If Teri Bell bakes your favorite dish for you, then you know she loves you.
The owner of the family run catering business, Miss Sophie’s Marketplace and Miss Sophie’s restaurant at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Pooler, says cooking always has been a labor of love and a way to connect to family and friends.
“I grew up in a family of women who did that,” says Bell, who also appears regularly in the Savannah Morning News and savannahnow.com via her Miss Sophie food column. “We were always together, we were always eating and there was always great food. It was my mother, my grandmother and my aunt in the kitchen … and it keeps trickling down that way. It’s always been the way we show each other how much we love each other …. That’s the way my whole family has been.”
Now, shoppers at local Enmark stations can get in on the love thanks to a new venture bringing Bell’s popular ready-to-bake casseroles to select Enmark locations.
Bell says Enmark allowed her to control the menu of the casseroles and she decided to begin with her bestselling entre casseroles: chicken and wild rice, Sophie’s Stroganoff, baked ziti, shepherd’s pie, poppy seed chicken and chicken alfredo.
The dishes are sold in ready-to-bake disposable containers and come in single size, “just for two” and family size, which feeds four to six people.
“We don’t have any preservative at all in anything,” Bell says. “These recipes are old recipes or ones I developed myself.”
They are made onsite in Miss Sophie’s kitchen.
“We care a lot about what goes into these dishes. For example, we don’t use pre-graded cheese because it’s dry and doesn’t melt right. We cook our own chicken and don’t use pre-cooked chicken.”
Taking a fresh approach
She says the fresh approach gives the dishes her signature homemade taste.
“The flavor is the biggest difference. It tastes homemade because it is homemade. … We aren’t mass producing these casseroles.”
Matt Clements, director of marketing for Enmark, says bringing Bell onboard was an easy decision.
“We approached Teri with this idea because of her great reputation in the community for quality home cooking,” says Clements. “We know
she has a passion for cooking and shares in some of our same family values.”
Miss Sophie’s meals are only available at their Pooler location near the Mighty Eighth Museum, Clements says, but plans are underway to extend the products to other Savannah-area locations.
“So far the response has been tremendous,” Clements says. “We’re very excited for the possibilities this might bring in the future. Additional menu items and items that will pair with the meals are already in the works.”
While the venture with Enmark may be a new gig for Bell, the casserole business is old hat for the home-cook chef.
“My original business was a ready-to-bake casserole store,” she says.
Returning to roots
Bell says Enmark reached out to her in November, and she began working to get USDA approval, which finally came through in July.
“I was excited because my original business plan was about making it easy to bring people back to the dinner table. …“I know that at the end of the day you don’t want to go home and cook this massive meal, so when Enmark approached me, I kind of felt like I was going back to my roots because that is where I started.”
Clements agrees with Bell’s ideas on eating at home and hopes Enmark can help promote that idea in their stores.
“With more and more households having both parents at work, family time at the dinner table feels like a thing of the past,” Clements says.
“Teri has created a line of casseroles and pastas that are fully cooked and take only 30 minutes to reheat. She’s made it easy on the busy family, or busy individual, to enjoy a home-cooked meal without all the work.”
Learning to go with it
Bell admits she’s so busy these days it’s hard to get dinner ready each night, but she has help.
“Luckily my husband is a wonderful cook, and we eat together every night that I’m not working.”
She says sharing a meal is a way to bond with others.
“You learn a lot about the other person when you share a meal with them. There is something about food that breaks down those barriers and facades.
“… You get to know your family by sitting down and talking to them. Also a lot of lessons are taught at the dinner table — good manners, things about life — on a casual basis.”
While Bell’s approach to meal planning and family dinners may seem planned and organized, she says she never knows what new business idea she will stumble into next.
“I don’t know what is going to come through the door tomorrow, I just take it as it comes, but right now I’m focused on Enmark and getting in there and getting a good system going so we can get the casseroles in other markets.
“… When Enmark approached me, I got their email with the proposal 10 days after my daughter died. My first reaction was to say I can’t deal with this right now, but it’s actually been a blessing in disguise because I’ve had to focus and keep moving, so it’s been a good thing to keep me going.”