Celebrate Food Adventures in Argenta

I love my hometown of North Little Rock, especially the revived historic downtown district of Argenta, where you can have a food adventure just walking down Main street!

Start with at Mugs Café. Yummy coffee concoctions and breakfast – and folks line up out the door on Saturday mornings for their all you can eat pancakes for just $5.

Food in Argenta - Mugs people

Food in Argenta - Mugs Cafe breakfast

Work off some of that breakfast by wandering down to Argenta Bead Company, Galaxy Furniture, or the Argenta Drugstore – each with it’s own eclectic atmosphere and plenty to look at. Or, if it’s summertime, you definitely will want to spend some time at the Argenta Farmer’s Market, where the food and products are all guaranteed Arkansas-grown.

Food in Argenta-farmers market

Perhaps you are thirsty by now, so walk a couple blocks over to Diamond Bear Brewery to enjoy their patio and a local craft beer. More likely than not, there will be some sort of fun event going on as well.

Food in Argenta - Diamond Bear cases

Food in Argenta - Diamond Bear Brewery

Or perhaps you are ready for a lovely lunch. Back over on Main, you’ll find fantastic pizza and pasta dishes at Ristorante Capeo, a beautiful spot that has long been known for excellent Italian dinner. We are all grateful that they’ve added lunch to their repertoire.

Food in Argenta - Ristorante Capeo

If you find yourself in the area during the evening, you’ll want to head to The Joint. This coffee shop/comedy club also serves cocktails and light meals while hosting live music and improv nights. And there is always an original theater show running performed by The Main Thing, a brilliantly funny comedy trio. Truly – something for everyone!

Food in Argenta-The Joint

Food in Argenta - The Joint outside

Or maybe you’re just looking for a quiet spot. Sit and enjoy a lovely glass of wine or beer and a charcuterie plate at Crush. The atmosphere is as much a draw as their extensive wine selection; this is the perfect quiet spot to have a date or meet friends for conversation.

Food in Argenta - Crush Wine Bar

Food in Argenta - Crush Wine Bar patio

There you have it: morning, noon, or night, there’s are food adventures to be had in Argenta!

[Tweet “When was the last time you took an Argenta adventure? How about now? #foodiefriday #ARWB” @sarabethjones]

sarabeth jones 2JPG Sarabeth Jones is a creative at Fellowship North who enjoys all kinds of artistic work; her latest project is bringing the national live-reading show Listen To Your Mother to Little Rock. She lives in Sherwood with her husband, Bryan, and their kids, Elizabeth, Jonathan, and Will. She loves to write about the way they make her laugh on her blog, thedramatic.com.

Twitter & IG: @sarabethjones
FB: sarabeth.jones

Celebrate Food Adventures: Mafe – An African Stew

mafe african stew

During the years I was lucky enough to get “stuck” in France, I picked up a lot of practical, food-related lifestyle insights: meals are good, snacking is not; if you feed your kids in courses, veggies first, the veggies get eaten; it is alarmingly easy to buy a bad baguette in Paris—better to commit your neighborhood’s “good” boulangerie’s apparently arbitrary schedule to memory.

The French really know the ins and outs of food. Maybe it was the wine, but I’d swear I never ate a disappointing meal while there. If they can’t put something worthwhile on the table, they prefer not to eat.

That’s why it seems counter-intuitive that among all the delicious dishes I sampled while there, perhaps my favorite is Mafe (mah fay), a hearty Senegalese peanut stew often available in the North African cafes of larger cities.

Traditionally made with lamb or other meat, I prefer to make Mafe as a vegetarian dish, rich with meaty root vegetables. As with most stews, many variations will work (skip the turnips and up the sweet potatoes, saute some sweet peppers with the onions, throw some torn kale in towards the end), but the stars here remain the chick peas and peanut butter. Though it sounds like an exotic combination, if you grew up with peanut butter as a staple like me and still crave its comforting and childhood-memory-inducing qualities, you’ll love this dish in any of its incarnations.

Mafe: An African Stew

Ingredients

1/2 cup vegetable or olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1 large onion
1 large potato
1 large turnip
1 carrot
2 large sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1/2 tablespoon cayenne pepper (optional)
1/2 tablespoon cumin
2 fresh thyme sprigs
2 cups cooked garbanzo beans (or 1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
Fine salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 cups stock of your choice or water
2 Tbsp fish sauce, optional
3/4 cup creamy, natural peanut butter
parsley for garnish

Instructions

 Finely chop the garlic and dice the onions. Peel and cut the potato, turnip, carrot, and sweet potato into ½ inch cubes.

In a large, heavy pot over medium heat, heat the oil until shimmering and add the onions and garlic. Cook 2-3 minutes (until onions are transparent), then add the paprika, cayenne pepper and cumin and cook one more minute. Add the root vegetables, tomato paste, thyme sprigs, chickpeas, salt and black pepper.

Mix well. Cover and bring to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the veggies are tender, 20 to 25 minutes.
Turn off the heat but leave the pot on the stove.
Stir in the peanut butter and fish sauce, mix well and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve with jasmine or basmati rice.

Notes

Adapted from the Cooking Channel’s “West African’s Finest Mafe” recipe.

https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/paula-henry-mafe-foodie-friday/

After graduating Bentonville High School and Hendrix College, Paula spent many years out of the area, including time in Key West, New York City, London, New York and Paris. After the birth of their two boys, she returned to family and Bentonville, where, with her husband Frederic. She now owns and operates Crepes Paulette, a popular local food truck, with a storefront Crepes Paulette coming soon to “southern” downtown Bentonville.

Tag: celebrate food adventures

Sarabeth Jones: Food Adventures in Argenta

Celebrate Food Adventures in Argenta

Paula Henry: Mafe {Foodie Friday}

Celebrate Food Adventures: Mafe – An African Stew