This Week's Food

Four years ago on January 26th, 2019 we were lucky enough to step on the TEDx Natick stage and share the story of Family Dinner. We talked about the need to shorten and strengthen the local food supply chain, to use data and technology to support the incredibly important work of small local farmers.

It was very slightly thrilling but mostly terrifying. It's a small miracle no one barfed on their shoes.

There is something about this weather that changes the foods our body craves. It's as if with every inch of snow that falls the drum beat of our Circadian rhythm calls ever louder, and with greater urgency, for pasta.

One of those magical places was Pine Ridge Acres in Cumberland, Maine.  Pine Ridge, run by Evan Putnam and his team, is nestled in rolling, verdant hills with cows lazily dotting the horizon. It's the physical manifestation of what your mind pulls up when it hears the word "farm". Simply idyllic.

As firm believer that coffee is the adhesive that holds the universe and our collective good will together, I am forever grateful to the folks at Tandem for their incredible work. 

Portland based Tandem Coffee Roasters was started by Kathleen and Will Pratt in 2012. Tandem offers a rotating list of single-origin coffees and seasonal blends. In 2014 they opened their second location in Portland's West End, Tandem Bakery and Cafe. Along with serving their fresh roasted beans they put a spot light on incredible baked goods. Sticky buns with the optimal level of perfect ooey-gooeyness and a biscuit breakfast sandwich whose subtle alchemy eludes accurate description. (It's insanely good.)

We love working with True Fin. Launched as part of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s Gulf of Maine Ventures initiative, they work directly with fishermen to get us some of the best seafood we've ever had. And in the same way we love to highlight our producers, they do the same with their fisherfolk, slapping their names and vessels right on the package. Do you know the provenance of that questionable piece of fish at your local grocer? Does the fishmonger? Doubt it...

Hello, friends!

Just a couple things in this short holiday newsletter.

1. Collecting for La Colaborativa and Preble Street. This year we will be collecting items for our friends at La Colaborativa (Chelsea, MA) and Preble Street (Portland, ME) to help address food insecurity this winter. They have asked for specific donations of black beans, sugar, salt and vegetable oil.  If you wish to contribute please leave these items out and your driver will collect them. We are hoping to get 300 of each!

This week we have spuds this week in all shares and we can't stop dreaming about making latkes. Whether you make 'em with the traditional white potato or prefer a sweeter tuber, we have you covered with a few recipes, such as this gem from the Kitchn.

Friends, meet Gillian Britt. She's the creator of Eat, Drink, Lucky (EDL), the founder of Maine Restaurant week, an artist entrepreneur and (drumroll!) a Family Dinner customer! Gillian does so many cool things for the Maine food and arts community that we wanted to gab with her about her work, favorite places and why the heck she loves us so much (shucks).

At a recent event at Fork Food Lab (our Portland packing location), we got the chance to meet Tara Treichel of SeaMade, a seaweed snack bar company.  We fell in love with both the story and the treats that are making their way into your shares this week.

While the beginnings of the Thanksgiving Holiday are marred with atrocities (here is a great podcast about the origins of Thanksgiving from an Indigenous perspective), our team appreciates the chance to spend time with our friends and families over a meal. That being said, I asked folks what was their favorite bite (singular) was and here were their responses (plural).

This past Sept., Erin and I (Joe), purely for business/QC, of course, had the downright awful chore of sitting and snacking and drinking at Broad Arrow's new charcuterie bar, The Rooting Pig. It did not disappoint. And bonus points: their obsession with all things porcine shows as much in their skillful butchery and sausage-making as it does in their commitment to the well being of their animals.

Hello! Shannon here and we're going to chat again about how "rad" different crops can be for the soils and why we should eat more of them. And, if you are thinking, is she lining up a vegetable pun with quotes around the word rad, then you certainly have read enough of these emails to know that is 100% going to happen because, how rad are radishes for soil health?!

If you're anything like me you've been consuming news and content in roaring deluges. Between the endless emails, the doomscrolling and the bets on whether former British PM Liz Truss would outlast a head of lettuce (a truly delightful nugget of journalism) - it can all feel like... a lot. Content consumption is a sticky wicket and a hard habit to kick.