ORANGE — The Quabbin Harvest Food Co-op is re-launching its prepared foods division under a new name, The Kitchen Collaborative, following four years of operation as Nalini’s Kitchen.
The kitchen will continue to feature an array of takeout bowls, wraps, salads, soups and side dishes with flavors from around the world and ingredients sourced close to home as much as possible.
“It still has the same emphasis on local, still has the same emphasis on zero waste, but it still has a lot of local flavors in it as well,” store manager Julie Davis said.
The transition will be officially marked on Saturday with a Member Appreciation Day offering discounts for members and free coffee, chai and cookie samples.
The co-op started in the Orange Innovation Center before moving into the former Workers Credit Union building at 12 North Main St. in 2014. A small kitchen area came three years later and in 2018 Nalini Goordial took over its management. Goordial stepped back from running the kitchen late last year, and it has been led by other staff members and volunteers since then. Frank Hains, baker and retired teacher, was busy in the kitchen Thursday morning.
“It’s definitely a more collaborative effort when it comes to creating the dishes that are in the kitchen. Frank’s an amazing baker, but has also expanded his repertoire of cooking,” Davis said. “There’s a lot of different influences and flavors that have been brought in, and it’s still supporting the constant flavors that we have and some of the constant dishes that we’ve had all the way through. So it’s a little bit different but still very much the same.”
“We debated whether it should be The Kitchen Collaborative or The Collaborative Kitchen,” Cathy Stanton, chair of the co-op’s board of directors, said about the name born in a brainstorming session. “We’re still a little store. We’re still trying to get somewhere closer to profitability.”
Stanton said Goordial was raised in British Guiana (now the South American nation of Guayana), where she learned her family’s Indian cooking traditions. Stanton said Goordial will continue a small-scale spice mix business, as well as maintain its cabinet of spice blends and housemade chai from Goordial’s recipes.
“There’ll be some continuity there,” she said.
New menu items are available each Monday and Wednesday. Quabbin Harvest has gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan options, as well as dishes with local meats from Diemand Farm in Wendell, The Farm School in Athol and other area farms. The co-op is open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.