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3 Essential Ingredients for Successful Meal Delivery (that you have never thought of before!) MAY 29, 2018 / SARAH BECKMAN / 
You are in for a treat this week! Sarah Beckman, author and speaker, shares her best meal taking tips and we're grateful for her valuable insight. Enjoy! ~Adina Many of us struggle to get our own family's dinner on the table each day, so the thought of adding a meal for a friend in need can stress us out. But we can avert the crisis of inability if we add a few essential ingredients to our meal delivery preparations. If you follow this recipe for success, you will be far more likely to hit "yes" the next time that meal request hits your inbox. And you'll be blessing the socks off people in no time! Ingredient #1: Have a Go-To One reason we are challenged by the notion of taking someone a meal is that we labor long and hard over what to make! When we are presented with the opportunity to love someone with food, instead of choosing our tried and true recipes, we try to reinvent the wheel. After hours poring over Pinterest, (and, let's be honest, knowing that ours will never look like theirs!) food blogs, gourmet cookbooks, and online communities searching for inspiration and the perfect recipe, we are no further than when we started. Yet, surely there are meals we feed our families and ourselves each day that they like! And that, my friends, is the definition of a Go-To. The meal you always make in a jam, that's requested by your friends or loved ones, that's easy to make, the one you've worked all the kinks out of. That is the meal you should bring each and every time you are signing up to take someone a meal. So, find your Go-To, keep the ingredients on hand, and make that the next time your friend or loved one has a crisis. Ingredient #2: Follow the guidelines One of my favorite parts of TakeThemAMeal.com is the specific detail about the requesting party provided on the site. It lays out a family or individual's food likes or dislikes, allergies, dietary restrictions, or delivery specifics. Yet, sadly people don't always read them. And this makes an already difficult circumstance even harder. In my book, Alongside: A Practical Guide for Loving your Neighbor in their Time of Trial, I tell the story of a woman who was diagnosed with a brain tumor while she was pregnant with her fourth child. One of the things she taught me about guidelines will stick with me forever. She said, "Is it unreasonable to suggest that my family with small children might need dinner before 7 p.m.?" Guidelines are put in place for a reason, and people who don't stick to them make mealtime more stressful for the family. Don't assume you can be the exception to the rule, because everyone else does too. And a multitude of non-compliant meal deliverers is a recipe for disaster for a hurting person or family. You can alleviate dinnertime distress by following the food and delivery guidelines to a tee. Ingredient #3: Think Outside the Box Dinner isn't the only meal people eat! Think outside the box and consider bringing pre-made breakfast foods or lunch fixings to along with your delivered dinner. Some ideas include:
You can also add on to your dinner meal by creating a gift basket including disposable paper products and utensils to save on dinner/lunch clean up. Now that you have the 3 essential ingredients for a well prepared, stress free meal delivery - get moving and sign up to "take them a meal!"   Sarah Beckman is an author and speaker, living in Albuquerque, NM with her husband and has three grown kids. Her first book, Alongside: A Practical Guide for Loving Your Neighbor in their Time of Trial, is filled with practical ways to walk with people you care about through the rough patches of life. When she's not traveling to speak or writing, you might find her in the kitchen creating something to share with a "neighbor" in need. Sarah has a Journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin and is currently writing on her second book. Instagram: @sarahbeckmanauthor
Facebook: @sarahbeckman Website: sarahbeckman.org Book: www.alongsidebook.com  |
Welcome! We're thrilled you stopped by. Our own joys and sorrows have taught us that a well-timed meal delivered by a friend is one of the best gifts imaginable. In this space, we share our favorite recipes to take to friends, meal-taking tips, and other ways to care for those who are dear to you. Helpful Posts
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