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Golden buttermilk biscuits studded with chocolate chips on a wooden market table beside a floured rolling pin and an empty baking sheet with a cutter
Illustration: Manatee Post

Food

Somebody Put Chocolate Chips in a Buttermilk Biscuit. Correct.

Spare Kitchen in Bradenton laminates buttermilk biscuits with a rolling pin, folds in mini chocolate chips, and shows up at Bradenton Public Market Saturdays 9 to 2. Half a dozen of the chip ones runs $30.

Spare Kitchen in Bradenton makes chocolate chip buttermilk biscuits. Same laminated dough as the classic. Same rolling pin. Mini semi-sweet chips folded in like the biscuits decided cookies were taking too long.

A half dozen is $30. A dozen is $60. They are baked to order. I have opinions about putting dessert in breakfast. Those opinions are: yes.

The rolling pin is not a prop

The biscuit page keeps it short: genuine buttermilk biscuits, handmade with a rolling pin, organic flour and sugar, local grass-fed buttermilk. The classic is their No. 1 seller — half dozen $20, dozen $40 — and the listing says laminated with a rolling pin, local grass-fed dairy, organic flour, handmade with love. That is a lot of words for "we actually roll these."

Also on the board:

  • Sweet potato biscuits, half dozen $25 / dozen $50 — jumbo North Carolina sweet potatoes simmered tender, folded in with a splash of molasses
  • Rosemary garlic, half dozen $30 / dozen $60 — rosemary from their garden, roasted organic garlic

You can also order pickup at Spare Kitchen LLC, 607 5th Avenue Dr. E, Bradenton. Online options are on each product page. I have not taste-tested these. I am reading a menu and making plans like a normal person with a problem.

The sausage is a family argument you want to lose

Same kitchen turns out Calvino family sausage. The breakfast grind is $9 — rubbed sage, white and black pepper, fine grind, loose. Hot Italian is $10 with crushed red pepper and whole fennel in natural casings. The similar-items row lists Sweet Italian $10, Cajun $12, Toulouse $12, and a Pinwheel (Chevalatta) $15. Their Marketspread page says the Calvinos cut, grind, stuff and hand-braid it themselves, preservative-free, out of a tiny kitchen in the Old Manatee historic district.

Chef Michael Calvino's about page starts in Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks and runs through the Culinary Institute of America (class of November 2008). The biscuits are Florida. The sweet potatoes are still arguing for North Carolina. Fine by me.

Saturday, Old Main, get there early

From Spare Kitchen's own markets page:

  • Bradenton Public Market, Saturdays, October through May, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Mixon Farms Market, Sundays, October through May, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Anna Maria Island Farmers Market, Tuesdays, October through May, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Tomorrow is Saturday. Old Main. The chocolate-chip biscuits will not wait for you to "just grab coffee first." If your weekend market list already includes Crust N' Crumb's sourdough on the same Bradenton Public Market stretch, add the biscuit tent to the lap. Order ahead on spare-kitchen.com if you want the chips guaranteed, or show up and hope the rolling pin has been busy.

Instagram: @spare_kitchen. Bring cash energy and a plan for the half dozen that disappears in the car.

— Marina

Can't pick? Pull a random one From the food, wine and myth-busting pile. No old game slates.

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