Culinary Cupid offers date-night recipes

The mother-son team behind Spokane’s Henderson Dip has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help launch its latest endeavor: Culinary Cupid.

The monthly subscription service, geared toward couples, offers ingredients, recipes and kitchen gadgets for stay-in date nights focused on cooking. The Kickstarter offers special pricing on the kits, which should be ready for shipping by mid-September. The goal is to raise $25,000 by June 30.

Co-founders Christopher Greene and Becky Fix plan to launch the business regardless of whether the fundraising effort reaches its target.

“We’re doing it no matter what,” said Greene, who has a master’s degree in business administration as well as a law degree and serves as COO. His mom is the CEO.

“Everything goes by her,” said Greene, whose role is “putting things into motion.”

They’re using the Kickstarter for initial feedback. Backers receive “early-bird prices. This is the actual product; you’re getting a cheaper price,” Greene said.

While Culinary Cupid is technically a two-person show, the small, Spokane-based business is partnering with others – Spiceologist, Rainmaker, FeelGoodFoodie – to launch the new business, which is selling “date night delivered,” Greene said. “It’s about reconnecting and bringing back date night.”

The idea is get couples to ditch their cellphones and focus on each other. To that end, the initial box includes something Culinary Cupid is calling the “anti-diversion techno pouch,” a soundproof depository for couples’ cellphones.

“No more worrying about FaceTime; Culinary Cupid has brought you Face-to-FaceTime,” the Kickstarter page for the project says.

The welcome box also includes a kitchen timer, “old-school” paper calendar and Culinary Cupid passport to mark – and help couples look forward to – forthcoming Culinary Cupid date-night kits.

Boxes will be location-themed, with each shipment centering around a dish from a different part of the world: Japan, Spain, India, Hawaii. Recipes, developed by Pete Taylor of the Spokane spice company Spiceologist, are “a little more advanced but not too advanced,” Greene said.

Kits also will include a special spice blend from Spiceologist, which Greene said has signed on for two years – as well as some harder-to-find, nonperishable ingredients and kitchen gadgets. The Japan-themed box, for example, might include wasabi and seaweed or pickled ginger along with a rolling mat for sushi, rice spoon and chopsticks.

Unlike meal delivery subscription services such as Blue Apron, or locally, Pantry Fuel, boxes don’t include fresh ingredients. They do, however, include music playlists to help set the mood as well as shopping and prep lists with chores and items divided between two people.

“It allows you to really plan,” Greene said. “We’re going to mark our calendars and plan on doing this. But we’re not going to have to rush to use the stuff before it goes bad.”

Plus, he said, “This is supposed to be a bonding experience, and the shopping is part of that. The whole point is that it’s a thing to do together. You put some effort into it as a couple. You end up appreciating the food even more.”

Greene, along with his mom, a retired third-grade teacher, and his sister, Taylor Kaiser, own Cliff Cannon Foods, purveyor of Henderson Dip. The original flavor, creamy tomato, is based on a recipe Fix’s mom, the late Mary Lou Higgins Henderson, used to make. That company was formed in 2012 and launched the in November 2013.

For more than a year, Greene and his mom also have been working to develop Culinary Cupid.

Massachusetts-based Yumna Jawad, the force behind the trademarked FeelGoodFoodie, an Instagram account with more than 2.2 million followers, is also on board. The plan is for her to appear in Culinary Cupid videos as well as curate kits, which will be assembled in Spokane.

Rewards for the Kickstarter campaign include a six-month subscription for $200, a 12-month subscription for $375, corporate sponsorship for $2,500 and – for $5,000 – a “Celebrity Chef Culinary Cupid Experience,” which includes cooking with Spokane celebrity chefs Chad White and Aaron Crumbaugh, plus accommodations and airfare to Spokane for two.

“There are other date-night boxes out there,” Greene said. “Some have a game. There’s a naughty one. One is religious.”

What makes Culinary Cupid stand out, he said, is this: “It’s elevated … You’re getting (some of) the food, the music, the game, the kitchen gadget. It gives you a complete night – in a box.”