GrandmasChickenSoup.com
NOTE: Since this review, GrandmasChickenSoup.com has dropped their kosher options. Their remaining products are not kosher.
After a rough day at the office last week, and feeling subtle symptoms of an oncoming cold, imagine my delight to find waiting for me at my doorstop half a gallon of authentic kosher chicken soup and a golden challah!
It wasn’t from a kindly clairvoyant neighbor; it was the handiwork of “Grandma’s tried and true classic, combined with today’s dot-com technology”: Woburn, MA-based GrandmasChickenSoup.com. And at the risk of offending my mother — who’s coming over Sunday to help me make, among other things, chicken soup — it was actually very good. The broth was very clear and had just a touch of sweetness, the vegetables and pasta were an ideal consistency (firm, not mushy), the matzo balls were tasty (not leaden like the canned Manischewitz ones), and there were nice chunks of white-meat chicken.
Of course, it didn’t suprise me at all that this high-quality product was prepared for GrandmasChickenSoup by none other than Catering By Andrew of Brookline, MA, and that the delectable challah came from Cheryl Ann’s Bakery (also of Brookline).
So, here’s a personal voucher for the quality of GrandmasChickenSoup.com. The price, though, is something of a different story: half a gallon of soup (4-6 servings) and the requisite thermal packaging will run you $36.50, plus 2nd-day or overnight shipping charges (unavoidable due to perishability), which range from $10 overnight around New England to $54 overnight to the Southwest and Pacific. Their gift boxes do, however, make for innovative business gifts, at times when spending in that range may be justified.
Or, look at it another way: how else can you ship delicious kosher soup nationwide, to ailing friends, family, and business associates? Get your orders in before the holidays, through their website or 1-87-SEND-SOUP (1-877-363-7687).
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Kosher Pop Tarts, almost
KBlog reader David writes in to share this news:
Nature’s Path has a new line of toaster pastries that taste just like Pop Tarts — as I remember them, anyway. Got ‘em in my local (Los Angeles) Trader Joe’s.
The Nature’s Path website lists three flavors — strawberry, blueberry, and apple-cinnamon — all available frosted or unfrosted, and all OU-Dairy, USDA Organic, and free of trans-fats.
Search for retailers, or buy online.
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Discount on Cabot’s OU cheddar ends Monday
Cabot’s introductory discount on OU-certified Sharp Cheddar ends Monday, according to an e-mail from Clay Whitney at Cabot:
The introductory sale is ending this Monday, May 16th, but this great new item will continue to be available through the Cabot website at www.shopcabot.com (under Waxless Cheddar on the left hand bar).
…
The results so far have been good, and we are continuing to review the response.
If there is a kosher market in your area that might be interested in carrying the Cabot OU Kosher Sharp Cheddar, please ask them to contact me at the web address or phone number below, or I would be happy to contact them if you give me their phone number.
Cabot’s contact information:
• 802-371-1246
• www.shopcabot.com
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The Return of Kosher.com
The Kosher.com website is live again. I ordered from them twice before the site went dark and had a good experience. For the most part they are similar to MyKosherMarket.com, however I think their site is more informative and user-friendly. Also, Kosher.com has more detailed information regarding hechshers for all items. Give them a try. Competition may be a good thing in the on-line kosher market biz.
P.S. All Kosher.com butcher items are KAJ/Rubashkin which may be a positive or negative depending on your viewpoint.
Links:
Kosher.com
MyKosherMarket.com
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OU Cabot Cheese!
From the Cabot Cheese website:
OU Kosher Sharp Cheddar - Cabot Vermont Sharp Cheddar that is certified kosher by Orthodox Union (OU-D) will be available exclusively from this website starting this March. All of the cheeses in our online store (except for Smoky Bacon Cheddar) are already certified kosher by Tablet-K and certified halal by the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA). However, we have received many consumer inquiries about providing OU-certified cheddar, so we are conducting this market test. If successful, we will make this product a permanent addition to our web shopping selection. In the future, we may even explore making it available through your local supermarket. It’s coming here in March — be sure to tell your friends.
Many thanks to elf for pointing this out!
UPDATE: Coming March 12!
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More Online Kosher Purveyors
It has been many months since we last did a round-up of new online sources for kosher gourmet products, so here’s the latest:
KOSHERGOURMETMART.COM
* offers one-stop shopping for over 400 kosher gourmet products
* extensive selection from across the online world, including igourmet’s cheeses, Sweethearts Three chocolates, Marzipan’s famous rugelach, and Rue Lafayette’s French delicacies
* also includes several non-food gifts
So far, it looks like all of KGM’s products are already available on other sites, but if their guarantee is valid that all products are the same price as at the manufacturers’ websites, it would make sense to do all your specialty shopping at KGM.
Though I’ve never been a fan of the osCommerce open source ecommerce package which KGM uses to drive its site, due to its poor marks in out-of-the-box aesthetics and usability, sites like CheeseSupply.com, for example, certainly succeed in improving their osCommerce-driven site from its original design. Alyssa Kaplan, KGM’s creator, was very receptive to a couple of usability concerns I sent her way, so I expect her site to continue improving in the coming months. Once a few missing images are filled in, some empty categories get loaded with products (or removed until they’re full), and more products have extensive descriptions, the site will be much more user-friendly.
KOSHER DEPOT
* manufacturer, importer, and distributor of high-end and exotic kosher products
* offers food-service products/quantities through retail site open to public
* world’s largest selection of kosher Asian products (miso, fermented black beans, sushi ingredients, etc.)
* bulk cheeses from several producers, bulk meat, bulk fish, lots more
* very competitive wholesale prices
* weekly truck delivery along eastern seaboard (from DC to Boston) offers serious savings in shipping costs
Let me just get this out of the way first: the site really doesn’t need a Flash intro page. Visitors should be taken directly to the store. Aside from that (and my previously-stated aversion to osCommerce), this site is a great resource, especially if you have a dedicated freezer for bulk purchases. Kosher Depot really is the “Victoria’s Secret of the kosher food industry,” as Jeff Nathan puts it… truly scintillating.
Many of their products aren’t available anywhere else, but I broke down several of the cheese prices to see how competitive they were with retail stores. Anderson International’s 6 lb. Mozzarella Brick worked out to be $3.08/lb, almost two dollars cheaper than Trader Joe’s price for a pound of kosher mozzarella. On the other hand, Ahava Foods’ Monterey Jack came in at an unimpresssive $5.53/lb.
The same was true of Kosher Depot’s meat. Their caterer-ready chicken seemed overpriced, but fresh tuna loin and beef rib eye, both at $7.95/lb, are very enticing.
I plan to make an order next week from these folks, so I’ll report back about the experience.
Overall, it’s promising to see more online kosher stores, especially with the wide selection of these two sites. Maybe someday the power of the Internet will bring prices much lower so it won’t be as oppressive to attain “the finer side of everyday kosher living.”
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Mail-Order Kashrut - Bread
Greetings again from the kashrut hinterlands! This last week we tried ordering bread from EliZabar’s bakery. A previous post in The Kosher Blog referenced a NYT piece about the bakery and mentioned that they ship nationwide. Our local Kroger bakes kosher bread once a week under the supervision of the Vaad. They produce competent french bread, and hamburger buns. However, the possibility of kosher artisan bread had my tastebuds revving. Presently, all of the breads are kosher except the braided brioche. Their pastries are not kosher. Kosher certification is provided by Rabbi Spivak of United Kosher Supervision in Monsey NY. We ordered some of the rye, raisin pecan bread and health loaf. The loaves were shipped two-day FedEx at no appreciable mark-up to the basic shipping cost. The product arrived in good condition and we sampled the rye and health loaf immediately. The general opinion was that this was serious bread worth the cost. Personally, I thought the rye was a bit mild for my tastes, but I was overruled by the family. The health loaf and raisin pecan breads have been retrieved after 3 weeks in the freezer (double wrapped in foil and a freezer bag like Mom taught me) and were still very good.
Mail-Order Kashrut Summary:
1. Hasgacha - Not a lot of detail available on the internet
2 Website friendliness - A-
3. Shipping costs - A
4. Shipping competence - A+
5. Quality - A
We’ll be adding Eli Zabar (www.elisbread.com )to our regular on-line orders.
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Mail-Order Kashrut, First Cut
Like a lot of people that have re-entered a more observant life, I live in a city that offers little in terms of kosher provisions. One of our local Kroger stores has a small kosher section and stocks Rubashkin and Empire meat and poultry products. This causes us to do a lot of shopping on-line for kosher products. Our most recent venture was with one of the Kosher Blog Google advertisers - Blackwing Meats. Yes, we ordered bison steaks. In some ways on-line kashrut is like all kashrut. We look for a reliable hechsher. No problem here for us as Blackwing is OU. Given the expense, we’re also looking for something new and different. Check and double check, not a lot of bison at my bubbe’s table. On-line kashrut diverges from kosher grocery shopping (now for something intuitively obvious) when we start thinking about shipping costs and quality. Here we caught a break. Blackwing Meats is in Illinois and we’re in Kentucky. We were able to opt for ground transport and saved a lot. The meat arrived still frozen and in excellent condition packed in styrofoam with blue ice.
Last night we sampled the bison steaks. Bison is by reputation very lean and requires a little bit of extra oil to prevent sticking. I pan seared the steaks with a little pepper and garlic. The result was very nice. A B+ for flavor, but a B- for tenderness. Next time an overnight marinade is in order. The overall impression is that this was a B+ experience when it comes to on-line kashrut when considering cost ($7.99/12oz), shipping and food quality.
They tell me glatt kosher elk is coming next.
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