The Weekly Recap #94
There's an app for that
Good morning! It is Sunday, April 10th and if you are in the midwest like me spring is officially springing. It is a magical reminder that we survived winter! Back in 2020, I wrote about the extremely enjoyable experience of watching spring come alive outside our windows while being in lockdown. While actually quarantining with covid these past few weeks, Marco and I both rotated around the windows calling each other over to share our observations of plant growth. This was oddly comforting to us both and the excitement for spring started to build.
I am happy (and grateful) to report that Marco and I are both covid free and feeling fine. Covid is no joke and we each had very different experiences with it. Now we just have annoying lingering coughs but have gone back to our normal schedules.
When we arrived home from our trip we returned to a sad container of two week old roasted brussels sprouts, a slimy bunch of cilantro, and a few lemons. That was it. I had spent a handful of hours on the flight thinking about what to cook after not cooking for so long. My hope was that I would have been so inspired by our dining out experiences in Paris that recipe ideas would be flowing out of me. This was not the case at all but I now know it was because I was falling incredibly ill.
When I had just started culinary school and was away from home for the first time, I got super sick and my mom called the only fancy grocery store around that delivered premium groceries to make sure I had the essentials. This was over 10 years ago and having a surprise delivery of soup, orange juice, and Tylenol was a total luxury back then. Now things are very different. Upon our return from Paris, with zero food in the fridge and a fever coming on strong I quickly realized we would need to order groceries because we wouldn’t be leaving the house for some time.
I’m not sure if this will be a surprise or not but I have never really used grocery delivery apps before. In the past, I was the grocery delivery person 4+ times a week for clients. Grocery shopping is a task that I find extremely enjoyable and it never gets old.
Obviously, each chain is different but each physical grocery store is unique too. When you start to go regularly you learn the ins and outs of that store and then you discover your own flow through the aisles as you shop. You become aware of when there are new products, price changes, and when the seasons shift. My favorite part is being in charge of the careful inspection of fruits and vegetables and selecting the ones in the best condition. Every week I enter the market with a meal plan and without fail, I leave with a new plan for the week. You never know what will be available and it sparks a unique type of excitement in me.
After two Tylenol broke my fever at 6 am, the day after we returned home, I quietly hopped on my phone to order a Whole Foods delivery with the Amazon app. I wanted my mom’s chicken soup more than ever and I knew we had only had a partially defrosted chicken and not a single vegetable in the fridge. My order consisted of eggs, three kinds of juice, carrots, celery, parsley, bananas, popsicles (for sore throats of course), potatoes, crackers, and a few random items that conveniently caught my eye before clicking check-out. The experience was completely uninspiring altogether. Part of it was fun, it is online shopping after all, but I didn’t get the same excitement as I do roaming through the aisles. Besides making soup, I had zero inspiration for what else to cook that week.
While we waited for groceries, I placed another delivery with Target. This one was for tissues, Tylenol, Sudafed, Pedialyte, and more at-home covid tests. It arrived in an hour, unlike Whole Foods which didn’t get dropped off until 3 pm.
Marco ended up making chicken soup and it held us over for a while. About two days later I was feeling a bit better and ready to start really cooking again. I downloaded Instacart and this time I tried to get more than just crackers and juice. With a detailed meal plan, I entered a long list of specific ingredients I needed. One feature I find interesting is the option to have your shopper pick out the “best” replacement if an item is unavailable. This was an immediate no for me. My shopper doesn't know me or my preferences and I don’t want random items that…I don’t want. The whole concept is bizarre to me and I selected “do not replace” for everything.
Instacart was much faster than Whole Foods and everything I ordered arrived in perfect condition at my door, besides one bag of green beans that were already past their prime which I was refunded for no questions asked. I will admit the convenience is incredible and I wouldn’t be mad placing an order in the future. But there is a complete disconnect from the ingredients you are purchasing and planning to prepare. Plus I struggle with the waste and I now have dozens of plastic bags piling up.
Last weekend we were finally able to venture out to the grocery store ourselves. It had been over a month without running the errand and we both went wild. Our cart was overflowing with the first of spring vegetables, new mustard from Acid League, a fresh loaf of Farm to Market bread, and a few kinds of cheese for snacking. After an hour of cleaning the fridge, washing produce, and meticulously organizing everything into its place–I felt totally inspired.
I’m not sure what I was so anxious about because I fell back into cooking naturally and I have new ideas for recipes. Snack cakes inspired by my morning pastry in Paris, tons of vegetable recipes now that more are in season, and grilling recipes because the weather has been lovely.
My feelings on grocery delivery are mixed. It’s great that one time you need it but it keeps us disconnected from real life. Shortly after sending this newsletter out, Marco and I are headed back to Whole Foods to roam the aisles, inspect new produce, and get inspired by something new. Hopefully, my favorite security guard is there and I am able to start my shopping with a friendly hello. Next week, we will be able to roam the farmers’ markets again and that’s where the real fun is.
Tell Me 💬
Do you use grocery delivery apps? Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Have they improved your life? I’m so curious how others use them!
ICYMI✨
I’m currently working on using up all the items in my freezer to make space for more frozen items 🙃. I have bags of local cherries from last summer and I made hand pies with them. You can see them in this Reel or on TikTok. Cherry hand pies might be a summer Kitchen Club recipe.
Labneh Onion Dip was this week’s Kitchen Club recipe and it is available to free subscribers as well. If you missed it, you can see it go down on Instagram or TikTok and get the recipe below.
If it seems like caviar, truffles, and uni are everywhere, that’s because they are.
How Little Gem lettuce became the crown jewel of restaurant salads
P.S. These articles are always good reads, that’s why I add them to this newsletter, but today’s five are excellent and you should read them all.
Irish Fish Pie *I want this right now!
How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk - Fun little quiz about the different regional words in America. My results are below. Not spot on for me but pretty close!
There is a cool spot in North Kansas City with restaurants, shops, and drinks made up entirely of shipping containers, Iron District. They just reopened for spring with a new lineup of restaurants and because I want more stuff to come to NKC I try to support them as much as possible. Last week we picked up tacos to go from Taco Tank. They were pretty tasty! It is nice to have another place close by to grab dinner every now and then.
For the last few months, my mother has been reminding me to change out of a sweatshirt every now and then and wear my cashmere sweaters more. Even just around the house designating specific sweaters as “house sweaters.” I have had a hard time with this because I can’t wear cashmere to cook. It absorbs any and all smells.
I finally gave it a go and lounged around in a navy sweater for a few days and realize it has tons of pills. So I did a little sweater maintenance and refreshed them with the Gleener.
I love this tool so much I bought my mom one a few years ago and you most definitely need one too!
Thanks for reading! I hope your Sunday is spent outside discovering spring flowers that have just emerged. Talk to you next week!
Xx M
I started using grocery delivery in late 2019 when my son was born. It was a lifesaver! Now that he’s older I’m back to doing most of the shopping by myself in person, but it was such a big help in those early days. Our Whole Foods are very crowded here so I’ll still occasionally place an order for delivery when I want to stock up on a lot of WF items without the hassle of in-person shopping.
Levi and I use curbside pickup! For the most part it’s a great experience for us, but you are right about the drawbacks of not personally picking out the produce and the waste in regards to plastic bags. Two years in and I still can’t figure out how to order the right amount of leeks as they don’t list a weight or amount per bundle when ordering. We either end up with triple the amount we need, or half the amount we need.
I love it for the time save and that I never buy too much food. We waste nothing and order just enough to get us through to the next order. When I’m in a store I always buy too much, so cutting that out is great! It’s also nice to know exactly how much everything costs before getting to check out, as it makes staying on budget very easy.
We used to use Instacart and I did not like it. I don’t know about KC, but in LA I noticed huge markups on just about every single item (I’m talking inflating the price of almost everything at least a dollar, sometimes two) so we stopped using. I think it’s possible they inflate prices based on zip code like target does. We were spending a little less than double on our groceries compared to now using curbside through the grocery store app.
I do miss the grocery store and would love to return, but I hope these curbside policies stick around for people with disabilities that make the grocery store a risky place or hard to navigate.