The (online) First Bloom Store is open for business

for those asking, why yes, we DO ship

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter! If you’ve found your way over by some miracle but are not yet subscribed, here, let me help you with that:

Hello, happiest of Mondays to all. I’m in a good mood all of September and I know it’s because the weather is perfect and I am but a simple animal.

It has been approximately one year since I opened First Bloom, a little corner/grocery store in Bloomville, New York. It had always been my dream to do this— have a little room I could fill with the things I wanted and needed to cook with, treats for snacking, good lighting, friendly and helpful service and nothing I didn’t honestly and genuinely think was great.

Sorry to report since we took this photo, our TimTam supplier has dried up. SEND HELP.

My primary focus when opening it was to serve the community it occupied— in this case, Delaware County, New York. Buying from local farms, makers and producers to support those who grow, make and produce some of the best dairy, meat and fruit/vegetables I’ve ever had the pleasure of cooking with and eating. I also wanted to give people in the area a few options to buy things not easily procured (French butter cookies, the good Swedish gummies, the finest flour tortillas money can buy, too many types of tinned fish, actually good gluten-free pasta, etc.). This remains the focus! It exists for the community it serves and our regulars and local customers are who keep us running and able to do what we do.

But by popular demand, we are opening our doors (if ever so slightly) to the outside world, for whom a 3-hour trip outside New York City isn’t so possible. Introducing: A very limited shopping experience.

We will ship our sweatshirts, we will not ship our produce.

Starting next week (but today for paid subscribers), we will open our (online) doors, shipping care packages should you so desire one. For yourself, for your lovers, for your friends, for your family. Because we are a VERY small operation, we will only be releasing a limited number of these care packages each week. When they have sold out for the week, you’ll have to check back in the following Wednesday at 10am EST. I promise this isn’t meant to be annoying, only to make sure we don’t botch this by overwhelming our sweet, limited resources.

While the store will open next week for the general public, paid subscribers will get early access by clicking the link below the paywall.

What’s a care package? Care packages are special surprise little gift boxes we assemble for you, available at three different price points. Requests will be heard but not guaranteed (unless there are explicit dietary restrictions). This is a roll of the dice, a vote of good faith that you’ll like what we put together for you. Think of it as like, when you order flowers online for someone and they say “exact bouquet not pictured. Flowers change daily.” We have good taste and promise a varied selection of fun things, not an entire box of tinned fish (unless that’s what you want? I suppose we could make that happen). How incredible to get a SURPRISE in the MAIL??

I would be so excited to get this in the mail.

Why care packages and not a regular online retail operation? Well, First Bloom is first and foremost a real, physical store, not an online store. We change our items so frequently based on availability, seasonality, what’s exciting to us, what we stumble upon that it would be extremely annoying to build our shop into an online marketplace. I don’t have any interest in that, as it also takes away from the experience of coming into the store and discovering what’s on the shelves.

Is everything in the shop available? We’ll ship anything we currently stock that’s non-perishable and non-alcoholic. For our perfect produce, brothy beans, local feta, gorgeous flowers and New York ciders, beers and meads, you’ll have to visit in person.

Can I buy merch separately? Yes. You can eschew the care package and simply buy a sweatshirt, wine key or even the coveted FIRST BLOOM ZINE VOLUME 1 (while they last). Same rules apply, limited packages shipped each week.

For additional questions, please email shipping@firstbloomcornerstore.com and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

First Bloom Vol. 1, new recipes and old favorites for your pantry items.

On a personal note, I had a terrible nightmare last night that someone had come in and bought First Bloom and turned it into a beige cafe. All the employees were men (!) and wore beige polos and beige aprons. The maroon shelves had been torn down and replaced with smooth-edged blonde wood and 75% of the selection had been removed, replaced with cafe tables that had iPads for which to order pre-made sandwiches and ingredients in unlabeled bags, like an airport bodega. I walked in and started SOBBING that the new owners had robbed my beautiful soulful store of heart and purpose. “Where is my stained glass chandelier?! Where’s the good polenta?!” I cried. I woke up feeling like I needed to open 97 more First Blooms to restore personality, integrity, passion, soul and humanness into the grocery store universe. Is this my higher purpose?

Anyway, CLEARLY I am having some anxiety of putting this store online even in this very limited capacity! But genuinely believe it still feels like us, a good way to offer even the smallest taste of what we are so proud to have built to those who are far rather than near.