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Vegetables and more to your door with Pale Green Dot
Another day another delivery box – or so it seems in my household where my empty nest has filled back up again and I have hungry mouths to feed. And feed again. I had forgotten how much young people with large appetites can eat! That’s where London food delivery services like Pale Green Dot come into their own right now.
I know that the supermarkets are well stocked again and even braved one a few weeks ago. But the convenience – and relative safety – of a veg box delivery has become a bit of a personal obsession. I have now tried a range of different companies offering a London food delivery service to assess quality, speed of delivery and range of options. These do vary enormously, with some delivering the next day, others having a 10 day wait. And the quality varies a lot – who wants to face several kilograms of broccoli (yes, I rather lost the plot) when every stalk is yellowed and some is sprouting a bit of mould?
Pale Green Dot sent me out a box to review and I was thrilled to find a wonderful selection of dairy nestled in amongst carrots with its green fronds cheerfully waving at me on my doorstep. Having sighed at the sight of many a limp vegetable over the past month, it was reassuring to find a box of crisp veg – radish, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower and beetroot. A few onions and potatoes, a bag of tomatoes and a few apples and oranges. That should last a day or two in my family but would suit a smaller household for a good few meals. Artisanal cheese as well as yoghurt and crème fraîche (from Northiam Dairy) plus butter from Castle Dairies. I don’t think I want to go back to supermarket brands after this quality! It’s great to support small food businesses too.
I have cheese lovers aplenty at home and am looking forward to treating them to a cheeseboard with the Miller’s Damsel crackers. For now, I have stashed these beauties at the back of the fridge. A round of Baron Bigod – a raw milk artisan cheese made by Fen Farm Dairy – looks too good to disappear into yet another cheese toastie – so I am keeping it for a few days until it can be savoured with decorum and I have a chance at getting a bite. It is the only traditional raw milk Brie-de-Meaux style cheese produced in the UK and is made from raw Montbeliarde cows milk. Fans of The Archers will know how special these cows are.
A large log of Driftwood ash coated goats cheese is my treat this week. I rather fancy making a goats cheese salad, the cheese cut in rounds on toasted croutons and grilled lightly. I will use the lovely lettuce too and scatter my last walnuts over the top, a drizzle of honey to finish.
This is what a good delivery box does – allows us to escape the tedium of lockdown and let our appetites roam. Pale Green Dot grows on their own farms and works with a wide network of additional farmers, using their expertise in logistic and farming to get great produce to your door. This new London food delivery service is, for me, rather exciting and one of the few silver linings of the current situation. Until recently Pale Green Dot were suppliers to some of London’s finest restaurants. Now, with the temporary closure of the UK’s restaurant and catering businesses, they’ve swapped to delivering food to UK homes. In addition to daily deliveries to London, they also deliver to Sussex, Surrey and West Kent (on set days of the week). They have veg boxes for just £12.50 (with no delivery charge) and a range of other products including fruit, meat and dairy.
Look at the website for a wide range of veg and fruit options, fabulous dairy and meats too.
@palegreendot
For more London food delivery services Borough Market offers a home delivery service across a range of their traders using e-bikes, currently within a 3.5 mile radius of the market. We are testing alternatives and promise to share the best with you as soon as possible.
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