Step Away from the Seamless: Dinner-to-go Gives Back on Capitol Hill

Chef Marisa Stubbs and her students inside the Food For Life kitchen. Photo courtesy Food For Life.

It’s 6 p.m. on a Tuesday. You’re tired; it’s been a long day at work and you’re reaching for your nearest smartphone, laptop or tablet to order takeout from a food delivery app. If this is you during any given week, I’m here to say: “Step away from the Seamless.”

Capitol Hill, which prides itself on giving back, now has a dinner-to-go option that puts your stomach and the community in a better place.

On Tuesdays and Thursday nights, Food For Life cooks professionally prepared dishes for pick-up on Capitol Hill. This is mom’s cooking, boxed and ready to eat.

To get started, sign-up for their menus, which are delivered to your inbox weekly. Once an order is made online, pick-ups are coordinated at the Capitol Hill United Methodist Church on Seward Square. Food For Life leases out commercial kitchen space in the church basement.

And, the main reason to skip Seamless and dine here instead: Each meal is prepared by a group of DC youths, who are learning the job skills needed to land a career in the food service industry.

Marisa Stubbs is the one leading the kitchen. She’s the founder of Food For Life and a professionally trained chef, who has worked at Sonoma Restaurant and Wine Bar, 2941 Restaurant in Falls Church, and the former Mendocino Grille & Wine Bar in Georgetown.

For Thursday’s meal, a group of students were busy brining a slab of pork. Hours later, they seared and roasted the meat. Meanwhile, a tomato and peach chutney sauce was prepared and reduced. The students carefully spooned the sweet and chunky sauce over the finished product, which was served on top of a heap of creamy mashed potato and vegetable succotash. And, don’t forget dessert. The students baked an apple tart with a vanilla cream custard.

A Thursday night dinner from Food For Life: roasted pork with creamy mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, green beans and corn. Photo courtesy Tim Ebner.

The students are learning basics, like boiling and blanching vegetables, and also more technical skills, like proper cutting and chopping techniques. The food seems almost effortlessly prepared, but it’s pretty much organized chaos, Stubbs said.

“It’s usually a madhouse, but in the end it’s always going somewhere. I think ahead and try to think through the day to prepare my students,” she said. “But, I’m also teaching them to get their own answers.”

And, Stubbs doesn’t just mean answers to things like proper seasoning and sautéing.

Many of her students are looking for answers in life. The program is just as much about career mentoring as it is about kitchen skills.

Students may go on to pursue culinary school or work in a restaurant, or they may go on to a different job where they apply “soft skills,” like teamwork, organization and persistence, Stubbs said.

So far, two classes have graduated from the Food For Life program — a piloted-program and a spring semester group. Stubbs wants to expand Food For Life across DC, but right now, she said, Capitol Hill is a great place to be.

“It has a built in clientele, and each week we are doing about 30 to 40 meals a day,” she said.

There are still three weeks left to order food cooked by the summer Food For Life program. Dinner orders will resume on September 17th. Sign-up for their menu now and stay on top of their two course offerings.