What’s for Supp delivers ingredients for menu items from popular local spots, like Madiba’s chicken sosatie, to your door. Photo: What’s for Supp
Brooklynites have a problem. We love eating. We love cooking. We do NOT love getting our hungry selves to the city’s often crowded grocery stores. There are lots of Brooklyn businesses trying to address this problem, from offbeat CSAs where you can get everything from fish to dairy to bread made with heritage grains, to delivery services like Sweet Deliverance that will sign you up for a CSA and then turn it into a week’s worth of meals for you.
So it’s no surprise that lately there’s been a recent boom in the dinner-ingredients-on-demand business. A few weeks back we reviewed Chefday, a Brooklyn-based company that delivers all the ingredients for a fancy dinner and then guides your cooking process via web videos. The latest such scheme (and our favorite so far) comes from the just-launched What’s for Supp, an initiative helmed by Fort Greene resident Adam Winski.
What’s for Supp curates recipes from chefs like Mark Henegan of Madiba and Steve Cusato of the Food Freaks food truck, lets you pick out what you want for dinner, and sends all the ingredients your way. The idea goes something like this: you’re at work until 5 or 6pm, in the mood to go home and cook dinner, but definitely not in the mood to join the ever-snaking lines at Trader Joe’s. So you log on to What’s for Supp, pick a recipe and they deliver all the ingredients to your door by the time you get home. They don’t measure out the portions for you, they simply deliver your groceries, but on way shorter notice than Fresh Direct. You can opt to get just the “recipe essentials,” or if your cupboard is bare, request that they include “pantry items”–everything down to the salt, vinegar and olive oil. You can also opt out of re-purchasing specific recipe items you already have.
So unlike Chefday, where the cost for a meal ends up being not much less than a night out at a restaurant, with What’s for Supp you pay only a slight up-charge on what you’d shell out if you actually made it to the store yourself. For example, a meal of baked tofu with white wine, mustard and dill with French lentil salad comes out to just $16.93 for a four-person dinner, plus the $6 delivery charge. I know that’s less than what I’d probably end up paying at the fancy-pants Fort Greene organic markets where I all-too-often end up doing my last-minute dinner shopping.
What’s for Supp is now active in Fort Greene and surrounding neighborhoods (most of those in the vicinity of greater downtown Brooklyn). Winski says he hopes to expand soon to include Williamsburg and environs. He also has plans in the works to partner with local wine shops so you can add a paired bottle on to your order.
