Amy Zupanci of Fond and Township Grocer

The group has met every month since March 2009 at a communal table, where they share Zupanci's food with wine pairings by Tom Crowder from Southern Wine and Spirits of Illinois and a bit of wine education from Crushed Grapes, an Edwardsville wine shop.

It's not just traditional food and wine fans that have help Fond thrive. "I love the couples who come in who are in their thirties. This is the nicest restaurant they've been to. They don't know which fork to use. It's okay, it's cool. And it opens their eyes and they get it.

"I hate going to the dining room. Leave me in the kitchen. I'm not good with the public. Leave me in the back. But with these couples [manager] Steven [Cox] will come to me and say, 'You have to go say hello to them because you will love them. And meeting you, they'll get it.' And they do. It's the coolest experience when you go to a table and you've opened their eyes and they didn't know food could taste like that."

In May she opened Township Grocer next door to Fond. The shop features Zupanci's favorite dry goods, domestic cheese, and local produce and meat. A few tables topped with mid-century vintage linens offer a comfortable spot for a sandwich at lunch from the ever-changing menu.

Zupanci still maintains the manner of one who's lived in New York for a decade -- she talks fast, moves fast and slows for little. While waving at the cars that honk hello and being interviewed, she also manages to order wine for the monthly wine dinner and visit with the vendor. Then she does the same with her beer vendor, while fielding a phone call from her local beef and pork farmer. She visits with Herren and texts with her staff inside Township to make sure they're handling the lunch rush, stepping in when they need her to fry some green tomatoes for po'boy sandwiches. Her dad stops by to discuss where to hang plants in front of the store.

While the Midwest sensibility might categorize such multitasking as rude, Zupanci does it in a way that leaves everyone feeling like he or she has been the center of attention. It's a part of sustaining a community that she loves, one that balances old and new, rural and urban.

"If you take everyone in the 27 to 42 age group, we get that there has to be a symbiotic relationship between old and new. We're not going to give up our wi-fi. We want the technology in a really smart, clever way. You can integrate it in these old buildings. We don't have to keep tearing down and building new. It's certainly more difficult to retrofit, but there has to be a reverence for the old, or else you don't appreciate the new."

She embraces these ideas with her cuisine. "They're basic ingredients. I'm not using crazy, weird, foreign ingredients. It's making people taste a radish again for the first time. I like that. I always thought I hated radishes. Ever had them butter poached for an hour? Delicious! It's reintroducing them to foods that they have overlooked."

{to be continued...}