Once a year, Rachel Shenk gives away a meal – for as many as 450 people.
The owner of Rachel’s Bread invites her customers to come eat on an evening she’s not usually open at 211 W. Washington St., Goshen, in the Goshen Farmers Market.
Shenk owns and operates Rachel’s Bread as a European bakery. And once a year, she orders European cheeses and makes a huge spread for hundreds.
Kent Dutchersmith said Sunday night he would have paid $20 or $30 for the meal. But it was all free.
Shenk wants to gather people around good food and wants them to enjoy it.
“In our world today, there are very few events that occur in a community that don’t require giving something for them,” she said. “In our society, we should have more giving of ourselves without anything in return. I really believe that’s an important thing.”
So she and her staff spent days preparing for the feast – and it really is a feast.
There are four salads, four entrees, two or three breakfast items, five or six desserts, 20 loaves of bread, three soups and nine spreads. Oh, and a few appetizers and huge pans of pizza.
Then there was that 89-pound wheel of comte cheese that employee Nick Bowman carried around the market. That’s the tradition before every customer meal. Someone carries the big wheel of cheese.
The theme this year was “food inside food,” so soups were served in pumpkins, spreads inside hollowed-out loaves.
Chicken salad was served in endive leaves. Dates were wrapped in bacon and cooked in the wood-fired oven. Spinach and cheese were inside the meatloaf.
“I really enjoy making it an event and making it look nice,” she said.
It was an amazing feast. I heard more than one person compare it to Babette’s Feast.
If you missed the Sunday event, you can get to Rachel’s to buy bread, cheese or her spreads. Many of those cheeses she got for the event will be available for purchase in the coming weeks.
Rachel’s Bread is located at 211 W. Washington St., Goshen, and is open Tuesday Wednesday through Saturday.
Marshall V. King is news/multimedia editor and food columnist at The Elkhart Truth. You can email him atmking@etruth.com, on Twitter @hungrymarshall or via the Dining A La King Facebook page.
