GOODS AND SERVICES • FOUND Larder
The first local strawberries hit New York City’s greenmarkets this week, always cause for celebration. For sure, we’ll stock up. But our family has been feasting on seasonal fresh strawberries from a family farm in California for weeks, now, via Natoora, the U.K.-based company that I continue to think offers the best fruit and produce delivery service to NYC.
I wrote about Natoora last summer, touting their incredible Italian melons. While those special Oscar Zerbinatti-grown orbs won’t arrive until next month, this week, Natoora offers the first Sicilian melons of the season ($17.50 per). Yet, we’ve mostly dispensed with these one-offs in favor of Natoora’s Peak Season Box, a weekly assemblage of what’s freshest now, from sources ranging from the Northeast to the West Coast, Europe, and beyond. Last week, we scored a box (above) that included baby red Russian kale and bok choy from Upstate, large globe artichokes, English peas, and those California strawberries, plus rhubarb from Oregon, and for good measure, three Italian Sorrento lemons. A week earlier, our box included Japanese Kabu turnips grown in Delaware that — served raw, thinly sliced — elevated our homemade salads to new levels.
As at the greenmarket, it only gets better from here. –Lockhart Steele
→ Shop: Peak Season Box, Natoora ($55/$85 per).