CAZENOVIA — This winter, Caroline Horvatits and Anna Brummeler of From Scratch Kitchen and Farm are working out of Loka Leaf Tea Lounge to offer the community three small-batch food service experiences per week. From Scratch is taking over the tea lounge’s kitchen for a walk-in Sunday brunch, a Friday Winter Supper Club, and Thursday “Plates & Pours.” All dishes are made from scratch and developed with health and sustainability in mind. Horvatits and Brummeler tailor each menu to the season and utilize as many locally grown ingredients as possible. Brunch, which returned to Loka Leaf on Dec. 22, is served from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Offerings are prepared in limited quantities and are available on a first-come, first-served basis. The first From Scratch Supper Club is scheduled for Jan. 10. Dinner service will begin at 6:30 p.m. The cost is $75 per person, plus gratuity and drinks. Supper Club reservations can be made by emailing [email protected] and should include the desired date, the number of people, and any food allergies. “To us, a supper club is reminiscent of a dinner party with home cooking, a relaxed atmosphere, and good conversation,” said Brummeler. “This is how we have designed our Friday evenings to be. People can expect personal touches, surprises, and an overall interactive experience. We want the meals to feel like we’ve invited everyone to our house to eat plenty of good food. We’re self-taught, so we don’t want to pretend to [offer] anything more than good home cooking with lots of attention to detail.” Each Friday event will begin with a wine-tasting inspired by Brummeler and Horvatits’ trip to California this past fall. “[We] had the opportunity to go wine-tasting for the first [time],” said Brummeler. “The interactive experience of picking out flavor profiles and comparing grape varieties inspired us to incorporate wine sampling [when] guests first arrive at the tea lounge. We’ve encouraged our guests to arrive early, find their tables with handwritten name cards, and make their way up to the front counter, where we will be pouring samplings of the wines [chosen] for the meal. As our guests settle in, we will deliver small tasting boards to their tables that will highlight some seasonal and local flavors.” The January supper club menu features pickled carrots, spiced nuts, crisp watermelon radish, soft whipped goat cheese, honeycomb, and homemade crackers, followed by a multi-course dinner. From Scratch’s Thursday “Plates & Pours” service will be offered from 3 to 9 p.m. starting Jan. 9. “We are kicking off the new year with wine and beer offerings,” said Horvatits. “Plates & Pours is the perfect opportunity for a casual late lunch or dinner. We will have five different grilled cheese sandwiches available for January’s menu. We [will also] have a pumpkin tomato bisque made with storage pumpkins from our garden this past fall. The style of service will follow suit with brunch — first-come, first-served, no reservations, small batch. Just replace that morning coffee with a beer and come enjoy some comfort food.” The core menus for all three weekly services will change at the start of each month. Current menus will be posted on the From Scratch website. “Keeping our menus the same for a whole month allows everyone multiple chances at select dishes,” said Brummeler. “It also makes our life easier but still allows us to change with the seasonal offerings.” The Winter Supper Club series will run until the end of April. “At that point, the season is changing and so [are] the ingredients,” said Brummeler. “We plan on continuing dinners [with a] new series that will highlight the seasonal food. We’re already counting down the days until summer and the bounty of local ingredients it brings. We enjoy grouping our food services into series because it allows us to switch things up, play around with menus, and work with different ingredients.” According to Horvatits, From Scratch is dedicated to transparency regarding the sources and uses of its ingredients. “For example, we cook largely with grass-fed butter, [and] we source local grass-fed beef, pasture-raised chicken, and pork,” she said. “We even go as far as to inquire what our farmers feed their animals and how they are raised [when] choosing who we work with. [In addition to providing] great food, we want to be here to support people working hard in our community to promote the health of the earth, animals, and people. As far as ‘unhealthy’ goes, we do utilize minimal amounts of sugar in our baked goods, and we prepare delicious homemade donuts that are fried in non-GMO 100 percent canola oil. We try to be as open as possible about the food on your plate.” Loka Leaf Tea Lounge is owned by Mark and Julie Biviano and is located at 76 Albany St. in Cazenovia. From Scratch Kitchen and Farm officially launched in December 2023. For updates, follow the business on Instagram @fromscratch.caz or sign up for the event newsletter at fromscratchcaz.com.