A Sight for Sore Eyes
It’s reason enough to volunteer for the non-profit Ocracoke Preservation Society. If you’re not a gift shop volunteer (yet!), then you’ll have to make your own Café-style brunch. You’re in luck! The second edition of the Café Atlantic cookbook will be released this week!
You can recreate the OPS brunch, including, Chicken and broccoli crepes (pg. 50), Sweet potato biscuits with fig preserves (pg. 43), Cinnamon crunch cake (pg. 44), and Crab quiche (pg. 51). Don’t forget to wash it down with a fresh-squeezed mimosa!
What have the OPS gift shop volunteers done to deserve such happiness? Well, together they’ve donated over 160 hours of their time so far this year. Gift shop volunteers sell stuff, but they also represent the museum, the OPS organization, and the village of Ocracoke to the visiting public. They are the friendly faces that greet visitors, answer questions, and further the cause of the OPS mission by sharing it with others.
“We couldn’t run this place without you,” Amy said to the gathered volunteers and their plus-ones at the special brunch on Sunday. “Thank you for all you do. You give me great ideas, and show an appreciation for the gift shop, so this brunch shows our appreciation for you.” (Amy promises a bigger volunteer celebration in the fall to thank all the OPS volunteers, in addition to the gift shop crew).
The crowd broke into a cheer when Amy announced that the Gift Shop Volunteer Appreciation Brunch was Café Atlantic-themed! Prepared by island-renowned, retired former owner of the most-missed Ocracoke restaurant Ruth Toth, with help from Sue Dayton and Merle Davis, the brunch was beautiful and delicious. Ruth’s efforts are already a trifecta of helpfulness: she’s an OPS board member, a gift shop volunteer, and a member of the special events committee that planned the brunch. This was the icing on the cake, or, even better, the crunch on the cinnamon cake and the fig preserves on the sweet potato biscuits.
For the guests of the brunch, tasting Ruth’s cooking one more time was a dream come true.
“We are still in mourning about the Café,” said gift shop volunteer Jen Esham.
Her date, Marshall Burgess, was even more grateful – and dramatic. “It was the worst day in my Ocracoke life when Ruth closed,” he said.
Norma Sigal bought the first edition of the cookbook when it came out in 2006, and then downloaded the Kindle edition so that she can always have it with her in her travels. Norma likes to impress guests with the Baked Fish with Parmesan crust entrée or sometimes the Baked Fish with Creamy Lemon Dill Sauce (both pg. 31), and says, “Everything I’ve made from the cookbook is good.” It’s true. Ruth’s recipes are amazingly easy to follow. Success is achievable.
The Café Atlantic opened in 1989 serving lunch and dinner seven days a week, adding Ruth’s special brunch menu on Sundays in the 90’s. After they stopped being open for lunch, but continued with Sunday brunch, it was hard to keep daytime staff for just one day a week.
The death knell for brunch came in 2007, when server Kathy Espinoza was seven months pregnant with her first son, Uriel. “She was supposed to work brunch and dinner,” Ruth said. “But she went into labor early. No one could cover either shift, so we just had to close. I thought ‘I am literally killing my staff.’ We had to stop doing brunch.” Uriel grew into a fine young boy, Kathy had two more sons, and the Café kept going (sans Sunday brunch) for six more years.
In 2013, Ruth and her husband, Bob, retired and closed the Café, amid the weeping and wailing of Ocracoke residents and visitors, who were simultaneously feeling sorry for themselves and wishing the Toths a happy and well-deserved retirement. The cookbook was sold out, but Ruth produced a Kindle version to keep people happy.
But, “The Kindle edition just never took off,” she said. So…. back to the printing presses. Ruth finally found an affordable printer and updated the cookbook for the 2nd edition by adding twenty (20!) new recipes! Five new appetizers! Florentine Fish Chowder! Four more cakes: Ocracoke fig cake, Lime Cream cake, Boston Cream Pie, and Chocolate Strawberry Shortcakes! More desserts: Chocolate Bread Pudding with white chocolate sauce, Pumpkin Praline Bread Pudding, and more!
This edition is spiral bound (because “A cookbook needs to lie flat.”) and only $15.95 (the original was $17.95!) It’s going to fly off island bookshelves like hotcakes, specifically Ruth’s Buttermilk Pancakes (pg. 47)
Although the additional recipes are tantalizing, I never even realized anything was missing – the 2006 edition had all my favorites: Crab Cakes (pg. 32), Felafel (pg. 38), Tomato Alfredo Soup (pg. 12) – but apparently, some people weren’t satisfied until Ruth added her two Cole Slaw recipes and Lime Cooler cookies, among others in the new edition. I will, of course, buy a copy of the new version. My cookbook shelf would be incomplete without it, and I need to find out if Ruth's Snappy Cheese Wafers are as tasty as Capt. Rob's Cheese Straws...
On Thursday, June 25th, Ruth will celebrate the new cookbook with a book-signing party at Books to Be Red. She and the books will be there from 3 – 5pm, and as if that wasn’t wonderful enough, Ruth is going to bring refreshments – using recipes from the Café Atlantic cookbook, of course! You can get a taste of the deliciousness that islanders miss without even volunteering at OPS.
