Full Fridge Club: September 2024
Let's get to the autumn of this...
Welcome to the club!
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This September was a very special month for us here at Common Table because… Full Fridge Club turned two years old! Below, for our paid subscribers, Emmet uses our Side Dish to reflect on how FFC began and has grown.
We don’t have any cake, but we do have tomato salad with pickled onions!
We are also celebrating the release of our incredible crew member Julia Turshen’s new book: What Goes With What! This cookbook is a MUST read. Check it out!
Okay… Let’s Dish. It. Out!
September Menus
These are our previous month’s menus, along with photos and insights from one of our chefs…
Monday, September 2nd
Julia: The jumping-off point for this menu began, believe it or not, with me scrolling through the P.F. Chang’s menu. I do a lot of menu scrolling in my free time, whether it’s small independent restaurants or big chains to help inform my own ideas for menus. Thinking about P.F. Chang’s lettuce cups made me wonder what the Full Fridge Club version could be. And that was the domino that led to the others.
Monday, September 9th
Julia: A friend of mine made this Peruvian chicken recipe (from Melissa Clark) and told me how much she loved it and I thought it would be fun to shape a FFC menu around the recipe. For the remainder of the menu, we focused on seasonal produce, which is something we always do but is especially exciting in September because everything is JUST SO GOOD. The tomato salad ended up being half tomatoes and half peaches topped with pickled onions and herbs. It was simple but just wonderful and probably my favorite part of the week’s menu. If you’re a paid subscriber, scroll down for the recipe for the Cheesy Baked Egg Thing with Greens!
Monday, September 16th
Julia: Grace, my spouse, and I were lucky enough to take a trip to Greece this past August and ever since we got back, I was eager to do a Greek menu for FFC. The moussaka was a labor of love, but ended up being so satisfying and I’m delighted to share the recipe with all of our paid subscribers today!
Monday, September 23rd
Julia: When Emmet, Stephen and I were cooking the food on this day, I just kept saying “I cannot wait to eat all of this.” I just LOVE an Italian-American feast and this week hit the spot. Emmet’s meatballs are some of my favorites. They’re just so flavorful and tender because he poaches them in the thick, rich marinara. The result is meatball-flavored sauce and sauce-flavored meatballs and wow it’s just a perfect pot of food.
Monday, September 30th
Julia: Our inspiration here was a good old fashioned barbecue! The braised beans are an autumnal take on baked beans. For the potato salad, we went mayo-based and for the kale slaw, we stuck to vinegar. And the pulled pork is just one of those perfect FFC menu items that can be enjoyed as is or turned into anything from tacos, quesadillas, or a topping for a baked potato.
*Intrusive Queer Thought*
This is where one of us of the Common Table crew let our little queer minds run amok! This month, Stephen captured true queer love in the kitchen…
And that was our September!
Below, for paid subscribers, you’ll find our Side Dish, where Emmet wishes Full Fridge Club a happy birthday! You will also find two recipes from our September FFC Menus, scaled down and tested by Julia Turshen: Cheesy Baked Egg Thing with Greens and Moussaka with Tempeh, Eggplant + Potatoes.
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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