24 February, 2014: We taste new beers every week at our Food Dev meeting. I think this is the 3rd time we’ve tried Idle Hands over the years. I think they started a couple of years ago. They’re based in Everett, and available in local stores and I think they have a tap room if you want to check them… Read More
23 February, 2014: We just tasted this year’s Peak Simcoe. This is a beer we ran last spring and people loved. Peak buys the entire supply of organic simcoe hops. I’ve heard this is a bit controversial in the industry, because others would like some of those hops. But Peak is the largest organic brewer and maybe they’ll help develop… Read More
22 February, 2014: Just about everybody who works in the kitchen has beef with me. A long time ago I decided Clover would use fresh garlic. We’d started out that way. But then I think Rolando had brought in an already peeled product, which is really popular in kitchens. And I thought the hummus was off and couldn’t figure out… Read More
20 February, 2014: As you know, we’re working on packaging for WFM and for use in our restaurants. I’ve been snapping references from others. This one was taken in DC. It’s a restaurant down there that sells “dips and spreads” at various places. I think they do well with this. We’re trying to think how to use traditional packaging (which… Read More
18 February, 2014: We’ve been working with IDEO to figure out how to present Clover at WFM. Here are some early prototypes from our project. Here we’re playing with some different package shapes. Yeah, I know they look sort of alcoholic : ) We’re thinking glass could be fun if we could get customers to reuse the container. I always… Read More
14 February, 2014: We’ve been getting to know the folks at Whole Foods over the past 6-9 months. I learned that some of the leaders have been customers for some time, and keeping an eye on what we’ve been up to at Clover. In particular they’re excited about the flavors we develop with vegetables, and the tight seasonality of what… Read More
21 November, 2013: That’s Clementine, my daughter, pointing at Sidehill’s field. This is where your yogurt starts. We’ve just recently switched our yogurt to Sidehill, and I couldn’t be happier. I went out to visit their farm in Ashfield, MA. I grew up in Western Mass, and I have been loving this yogurt since I first tried it, shortly after… Read More
29 July, 2013: Michael put up this butcher paper roll on the wall at Burlington. This is something we started back at HSQ when one customer asked for “plates” and another customer asked for a “canvas.” So it’s been a sort of tradition to paper our walls with drawings from customers. Some are really funny, some are touching. I think… Read More
18 July, 2013: I just read the Boston Globe story from today. But first I read the bostonglobe.com before the paywall version: Clover restaurant’s lapses preceded outbreak When a city inspector went to Clover restaurant in East Cambridge last Friday she found spoiled cauliflower, hummus and various salads coming back from food trucks at improper temperatures, and no one on… Read More
17 July, 2013: John’s our Director of Finance and Control. The suits he wears aren’t normally white. He’s been doing an awesome job over the past few days helping the inspectors and public health officials from the state move the investigation forward. Right now we’re waiting for lots and lots of samples to come back. We’ve gone through potential vectors… Read More