This Week's Food

In Mariah Carey's breathy rendition of the classic holiday jam, she croons:

"I don't want a lot for Christmas, there is just one thing I need...

Make my wish come truuuuue... All I want for Christmas is youuuuuu"

We think this dazzling Diva has it all wrong. At Family Dinner we're going with the slight but essential edit of :

" All I want for Christmas (Hanukkah/Kwanza/Festivus/Finish Independence Day) is FOOOOOOOOOOOOOD"

That's right folks; this year skip the footed jammies, the Frozen 2 Electric Toothbrush set and the stuffed armadillo. This year give folks a gift they will really love - a Family Dinner Gift Certificate! They come in Veggie Only, Half, Whole and Double Share sizes. 

Hello!

Welcome back, we missed you! We thank you for your patience with us as we took the past week off to spend time with family and give our amazing team a moment to breathe.

We hope you enjoyed the holiday with delicious provisions and passable time with Family with minimal quarrels about sports and politics. 

We also want to send a nod and some love to folks for whom the holidays, these in particular, are a time marbled with joy and sadness. Maybe the missing of someone, the sadness of time passing have you not feeling so joyful.  We started taking this week off when my father passed two years ago when Family Dinner was just a baby. It's been a bittersweet season since and we appreciate the time and space to reflect, to be sad and to let food and laughter heal what ails us.

All that said, we have some fun goods in store for this week. Steak from Tad, tomatoes to make you dream of summer and a soapbox sermon about the merits of cast iron pans. 

We hope you enjoy.

Erin, Tim and Frank the Dog

NOTE: 

The snow is making driveways/pathways a little more complicated. If you're not home, please make sure your cooler is somewhere accessible! Our drivers appreciate it!

One Pan to Rule Them All:

Yes. We are making a culinary Lord of the Rings Reference. Yes, we are nerds. And yes you are correct...no one invited us to Prom.

I digress.

The world is full of fancy kitchen crap you don't actually need. The avocado peelers and melon ballers are just as well served by the sharp knives and dull spoons you already have. But if Cast Iron pans are in a different category.

If you love to cook and don't have a cast iron, it might be time to dive in. I cook everything except scrambled eggs in ours. That includes meat, fish, fried rice, frittata and fresh baked bread. 

We prefer Lodge pans and have a slew of them. The basics are under $30, you can buy them anywhere and treated correctly you will have them until Hell freezes over. (Which, given Climate Change, may be before the 2020 elections).

They're great Christmas Gifts, cool Yankee Swaps and amazing weapons of self-defense in the unlikely event of a burglary.

Last call for Birds!

So we have mentioned a few times that we are doing Thanksgiving orders for delivery on 11/26.  We don't want to be too repetitive but we DO want the idea that you don't HAVE to do the tedious shopping this year to get stuck in your head. Sort of like the terrible refrain from the 1963 ditty from the Trashmen, from which the title of this email is .... plucked.

We have great Thanksgiving shares to offer! Turkeys from Hurd Farm , Chickens from Tad and all the Thankgiving-y produce you want. Let us do all the work for you, order your share today.  All orders will be delivered on Tuesday 11/26.

Happy Not Shopping!

Cheers,

Erin + Tim

BREAKING NEWS! 

Family Dinner is growing! We will be advertising on NRP/WBUR this week. Listen in on your morning drive, cheer loudly in your cars, and spread the word to your fellow commuters stuck in the hellacious gridlock of 93 South.

People often ask how Family Dinner operates in the winter when the fields in New England look like the frozen terroir of the White Walkers. 

The answer is we have to get creative, cast a wider net and the result is we get to meet amazing people growing really delicious products in nonconventional ways.

This week we took a trip back to Lexington Community Farm to visit Mark Gabrenya from  Brite Harvest Farms. 

To get to Mark, you walk through the rows of kale and carrots, up a hill and past the alpacas. ( I paused to tell them a joke: "You guys wanna go on a trip? Alpaca my bags!" They were nonplussed.) Once you see the 40ft shipping container, you can stop. You're at the right place.

Mark grows greens year round in a recycling shipping container from local start-up Freight Farms. He grows hydroponically - meaning the plants are grown in a water-based, nutrient rich solution. They grow under lights supported by solar power, it is an amazing operation.

Growing in a 40-foot recycled shipping container with solar power allows Mark to harvest greens regardless of the outside temperatures. The lettuces and greens are more delicate than their soil-based compatriots outside, but holy heck are they tasty.  The leaves are tender but textured and very simply lettucey. Lettuce like. Hmm. That's not right. Letticious? 

You get the point, they're delicious.

We will have Brite Harvest green partially in our rotation for the coming months. We hope you enjoy!

I am the only one who gets in cooking ruts? We have access to the most beautiful, fresh,  local food yet in my abject laziness I will still return to the same things: everything is a taco, anything can be a pizza.

We all need some inspiration to pull us out of the depths our Everything is a Taco Hell. For that, I turn to Chef Dan Souza.  He's the Editor in Chief for Cook's Illustrated and a friend. If you're wondering if it is exhausting to have such beautiful and talented friends, yes. Yes, it is. It's the worst.

We went to visit him last week at America's Test Kitchen, to tour the space and learn about what he's been up to. ATK is pure nirvana for anyone who cares about food. A library with thousands of cookbooks, room after room of beautiful equipment and perfectly organized pantries. ( I actually have not left ATK yet. I'm penning this email from the cookbook room, and hope to be protected by the Squatter's Rights Act in the State of Massachusetts.)

Dan has a great channel on YouTube called "What's Eating Dan". They're short, smart takes on simple food topics that are informative and approachable.  Everything from egg yolks to cauliflower.  Check it out to improve your kitchen savoir faire and fall in love with things you never thought were in your wheelhouse.

Enjoy the weekend folks!

Erin + Tim

News Flash!

There are two new products on our a la carte offering! Delicious almond milk from Nectar and Green;  and Chickens from Tad at Feather Brook Farms! You can still get your coffee fix from the folks at Tandem as well as all the other add ons. Keep your eyes peeled for more news in the a la carte aisle!!

The Good Stuff:

So many of our members share their incredible creations with us week-to-week on social media, text messages or email.  We love seeing what you do with the goodies we carefully curate for you every week. Most of the time it makes just hungry and jealous.... but we love it.

Some folks have asked about more food resources and recipe ideas- so we want to share resources as they come across our desk/table.

It's exciting to learn that some of our members are food nerds themselves and it gives us great pride to share their work with you, to help create a community around great local food; how to source it, how to cook it and how to love it. 

News Flash!

There are two new products on our a la carte offering! Delicious almond milk from Nectar and Green;  and Chickens from Tad at Feather Brook Farms! You can still get your coffee fix from the folks at Tandem as well as all the other add ons. Keep your eyes peeled for more news in the a la carte aisle!!

The Good Stuff:

So many of our members share their incredible creations with us week-to-week on social media, text messages or email.  We love seeing what you do with the goodies we carefully curate for you every week. Most of the time it makes just hungry and jealous.... but we love it.

Some folks have asked about more food resources and recipe ideas- so we want to share resources as they come across our desk/table.

It's exciting to learn that some of our members are food nerds themselves and it gives us great pride to share their work with you, to help create a community around great local food; how to source it, how to cook it and how to love it. 

This weekend we are honored to be involved in the Let's Talk About Food event at Harvard University.

This all-day, FREE event features local chefs, food entrepreneurs and experts. There are presentations, demonstration and plenty of fun things to do. 

The mission of the event sounds exactly like ours at Family Dinner:

"We start at the beginning of where and who grows our food, who brings it from the oceans, coaxes it from the soil, who works with our food in industrial kitchens and labs, in large greenhouses and in small craft cellars, etc.

We care about the supply chain of how food gets from here to there, and how much of it gets left behind. We care about food waste, we care about food insecurity and justice. We care about how many miles food travels to get to us. We care about humanity."

That sounds so much like the working goals of Family Dinner, just more eloquent. (Which leads me to wonder: is plagiarism actually illegal? Could I just borrow their text?)

So come on down, and pahk your Prius in Hahvahd Yahd.

We go on at 1pm at the "Endless Table" - we would love to see you there!

Erin + Tim

One of our amazing teammates at Family Dinner, Olivia (professional glassblower, teller of horrible makes and maker excellent Spotify playlists) came to us once and asked if we had ever had the goodies from Quebrada Baking Co in Arlington (and Belmont! And Wellesley!). I hadn't and next thing I knew Olivia brought us an assorted box of cookies, rolls, and croissants to try- thinking it would be a great fit for Family Dinner.

To ensure a well-run experiment; I did what any data obsessed foodie would do and I ATE THEM ALL.

To be honest, I did what I used to as a child with boxes of Chocolates and I ate the best bites of each one and put them rest back in the box for Tim. (I'm an Only Child, folks). 

We were really impressed with what we tried. You can taste the delicious ingredients, the quality of the butter and the freshness of goodies made just that morning. And we echoes of our mission in theirs:

"We are a family run neighborhood bakery with unrelenting dedication to our product, our team, and our communities.

Everything is baked in house, starting in the early hours of the morning to ensure freshness.  We use the highest quality ingredients and are committed to sourcing locally. We strive to bring the freshest, simplest and most wholesome Ingredients in every decadent bite."

We hope you enjoy the treats this week and we can't wait to hear what you think.

We also always love your suggestions on new products and new things to carry! Like this week's garlic salt from Hippy Pilgrim- we put that stuff on EVERYTHING. (Pucker up, people! It's garrrlicky!)

Bon Appetit,

Erin + Tim