This Week's Food

The Summer Solstice just passed us and despite the rain has us feeling as bright and cheery as kittens (whatever that means).

Boy, oh boy do we love a produce based pun around here. We have the humor of a 70 year old dude in a Kenny Loggins t-shirt who lives off Coors Banquets and Werther's Originals** and we won't say sorry for it.

Howdy-

Joe here. In addition to GM-ing the heck out of Family Dinner, I've been playing in bands for... geez... 30-odd years? And back on May 19th, my current one, Gozu, hit the road for a few weeks to play a bunch of shows throughout the US. 22 days of driving ~7,500 miles across 24 states. We saw dozens of faces. And we rocked some of them. (Bon Jovi, anyone?)

We're so excited to have asparagus back in the shares this week. The season is short so we love to it as much play time as possible.

There are so many ways to enjoy this, in pasta, on a tarte, plain with butter - just don't over cook it. It goes from the perfectly crisp spear to a mushy wand in the time it takes to say "what the hell is a Vanderpump rules?". So take your time with it, be delicate and let all the summery deliciousness be the star of your plates.

We have long been Superfans of the Boston Renegades, the professional women's tackle football team.  These women are pure grit, and pure inspiration.  They also, no big deal, are four time National champions.

People have long been asking about treats and food for the the #1 person in their lives, their dogs.

This week our pals at Brookford Farm heroically answered this call. They are making raw chicken and carrot patties for your pooches to treat them like the royalty they are. Bella, pictured, can vouch for them. Two paws up.

Meet Amy and Bruce Rogers, two of the G.O.A.Ts of Family Dinner. Amy and Bruce have been with us since the beginning, supporting and encouraging us, providing feedback and helping us grow.
This week marks their 300th order. Honestly when I saw that number, quite by accident, I teared up a little (I think someone must have been mincing onions nearby). Though we're thrilled to call them friends now, we didn't know them when they started with Family Dinner, and they have stuck with us providing incredible support along the way.

Joe and I asked our mother's, both dyed in the wool foodies and excellent cooks, what some of their favorites are. Just hearing back from them harkened back to childhood, a family table and the ability to eat absurd amounts of food without gaining weight. Here are what these two legends have to say:

This week we have mustard greens in shares from Clark Farm and Dandelion Spring. These greens are, in the parlance of our times, wicked good for you - loaded with vitamins and antioxidants.

In lots of kitchens a tower of cookbooks leans against a coffeemaker, or sits side by side like soldiers on a shelf. If your kitchen is anything like ours - that collection is a spectrum of popularity. Some are dog-eared and covered in gravy, bacon grease and the remnants of one perfect Negroni. Others have unbroken spines, their culinary wisdom having never seen the light of day.

As seasons shift we wanted to share with you a couple of our favorites that keep us feeling inspired as the weather changes scenes.

Good Morning!

This week we want to highlight an unsuspecting starlet in the veggie line up. Annually, spring dug parsnips pop onto stage in this liminal phase between winter and spring, telling us not to fear, that spring is on its way.

Hello Friends!

Between podcasts and music, I'm often tuned to MPBN and get little jolts of delight when I hear about folks we know and work with. This past week, a story was aired about aquaculture in New England that featured Springworks Farm, who have been helping to keep our diets a bit less beet-y and turnip-y for the last few months. They take advantage of “fish and plants working together to help each other grow in a natural ecosystem where water circulates in an endless loop”. Last year, they produced "around 2 million heads of organic lettuce every year and up to 200,000 pounds of tilapia". And, counterintuitively, compared to land-based agriculture, aquaponics actually requires less water.

At the core of Family Dinner is the mission to use technology and data to help eliminate food waste. Fun Fact: Did you know that between 30- 40% of food that is produced in the US is wasted. That adds up to the tune of between 125- 160 BILLION pounds a year. (Correction: That's not fun in the slightest)