Welcome to Doorstep Dishes!

Thanks for visiting! Here’s a little bit about our site.

What is Doorstep Dishes?

Doorstep Dishes is a modern take on the timeless tradition of giving food from the heart. There’s something incredibly uplifting about receiving an honest, unexpected gift from a good friend (left on your doorstep or stoop or porch – you get it), especially one you can tear into and eat. Doorstep Dishes makes this something that’s easy and fun to do. While there’s certainly no shortage of websites about making food and even making food and wrapping it up for a holiday, this one is focused on why and when we give food the rest of the year, and how to make a meaningful personal connection while you’re doing it.

While this site is a resource of recipes and ideas, we’re excited to share that Doorstep Dishes will also soon be a cookbook! A real one that you can put on your shelf, filled with trusted tested recipes you’ll want to share with all of the fabulous people in your world. Don’t worry, the website won’t go away, it’ll just get better.

How does it work?

It’s simple. Doorstep Dishes are food gifts that reflect the moment of life that you are in, so look up a recipe, cook, wrap and go. We talk about happy celebrations (think new baby, new job, new house, friendly potluck) and provide the perfect dish to match. We also suggest recipes that work for the gritty, awkward, sometimes heart-wrenching times, the ones that call for a strong cocktail and a large dose of commiseration (think illness, death, divorce, any other crappy real-life situation). We take everything a step further with fun, DIY ways to pull it all together into a a nice package, something anyone would want to find waiting at home for them. We show you how to use crafty notions and unexpected materials to make your gift amazingly thoughtful and unique – something made from the heart that’s personal and spot on for your friend.

Here’s the why

At Doorstep Dishes we’re all about making real connections. Bringing together friends, family, neighbors by breathing new life into the age-old custom of sharing food. We aren’t inventing this tradition or even claiming to – it’s been done for millennia and by recent generations before us. We’re just picking up the torch and doing it too, in our own way. And we hope you’ll join us and make Doorstep Dishes yours.

What you’ll find on these pages

In our Recipes section, we pair food with real-life stories about the moments in our world where cooking and giving something made things a little easier, or better, or just more delicious. Since we’ve both worked as professional cooks, and have real mom lives, we offer shortcuts and tips from our vast knowledge of the culinary world and practical know-how from our hectic lives feeding our families in an over-scheduled world. And since we like to eat, everything is tested until it tastes just right.

There’s a section called Get Crafty which covers our love for all things creative and vintage. Here you’ll find DIY ideas and ways to wrap up what you made that are beautiful, funky and not crazy expensive.

The Giving Traditions page is a growing resource that covers the right time and place for giving the gift of food. This section provides insight on how to choose what to give and what to say (even when there’s nothing to say because things have gotten so bad). We also explore different cultural customs, and when possible and appropriate, what the “rules” are for these traditions.

If you want to know more about who we are or get in touch, go to Bios & Contact. This is where you’ll find more about us and other ways to be a part of the Doorstep Dishes conversation. We’d love to hear your questions, ideas, what you think of the site.