Full Fridge Club: August 2024
One swallow doesn't make a summer!
Welcome to the club!
Editor’s note: In order to share all of our musings and photos, this newsletter will be clipped by most email providers. To read our entire newsletter, click on the link that says “view entire message” or you can read in full on the Substack app.
Howdy there club members!
The Common Table crew had a blast this summer, with August being an exceptional highlight.
Our event last month was Dairy Drag at Chaseholm Farm on Saturday, August 24th. We were invited— along with our dear friends at Harana Market— to host a Common Table pop-up sandwich shop!
Chaseholm is a queer-run livestock farm in Pine Plains, NY. They are certified organic and raise 100% grass-fed beef and dairy cows and heritage breed hogs. If you don’t know about Chaseholm, you can visit their farm store, try out their farm share, or visit one of their events, like Dairy Drag! Yes, a drag show hosted inside a real cattle barn. I honestly can’t tell you what’s better: a doll ball in a cow stall OR their Nimbus triple-cream cheese from their creamery. (Don’t make me choose!)
Our chefs had a blast making a delicious and cheeky menu of sandwiches for the event, including the hits: the Call Me Daddy (an eggplant, tomato, and sweet potato wham-bam combo), the Mr. Dent Tip (a chickpea, cheese, broccoli rabe dream), and the Lestat (a delightful baguette featuring house-made vampire plum jam and Chaseholm’s camembert).
Alright! The (hot)dog days are almost over so let’s Dish. It. Out!
August Menus
These are our previous month’s menus, along with photos and insights from one of our chefs…
Monday, August 5th
Stephen: When we first came up with this menu, we were worried about how to execute the japchae. Making one hundred or so portions of glassine noodles is no easy task, but we pulled it off with many thanks to Maangchi. If you’re unfamiliar with Maangchi’s work, please seek it out. She’s is the ajumma I’ve always wanted.
Monday, August 12th
Stephen: I will proudly proclaim from any given rooftop that I love Taco Bell. The problem is every time I indulge in a late night Taco Bell sesh, I wake up feeling like I’ve eaten a gallon of industrial strength food glue. The greatest pleasure of this menu was that it scratched the Taco Bell itch, without doing me grievous injury.
Monday, August 19th
Stephen: This menu was delicious! However, more important than the food was the technological innovation. Julia came up with the idea to press the eggs for the salmorejo through a wire rack, resulting in perfectly diced hardboiled eggs. Bet you didn’t expect that hot tip in the menu notes!
Monday, August 26th
Stephen: This last menu of the month began as a fun party idea, and quickly turned into a puzzle: How do you make a seafood boil into a week’s worth of separate dishes? It turns out that with a couple gallons of nice broth, and a lot of Old Bay, anything is possible.
*Intrusive Queer Thought*
This is where one of us of the Common Table crew let our little queer minds run amok! This month, Julia finds her inner diva…
If I had a drag name, it might be “Lunch Lady.” I just love lunch so much and my favorite part of every single Monday is when we finish cooking and packaging food and sit down to enjoy lunch made of FFC leftovers from the day. Here are some staff lunch snapshots:
-Julia
And that was our August!
Below, for paid subscribers, you’ll find our Side Dish, where Emmet discusses having time (and flour) on their hands. You will also find two recipes from our August FFC Menus, scaled down and tested by Julia Turshen: Romaine + Red Cabbage Salad with Avocado Ranch and Vegetarian “Crab” Cakes.
If you’d like to help our work with keeping our local free fridges full, but you don’t live locally to order a Full Fridge Club service, you can always sponsor meals here!
And, if you are local and interested in learning more about Full Fridge Club, check out our website!
Thank you all for joining the club and we’ll see you next month!
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