Cooking with Kindness

Food is, quite literally, life. Food fuels us. It sustains us. Feeding someone else is an act of love. One of the kindest and most personal things you can do for a loss family is to take them a meal.

After Mina died, a friend of mine organized a meal train through my older kids’ school. Four nights a week, dinner was delivered to our doorstep. Every single one of those meals was made with love and care, and we appreciated every bite.

Since then, I’ve participated in several meal trains and even organized a few. I’ve put together some tips, some resources, and even a few of my favorite recipes to share.

There are several websites to choose from when organizing a meal train. These services are great because they do most of the work for you; all you need is the recipient’s details (name, email address, physical address), a range of dates, and dietary preferences. Add in the contact information of people who want to help, and you’re off and running! These services also allow the organizer(s) to share the donation site via social media.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Meal Train

Meal Train is probably the most widely used service on this list, and it’s also one of the simplest. The free version allows for multiple organizers, gift cards to meal delivery services like GrubHub, and even has an option to PayPal the recipient. It’s easy to sign up, and participants get automatic reminder emails. There’s also a paid version that costs $10 (paid once by the organizers) and gives the option of multiple meals per day and allows for tasks outside of meal delivery (like laundry, cleaning, etc).

Give InKind

Give InKind is a newer meal train service that allows you to set up a page for yourself or someone else. It’s tailored to the postpartum experience, but works for all sorts of situations. The website walks you through set up depending on your situation, and offers sample pages to give organizers an idea of how to set up and run their meal trains. Give InKind also allows organizers to create a wish list that can be customized to add all sorts of goods and services. Participants can choose to send meals or complete other needed tasks, like household chores and running errands for the recipient. It’s a bit more interactive, allowing participants to message organizers and recipients. It also has sections for updates, stories, and special requests.

Take Them A Meal

Take Them A Meal operates on the same basic premise as other meal train services, with two features that make it unique: a user database and a recipe database. The user database allows organizers to search participants by name, allowing you to find folks even if you don’t have their email address. The recipe database allows participants to browse easy-to-make recipes organized by dietary needs and meal type.

Whether you choose one of these services or go with an alternative site, you’ll need to collect some basic information from the recipient. You’ll need:

The recipient’s name, email address, and phone number
Location for drop-off (this is usually their home address)
Times and dates they’d like meals delivered
Number of adults and children being fed
Dietary restrictions and allergies
Food preferences: Are there any ingredients the recipients don’t like? What’s their spice tolerance? What are their favorite types of cuisine? Do they eat low carb or keto?

In addition to these details, there are a few other tips to keep in mind when preparing a meal for someone:

Make sure you’re on time. If the recipient asks that food be dropped off by 5:00 pm, plan to be at the dropoff location at 5:00 pm. Running early or late can be stressful for the recipient. Make sure you call ahead if you’re going to be late.
Don’t make it too complicated. What seems intuitive to someone who’s made a recipe a dozen times may not be so easy for someone who’s never had this meal. Keep the ingredients, preparation, and assembly simple to avoid causing stress to the recipient.
Include instructions. Make sure you’re including detailed, easy to understand instructions on how to heat up the meal, how it’s served, and how to store any leftovers. If there’s a sauce that needs to be added to the entree, include instructions on how and when to do that.
Use disposable dishes. Put the food in disposable containers or be prepared to give the cooking dish as a gift. The last thing your recipient needs is to try to keep track of a bunch of dishes that pile up. If you must have your dish back, make sure you label it clearly and be prepared to pick it up from the recipient at a prearranged time and date.
Send them a pizza. If you can’t cook or don’t have the time, there’s no shame in sending takeout or a gift card. Most meal train services make it easy to order from the recipient’s favorite restaurant or send them some cash to order out.

Now that you’ve found a website to organize your meal train and signed up for a meal, it’s time to decide what to cook. The internet is chock full of delicious recipes that are easy to prepare, can be made ahead of time, and travel well. I recommend testing all recipes before you make them for someone else: sometimes measurements can be off, or cooking times can vary. Here are a few I like to get you started:

Chicken-based:

Instant Pot Chicken and Rice

Sticky Honey Coriander Chicken Bites

Sheet pan Chicken Meatballs and Charred Broccoli

Cream of Mushroom Chicken

Roast Chicken with Schmaltzy Cabbage

Soups and stews:

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Italian Wedding Soup

Olive Garden Chicken Gnocchi Soup

Skillet Turkey Chili

Vegetarian (chicken stock can be replaced with vegetable stock):