Right when I finished the final bite of my Apple Box last year, I started to think about when I could order it again. I love apples in the fall, but when I’m meal-planning, I usually opt to just pack the apples as they are—crisp, round, and raw. The Apple Box opened my eyes to using Apples as an ingredient.

Fruity, juicy, spicy, sweet. Heirloom tomatoes are here, and we’re celebrating tomato season in a big way this year.  1 – Heirloom tomatoes all over the menu, especially in a new Summer Celebration Bowl that Sara dreamed up. 2 – A big Tomato Tasting event w/Verrill Farm this Thursday afternoon at Newtonville (click here to RSVP).  3 – Our Tomato Meal Box with recipes like tomato gratin, chilled roasted tomato soup, and a perfect tomato salad. The last chance to grab it this year is Wednesday at 5pm.

Honestly, Lucia and I are still getting used to writing words like “Chicken” and “Pork” in our emails, but Clover’s partnership with Tender—our favorite local neighborhood plant-protein magicians—means that the Kitchen team is cooking up all sorts of amazing new sandwiches for our menu. This week, we’d like to introduce you to the new BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich. It starts with Clover’s BBQ sauce, the stuff of legend: conceived on a research trip to Texas…

We had no idea what the word Panelle meant when a customer first told us about it ten years ago. This customer grew up in Sicily, the triangular island south of mainland Italy. His mom would make a snack for him after school – a kind of savory cake called panelle! Crispy on the outside, creamy and custardy on the inside. Made from chickpea flour – what?!

I recently took a Soup Box on a family vacation and we were all blown away by the clean, clear flavors and the freshness of the produce. (It was a potato leek soup with arugula salad and cider chive vinaigrette, French bread, local cucumbers, local radishes, and 2 different types of compound butters.) If you haven’t had a meal box in a while, this time of year might be the perfect time to try one…

As a born-and-bred Yankee, I’m particularly pumped for our Cape Cod Box. We’re using mushrooms and veggies to recreate classic Clam Shack fare— clam strips, chowder, and fish and chips! Plus, Chris and the kitchen team are righting the eternal wrong that Veggie Lovers never get to experience the rich luscious buttery joy of an overstuffed Lobster Roll with a perfectly toasted bun.

Emily just sent me a picture of this giant lettuce we just got from Verrill Farm. We’re going to be putting it in Monday’s Salad Meal Box along with eggplant, carrot-feta spread, Lebanese white bean salad, and a bunch of other yummy things. If you’re subscribed, you’re probably already in for this delivery; if you’d like to try it a-la-carte click here. Because these greens are grown in real soil, you’ll need to give them a good rinse using a…

Yellow and green summer squash. Basil. Beets. Scapes and scallions and spinach. Summer produce is starting to appear in our kitchen in abundance! Which means our Weekly Meal Boxes are getting even more vibrant and exciting. Here’s what we’re cooking up for next week: 6/30-7/6.

Don’t let the next 7 days go by before stopping in for a Nashville Hot Mushroom. Corn mayo, a pile of beautiful Rhode Island Mushrooms we batter and fry, our sizzlingly hot Nashville oil, leaf lettuce, and some VERY necessary cooling pickle slices. If you aren’t on our email list, we occasionally send out little gifts there. Last night we sent out $5 off a Nashville Hot Mushroom sandwich or platter, and now I’m sharing it here…

About a year and a half ago, at an open-to-the-public food development meeting at Clover, we blind taste-tested a new plant-based pulled pork. This wasn’t a totally new thing for us to do—as a company with a climate mission, we tend to get a lot of samples of plant-based everything, and we love trying all of them. We’ve tried mycelium-based mushroom meats, wheat-and-soy nuggets, and burgers made from kelp. One bite in, and it was clear this pulled pork was special.

Squeaky paneer, mint cilantro chutney, chaat, and our first-ever collab with a local chef. Remember when Pushpir came into the kitchen and schooled us on Northern Indian food? That was 2013. A different CloverHSQ than the one you visit today (back then we were at 7 Holyoke St, across the street from where Kevin and his team now serve you). I still remember the smell of the cilantro, mint, jalapeños, and orange juice Pushpir was blending in the Vitamix. We hadn’t smelled that exact combo before…

This week has been a flurry of preparations as we kick off the 2024 food truck season. We did an event at Tufts over the weekend, in a few days we’ll be selling breakfast and lunch at a conference at the Media Lab at MIT, and this weekend we’ll be pulling up to a private party with sandwiches and appetizers.