I am pleased to introduce you to Mary who has been doing something that I as a dietitian cannot – help us learn how to cook and enjoy!

Yes, it is true, I am a dietitian and yet I do not know how to cook. I help my patients understand healthy eating and provide Medical Nutrition Therapy to improve disease care outcomes, but I cannot help them actually cook.

Mary, your story has inspired me as you are not only a cook, but a true business woman who wants all to eat healthy food, have strategic meal plans, grocery lists, and just enjoy the art of cooking and eating. What made you take an interest in making meals from scratch?

There were three drivers:

• My Childhood: Growing up, I was one of six kids and my mom cooked every meal from scratch – she initially started cooking as a necessity (for budget reasons), but over time she became an incredible cook. I was imprinted with this connection between food and nurturing, and the way that a homemade meal can make a house a home.
• My Food Education: As I learned more about the relationship between nutrition and overall health, and the risks in our increasingly industrialized food systems, I became committed to eating more real food, homemade from scratch and avoiding processed and packaged foods. Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food, was a huge inspiration for me.
• My Adult Life: I realized how much pleasure cooking offers me as an opportunity to create, and how it re-grounds me after a busy day or week. I also discovered that when I knew what I was going to make and had all the ingredients I needed on hand, I enjoyed cooking. What I didn't like about cooking – and what stopped me from doing it more – were the things we set out to fix with Gatheredtable (planning, list making, shopping, and managing meals and ingredients in the fridge and pantry to minimize waste).

What is your meal preparation philosophy? How does it link with Gatheredtable?

I usually cook five nights a week and typically we have at least one night of vegetarian, fish and chicken. Beef or lamb is once a week. The other night might be turkey or pork or another veggie, fish or chicken dish. This framework is pretty similar to the recommended mix for Omnivores on Gatheredtable. At home, I try to do new dishes on weekends (when I have more time) and on weeknights I stick with easier dishes and/or dishes I’ve made at least once before. Likewise, Gatheredtable suggests shorter meals on weeknights (30 minutes or less hands-on time) and longer on weekends.

I tend to plan on Saturday mornings then head to the store with the grocery list on the Gatheredtable app. I like Saturday mornings because it allows me to leisurely prep and cook over the course of the weekend as my schedule allows. Most of our Gatheredtable customers also have a weekly planning and shopping routine - although many also take advantage of emailing the Gatheredtable grocery list to someone else to do the shopping.

Tell us more about your team. How do you create a culture of bringing the best out of food preparation and the joy of eating?

Our team is comprised of passionate home cooks (ok, except one of our developers, who is not a cook and has yet to own even a spatula… but we haven't given up on him yet!). One of our team members grew up on a farm in Montana and grinds wheat from her dad’s farm to make her own flour, another raises chickens and brings in farm fresh eggs, and another grew up helping in the kitchen of her Dad’s Chinese food restaurant.

Morning office chit-chat often involves who made what for dinner the night before and/or something homemade to eat that someone brought in and placed on the community table. A question to the room at large might be “Does anyone know whether fresh oregano and fresh marjoram are similar enough to be interchangeable?”, at which point we’ll chime in.

We’ve personally tested and adapted all of our featured recipes (almost 2,000 of them!), and all of that cooking and tasting happens either in our office test kitchen one of our home kitchens, so there is a strong culture of sharing, adapting, chopping, preparing and of course eating!

I work with people with diabetes and always tell them: eat real food, the food that you prepare and then enjoy eating it – the joy of eating as a family is not just nourishing the body, but is also the social connection we need. Food brings people together, solves problems with good conversation, and allows us to relax. Also, food preparation often brings family together. How do you support and inspire the whole act of cooking as family or for your family? What if there is not a family? Just a couple or single individual – is it worth the effort?

We couldn’t agree more! A big part of how we define success is when meal times are about more than just great food. We work very hard to curate recipes that are easy to make, healthy and delicious – so that our customers feel successful after the effort of preparing a meal, and are inspired to do it again and again!

To galvanize my kids’ cooking I invoked a rule that we could eat dessert as often as they wanted as long as they made it themselves (you can read what happened next here).

Cooking for just 1 or 2 can be especially challenging because of the need to actively manage perishable ingredients to minimize food waste. To address that challenge, our meal plans for people with Diabetes are geared to serve 2 and are optimized to re-use ingredients over the course of a week (so for example the leftover roast chicken from Sunday becomes an ingredient in a savory pie later that week). It’s also easy to increase serving sizes if you’re cooking for a whole family. As with all of our meal plans, they’re editable and you can add your own recipes too!

Please tell us more about Gatheredtable and how it will make meal planning easier for our patients?

Gatheredtable’s mission is to make healthy homemade meals easier. Our subscription meal planning application provides customized weekly meal plans and grocery lists – we do the work so you can enjoy the fun of cooking and eating! (and the first ten days is free!) Our application can be accessed on the web, or in the iOS or Android app stores (and it even helps you manage what’s in your pantry!)

In response to customer requests, we’ve developed meal plans specifically for people with diabetes. We’d love you to help us spread the word about Gatheredtable by sharing it with your clients.

These meal plans:

• Feature seven days a week of meals including breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks
• Are 100% real food - either simple (think eggs and fruit for breakfast) or own easy healthy recipes
• Are developed to be diabetes meal planning friendly

How can we sign our patients up for Gatheredtable? How do we get involved?

1. Sign up for a free trial of our meal plans for people with diabetes.

2. Then email Emily@gatheredtable.com to learn more about how to get a special discount for your community of clients with diabetes.