RanchoGordo bean club, Palouse for grains and other beans like garbonzos, (Washington state). So that is my short list. Misfits i'll slow down to every 4-5 weeks when the garden kicks in. In person Costco twice a year for staples. HMart and WholeFoods every 3-4 months.

Misfits has a promo code right now, not sure how long. 20$ off, COOKWME-WV5KVC.

misfits code

Fantasic deal if stuck in a food desert like my family. I've been sending them a gift box once a month. When i visit i order and no longer need to travel with coolers.

Nice company and excellent customer service. Easy to cancel and no order placed, they do not send. Never substitute items, ever.

The 2 orders from the past month...

The organic purple sweet potatoes weighed out at just over 3 pounds. 75cents a pound.

If anyone wants to try, i'll match the 20$ and send to José Andrés World Central Kitchen set up at the Polish border. Chef MarcMurphey is there as well as a co-worker.

EastCoast, HudsonValley, Boston down to NYC, WaldenLocal farm share has been excellent as well. Cryo-vacked in small portions with dry ice. Nice sellection of add-ons like farm eggs and soup bones for stock.

Looking at my 'lock-down' file, i ordered from iGourmet twice. Good company and high quality. Looking back we had very low appetites. Just a small snack platter of fruit, cheeses, and some pate and proscuitto/salami.

Great round-up! I've been in a supermarket off hours a couple of times, but I'm not giving up delivery any time soon. Most of our food comes from the farm service. Home squeezed orange juice is too sweet for me, so I do a grocery store order when we need orange juice. :) It's an opportunity to get a cucumber and anything else the farm doesn't provide, as wells as paper goods, and staples. I do get flour straight from Central Milling, and have also bought from Palouse and Rancho Gordo. And there are some things that are just easier to find on Amazon. We have plenty and abundance, and even did through the worst. Can't always be picky, but can usually get whatever is needed.

I should add those not familiar with the Misfits system, you need to hit the 30$ mark for

vegetables and/or pantry items.Total 30$. I am consistently 35-40$ in veg /fruits. 25-30$ for pantry treats. Familiar with most items and are all 2-3dollars less in cost than my local stores.

No need to purchase pantry items but we like a bit of chocolate and try a new chip or hot sauce, etc. 90% organic without much plastic is nice.

Perfect timing being Tuesday. Next delivery is Thursday. Roasted a tray of veg/roots, and a big fresh slaw for a few days and lunches. I order a bit too much but like the variety. Greens we go through quickly but root crops last a long time.

I stopped doing Misfits a while back. It was fun when it was still a mystery box and it forced me to shake up my cooking because of it. Wasn't so much fun when I had to shop, so I dropped them. Imperfect wasn't good, it was way too imperfect. In quality, consistancy, and regular canceling items.

Tried Every Plate- a lot of packaging waste, a lot of repeats to boring. Dinnerly was a lot better, but I ended up using the ingredients for other instead of the meals, rendering it kind of pricy moot.

Hungry Root- I still have that one, we like to get some of the protiens once in a while, especially when mom visits. But it's more of a treat order than a needed shop. Tried Chef Unity- the food was rather good, but too much for just the two of us. Cancelled them.

Still on the waiting list for the Ranco Gordo bean club... so a order or two a year there.

Amigo Foods a couple times for some of the harder to find stuff, Montery Bay Spice Co for some bulk herbs and teas, and Johnnys for most of my microgreens seeds.

I tried the home delivery carts a couple times. Fairly disappointing.

^Lots of unfamiliar options i've never heard of. I go back decades with Johnny's.

Misfits is un-matched in freshness, variety, and customer service. My delivery today was perfection except for one missing item. They have a search function now and a side bar where i can go straight to 'vegetables'. Or to 'pantry'. Scrolling was annoying but i shop during CBS Sunday morning every other week during commercials. Then get on with my life. It would take three-four markets and a few hours as well as gas to get the variety. I would spend more and get frustrated.

Annie has had some freshness issues so must be some problems with some of the distribution centers. Combined with the delivery services.

I tried ButcherBox but WildFork seems better for variety and cost and smaller packages for those eating less proteins like us. Not tried WF but friends like them. Good choices all around for meat and seafood.

We are very brand-oriented so like many these days, get specific items from specific companies.

- Use our local supermarket chain for certain items. Toilet paper, some basic produce (their produce is, interestingly, more local-oriented and frankly better/riper than Whole Paycheck). They are the only ones, for example, who carry the hydroponic Kumato tomatoes, the Kobayashi Farms artisanal romaine, and real Tuscan melons from a Central Coast farm that only picks when the brix levels are judged high enough. I try to get them from on-line ordering, but sometimes going into the store is the only way.

- I use Imperfect Foods (formerly Imperfect Produce) altho as mentioned above, they are very flawed. Still, they have some items I have a hard time finding elsewhere. We love their Great River potato chips - much fresher than the stale stuff in the stores. And thru IF we have discovered some specialty items we would never have discovered otherwise, as they often will feature 'special buy' items for a month or two. I love the Zoi honey yogurt, and again, not easy to find in most stores but IF usually has it. IF also introduced us to Stepladder Creamery's Ragged Point brie-style cheese, which is now a staple in our house.

- Normally don't like Stonewall Kitchen products - jams & sauces too sweet - but they carry the Tillen Farms Pickled Baby Cucumbers (cornichons) which are a special variety they grow. They are pickled with fresh dill, onion and garlic, so the brine is mellow rather than harsh; should be refrigerated for a day prior to opening so they will become super-crunchy. For serving you can bring them to room temp.

- Some items I get through Amazon. Only use Whole Food on rare occasions, since I dislike their meat/fish/produce.

- We get our jam from the WeLoveJam folks, after a NYT article mentioned them. It's a couple who bought one of the few remaining farms left in Silicon Valley, CA, and for over 20 yrs has been making great jams, including some rare fruit varieties like limequat. Their Blenheim Apricot jam has less sugar than any other artisanal brand we've tried, and really tastes like fresh fruit. Sadly, they are trying to retire so have the farm up for sale - one day soon I'm afraid I'll get an email saying they're finally found a buyer who will take over the farm! They want to keep it a farm, but that's a hard sell these days, especially with our drought conditions and climbing interest rates.

There is a small independent specialty market we started using more often during the lockdown. I really wish they did delivery, or at least a pick-up service, but unfortunately it's walk-in only. Excellent meat, dairy, and cheese depts.

Otherwise, we have numerous ethnic markets around so no real need to mail order. Ethiopian injera, Mexican markets and bakeries, Caribbean grocers, Eastern European delis, Asian/SE Asian/Indo-Chinese markets; along with scores of herbs, coffee and tea purveyors, are all reachable by car within our county.

Interestingly, a number of the Thai/Laotian restaurants lately are making their own versions of sai oua, the super-spicy pork sausage, and also sell it in frozen 1-lb pkgs on the side. Used to be that only one or two eateries did it, but now we know of at least half a dozen in our own town that are willing to sell their sai oua retail. Surprising because that's not common for any other Asian restaurants. Chinese restaurants sometimes will have a deli section, but that's as far as it goes.

I did really like Misfits, great quality. Even in the summer or winter when a delivery delay could mess with things. I was just bummed when they stopped doing the mystery boxes. That really helped me get through some cooking blahs and literally back on my feet cooking again after some serious injury and illness early '19 into mid '20. But then sometime after that they stopped the mystery boxes and shopping online for it wasn't a good cost and quality factor over using my local markets. I think Imperfect might have just been too new at the time, and I had been spoiled on Misfits so Imperfect just was blech. I ran them against each other for a month or so. Late '20 into last year and now I've been able to pick back up again with gardening so the produce boxes aren't so necessary again.

Amigo Foods too during that time period- trying out a lot of new seasonings and such to learn how to cook a lot of South American foods helped kick my cooking butt. Now I can't live without my Aji Amarillo peppers and found seed to grow my own this summer. I hit up Amazon for Pao de Quejio mix, the shipping is way cheaper than Amigo Foods.

The Hungry Root and Chef Unity were try outs last fall when my mom came out to visit for a few weeks. It was kind of fun to have three of us trying out different things and I didn't have to really cook and could just hang with mom. The Chef Unity is fresh fully made meals ready to heat and eat. It was nice for a cooking break, but after mom was gone it was just way too much other cooking coming in. I'm used to cooking every day, heh. There's a price break between the 2 or 4 meals and the 6+ meals plans that just make it too much.

Hungry Root is fun. Kind of like Misfits for shopping. Runs similar, order 50 points of food to ship out. They offer to shop for you in the form of meal ideas- like some burgers, buns, cheese, and lettuce items to make a dinner. Or a bag of baby potatoes, chicken breasts, and a sauce to make a dinner. Almond butter, small english muffins, and a carton of blueberries for a breakfast. I can just leave it at their suggestions and even just not look for the week and be surprised at what shows up, or shop for items if I like. And it's full sized stuff, like a 6 pack of buns so you have some leftovers you can use for other after the burger dinner, or you only need half the bag of potatoes for the chicken dinner, so you have more to use for other. We all liked the protien offerings, good sausages and plant based stuff, some of the fish is pretty good. My subscription sign up I chose to get a free protien with every box. Some other meats too that I waver about if it's worth it or not. I only do them once a month or 6 weeks or so as a treat order now.

I did try a gift thing in '20 from Cajun Grocier. A cooler box stuffed with goodies. Bay shrimp, forgot how icky those fellas can be to clean up when whole and unrinsed. Worth every bite. The sausages were pretty good. The ham was out of this world. I found that yes, I still hate the stuffing with liver in it. Rediscovered lady cream peas.

RanchoGordo delivered yesterday. Always nice to get a few surprises to try. Not great savings but includes shipping so it runs about an extra pound free over normal costs. And a free shipping code to order any favorites. This time last year i wanted my two summer favorites--Corona and the little green flagolet for summer salads. I'll do the same again. Since they lowered the free shipping to 50$ for standard orders a couple years ago, i wouldn't miss the bean club that much.

It was nice to have my pantry stash during 2020 since they were way backed up after a few articles in the NYTimes mentioned them.

A e-mail newsletter recently Steve mentioned they will be taking on the wait-listed now that things are back on tract. (employees out sick or having to stay home with children out of school)