Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Washington Green Grocer

 
Living in DC gives me access to a number of places to shop. I forget how spoiled I am until I talk to a relative or a friend who doesn't live in a big city and hear about how they are making a special trip to the "city" to buy something they really wanted.

The problem with having access to so many shops is that I can spend a full day running from shop to shop looking at new items and figuring out what is a better deal. By the end of that day, I'm too tired to do any real cooking ( or real exercising).  It occurred to me that it is such a waste for me to spend time shopping and the come home too exhausted to cook the things I spent so much time shopping for.

So, since Marshall and I got some big health news, I really started to analyze my life and have been trying to strategize to make cooking at home and exercise a priority. In order to avoid highly processed foods, we are going to spend more of our time cooking at home. That also means a lot more time cleaning (praise The Lord for the invention of dishwashers.) 

And here is when the magic fairies from Washington Green Grocer comes in. This business model is amazing. They have a great website where you can place your order online and they deliver groceries to your door. They make eating healthy so easy.  Since I am pretty thrifty, I spent some time comparing their produce prices to local grocery store prices and found that they are more than reasonable when you factor in the cost of gas and time spent shopping.

Here are five reasons why I love Washington Green Grocers:

1) You can order a box whenever you want to. There is no obligation to "subscribe." This is pretty rare for produce delivery services.

2) They know "hip food" - Washington Green Grocers always seems to know about good food in DC. They carry Border Springs Farm lamb which is used by some of the best restaurants in DC and  is some of the best lamb I have ever eaten.  They also carry Trickling Springs dairy, which is dairy from nearby Pennsylvania. (If you ever get a chance to buy ice cream from Trickling Springs, do yourself a favor and buy as much as you can. They make the most amazing ice cream.) You can even order Kombucha through them!

3) You can choose from a variety of boxes including a "Local Only" one - Since Marshall and I are watching our sugar intake, we are limited to specific kinds of fruits we can eat. So we subscribe to a weekly "all vegetable" box.  We have some friends who feel strongly about eating local produce so they can choose the "local only" box that only included produced that is sourced locally. There are ten different boxes you can choose from.

4) "Always" and "Never items" - You can choose fruits and vegetables that will "always" be included in your box (like cauliflower because we cook with it all of the time) or vegetables and fruits that are "never" included in your box (like cucumbers for me since I am allergic).

5) Recipe Kits - Talk about making life simple! Green Grocers also sells these Recipe Kits which include everything you need to make a dish.  For instance, Mexican Shredded Beef Tacos, or Carrot Ginger Salad, and even juice kits so that you can have everything you need to make a healthy drink.

Washington Green Grocer is just a great service and I feel lucky to have them.

2 comments:

  1. Reminds me of my beloved CSA share. And thanks for some new recipes. How fun!

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  2. Yes. I was always afraid to join a CSA because I wasn't sure if it was worth the weekly charge. Now I realize that it is worth it. Part of me loves having a regular delivery of vegetables because it also encourages me to eat the vegetables faster so that I have room in my fridge for the next shipment.

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