Full Fridge Club: October 2024
Let's squash this beef stew...
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.
Ahhh, October in New York… you cheeky little month! Leaves changing, apples being picked and candied— while at Common Table, our leafy greens are being wilted for adzuki beans and our apples are being combined with collards and house-made tempeh sausage!
With the release of her new cookbook, What Goes with What, Julia, the Common Table crew, and the QSN team threw another incredibly successful Queer Soup Night on our back patio!
Oblong Books had a set-up for Julia to sign copies of her new book; we had a full bar; there were cookies from local baker Quay’s Bakes (my adorable spouse); and we had three soups from Julia’s cookbook, made by our crew of Julia, Emmet, and Stephen. Proceeds for the event went to Beacon Prison Books Project, a project that began at Binnacle Books, and has grown to a full organization that provides free books to incarcerated persons by request and includes a number of booksellers in the Hudson Valley.
It was the perfect end to our event season on our patio!
Before we dish it, we wanted to take a moment to thank you all— our club members here on Substack, our customers and clientele, and our community at large. As a queer and trans run business, we are with you all throughout these crazy times. And we are so lucky to have you, as we hope you are to have us. Feeding our community (literally), so our community can feed us (spiritually and emotionally), is such an incredible gift. Our focus at Common Table has always been about the necessary reliance on community and you all show up every time.
Since we began Full Fridge Club over two years ago, we have been able to donate over 2,200 meals to our community fridges— thanks to you all. As a reminder, for every FFC client, we donate a meal to our local free fridge: 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!
Okay, okay… Let’s Dish. It. Out!
October Menus
These are our previous month’s menus, along with photos and insights from one of our chefs…
Monday, October 7th
Emmet: Honestly, this menu was built around the fact that I had made some gorgeous dill pickle spears at the height of kirby cucumber season and we wanted to share them with the world! Since we had done a BBQ sauce not too long ago, Julia made the brilliant suggestion of going with an Alabama white sauce for the tofu. And I wanted that chile chili to be green green green and dreamed up a play on chili verde that really hit the spot.
Monday, October 14th
Emmet: This menu came about because our clients just can't stop talking about how much they loved "Japanese week!" We like to give the people what they want. Last time, we made okonomiyaki and found that it was a little... cumbersome. Pancakes of any kind for 30 clients is a lot to manage! So, we re-routed and got all the flavors in there but in a format that held better in the fridge and was simpler to assemble. A hit, if you ask me.
Monday, October 21st
Emmet: A few of these menu items were lifted off the menu we cooked for our VERY FIRST week of Full Fridge Club! Since we passed our 2-year anniversary in September, it seemed only fitting to bring back some of the dishes from our early days. The tofu & chicken were re-runs. The cauliflower was this big beautiful Japanese varietal that was SO delicious and sweet, roasted simply with salt and pepper and then topped with this zingy crunchy pepita salsa I invented way back when. Lots of classics here, bringing the comfort and simplicity.
Monday, October 28th
Emmet: We're lucky enough to have locally-made tempeh to work with from Hudson Valley Tempeh Co, which takes on marinades really beautifully. The tempeh sausage was the star here, and the rest filled in around it. Long Season Farm also gives heads of escarole that are *quite literally* bigger than MY head, so we knew we wanted to incorporate that beautiful green somehow. A classic Fall menu!
*Intrusive Queer Thought*
This is where one of us of the Common Table crew let our little queer minds run amok! This month, Julia tells America, “Good Morning”— during a morning America needed it…
My new cookbook, What Goes with What, came out in October and I had the opportunity to go on Good Morning America on the morning of election day (le sigh). You can watch the fastest four minutes of my life right here if you want, but the best part of the experience was getting to meet Robin Roberts right after the segment. I've loved and looked up to her forever and it was such a pleasure to meet her. I got to tell her she's one of my queer icons and I'm so grateful for her presence. They say not to meet your heroes, but I'm so glad I got to meet her. She gave me a big hug!
-Julia Turshen
And that was our October!
Below, for paid subscribers, you’ll find our Side Dish, where Timmy has crafted a specialty crossword: Dishing It Outwords. You will also find two recipes from our October FFC Menus, scaled down and tested by Julia Turshen: Maple + Mustard Baked Beans and Cornbread with Cheddar + Scallions.
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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