Among the many trends in healthy dining is the advent of services that deliver meal kits right to your door — complete with all of the ingredients needed to prepare a lunch or dinner entree. The individual ingredients themselves are pre-measured, and the packages literally include everything down to the spices.
There is a degree of variability in the different plans, but the underlying goals of the services include providing a wide selection of healthy meals, which are partially prepped to save time. They are portioned in serving sizes that help minimize wasted food. And depending on the service, the pricing is very competitive. In fact, most services claim the meals cost less than buying the same ingredients at the store, and since they are conveniently brought to your door, no trip to the is store needed.
As the literature in one site points out, food you buy in a typical grocery store goes from farm, to a wholesaler, then to a grocer’s warehouse, to the store, and finally winds up on your plate.
The collective buying power of the larger services allows them to buy meat, fish, dairy, and produce directly from the farmers. Not as fresh as going to the farmer’s market maybe, but a convenient compromise between that and going to your local supermarket.
These are website based service — you go online, sign up for one of their plans, and choose what items from the menu you’d like that week. Your delivery arrives in a specially packed, refrigerated box — the plans are usually set up for weekly delivery, with the ability to skip a week or two with sufficient advance notice. I’ve included five below but there are many more and please note; the DDBham team has not tried all of these yet so this is not an endorsement, we will be reviewing them in the future.
1. Blue Apron
One of
Blue Apron’s goals is to “Help Build a Better Food System”. Claiming that our current (in the US) food distribution system is “complicated”, they are working to change that by “partnering with farmers to raise the highest-quality ingredients, by creating a distribution system that delivers ingredients at a better value, and by investing in the things that matter most—our environment and our communities. This will be a decades-long effort, but with each Blue Apron home chef, together we can build a better food system.”
They offer two meal plans; the two person plan gets you three meals per week and runs $59.94 which is $9.99 per serving, and a family plan which gets you two meals per week and includes four servings coming in at $8.74 per serving.
The week this article was written the menu included such tempting offerings as
Fontina Stuffed Pork Chops (pictured above),
Mushroom and Broccoli Casserole (below), and Seared Salmon and Lemon Labneh just to name a few.
In addition to offering food, Blue Apron has a monthly wine plan, and a nicely laid out, informative website. The kits come with clear preparation information included in the boxes, but the website also has preparation directions with large, colorful photographs.
It also features an easy to use, interactive calendar that lets you schedule optimum delivery dates and an online store with cookbooks, various kitchenware, nifty kitchen utensils, and other cooking related items. Find them at
https://www.blueapron.com/.
2. HelloFresh
HelloFresh is another major entry into the market. According to their website, “HelloFresh founders Dominik and Thomas, and a merry band of HelloFreshers set out to change the way we eat. It was a pretty big dream, but they believed that everyone should have access to the best ingredients and the knowledge to cook them. Not just the experts and the enthusiasts. And so they spent a whole afternoon packing shopping bags and delivering them by hand to their first 10 customers…their families and friends!”
It goes on to say, “Everything required for weeknight meals, carefully planned, locally sourced and delivered to your door at the most convenient time for each subscriber. Behind the scenes, a huge data driven technology platform puts us in the prime position for disrupting the food supply chain and for fundamentally changing the way consumers shop for food.”
Echoed in these words is the premise that our current food distribution system is ineffective and wasteful, and the underlying goal of some of these services is to fundamnetally improve the way we shop for, and prepare food.
In my recent trip to the HelloFresh website, the menu included
Chicken Gone Nuts (a walnut encrusted chicken), Sizzling Beef Stir Fry, and Sweet Potato Sunshine Salad (pictured left).
Their “Classic Plan” includes meat and fish entrees for a cost of $9.99 per meal, the meal price for the veggie plan is the same, and the family plan works out to $8.74 per meal. They also have an excellent website but it a takes a little bit of work to navigate to the area that discusses the company itself. You can find HelloFresh at
https://www.hellofresh.com/tasty/.
Company site http://www.hellofreshgroup.com/.3. Sun Basket
We chose Sun Basket because it features an entirely organic menu. In the company “Values” they state, “We believe food should taste good first, and do good always. From our 100% recyclable box to the pristine organic food inside it, we create each Sun Basket with unbelievable care. Because good food makes life better.”
Their food is “Organic and non-GMO produced, harvested at the peak of freshness; Humanely raised, antibiotic and hormone-free meat, and seafood approved by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Watch List (with) nutritionist-approved recipes including Omnivore, Paleo, Gluten Free, and Vegetarian options.”
One of the unique feature of Sun Basket is their recent move to %100 compostable and recyclable packaging. A recent
article in the Mother Nature network suggested that
while food-kit delivery services may cut down on food waste, and save energy by eliminating some transportation needs related to transportation and storage, they increase waste through excessive packaging. The article’s author points out that, “One of the reasons (she) had no interest in these oh-so-convenient services was the amount of packaging that gets thrown away when each ingredient comes in an individual toss-able container.” At the time of writing, that made Sun Basket a bit unique. The other vendors in this article did not specifically state they used 100% recyclable or compostable packaging. My guess is they all will move in that direction.
When I visited the Sun Basket site, the menu included
Masala Shrimp with Turmeric-roasted Cauliflower (top), North African Black Lentil pitas with Tangy Carrot-cranberry Salad (above), and Almond-crusted Trout with Chermoula and Cucumber-olive Salad (left). Prices are a bit more expensive the the two previously listed, but if organic food and recyclable containers are important, the expense is probably worth it. The 2 person plan ends up being $11.49 per serving and the family plan comes in at $11.49 per serving. The website was inviting, clearly laid out, and easy to navigate. Find them at:
https://www.sunbasket.com.
4. PeachDish
I included PeachDish because of their emphasis on southern cooking. Founder and Atlanta native Hadi Irvani was selling shoes after graduating from the University of Virginia. In his spare time, he began to host unique dinner parties, where guests who often didn’t know one another, and would arrive to find the menu not specifically set. Hadi would suggest a recipe, and the guests would then work together to prepare it and then of course, sit down to eat together.
The bio on the website goes on to explain, “In today’s society, it’s rare for people to make time to cook together, to eat together, and to get to know a stranger. Hadi’s dinner guests—many who were novices in the kitchen—raved about the experience. They’d taken ownership of the dinner and realized they could create meals at home. Hadi realized something too; he could package his dinner party and deliver it to guests across the nation.”
“His first shipment in summer 2013 was to ten customers—nine friends and a woman in Lake Charles, Louisiana who’d stumbled across his business plan online. Ingredients came from the grocery store and deliveries didn’t include recipes. He named the company PeachDish as a nod to the sweet seasonal fruit of Georgia soil.” PeachDish has grown considerably since then, and now ships over 200,000 meals a year.
Menu items included,
Hanger Steak with Creamy Egg Noodles & Mushrooms (top), Potato 
Encrusted Redfish (above), and a SuperFood Peanut Noodles with Pecan, Arugula & Roasted Radish Salad (left).
PeachDish is also different in that they don’t have specific weekly plans. Rather, you can shop from a wide selection of menu items. Each item (I say items because there are such options as desert as well) can be ordered in portions ranging from 2 person servings to 12 person servings. Pricing varies depending on the order and servings ordered. Orders that are placed by midnight Sunday are delivered the following week. The website is inviting, and has a lot of great information about the history and their core values. Find them at
https://www.peachdish.com.
Chef’d
According to their website, “Flipping through a magazine one day, (Chef’d) founder and CEO came across a truly mouth-watering recipe, and wondered, “Why can’t I literally press a button and have this gourmet meal shipped to my door?” A year later, Chef’d was born, designed as a meal kit company like no other, where the choice is truly in the hands of the consumer. With no subscriptions, the ability to re-order your favorites, and a selection of over 300 meals, Chef’d is changing the meal kit landscape one delicious meal at a time.”
True to their claim, the meal selection at Chef’d is extensive. Another thing that makes Chef’d different is their preset diet meal plans, which is a great idea. Some of the plans include the Weight Watchers Diet, a Runner’s World Diet, and The American Diabetic Association Diet.
There is also a ten-minute meal menu , which is a great option. Most meals from Chef’d and the other plans seem to take about a half an hour, and often it is convenient to have a healthy meal in less time. Other meal categories include breakfasts, desserts, gourmet meals, and “family friendly” selections.
As you might guess from the name, Chef’d features and highlights the chefs that create the meals, and there are quite a few noteworthy and celebrity chefs included.
A quick visit to the sight quickly demonstrated the impressive array of choices. The “Recently Added” menu included
Greek Style Chicken (top), Albondigas Soup (above), and Chicken Madeira (below).
Perusing through the rest of the website with all of the choices took quite a while. It was a hard to find to find information about the philosophy of the company or how they sourced the food, so it was difficult to tell if they followed the farm-to-recipe process that the other providers featured, or if they included a desire to foster a decrease in food waste and a more efficient distribution system.
Other than that one item, the website was inviting, easy to navigate, and did a good job of organizing the considerable amount of food choices offered. Prices tend to vary greatly, depending on the food type and the amount of portions you order, but by in large this site is more expensive that the others — it costs a bit of a premium to enjoy the creations of well-known chefs.
I intend to try some of the items from the diabetic-friendly menu in the near future (this writer is unfortunately diabetic). I wonder if you can combine the diets, say maybe do the combination Runner’s World and The American Diabetic Association Diet? Maybe by doing that I could lower my blood sugar and get into shape as well.
You can find these diets and their other fine meal choices at:
https://www.chefd.com/.
That is by no means all of the meal-kit delivery options out there. In fact, a Google search will find almost too many options, ranging from smaller local enterprises, to others that specialize in ethnic cuisine — and others such as the
Purple Carrot that serve only vegan food. The team at DDBham is going to begin to try these out over the coming months and will report back. If you get to it before us and would like to let us know what you think, comment below or email editor@ddbham.com.
The calm exterior was deceiving. Peering through the service window, I was met by a bustle of activity – Anna and Sierra seemed to be on fire – working quickly and intently, answering phones, cooking food, and filling to-go boxes.
With orders stacked up on the front of the exhaust hood, I realized i was seeing a perfect example of a restaurant operating under the new pandemic paradigm.
With social distancing, closed dining rooms or reduced seating, and an emphasis on take-out or delivery being the new norm – most orders come in over the telephone, or are online orders from the website, announced by a chiming iPad.
I was contemplating the first article to write for this publication after our two-year hiatus. In addition to writing about food, it seemed appropriate to explore some of the challenges faced by restaurants during the ongoing pandemic. That’s when I came across a recent Facebook post entitled “Portrait of a Food Truck Lady on Fire“ written by Anna Poutous, New Public’s owner. In the post, she poignantly relates,
Now standing in front of Anna’s trailer, I peered intently at the menu, and tried to make a decision. There was a lot to choose from, and the items have eye-catching names like the “Eggs Quarantine” (pictured left) and the “Hidden Dragon“.
I am of Greek descent, and when I was young, I spent a lot of time with relatives who to loved to cook. One of my favorite Greek foods is tzatziki sauce. Hence, the “Gyro Fries” with house-made tzatziki caught my eye – and that settled it.
The generous helping of fries (pictured at the top of the page) did not disappoint. They came topped with house-marinated soy curls, smothered with tangy house-made tzatziki, then garnished with (you guessed it) house-made pickled onions AND a pepperoncini. The order was a meal unto itself. I had been thinking about ordering an entree with the fries, and was glad I hadn’t. The fries were filling and I had a good excuse to return to New Public almost immediately – not that I needed one.
Anna’s passion is creation, and the wide variety of menu items with their colorful names, reflect that passion.
Of Greek descent herself, I asked Anna if her family history included restaurants. Many Greek immigrants went into the restaurant business so I assumed that might have been where her interests began. Her grandparents emmigrated from Greece to NYC in 1935 and her grandfather subsequently owned a number of restaurants in various parts of the country. One located in Houston was named “New Public” hence Anna’s choice of names.
But not wanting to get into the restaurant business, her father opened an automotive repair business still operated by family members to this day. Anna credits him as being one of her greatest inspirations.
Passionate about food from a very early age, Anna has fond memories of cooking alongside her two grandmothers – yia yia (her Greek grandmother) and “Mamma-Lee” – her grandmother on her mother’s side. She experienced the best of two different worlds – traditional Greek food and down-home southern comfort food. These experiences planted the early seeds for her creativity and love of variety.
Over the years, partially as a result of her 2008 rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis (RA – an autoimmune disease), she became more interested in food-as-medicine to heal the body and mind – while keeping animals off the plate. Anna had been a vegetarian for almost a decade when diagnosed with RA, which led her to a gluten-free diet. She will attest to the improvements in her health as a result of eating (and not eating) certain plant-based foods.
The actual decision to make food her livelihood crystalized around 2015 while working at an environmental company in southern California that increasingly felt out of line with her values. Looking to move in a different direction, the first, much smaller “New Public” trailer opened in Sisters, Oregon in 2016, and in March 2018 Anna moved to Bellingham. Finding the existing trailer did not have sufficient capacity, she bought the trailer she has now, opening in September 2018 operating at local breweries.
Operating any small business, especially a restaurant is a labor of love, and a challenging way to make a living in the best of times. Uncertain times present even greater challenges. The strain caused by the uncertainty of operating during a pandemic is reflected in Anna’s Facebook post,
In case you haven’t figured it out already, one of the things that make New Public unique is that all the food is plant-based. Anna’s creations and thoughtfully sourced ingredients are intentionally 100% gluten-free. The only gluten on the menu is in the Great Harvest bread she uses. Anna refers to her menu as “Indulgent Vegan Food.” She buys as many of her ingredients as possible from local suppliers including Rabbit Fields Farm and Pollen Folly Farm, but she admits that the pandemic has made it much harder to purchase these supplies on a consistent basis.
This writer freely admits that he is a broad-spectrum omnivore. I sample a lot of food writing this blog and often find the plant-based patties I try on various sandwiches not flavorful by themselves. I also rarely like their textures. When i do find a plant-based sandwich that I like, it is usually a result of the toppings, and not from the patty itself.
Returning to New Public for a second trip I tried the “Hen Solo Burger“, a grilled soy based patty, with melted “Follow Your Heart” provolone cheese, onion, tomato, and a house-made tangy dill sauce. (pictured right)
My experience with this sandwich was the exact opposite from most of the others I’ve eaten. The patty had a light, satisfying crunch on the outside and was very flavorful. The taste was distinct from the sauce and the fresh veggies piled on top. All in all – a great sandwich.
As our interview was winding down, I asked Anna to relate her favorite “customer reaction” story. She lamented that being as busy as they are (Anna and her associate Sierra), she doesn’t get to interact with her customers as much as she would like. In fact, it is pretty hard to hear people outside from inside the trailer – so one day when she could hear a customer scream, “I LOVE New Public” – she was able to pause and smile for a moment.
I then asked her to finish the sentence, “I love Bellingham, but in a perfect world I’d run my restaurant in_______?” Her answer, “Bellingham in the summer and southern California or Baja in the winter.” Many of us in living in Bellingham would agree with that sentiment.
On a final note, Anna wants to thank Kevin at Evil Bikes for his “generosity and support during these past few months.” She says that being able to park in their lot has made “my life and job much more manageable (and pleasant) having one spot to park at each day where customers can easily find us. The view is pretty great too!!”
I’ll quote Anna’s Facebook post one last time to close this story. To her customers and those who have supported her before, and all those who have been supporting her during these tough times, Anna says,
The way that I’ve helped myself come to terms with the recent state of affairs is to simply repeat the words “nobody told me there’d be days like these — strange days indeed”. One can only wonder if in writing those words, John Lennon imagined there’d be days quite like these.
I began this blog with a colleague in 2016 intending to explore the vibrant dining and drinking community that we were are all fortunate to have in Bellingham, and share those experiences in an interesting, informative, and photo-rich manner.
New restaurants, craft breweries, and cideries were among the exciting new businesses opening (and closing) at an amazing rate. Bellingham became known as a craft brew mecca. Since then, many more have cropped up, including unique venues such as the Makeworth Market, and more recently, the Neko Cat Cafe. As you can see by the articles published here, we got off to a pretty good start.
Our 
Creating DDB is hard work, but also a labor of love. It allows us to participate in, contribute to, and benefit from living in the region.
We are fortunate in that our business allows us to, even forces us to, experience the area’s dining and drinking establishments on a regular basis (oh, the pain)!
We are a dedicated to discovering the broad variety of dining and drinking establishments, unique cafes, breweries, specialty shops and bakeries, and then sharing them with you. We keep you informed you with timely news and feature articles in our blog, and keep you updated with upcoming food-related events.
We look forward to hearing from you, meeting you, and hearing your feedback. Thank you for your patience while we develop this site into Bellingham’s favorite dining and drinking resource!
Chief Editor and Creative Visionary, Marc Ravaris, aka Cap’n Cook. A resurrected pirate-captain, Marc navigates the sometimes murky waters of balancing vision, technology, and manageable implementation at DDB. Marc can oft be found aboard his flagship, the SV Rhapsody, or at late-night haunts in the misty seaport of Bellingham.
Founding member, Kathryn G., aka StreetTooth was a great inspiration during her tenure at DDB. In addition to writing feature articles, Kathryn, wrote two regularly appearing columns, 
The Bellingham Saturday Farmers’ Market is set to reopen on April 11, but there will be a few changes in place. One big difference will be the amount of space shoppers will find.
The amount of vendors will be restricted to allow plenty of space for social distancing. There will be produce and staples like bread, meat, and cheese.
However, entertainment, music, and eating areas have been suspended for the time being.
Handling of the produce and other products will be restricted and shoppers will find numerous hand washing stations distributed around the grounds. There will be limited entry and exit points.
Make sure to stay safe if you attend, and support this Bellingham tradition.
In addition to providing an excellent dining experience, Berg’s goal in creating Cosmos was to, “build a community of like-minded people, whether farming, or businesses, or just knowing who your neighbor is.” And that is exactly what she has done.
Sitting down with her during the restaurant’s daily two hour siesta, I had a chance to experience a rare calm in the generally bustling space. Behind an open counter the cooks were visible prepping for the evening with an equal mix of focused intent and easy comradery.
About her staff Berg says, “There’s really no turnover. All these guys are really dedicated to the Cosmos vision and they want to be a part of it. We encourage not only a community out there, but a community in here.”
Serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they offer a variety of creative comfort foods like you’ve never experienced before. A prime example is their signature “Mama’s” meatloaf, (which really is Cinnamon’s mom’s recipe). As a meatloaf lover, I will attest that this is one of my favorites in all of Bellingham.
The goal is to provide fresh, farm-to-table fare whenever possible. With this focus in mind, Berg believes they still, “haven’t tapped into the real potential,” possible here in Bellingham. This continual search for quality ingredients repeatedly draws customers to experience the latest culinary treat put together by the Cosmos team.
For Breakfast, favorites include The Bacon Nation, seasoned home fries loaded with a generous serving of diced bacon, caramelized onions, sweet peppers, with two eggs and cheddar cheese. Or try The Eggurrito, a deluxe, savory breakfast burrito packed with seasoned home fries, scrambled eggs, black beans, caramelized onion, cotija cheese, sour cream and salsa. To top it off, it comes smothered in a house-made, red ancho chili sauce.
For lunch, try a 3B Burger, homemade blueberry onion jam, bleu cheese, and bacon or the juicy Kulshan Beer-ger – Kulshan’s Red Cap, an Irish style red ale, is the secret to the rich, creamy sauce that tops it. Add one or both to your list of go-to Bellingham burgers. Both are served with a side of jojo style house fries, cut full potato-length and seasoned to such perfection, you’ll be back for more.
As a tamale lover, I was delighted to see Vegetarian Tamales on the dinner menu. A lot of time and preparation goes into tamales. Packed with spinach and seasonal squash, their rich flavor are worth the extra effort. Served with the house ancho chili sauce over seasoned rice, black beans and cotija cheese, these tamales have clinched me as a return customer.
A favorite among both staff and customers is the Pork Adobo. This pork shoulder is marinated in soy, vinegar, garlic and spices and slow roasted to fall-apart tenderness.
So good in fact, it’s served all day. In the morning it comes in a creative eggs benedict, combined with poached eggs and smothered in hollandaise sauce served with a generous side of home fries.
Lunch means the Pork Adobo Sandwich, the same mouth-watering pork atop toasted, crisp sourdough bread with a sweet onion slaw. Finally, for dinner, enjoy a large serving of this favorite atop a bed of seasoned rice with fresh seasonal vegetables.
When the Cosmos people say the food is all made on site, they mean almost everything. Berg says, “We work really hard on not just (using) local, quality ingredients, but we make everything from scratch. Jams, breads, drink pairings, (and) desserts. They’re thought through and make sense for the season and the restaurant.”
This dedication to local, seasonal ingredients is apparent with a glance at the specials menu. A creamy curry squash soup and classic southern hush puppies (in celebration of Elvis’ birthday) are examples from two of my recent visits. Showcasing innovative and often surprising dishes, the specials highlight what’s ripe and available at the time. The entire team is encouraged to get creative with what’s freshly available and test out fun ideas for dishes.
Want to try something new? Ask your server for a recommended food & drink pairing. One of Berg’s go-to favorites includes any of their hearty salads paired with a glass of the Pinot Noir on tap. Try the Salad Nicoise, featuring seared tuna, tomatoes, green and black olives, roasted baby reds, green beans, roasted beets and pickled eggs on a bed of fresh mixed greens and herbs finished off with the house honey-shallot vinaigrette. The fruity and savory notes in the pinot noir combined with the wine’s acidity make these two a perfect match.
Acknowledging the call for gluten-free and vegetarian options in Bellingham, both can be found on the regular menu. While an assortment of vegan dishes make appearances on the specials menu, the regular menu reflects a sentiment many of us share with Berg, “I like cheese and butter.”
Yeah, me too.
Berg wasn’t sure exactly what Cosmos would look like when she began, the restaurant “came together piece by piece,” and is constantly adapting, bringing to life the vision that
the entire team shares.This writer personally agrees that this chic, modern bistro turned out, “really cool.” It seems that Bellingham agrees as well.
Cosmos offers a unique dining experience in this town with a cozy, yet off-beat, atmosphere and friendly, attentive staff. Picking just one item among a menu where all are backed by rave reviews is tough. Fortunately, it looks like Cosmos won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
Standing to leave after the interview, I went for a handshake. Berg instead offered up a hug. As I said, she’s a people person.
However, as we in the progressive northwest have adopted the craft-brew industry, often the new breweries have become, or replaced the more traditional liquor-oriented bars as the focal point of many neighborhoods.
In Bellingham we are fortunate enough to still have a variety of places that serve as hubs for various local communities, including having an Irish pub downtown. 
However, if your neighborhood does not yet have a watering hole, or you lament the fact that it is easier to get a pint than three fingers of Jameson, or if you, like my brother, have a long-time desire to “own a pub” then “
There are many tasty choices on the menu for this year’s special Sweetheart Dinner. Share one appetizer with your loved one, choose two entrees, and finish with a shared dessert for 41.95 + tip & tax.
The appetizer choice is either Carnitas Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Spanish tomato sauce (Alt Bier) or Herb-Baked Brie on Croute with fruit preserve, crackers & grapes (Kolsch). Each sweetheart gets to choose their own main course. The options are Malt & Porter-Braised Shortribs with twice baked potato (Rauch Marzen Lager) or Truffled homemade Gnocchi topped with Butter-Poached Wild Coho Salmon (British Brown Ale). The dessert choices include Chocolate Malted Turtle Cake (Robust Porter) or Warm Red Berry Cobbler with house made lemon ice cream (Doppelbock Lager or Schwarz Bier).
Beer pairing recommendations for this menu are suggested in parenthesis for those wanting a special beer with each of the courses.
Call them for a reservation.
Chuckanut Brewery & Kitchen, located at 601 West Holly Street,