Updated: Nov 30, 2020
Naina Waghray | NOVEMBER 29
The Simple Stove, founded by Terri Block and Lee Yonish, is a new business based in Skillman that provides customers with fresh and nutritious meals through a weekly a la carte menu.
Block and Yonish met in 2015 through The Suppers Program in Princeton, a non-profit organization that teaches people about having healthy eating habits.
Yonish has been part of the Supper Program since its beginning, while Block joined the program in 2015 and is now The Suppers Kitchen manager. Block and Yonish began planning for the start of The Simple Stove in May and started cooking orders in September.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, many people’s diets changed, and many “have been looking for ways to stay healthy,” Block says. Ordering from The Simple Stove is one way people can eat clean foods and maintain a balanced diet. Block and Yonish personally cook all the meals. “It’s almost like we’re personal chefs for a larger group of people,” Block says.
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Each meal includes health tags, which accommodate any dietary restrictions that customers may have. Tags include gluten- free, dairy-free, vegan, vegetarian, paleo, nightshade-free, and sugar-free.
“We have it all,” Yonish says, “Everyone has their own individual needs and ways of eating that are best for them, and we just want to meet those needs.” Overall, their food contains no processed foods, no refined sugars, no refined oil, and rarely contains dairy products. “Our mission is to only provide food with ingredients that are whole, real, natural,” Yonish says.
The menu changes on a weekly basis and usually includes about a dozen items, such as soups, salads, snacks, and desserts. Yonish says many of the recipes she has contributed to The Simple Stove are from her time at the Clean Program, a wellness company. Block has helped to refine these recipes and has also contributed her own through her experience at the Suppers Program.
Outside of that, Yonish and Block do a lot of experimenting and testing before deciding to sell a meal to customers. “I feel like cooking is a creative outlet for me,” Block says, “I think being in the kitchen is an area where I just feel very free to experiment and try different things. So, I think that helped me come up with new recipes.”
They touch on the idea of improvement when it comes to refining a recipe, “I think that’s one of the reasons we work together really well because we’re both willing to have fun and experiment and fail, as we go along,” Yonish says.
Block says her favorite item from their ever-changing menu is currently the chocolate chia pudding. Yonish says her favorite dish is the sugar-free apple crisp and coconut cashew whipped cream. For Thanksgiving, The Simple Stove offered several side dishes that could be eaten alongside customers’ meals. Block and Yonish say they plan to have a menu for Hanukkah as well as for other upcoming holidays in the wintertime.
Yonish and Block value giving back to the community. On November 29th, The Simple Stove collaborated with Princeton University Concerts. A portion of the evening’s sales was donated to Meals on Wheels of Mercer County, which is a program that provides hot meals to older homebound adults. Block says they are interested in donating more regularly to additional local organizations.
Customers order online through The Simple Stove anytime from Thursday through Saturday and pick-up their meals on Wednesday afternoons from 3-7 pm.
