Let’s Dish! Food for Thought

Tag Archives: 174

August 18, 2008 – 2:58 pm

We appreciate your feedback!

As regular dishers know, we send a survey to every customer following their In-Store, Dish-n-Dash or DishDelivery session. You may not realize that we get over 1000 completed surveys each month… and we read every single one! Your feedback has been essential in helping us develop some of our new services and programs, including:

Freezer Freedom: Our newsletter for those who prefer to “cook from frozen”
You Deliver, Dish Delivers: Our free delivery program for new moms
Dishing flexibility and Walk-in Wednesdays

And you bring up questions that make us think: Should crying babies be permitted at sessions? Could you have splitters’ utensils at the stations instead of just “fulls”? How much more would it cost to provide all (or some) organic ingredients? [Feel free to post a comment on these — or other — issues below].

But we have to admit, our favorite part of reading comments is seeing how important our service is in making your busy lives a little easier, healthier or simply more pleasant. Just look at a few of the actual, unedited comments that came in this week:

“I’m so glad a friend took me to ‘Let’s Dish!’ As a working mother with two small children this has made our evenings less stressful and more enjoyable. My husband likes the meals and I like that everything’s already done. I wish I would have known about this when I was pregnant!” - Amanda
“I’ve only been in twice and both times have been phenomenal! I told the staff that my dishing experience was quickly becoming the highlight of my month. The food is fabulous and requires so little thought on my part - which is wonderful when entertaining - and every time I go, I am greeted with such a friendly staff and a fun experience. Let’s Dish is the greatest invention ever!!!” - Savannah
“I am a total convert- love how this simplies my life at dinner time every day and frees me up to spend more time with my kids! ” - Chari

So please keep the feedback coming. What we’re doing well, we’ll strive to do more of. And where we drop the ball, we appreciate your letting us know!

By Jeremy Kugel | Posted in Bright Ideas, The Dish On | Also tagged children, cook, cooking, feedback, kitchen, Let's Dish!, meal preparation, mom, recipes, survey | Comments (3)

July 28, 2008 – 2:14 pm

Which Pie’s For You? Buy One / Try One at 50% OFF

Man, we love getting emails like the one below. While I personally am a documented aficionado of our S’mores Pie, Julie W makes a strong case for the creamy cool richness of Frozen Strawberry Margarita Pie. Which is better? See for yourself! Just print this blog post and bring it into any MD or No. VA Let’s Dish! location and get 50% OFF any pie when you buy a pie at regular price.

Dear Let’s Dish!,

Your Frozen Strawberry Margarita Pie is the bomb! I served that wonderful pie of yours to my parents last night for dessert and they were practically licking their plates clean! I think that Let’s Dish! needs to rename this desert as Awesome Frozen Strawberry Margarita Pie because it’s so delicious! Thank you again for sharing this wonderful and yummy desert with me and my family! It was a big hit!

Cheers, Julie W.

Let us know which summery pie you like best — make a comment on this blog post! Talk about a delcious dilemma….

Offer expires August 15th, 2008, and cannot be applied to previous purchase or combined with other offers. Must present coupon to redeem.

Click to continue reading “Which Pie’s For You? Buy One / Try One at 50% OFF”

By Jeremy Kugel | Posted in Bright Ideas, Just for Fun | Also tagged Let's Dish!, meal assembly, recipes, summer, The Dish On | Comments (0)

June 28, 2008 – 5:00 am

Enter Our Recipe Contest and Win $100

Recipe Contest Share favorite recipe and your next Let’s Dish! session could be FREE. Raid your family’s cookbook and send us your best - entrée, side or dessert. You could win a $100 Let’s Dish! gift card, and may even see your dish on our menu. Entries must be sent to recipes@letsdish.net by July 31st, 2008. The winner will be contacted by August 31^st, 2008.*

We’d love to use your submission on a future Let’s Dish! menu, so please remember:

All ingredients must be freezable
Recipe must contain specific amounts and methods
Recipe must be executable with no additional equipment (e.g: food processor, mixer, etc.)
Recipe must be nutritionally sound and within Let’s Dish! guidelines. (one serving = 5000 calories, sorry… no can do!.)
All recipes must be original and created by the submitter (not copied from a cookbook)
Recipe must serve 6
Heating or cooking should be relatively simple
Recipe may be changed at Let’s Dish! discretion to utilize in store
It needs to be delicious! (at least according to our expert panel)

*All submissions become property of Let’s Dish! and may be used or altered without further permission from, credit to, or compensations for, the submitter. All rights reserved. Entries that arrive after July 31st, 2008 will not be considered.

LINKS TO BLOG POSTS THAT MAY GIVE YOU INSPIRATION:
> Check your top-rated dishes and then find and submit similar recipes. Click here to read more about rating your dishes.

> Kid-friendly meals are always popular, especially during the school year. Watch the WUSA9 feature on Let’s Dish! family-friendly meals.

> We strive for healthy and delicious meals on our menu. Here’s a page showing you how to download the nutrition facts and ingredients of our current menu.

> Read all the Culinary Inspiration posts for more ideas!

By Holly W | Posted in Culinary Inspiration | Also tagged cook, cooking, Culinary Inspiration, diet, holly wildberger, let's dish menu, Let's Dish!, meal assembly, meal preparation, nutrition, recipes, www.letsdish.com | Comments (0)

June 26, 2008 – 5:00 am

Walk-in Wednesdays now available!

We have gotten thousands of customer suggestions and requests over the last few years, and none as often as the request to be able to walk in and dish at Let’s Dish! store without an appointment. We’ve heard your feedback and are excited to launch Walk-In Wednesdays!

Now on Wednesdays, you can walk into any of our participating Maryland or Northern Virginia locations and dish anywhere from 1 to 13 meals at a time.* No appointment necessary. You heard right. No appointment necessary!

We are thrilled to try out the new walk-in idea, and summer is the perfect time for it - when everyone’s schedule become more hectic and planning a dishing session can seem nearly impossible. We think you’ll be excited too (hey, you’ve been begging us for it)!

If Wednesday is your regular dishing day, don’t fear - you can still sign up in advance if you wish, just like you normally would. That will guarantee that all the food you ordered will be waiting for you when you get there.

Check the online calendar for your store’s Wednesday hours and stop by to dish!

*Participating Let’s Dish! locations include Baltimore and Columbia, MD, and Alexandria, Ashburn, and Fairfax, VA. Menu items are subject to availability. Only customers who make 4 or more meals will have those meals counted toward DishRewards.

By Emily Blakely | Posted in Bright Ideas, Most Popular Posts | Also tagged cooking, DishRewards, emily blakely, family dinner, family dinners, kitchen, Let's Dish!, meal assembly, meal preparation, recipes, summer, time management, www.letsdish.com | Comments (3)

June 25, 2008 – 10:00 am

1 Dish? 6 Dishes? 11 Dishes? We’re Flexible.

It started out as “8 or 12″ dishes per Let’s Dish! session. Then, with much fanfare, we added 4-meal sessions. And this spring, SingleDish Trials.

And now, welcome to the final frontier of session flexibility. Dish however many meals you want: 1, 3, 7, 14 or anything in between. OK, our technology is limited, so you still have to sign up online for SingleDish or a 4-, 8- or 12- meal session. But you can add meals to your order, quickly and easily, once in a Let’s Dish! store - usually for just $23 each. Just ask a host and we’ll take care of the rest. Want to dish 3 meals? Sign up for SingleDish and add on 2 meals Session Flexibility in-store. Six meals your cup of tea? Sign up for 4 and add two during your session.

OK, we might not be able to touch our toes (even with the benefit of a Spoodle). But when it comes to dishing your preferred number of meals, we’re flexible.

Rick’s Signature

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RECOMMENDED LINKS:
> DishDelivery to the Summer Vacation Rescue
> Bring your kids to dish with you to dish this summer
> Let’s Dish!: The savings might surprise you.

By Rick Corcoran | Posted in Most Popular Posts, The Dish On | Also tagged cook, DishDelivery, family dinner, family dinners, Let's Dish!, letsdish, meal assembly, meal preparation, recipes, rick corcoran, SingleDish, The Dish On, www.letsdish.com | Comments (4)

June 23, 2008 – 3:45 pm

You Help Make Our Menus So Wonderful

How do we create such fantastic menus? Well, our talented food team is always cooking up the best recipes months in advance. But did you know our customers play a big role as well?

Through the “My Orders” link once you log in to letsdish.com, customers can rate the meals they’ve dished [1 star (not for me) to 5 stars (love it!)], and can also make comments [”a little salty for my tastes” or “you guys are geniuses”]. Every rating goes into our database, which is a key determinant of which meals return to our menus… and which meals go to “dish heaven”. Even more important, your comments. We read every single one, and tweak our recipes accordingly
So next time you’re asking, “who makes these menus so delicious?”, the answer is you.

p.s. You do need your own Let’s Dish! account to add your ratings online. An account will automatically be created for you when you place an order under your own name and email. If you don’t have one, you can sign up in less than a minute, click here to get started!
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RECOMMENDED LINKS:
> “Kid-Friendly Let’s Dish! Meals featured on WUSA9”
> “Wow the crowds at home and on vacation!”

By Jeremy Kugel | Posted in Culinary Inspiration, The Dish On | Also tagged cook, cooking, diet, family dinner, family dinners, jeremy kugel, Let's Dish!, meal assembly, meal preparation, nutrition, recipes, www.letsdish.com | Comments (1)

June 12, 2008 – 5:00 am

Fall In Love With S’Mores Pie

S’mores 4 Back in May, our Let’s Dish! food team of Holly and Holly came to me with an all-new S’mores Pie they had invented. One warm, gooey, chocolatey bite later, I was in love. It was pretty much the best thing I had ever tasted. Now you can get it FREE when you sign up for an 8-meal session!* (By the way, you will also get a fancy Let’s Dish! beach chair… but trust me, you’ll like the S’more Pie even better.)

S’mores 3 - Leo If the chocolatey smiles on Leo and Sydney’s faces are any indication, I’m not the only one in love with this unique dessert. But don’t take my word for it, check out this report on Washington’s WUSA TV-9. Or better yet, come into our store and put a child-like smile on your own face.

Warm and melty. Gooey and crispy. Marshmallowy, chocoaltey and grahamy. Ready in under 10 minutes. And FREE with your in-store signup this July.

Get ready to fall in love.

*Terms: Customer may select S’mores Pie as part of the Let’s Dish! in-store sign-up offer, available through August 2nd, 2008. Customer must sign up in-store for any 8- or 12- meal session, and will receive a selected FREE dessert. Offer cannot be combined with other promotions or applied to previously-booked sessions. Entries that arrive after July 31st, 2008 will not be considered.

RECOMMENDED LINKS:
> “Kid-Friendly Let’s Dish! Meals featured on WUSA9”

By Jeremy Kugel | Posted in Culinary Inspiration | Also tagged cooking, Culinary Inspiration, dessert, easy recipe, family, family dinners, homemade meals, jeremy kugel, let's dish menu, Let's Dish!, letsdish, meal assembly, meal preparation, Ready Made, recipe, recipes, summer vacation, www.letsdish.com | Comments (1)

June 10, 2008 – 3:00 am

Let’s Dish!: The savings might surprise you.

Boston Globe: Rising Cost of Groceries Graphic Gas station. Coffeeshop. Dry cleaners. Just about any place you open your purse or wallet these days, you’re spending more than ever. This is especially true when it comes to shopping for food. According to a report from the Department of Labor (cited in the Boston Globe), a year-on-year increase in food prices like this hasn’t been seen in nearly two decades. Eggs are up 60%, pasta 30%, fruits 20%, and vegetables 20% versus last year – just to name a few examples.

So where does a family turn when faced with these economic challenges at the dinner table? Let’s Dish! is part of the solution. When you compare our costs to what you’d spend at grocery, you’ll find that the more you dish, the more you save. In fact, to illustrate just how much we save our dishers, we recently did a comparison of grocery costs vs. dishing costs for two of our most popular menu items (cited in a previous blog): Thai-Marinated Flank Steak and Mahi Mahi with Red Ancho Marinade.

The savings might surprise you. Here are some of the highlights:

If you bought all the ingredients at a grocery chain, you’d spend up to 7% more per serving than you do at a Let’s Dish! in-store session.
Those leftover ingredients not only clutter your pantry but they create additional costs. That Red Ancho Marinade, for example… you only need $0.69 worth (or 2 TBS) but the grocery store charges $9.95 for one 14.4 oz jar!
Check the price of flank steak recently? We can offer you the entire, marinated meal for close to the same price as steak alone!

Accounting for waste, Let’s Dish! can save you almost 50% vs making it yourself. And who wants to go through all that shopping and chopping hassle, just to spend more money than you would by dishing?! Check out the numbers for yourself. We think you’ll agree there’s no better (or more economical) way to put dinner on the table than with Let’s Dish!.

Don’t let rising food costs force your family into unhealthy dinner choices. Let’s Dish! is convenient, healthy, and always a great value.

RECOMMENDED LINKS:
> “Surging costs of groceries hit home“: Boston Globe article cited above. Graphic (right) in post courtesy of the Globe.
> “More time and money are just a dish away“
> “Kid-Friendly Let’s Dish! Meals featured on WUSA9”

By Jeremy Kugel | Posted in Most Popular Posts, The Dish On | Also tagged cook, cooking, cost savings, easy meal prep association, family, family dinner, family dinners, health, home, Let's Dish!, meal assembly, meal preparation, recipes, rising food costs, value, www.letsdish.com | Comments (2)

May 29, 2008 – 11:00 am

Kid-Friendly Let’s Dish! Meals featured on WUSA9

Want to keep your kids happy, healthy and full for less than $4 a serving? WUSA9 in Washington DC shares how you can do just that with a little help from Let’s Dish!. Today, reporter Lesli Foster features our store as the one-stop shop for kid-friendly meals for you and your family.
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Many thanks to customer Karen Mahne and her son who came to pick up dinner at Let’s Dish! in Rockville, MD, and shared how much her family loves Let’s Dish!. Our own Elizabeth Marcotte gave the viewers a sneak peek at some of our most popular recipes on our monthly menus, including our top-rated Chili-Lime Chicken with Black Bean Salsa! And, Jeremy Kugel brought in his son, Leo, confessing his love of Let’s Dish! Teriyaki Sliders. Watching just a few minutes on WUSA9 can truly help you keep the kids happy when dinner rolls around!

Plus, don’t miss our offer of FREE DishDelivery for WUSA9 viewers!

Visit the Let’s Dish! feature on WUSA9’s website to see our kid-friendly recipes (gasp - yes, we shared recipes!), then scroll down to the bottom of the page for the exclusive WUSA9 coupon code for FREE DishDelivery throughout the mid-Atlantic!

[youtube EYDG9peY7fE nolink]

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If you’re experiencing trouble with the video above or do not see the video player, you can visit this story on WUSA9 by clicking here or pasting the link below in your browser:
http://www.wusa9.com/rss/local_article.aspx?storyid=72208
RELATED POSTS:
> See the Let’s Dish! Summer Menus and Sign up today!
> Wow the crowds at home and on vacation
> DishDelivery to the Summer Vacation Rescue!
> Let’s stop calling our kids picky eaters

By Alexa Corcoran | Posted in The Dish On | Also tagged cooking, dinner, DishDelivery, easy meal prep association, easy meals, elizabeth marcotte, family, health, healthy dinners, jeremy kugel, kids, Let's Dish!, meal preparation, Offer, recipe, recipes, www.letsdish.com | Comments (5)

May 13, 2008 – 12:01 am

Don’t miss the Bon Appétit Top 100

from Bon Appetit magazine
On May 13th, Bon Appétit launches their new website, and the most interesting feature for those of you who are “foodies” is that it focuses on the Top 100 recipes from over 50 years of the magazine. Yes, these “100 Dishes you need to know right now” are their favorite, Test Kitchen-approved (and reader-rated) seasonal recipes of all time.

So, check out bonappetit.com on Tuesday, May 31th. The recipes, according to the Editor-in-Chief, will vary with season and keep you up to date on what is hot and what is not in the food world. You will know first hand what will wow your guests at your next party!

Of course, we at Let’s Dish! will be watching this new website as well as other foodie favorites on the web closely to incorporate fresh new culinary ideas along with the “tried and true” into our monthly menus, so you can say, “bon appétit!” at your very own dinner table.

Click to continue reading “Don’t miss the Bon Appétit Top 100″

By Lisa Hardiman | Posted in Culinary Inspiration | Also tagged Apple Pie, bonappetit, cook, cooking, Culinary Inspiration, dinner, family dinners, ideas, kitchen, Let's Dish!, lisa hardiman, meal assembly, meal preparation, recipe, recipes, www.letsdish.com | Comments (0)

May 5, 2008 – 2:00 pm

Let’s Dish! celebrates Mother’s Day on WBAL-TV

In case you missed it, our own Lisa Hardiman and Jeremy Kugel hosted Sunday Brunch on WBAL-TV on Sunday, May 4th. Lisa and Jeremy shared a few ways