosting, we can serve you.”
The Ham Stand may be a Nevada City treasure, but like so much of Kevin and Rose, their food has begun to take on a voice of its own, speaking to a community concerned with food source, experience, skill, passion, variety, and maybe (ok definitely) a Thanksgiving served in the spirit of the occasion; with grace, peace, pleasure, and gratitude from a small family business ready to serve.
821 Zion St. Nevada City, CA
530-264-7685
