At Harvest on Main Community Market, food is more than what’s on the plate—it’s a story, a memory, and a way to connect. Our prepared foods menu is filled with the flavors our team knows best: family recipes and hometown favorites passed down through generations. From comforting soups to scratch-made dinners, each recipe carries a piece of the people who’ve made it—like Bonnie’s Grandma Flo’s famous Italian meatballs, a recipe that’s been shared with love for decades. When you shop with us, you’re not just getting good food—you’re getting a taste of home.
Explore the stories behind a few of our team’s most beloved recipes.
“The joke in my family is my husband married me for my meatballs,” laughs Bonnie DeMotte, Second Harvest’s Founder & Executive Director. “After 25 years of marriage, I think it worked!” This beloved recipe has been passed down from Bonnie’s Grandma Flo, who made meatballs every week. “They’re the best meatballs you’ve ever had—guaranteed,” says Bonnie. “I can’t wait to share them with the community!”
Dr. Percy Chiu may be a brilliant physician, but at home he had always been famously baffled by the location of pots and pans. So when Jill Chiu, Harvest on Main’s Director of Operations, asked him to make a chili for their family’s Halloween cook-off, expectations were…low. He researched a recipe, cooked it solo, and in a blind tasting won the whole contest, wooden spoon award and all. Now his once-accidental masterpiece is coming to Harvest on Main, ready to surprise a whole new crowd.
Mary Jayne Kozlowski, Second Harvest’s Workshop Manager, learned this recipe from her Aunt Shirley—lovingly known as “Cheech”—who was head chef at North Park Lounge for 28 years. “When I make this soup, my family shows up with takeout containers,” Mary Jayne laughs. Second Harvest volunteers now ask for it, too, especially once soup season hits. The recipe brings her back to big Italian family dinners where wedding soup was always served first — a taste of home she can’t wait to share.
