SIMPLE GIFTS: TO SIMPLIFY LIFE IN THE KITCHEN, WE OFFER YOU SIMPLE GIFTS!

SIMPLE GIFTS

TO SIMPLIFY LIFE IN THE KITCHEN, WE OFFER YOU SIMPLE GIFTS!

This is a subscription service, like a CSA, which delivers to you a monthly menu of prepared meats, consisting of two meals per person per week, at an average cost of $9 per person per meal. Payment is made in advance, for either a two-month or six-month period of time. All products are hand-made in Susan's Soulful Kitchen with Grassroots meats. The eight items currently on the menu are: Bolognese Sauce, Grassfed Chili, Rio-Grande Beef Barbacoa, Roma Meatballs, Shortrib Burgers, Tar-Heel Pulled Pork, American Sliders, and Ground-Beef Patties. The menu will change incrementally, as new products are developed, such as Chicken Pot Pie.

The goal is to create nutritious, convenient, local foods that can be enjoyed by all ages within a family. For instance, we developed the American Slider for younger and older ages, which is all beef and more mild than the Moroccan or Vietnamese.

The above picture is of Beef Barbacoa, with plenty of fixings with which to make fabulous tacos. But if all of those toppings are more than you want to take on, just feed the beef straight-up. It is delicious eaten with a fork. Hungry husbands and restless children will sail right through it. Guaranteed!

Another goal of this program is to create a more predictable demand for our products, whereby customers commit to us in advance. This allows us to anticipate your needs, anticipate our flow of work, and thereby provide better overall service to customers. Hopefully, this new opportunity will also generate increased demand for our products, augmenting the lean winter months, when people stop coming to farmers markets.

Conceiving of and implementing Simple Gifts proved to be much more demanding than anticipated (which made us feel right at home). Determining: product mix, recipes, cooking process, packaging, price, length of program, delivery, and marketing, while trying to keep the concept achievable, proved to be quite complicated. The process felt like reassembling a Rubric's cube, forever trying infinite alternatives. Yet, with the helpful critique of key friends and family, we were able to winnow down alternatives, and finally stumble upon "the simple", at least for the moment. But we seek continuous improvement, and always want to hear how how we can do better.

Simple Gifts will provide you with one of these foods once a month, so you won't tire of them. Here they are in two dimensions.

Well, is your mouth watering?! Would your household benefit from meals like these? Would the quality of your life improve because of them?

The six-month plan (24 weeks) for a Household of two is the cheapest per person per meal, at $8.65, equating to $830, symbolized by two open poultry shears below on the left, that represent this option on the purchasing website.

The six-month plan (24 weeks) for a Single, costs $9.00 per person or $432, symbolized by one shear open and the other closed.

The two-month plan (8 weeks) for a Household of two comes in at $9.10 per person per meal or $291 total, symbolized by two closed poultry shears, as on the left.

The two-month plan (8 weeks) for a Single equates to $9.50 per person per meal or $152 total, symbolized by one shear closed and one open, also on the purchasing website.

So, chose your symbol on the purchasing website, to simplify life in the kitchen and improve the quality of yours. Let us begin a new chapter!

Since we commenced this communication with a landscape of food, let us conclude with a landscape of flowers, in this field of Crimson Red Clover. It was planted last summer to germinate belatedly this spring.

As you know, this Sunday is the opening of the summer market on the Square.

We have discovered we are selling eggs below the cost of production, so are raising that price to $6/dozen, intending to be in business over the long run. The price of one pound of ground beef is also being raised to stand closer to the competition, at $8/lb, but if you buy 5 lbs or more, price remains at $7.

We will have most of our prepared foods on hand for you to buy individually, but if you want to be assured of reliable supply, it would be through the rewarding purchase of Simple Gifts.

You may also order on-line for pick-up at the market. We want to encourage this step for your convenience and ours. You may also request home-delivery after the market. Either one may be achieved by going to:

Thank you for being partners with us. We are investing in you, so you may invest in us, creating a circle of sustainability. May it be unbroken.

Simply yours,

Drausin & Susan