Garnish & Gather

I met a couple of the Garnish and Gather folks recently at a Unilocal event. We chatted a ton about the concept and the meals. I love that the ingredients are locally sourced and that you can even try meals created by local chefs! I was sold rather quickly. My SO… no so much. But he was willing to give it a try.
Our first meal was an adobo chicken with cheddar grits. It was actually a Philippine adobo with coconut milk and rice wine vinegar, which really threw me off at first. I got really confused as I sorted through the ingredients and had to Google it. But yeah, it’s a thing.
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And it was DELICIOUS. I could have eaten an entire pot of those grits.
I decided that since everything is portioned out and mostly prepped, this would be perfect for my SO to handle. I love him to death but he usually sticks to cooking bacon and eggs, and isn’t really a clean-​as-​you-​go type so the kitchen’s always a disaster afterward. So last night, he tackled the braised oxtails with rutabaga and carrot mash.
Again, DELICIOUS. And minimal mess!
The best part was that actually cooking the meal convinced him that G&G is worthwhile. Instead of spending $ 30 on delivery pizza and breadsticks and regretting it afterward, we could spend the same amount on a wholesome, rich meal that wasn’t much work. And yeah, a pizza will yield next-​day leftovers, while G&G is portioned out for two entrees, but you’re getting local, fresh, real food!
I pick up at Hodgepodge in East Atlanta and it’s only a tiny bit out of my way. I’m looking forward to trying some of the many, many add-​ons G&G offers. You can get fresh meat, produce, baked goods, condiments and salsas, etc. Personally, I’m going to start working my way through the H&F, Sugar Moon Bakery, and Little Tart Bake Shop offerings.
Mmmm fresh, local sweets.
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My only slight issue is that the recipe cards are occasionally unclear. It can be a little confusing how they refer to items. Example: they referred to both «veggies» (carrot and rutabaga) and «veggie mix» (prepped container of carrot, celery, and leeks), so you had to stop and figure out that the «veggies» and «veggie mix» were two different things and you were cooking them two different ways. I had a similar bout of confusion with items in the adobo recipe. Perhaps capitalizing any pre-​prepared items (like «veggies» vs «Veggie Mix») would help.
In any case, it only takes a few seconds to figure it out and then you’re on your way!
My favorite thing about G&G is that we can be more adventurous in the kitchen without the fear of failure. My SO and I give it two thumbs way up!

I’m crazy about this company. The concept is genius and impeccably executed. The menus are interesting but not too snooty. The food is delicious, plentiful and I look forward to our next order! The presentation is fabulous. I could easily omit the the fact that I had the food delivered, but I had to show off the cool bag and recipe cards to my guests. They loved it as much as I did.

Thanks to Lindy for inspiring me to try out Garnish & Gather!
I love to cook, I love the idea of cooking local from farmers’ markets, and I love the local food scene, but don’t have the time or money for babysitters. Enter G&G — they do all the work of getting the recipes from top local chefs and all the fresh, local, organic ingredients from the farmers’ markets, and put it in one right-​sized portion that I can easily pick up.
I pick mine up at J’s wine and spirits in Roswell, conveniently located by my office so that I can just stop in on the way to the day care.
With fun packaging (including table conversation starters) and premeasured ingredients, the recipes are relatively easy to follow, especially if you’re not the kind of person that follows a recipe exactly anyway. (They’re not terribly detailed, so I’m not sure how well I could recreate them without the premeasured ingredients, but I’m saving the beautiful cards in the hopes that I will make them again someday).
I’ve found the portions to be just right. As someone who struggles to prepare anything for just 2 people (I worked in my church kitchen where a light day was for 30 people), I like that it’s all just the right amount for 2 – 3 servings, with the protein being spot on and the side being enough for another day.
It’s not inexpensive, but I do feel I get my money’s worth in terms of high-​quality, local, organic ingredients, particularly if you consider what it would cost to get these dishes in the restaurants that would feature them. And the whole presentation makes it feel as if I’m joining a celebration of what cooking should be.

Can’t tell you how much I love this company. Truly a life-​saver for a busy single mom who wants to prepare wholesome, sustainable, delicious meals. Easy to use website, high-​quality sustainable food from local farmers, and easy to follow directions. Love. Love. Love.

«Seize the day. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Why does the writer use these lines?
Because he’s in a hurry.
No. Ding! Thank you for playing anyway.» — Dead Poets Society (1989)
I love to cook, I just have no time. I work all day and if I have time to shop, I rarely have any creativity of what I want to cook/​buy, etc. Recently I noticed a video pop-​up in my news feed on Facebook and there was Kevin Gillespie cooking on the local Fox station and talking about Garnish and Gather and I was intrigued — by both the concept and the shrimp and grits he prepared.
Now these services are all over the place — but they are shipped to your door by UPS and the thought of my proteins going through warehouses makes me cringe. G&G has someone hand-​deliver them to your door OR you can go pick them up. Sold. I signed up to give it a shot.
I was so excited for my bag to arrive, I forgot to put out a cooler for them — luckily I work from home (oops). They delivered my beautiful bag of groceries (Proteins came frozen) and I immediately went thru it like a kid at Christmas. Veggies, fruit, spices, peanuts — everything perfectly portioned for the recipes. Plus recipe cards and a table topic card (now I did get 2 entrees, but only 1 table topic)…
That night, we cooked the Shrimp and Grits. There were a couple of typos on the recipe card, but it was grammatical, not procedural so I can over look that. The card took you step by step and it was mostly accurate. The shrimp were larger than I was expecting and needed more than 1 minute per side, but you can certainly cook to your desired doneness for any protein. The grits were creamy and delectable. The veggies were amazing with it (again, my preferences were to cook the green beans an additional minute and maybe deglaze the pan with a little white wine) — but I’ve saved the recipe and will make this one again. This is the problem with a trained chef cooking with someone else’s recipe — I want to tinker with it.
What I love about these guys is that they cater to allergies — every recipe has all allergens listed. I can avoid tree nuts easily so they don’t ever come in my house. Obviously I wouldn’t pick a fish entrée anyway, but also easy to avoid. I would love if I could download the recipe cards so I could cook from my iPad, but I bet that happens in the near future as well. I’m pretty green-​minded, so less paper is good.
The price is right for me — $ 30 for 2 – 3 servings of ingredients is what I would easily spend shopping to cook for us anyway — so that doesn’t bug me. $ 10 to deliver… okay maybe a little steep if you are only buying 1 entrée, so go pick it up at Cook’s Warehouse. But I’m getting 2 each week so it seems less of an issue. Also, I can shop for some local groceries as well (hello H&F bread and Pine Street Bacon being delivered RIGHT TO MY DOOR!)
I’m sticking with these guys for awhile as it certainly made dinner in my house easy this week — cannot wait for my groceries to show up again on Monday.