Cozy Comfort Food at Modern Homestead
Happy holidays, readers! While you indulge today, don’t forget we need to eat tomorrow and the next. When you’re sick of leftovers, that’s when Trellis Cafe at Modern Homestead helps out. Get out of the house for a bit, turn on your latest audiobook or your favorite playlist, and take a drive up either Kingwood Pike or Route 7 for a cozy dinner on Saturday for you and whoever is left in your house.
The Cafe’s Saturday Cozy Dinners act as an eat-in experience with limited seatings each week. Sometimes, however, a to-go option is offered. Sunday Suppers act similarly. The menu is prix fixe, or “fixed price,” and offers a choice between 2-3 appetizers, mains, and desserts for $40 per person. Extra accompaniments are available, and the restaurant is BYOB with no corkage fee.
Appetizers: Cheese Board, Butternut + Sage Soup
Mains: Cafe Bolognese, Cajun Crab Cakes
Desserts: Tarte Tartin (Apple Tart), Upside Down Pineapple Cake
I ordered my two cozy dinners to go so we could enjoy a higher-end meal at our place without cooking. It started with a Firefly Farm cheese plate. Firefly Farm is just over the state line toward Deep Creek in Accident, Maryland, and known for its goat cheese. We received a trio that included a strong blue cheese and two soft-ripened goat cheeses served with olives and assorted crackers. The black and blue was sharp, and the olives were salty. All the cheeses were consumed hastily with the array of crackers served alongside and the dips including a delightful smoked pepper jelly. Another extra I added was the butternut squash and sage soup. These two ingredients were the stars of this also creamy addition.
It was not hard to realize that simple recipes featuring flavorful ingredients are what made the Modern Homestead dishes shine. Our mains were the two cajun crab cakes with wild rice and garlic green beans, and Cafe Bolognese. The meat sauce was made of slow-braised local beef with plum tomatoes and herbs served over mezze maniche pasta with grated pecorino to top it.
The crab cakes were light and tasty with a different flavor than you’d be used to in a crab cake. They were not fishy, and there was what I believe to be roasted red peppers combined within that helped give off Cajun hints. The wild rice paired nicely and the green beans were fresh. The pasta served was shorter and wider than rigatoni, which allowed the delivery of all of the Bolognese sauce. That said, there was nothing left on the plate for the lovely pieces of crusty bread served with herb butter to sop up. Only a few flavors at a time, please! Here were two house-made, yet simple dishes that again let the ingredients shine. And even though I ordered carb-centered plates which came with a great amount of food served, I did not finish my meal feeling overly heavy and full.
The final piece to this Cozy Dinner was dessert, of course! The upside-down pineapple cake with rum glaze was my favorite, and the tarte tartin, or apple tart - think apple pie without so much crust.
My favorite part about Modern Homestead is it really is the embodiment of a homestead - just ask the chickens in the backyard! Across the street, their guest house is available for overnight accommodations, the neighboring rustic church plays host to celebrations and summer concerts, and the cafe is open on weekends, offering coffee and pastries in the morning and sandwiches for lunch - all with locally sourced, simple ingredients. The keystone of the place, their garden center, offers the best begonias I keep buying each spring, and has honestly saved me each Mother’s Day that I have lived here.
You can make reservations for these special events online on their website at modhomestead.com or on their Facebook page, Modern Homestead at Tathams. It is worth the drive!
Map It: 41 South Robert Stone Way, Reedsville, WV
*This article was originally written by The Morgantown Dish for the Dominion Post and has been repurposed digitally for the blog.