Here is a quote from the co-founder of Thrive Market:
“Growing up in the Midwest in the ‘90s, I saw how hard my mom worked to put healthy food on our table despite limited knowledge, a limited budget, and limited healthy options in our hometown. She did an amazing job, but it was hard—and she was mostly on her own…Thirty years later, so much has changed. Today, millions of moms, dads, grandparents, and young people are all aspiring to live healthier and more sustainable lives. My mom is no longer on her own!And yet one thing hasn’t changed: finding convenient, trusted, and affordable ways to shop healthier is still hard.At Thrive Market, we’re on a mission to change that.”—Nick Green, Father of Two + Thrive Market Co-Founder & CEO
Thrive Market is benefiting from four converging trends that shifted into overdrive by the pandemic: healthy eating, online grocery, subscriptions, and personalized shopping.
It’s propelled an already rapidly-growing company, tracking at 40% year-over-year growth before the pandemic, to nearly double its business since, with sales up 90% year-over-year.
With its membership rapidly approaching one million, Thrive Market solves many of the problems inherent in traditional grocery shopping and online as well. Because the typical grocery store carries between 30,000 to 50,000 products, grocery shoppers suffer from a confusing abundance of choices.
Thrive Market makes selection simple, offering about 6,000 carefully curated items that represent the best brands that are better for people and better for the planet.
Initially focused on non-perishable products in the center aisles of a grocery store, it now offers wine, meat, seafood, and ready-made meals, along with a growing list of pet, beauty, and home products. The only thing missing is dairy and fresh fruits and vegetables, which present logistical challenges the company is working to overcome.
“We are about six years old now, and we have always been a fast-growing business,” says Sasha Siddhartha, the company’s co-founder and chief technology officer. “Since we launched, keeping up the growth and scale has been a consistent focus for us. But then starting in late February/early March, that growth accelerated dramatically, and we continue to hold that accelerated pace. It turns out Thrive Market is a sticky concept.”
“Our approach has always been curated, so you don’t have to worry about which brand is better for you or spend time studying the labels. Our merchandising team has already done the work for you to pre-select and curate based on the highest standards in the industry,” Siddhartha says. “Instead of finding 40 products to choose from, we offer the best two or three, taking the guesswork out.”
Since Covid hit, people have prioritized health and wellness in grocery shopping. Thrive Market sits in that sweet spot. Even before the pandemic, natural and organic had been the fastest-growing sector in the grocery industry, he shares. It is a trend that is sure to continue as the immediate health threat abates.
Online grocery shopping is a great convenience, saving time, which is the ultimate luxury. But consumer habits are hard to break and going to the grocery store has long been a staple of the American’s lifestyle. That changed overnight due to the pandemic.
Why give your money to a company that is not only infringing on your Constitutional rights, but those of their employees?
Thrive Market is the way of the future.
They provide high-quality products at very reasonable prices.
Expect to see other online grocery stores adopt a similar model of Thrive Market.
Summer grilling is here and life is opening up again, it’s time for gathering together with friends and family, having backyard BBQ’s and enjoying special occasions which we all missed so much!
Memorial Day is just around the corner and so is Father’s Day and if you’re planning on doing any cookouts, I hope you add this intensely flavored mustard, garlic herb paste to just about whatever you’re planning on grilling.
Fresh herbs are the key to this delicious herb paste which can be made in a jiffy using a food processor and don’t be afraid to double or triple this recipe, I promise it will amp up your grilling game!
I used a mix of basil, parsley, thyme, and rosemary. Each herb carries its own intense flavor which pairs nicely with grilled foods but feel free to create your own combo that you might prefer.
Brush it all over veggies, chicken, beef, pork, and even fish, the more the better!
I’ve been using this herb paste since way back, here’s a post I did nine years ago, time sure does fly!
Snip off some herbs and make this mustard, garlic, herb paste the next time you turn on the grill, enjoy!
Mustard Garlic Herb Paste – SFor Summer Grilling
Print Consider double or tripling this recipe, it’s that good! Author: Marie
Ingredients:
2 cups of herbs like parsley, basil, thyme, and rosemary, but feel free to use your favorite combination
3 large garlic cloves
2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
zest and juice of 1 lemon
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
In a food processor add the herbs and garlic and process, then add zest and lemon juice and finish with the olive oil to the consistency of a loose paste, easy to spread.
Make sure to let it sit on your protein or veggie of choice for at least an hour before grilling.
Romeo Salta was a renowned restauranteur back in the 1950s through the 1980s. His swank namesake Manhattan restaurant attracted luminaries from the worlds of business, politics, and entertainment.
My father, who was quite the buongustaio back in the day, used to take our family there from time to time when I was a kid. It was a thrill to rub shoulders with the rich and famous. But Romeo Salta was also my first introduction to Italian food other than Angelina’s Neapolitan cookery. Salta served what was at the time called “Northern Italian” food. That was the rather ludicrous catch-all phrase used at the time for any regional Italian cuisine besides the ones from Naples and points south brought to America by the mass immigration of the early 20th century. These cuisines from central and northern Italy were new and different and became very fashionable. So-called northern Italian food was considered “lighter”, and certainly more “sophisticated”, than the southern Italian cookery Americans were familiar with, although that wasn’t really the case.
In 1962, Romeo Salta wrote a cookbook for anyone who wanted to try recreating the dishes he served up at his restaurant. The book, called The Pleasures of Italian Cooking, didn’t have much of an impact on the way Americans actually cooked. For that, we would have to wait another 11 years, for Marcella Hazan’s landmark Classic Italian Cookbook, published in 1973. Still, Salta’s cookbook is a piece of culinary history, the first cookbook published in America to present “real” Italian cookery. (The first such book in the English language had probably been Elizabeth David’s Italian Food, published in the UK about eight years before Salta’s book.)
I did find one recipe that appears to be Romeo’s own creation. Dubbed Insalata di Pasqua or Easter Salad, it’s lightly blanched green peas, garnished with ham, anchovies, and olives, and dressed with a citronette enriched with hard-boiled egg yolk. It sounded intriguing and certainly seasonal, so I gave it a go, playing with the recipe a bit to suit my own tastes.
I was well pleased with the results. Other than a Russian Salad, I’d never tried using green peas in a salad, and never with a simple oil-based dressing. It worked beautifully. The fresh taste of the peas was complemented by the savory ham and other garnishes. The salad was filling yet light. And it was rather pretty to look at, too. All in all, a fitting antipasto to begin Easter dinner.
So if you feel like a little bit of nostalgia this Easter, why not give Romeo Salta’s Easter Salad a try?
1 lb (500 grams) frozen peas, blanched, drained, and cooled
1/4 lb (150 grams) cooked ham, cut into cubes
One head of Boston lettuce
For the garnish:
A few anchovy fillets
Olives, green and black
2 hard-boiled eggs, cut into wedges (optional)
For the dressing:
1/2 cup (125 ml) olive oil
The juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper
Directions
Blanch the peas in boiling water. Just let the water come back to the boil and let it simmer for perhaps a minute, then drain in a large colander. Rinse the peas in cold water to stop the cooking, then let them drain until they are perfectly dry.
Line a salad bowl with the Boston lettuce leaves, using as many as you need to line your bowl.
In a separate mixing bowl, mix the drained peas and cubed ham together, then pile the mixture on top of the salad leaves.
Arrange the anchovy fillets, olives and, if using, wedges of hard-boiled egg on top of the peas and ham.
Whisk together the dressing ingredients until they are perfectly emulsified. Taste and adjust for seasoning, then pour over the salad.
Serve immediately.
Notes on Romeo Salta’s Easter Salad
Truth be told, as fascinating as it is as a piece of culinary history, The Pleasures of Italian Cooking is not always a pleasure to cook from. Salta’s instructions are fairly telegraphic, typical of many Italian cookbooks. But more to the point, a good number of his recipes, such as the one for peperoni alla piemontese, simply do not work. (Yes, I tried.) In others, the measurements seem off, such as his recipe for sedani alla parmigiana, which calls for braising three bunches of celery in a half-cup of stock. I wonder if he tested—or even proofread—his recipes?
This Easter Salad recipe also needed some interpretation. Here are his verbatim instructions:
Put peas on the bottom of a salad bowl. Arrange the anchovies and ham over them, then lettuce wedges around the edge of the bowl. Beat together the oil, [hard boiled] egg yolks, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Pour over ingredients in the bowl. Garnish with olives.
Good luck with that! If you followed these cryptic instructions to the letter you would wind up with something rather odd. So as you can see, I played around. For one thing, I used the lettuce as a bed rather than an edging. Salta doesn’t specify the type of lettuce, but given the period and his instruction to cut it into wedges, I’m guessing iceberg. I used whole leaves of Boston lettuce instead.
And then I mixed the ham, cut into cubes with the peas rather than laying slices of it on top. Rather than using a whole can of anchovies as Salta calls for, I used enough to make a cross on top, symbolic of Easter. And rather than adding hard-boiled egg yolks to the dressing, which struck me as probably unsightly, I used whole hard-boiled eggs—also an Easter tradition—cut into wedges, as part of the garnish.
On Romeo Salta and his restaurant
Romeo Salta himself was born a southerner, in Puglia in 1904. After his father died when he was six, Salta was raised in a state-run orphanage in Florence. He had no formal culinary training, learning his trade working as a kitchen boy on several Italian cruise lines. Arriving penniless in New York in 1924, he made his living for a few years doing menial work at various hotels around town. After a stint in the midwest, he moved to Los Angeles in 1933, founding a restaurant called Chianti in 1938. After a low start, Ed Sullivan stopped for dinner one night and wrote about it in his newspaper column. Chianti soon began to attract celebrities like Lucille Ball and Errol Flynn. Salta’s career finally took off.
Returning to New York in 1951, Salta opened a place called Mercurio with a partner, then branched out on his own in 1953 with his storied namesake restaurant on West 56th Street. At a time when Italian restaurants were synonymous with red-checkered tablecloths with candles stuck in straw-covered Chianti bottles, his elegant ambiance and offerings of Italian food as it was and is cooked in its native land were a revelation.
You can read more about Romeo Salta in his 1998 New York Times obituary.
A funny story…
A great part of the fun going to Romeo Salta was the chance to catch a glimpse of its rich and famous patrons. I remember, for instance, we once sat next to an elderly James Farley, who had been FDR’s campaign director, Postmaster General, and later head of Coca-Cola International. Since the tables were close together, he and Dad struck up a conversation, and we got to hear a few of his fascinating reminiscences.
But the most memorable moment from our visits to Romeo Salta was seeing Raymond Burr. He was an actor best known for playing Perry Mason in the eponymous 1960s TV series and later “Ironside”, a wheelchair-bound detective for the San Francisco police force, in the 1970s. We happened to be seated near the entrance to the restaurant. From our table, we could see the patrons coming in and out. Well, in saunters Mr. Burr. One of my sisters, who was a big fan of Ironside at the time, blurts out—well within earshot mind you—” Look, it’s Ironsides! It’s Ironsides!” We all squirmed in embarrassment, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. As soon as he was out of sight, I turned and replied: “Yeah, and it must be a miracle, ’cause he’s walking!”
1 lb 500g frozen peas blanched, drained, and cooled
1/4 lb 150 g cooked ham cut into cubes
1 head Boston lettuce
For the garnish:
A few anchovy fillets
Olives green and/or black
2 hard-boiled eggs cut into wedges (optional)
For the dressing:
1/2 cup 125 ml olive oil
1 lemon juiced
Salt and pepper
Instructions
Blanch the peas in boiling water. Just let the water come back to the boil and let it simmer for perhaps a minute, then drain in a large colander. Rinse the peas in cold water to stop the cooking, then let them drain until they are perfectly dry.
Line a salad bowl with the Boston lettuce leaves, using as much as you need to line your bowl.
In a separate mixing bowl, mix the drained peas and cubed ham together, then pile the mixture on top of the salad leaves.
Arrange the anchovy fillets, olives and, if using, wedges of hard-boiled egg on top of the peas and ham.
Whisk together the dressing ingredients until they are perfectly emulsified. Taste and adjust for seasoning, then pour over the salad.
