Brooklyn Braised
Christa Lynch was feeling stressed recently. The founder and chef of Brooklyn Braised, a farm-to-table meal delivery service, vented to her husband about the endless demands of her new company. “He was like, ‘Do you wanna quit?’” she recalls, incredulous. “No! This is my entire life. We just put a lot of our only money into it. Plus, if I start something, I’m not going to quit — execution is my thing.”
Since launching Brooklyn Braised in October, Lynch has not merely executed; she has flourished. After being encouraged for years to sell her home cooking, and seeing a need in her Bed-Stuy community for healthy food options that fit busy schedules, she dramatically recast her life, leaving a lucrative but unsatisfying career in finance to deliver fresh comfort food directly to you.
With ingredients sourced through a network of local farmers, Lynch and her sous chef, Terence Harvey, prepare meals from a commercial kitchen on the border of South Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy. Customers choose weekly plans from 20 options on an online seasonal menu, including jerk salmon with kale and quinoa salad, curried chickpeas with spinach and tomatoes with brown rice, and cilantro lime chicken with Cuban rice and black beans.
“A lot of people say this is food that they would cook if they had time or knew how,” Lynch says. Brooklyn Braised delivers to all parts of Brooklyn, but heads up, Queens and Manhattan — they are expanding to select zip codes this spring.
“A lot of people say this is food that they would cook if they had time or knew how.”
Though still developing her spring menu, Lynch gave us a sneak peek at some of the vegetarian options she’s cooking up: roasted squash with mole negro over rice (pictured), and Moroccan lentil vegetable stew garnished with yogurt.
“I read in an article that you shouldn’t include a location in your name, ever,” says Lynch (who’s actually from Philly) of her BK-specific company name. “But I love it. Brooklyn is the root of where the business started, no matter where we go.”
