Kentucky Derby, Cinco de Mayo and Mother’s Day food specials abound

This week will be packed with dining opportunities, including Cinco de Mayo, Kentucky Oaks and Derby, and Mother’s Day. There are lots of great food options no matter your taste.

Donut Days, 814 Euclid Avenue and 185 Southland Drive, has lots of treats that would be perfect for your Kentucky Derby party, including jockeys’ silks, horse and rose cookies; petit fours and cupcakes with roses; and butter biscuits for country ham sandwiches. Advance orders are strongly recommended. Call 859-269-8223 for Euclid, 859-277-9414 for Southland.

▪  If you’re still looking for food for your Derby party for Saturday, Wild Thyme Cooking has Derby chicken salad, country ham biscuits, smoked salmon, chocolate pecan pie and much more that you can order and pick up. Go to Wildthymecooking.com or call 859-523-2665 at least 48 hours before pick-up. Delivery is available.

Wild Thyme also is having a Cinco de Mayo Fiesta on Thursday, $50, and a Mother’s Day Brunch on Sunday, with three seatings beginning at 10:45 a.m. The brunch is $30 for adults, 5 for children. Call for reservations.

▪  Woodford Reserve Distillery, 7855 McCracken Pike in Versailles, will have a four-course Mother’s Day lunch on Sunday, including cocktails and wine. The menu by chef de cuisine Nat Henton features barrel stave-grilled salmon, served with a bourbon honey glaze and pea shoots; spring pea salad with Double Oaked miso vinaigrette; hot brown croquette; and a flavor wheel parfait — layers of white chocolate mousse, fresh macerated berries and toasted hazelnuts. It’s $60. Reservations required; call 859-879-1953 or email catering@b-f.com.

▪  Brasabana, 841 Lane Allen, will have a special Mother’s Day menu from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. It includes cornmeal-crusted snapper, pollo tamale, blackened salmon and, until 3 p.m., huevos habana and sparkling sorbet mimosa. Reservations recommended. Call 859-303-5573.

▪  Azur, 3070 Lakecrest Circle, will have a special Mother’s Day brunch menu from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., offering entrees including sea grits, chicken and waffles, pasta primavera, crab cake Benedict, Asbury breakfast casserole and more. Call 859-296-1007 for reservations.

▪  Lockbox, the restaurant in the 21c Museum Hotel, 167 West Main Street, will offer a three-course, prix fixe menu by executive chef Jonathan Searle for Mother’s Day. The menu features mom-approved favorites such as the Kentucky croque with country ham, collards, fried sunny egg and cracked pepper gravy; and Skuna Bay salmon with asparagus, farm radish, spring onion and golden beet skordalia. It’s $34. An à la carte kid’s menu is available. Call 859-899-6860 for reservations.

▪  Clawdaddy’s, 128 North Broadway, will debut a brunch menu on Mother’s Day. Featured dishes include lobster strata with burrata, lobster quiche, lobster Newburg on puff pastry, lobster salad with Champagne vinaigrette. and shellfish pasta salad in lemon-dill cream. Cocktails include bellinis, mimosas, a rose spritzer and the lobster claw bloody Mary. Clawdaddy’s regular menu also will be available. For reservations, call 859-258-2529.

▪  Alfalfa, 141 East Main Street, will feature Kentucky cuisine on Wednesday. From 5:30 to 9 p.m. you can get barbecued mutton, fried catfish and trimmings, fried green tomato hot browns with turkey and bacon or portabella mushroom and spinach, Southern fried tofu, and vegetable burgoo. Next week: Indian night. Call 859-253-0014.

▪  Good Foods Co-op, 455 Southland Drive, will have a special Cinco de Mayo buffet from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday featuring green chile-braised beef with potatoes and caramelized onions, tilapia with ancho sauce, enchiladas suiza con queso, black bean cakes with salsa crudo, papas con rajas, green rice, charro beans, ezquites (corn), calabacitas (squash), ejotes guisado (green beans), vegan pozole, chicken tortilla soup, and tres leches cake.

For Mother’s Day on Sunday, Good Foods will have a brunch from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. with glazed ham, Good Foods bennies with hollandaise, Good Foods fish cakes, tomato basil quiche, cinnamon raisin bread pudding with mixed berry compote, cheesy potatoes, Stone Cross Farms sausage, roasted asparagus, Southern-style gravy, vegan gravy, vegan vegetable scramble, Gimme Lean vegan sausage, Good Foods kale, and cheesy and vegan biscuits. Both buffets are $8.99 a pound.

▪  The Gingko Tree Café at Ashland, the Henry Clay Estate, 120 Sycamore Road, has opened. Operated by Athenian Grill, the café has a new menu of artisanal sandwiches and salads from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. The café is closed on Mondays.

▪  Jim Rutledge, former master distiller of Four Roses Bourbons, announced last week plans to come out of retirement to build his distillery. He is partnering with Stephen Camisa and Jon Mowry to build a modern, highly efficient, environmentally friendly and sustainable distillery near Louisville, to be called J. W. Rutledge Distillery.

Rutledge plans to use two, or more, yeast strains in combination with several high rye bourbon mashbills to produce very high quality Kentucky straight bourbons, he said. He also plans to make a “wheated” bourbon, which uses wheat as the small flavoring grain, and a straight rye whiskey.

On Monday, he is launching a crowd-founding campaign on Indiegogo, with a link on his website, Jwrutledgedistilleryllc.com.

▪  The Food Connection at UK will wrap up its First Friday series for the spring on Friday with a breakfast forum at Gorham Hall in the E.S. Good Barn, 1451 University Drive, with Wayne Long of the Jefferson County Cooperative Extension and Laura Stevens of Catholic Charities’ Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program. Louisville has a large refugee community, many of whom came to the United States with a farming background. With support from UK Cooperative Extension and the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program, they are growing sustainable and successful lives. The free breakfast is a 7:30 a.m., with the forum beginning at 8:30 a.m. RSVP to Carol Spence at cspence@uky.edu.

▪  The Kentucky Proud brand will be all over this year’s Derby events: The Kentucky Proud WineFest, which ends Wednesday, at The Belvedere in Louisville features 16 Kentucky Proud wines along with several Kentucky Proud foods for guests to sample and enjoy. An estimated $60,000 worth of Kentucky Proud wines will be sampled and sold during the event, which started Tuesday. Kentucky Proud treats include cheese from Boone Creek Creamery in Lexington; ice cream from The Comfy Cow in Louisville; popcorn from Mr. G’s Kettle Corn in Louisville; chocolate-covered pecans made with Cellar Door Chocolates from Louisville and Kight’s Pecans from Kevil; and jams, jellies and honey from Lucky Clover Farm in Richmond. For more information and tickets to WineFest and WineFest VIP, go to Discover.kdf.org/winefest.

This story was originally published May 3, 2016 at 11:33 AM with the headline "Kentucky Derby, Cinco de Mayo and Mother’s Day food specials abound."