Welcome to the weekly Design Dispatch. This week we’re talking how you can eat well at home without braving long lines, how small businesses are finding new ways to serve the community and the creative movements that are making our days a little brighter.

Shopping:

How to shop for food without setting foot in a crowded grocery store.

Sustainable Butcher Avedanos offers meat boxes that can be ordered in advance for pickup each Friday. With three options to pick from, they start at $99 and come with a great variety to plan your week’s menu around. They are currently recommending you call by 12 and pick up after 3, so you can customize your box based on availability.

Oakland based Cream Co meats usually caters to wholesale but is now offering direct to consumer options with a variety of boxes designed around the number of people you wish to feed and for how long. The “Family Bunker Box”  ($279) contains 28 pounds of meat- enough to feed a family of four for 2-3 weeks. Local pickup and delivery in the Bay Area. Check the website for specifics.

The Epicurean Trader is our go-to spot when we need something special to take our meals over the top. With a selection of gourmet and imported goods, they have a variety of sauces, seasonings, and other provisions. You can browse their selection of gourmet kits online, but they recommend calling to order, so they can assist with making substitutions and arranging for local delivery or curbside pickup. Keep an eye out for their newly relaunching site in the coming weeks, which should streamline the process.

Based in Half Moon Bay Greenhearts family farm offers a CSA box delivered directly to your door in San Francisco and the surrounding area. The produce is supplied by their own farm along with a few partners and starts at $41 for a single delivery. You also have the option to add on fresh eggs for $9 a dozen.

Golden Gate Organics delivers locally grown, seasonal, organic produce in the Bay Area. You select your box (starting at $26), customize to your preferences then have it delivered weekly or biweekly to your door.

Radical Family Farms, a Petaluma based farm with a unique no-spray, mixed-Asian vegetable CSA offers a bi-weekly pickup or delivery around the Bay, including San Francisco. The season starts in May and operates on a sliding scale. You can pledge now to waitlist your spot for the upcoming season.

It’s never been easier to get great coffee delivered to your door. Bay Area favorites Lady Falcon, Philz, and Blue Bottle all offer subscription services, and you can now order a four-pound bag of coffee ($72) directly from Philz.

LOCAL INTEREST:

Starbelly is offering “Little Chef Pizza Kits” with everything you need for a homemade pizza night. You get two pizza dough balls, homemade pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella, and basil for $15. You can pick up the kits or have them delivered.

Little Folkies wants to bring their melodies into your home, the beloved children’s music classes are now available online, and they just released a new spring collection album on Bandcamp.

Children’s studio Messy Art Lab is offering art kits for local delivery, including one with everything you need to participate in the #rainbowtrail project. While the kits are currently sold out, you can follow them on Facebook for updates on when more will be released.

Design News:

While the virtual neighborhood-watch style app Nextdoor is not without its issues, it recently added a “Help Map” where users can post offers to run errands or check in on neighbors who need assistance. You can find it by clicking the “more” tab in the app.

Two grassroots community projects that have sprung up with the sole purpose of brightening a neighbor’s day are Bear Hunts and Rainbow Trail. Based on the classic children’s book “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt,” participants of bear hunts place stuffed bears in windows for children to spot on their walks around the block. In a similar vein, participants in the Rainbow Trail are adorning windows with rainbows in a gesture of hope and solidarity. You can follow the movement with #rainbowtrail on social media.

Read:

This week we reviewed the upcoming release of Oh Joy! blogger Joy Cho’s inaugural children’s book “Be Curious.” The book engages kids with an array of flaps to keep little hands busy, cute characters, and colorful illustrations by Angie Stalker. We’re giving away a copy on Instagram so head over to enter to win.

That concludes our weekly Design Dispatch. If there is anything you would like to add to the list, feel free to leave a comment below, and if you have a tip for a future column, feel free to drop us a line.

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