Right at the corner of Main and Market Streets in downtown Saugerties is a little shop laid out like a railroad flat, one room wide. “This used to be a shoe store, about 100 years ago,” says proprietor Roni Shapiro.
Way in the back is a kitchen with a six-burner stove, accessed via a long room with shiny stainless-steel sinks on your right and prep counters on your left. Streetside, there’s a tiny café space dominated by coolers, with photos of cows on the walls, an ordering counter with four stools and a couple of tables to accommodate eat-in diners.
In normal times, that is. There’s not enough room for social distancing now, in the Covid-19 era, and one of those tables blocks the front entrance. You can’t enter Healthy Gourmet to Go these days until you’ve had your face mask verified, your temperature taken, and your hands sprayed with sanitizer.
Sound intimidating? Hardly so, to regular patrons. In fact, demand is booming for the healthful, delicious vegan meals that are the shop’s specialty. Some folks come by to pick them up, but Healthy Gourmet to Go’s business model is based on home delivery, as far north as Saratoga and as far south as Brooklyn and New Jersey. “Order a bag and you’ll have a week’s worth of meals at your fingertips,” promises a tagline on the website.
“I’ve been here for eight years, and in business for almost 30 years,” says Shapiro, who did her apprenticeship in some of the best vegan kitchens in New York City. “Then Covid came, and it was needed. It’s just the perfect model. I started the model of what everybody now is doing because I wanted to make it easy for people to not eat meat.”
For many holdouts, one of the barriers to adopting a vegan diet is the worry that it will be dominated by tasteless meat substitutes. But the days when tempeh with the taste and texture of wet cardboard was the only option are long gone, thanks in large part to the creativity of chefs like Shapiro. Some samples of dishes that might appear on the ever-changing Healthy Gourmet to Go menu provided impressive results, bearing out the business’ pledge to provide “decadent meals from whole plant foods with a unique, gourmet flair that leaves you feeling fully satisfied – not deprived.”
Even a couple of diehard cheese-lovers found nothing to fault about the cashew-based “cheddar” melted with spinach in the quesadilla wedges or the “ricotta” strewn through a pasta combo featuring brown rice fusilli, walnuts and grilled zucchini. One of Healthy Gourmet to Go’s most popular offerings, the Untuna salad, would disappoint only those who crave the fishy smell of the real thing. You can’t replicate that with chick peas, but the consistency is spot-on, and the shredded vegetable medley that it holds together makes this the perfect filling for a pita sandwich. (They make an Unegg salad as well, but we didn’t get to try it.)
Two stews, one Indian with a red lentil base and the other Mexican with black beans, were thick and delicious. Dessert was a dairy-free, flourless chocolate cake so rich and moist that it was almost a pudding. Everything we tried seemed like real food, not substitutes for it – bursting with flavor and hearty texture.
The bonus, of course, is that no animals were killed or even mildly inconvenienced to provide this sustenance. Not only are all ingredients used vegan, but 95 percent of them are organic, and everything is also gluten-free. Though people with nut allergies will have to avoid some of the dishes, there are options to suit them, and everything on offer has its ingredients clearly labeled.
Healthy Gourmet to Go’s cooking staff is at work on Mondays and Tuesdays, and those are also the days when customers can come in from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. to pick up their orders (or eat in the café, when it’s open once again). But mainly, this is conceived as a subscription service. You place your weekly or biweekly order for a Standard Bag (pints or quarts of all ten dishes on the menu plus one dessert, $180) or Family Bag (quarts of your choice of six dishes on the menu, $200), and you are given a two-hour window for delivery to your doorstep on Wednesday. A $15 packaging fee is charged with your first order, for an insulated bag and ice pack that you return when you’re done.
Containers are made of plant-based, compostable materials, and are marked with an F if the dish freezes well. Significant discounts are offered for prepayment one to three months in advance. Yes, there are people who subscribe to this service for all their at-home meals, year-round – people who are simply too busy to cook, and want a healthy, cruelty-free diet.
Healthy Gourmet to Go is located at 12 Market Street, if you want to stop in on a Monday or Tuesday and buy a takeout container of something to taste for yourself before taking the plunge. To check out the coming week’s menu, or to sign up for a delivery, visit www.healthygourmettogo.com. Call 914-388-2162 for information.
Join the family! 
