What’s Cooking In Jess Drench’s Kitchen?
Written By Ellen Putnam
Photographed By Nancy Clover
Jess Drench at a Community Meal Prep Club event
Melrose-based chef Jess Drench (now known to many Melrosians as Mama Jean) has a lot on her plate this year. We spoke with Drench about Mama Jean’s third birthday and her new nonprofit, Community Meal Prep Club.
Drench started Mama Jean three years ago when she was looking for something new, after a career working in the education and nonprofit sector. “I wanted to explore a new path: working in food,” she explained. “I grew up in a household that really loved food, and that was in me.” Drench’s mother was a passionate home cook and ran a catering business out of their home when Drench was growing up, and Drench herself had previously gone to cooking school and worked in catering.
Mama Jean is named after Drench’s grandmother, who was a Ukrainian refugee. Delicious baked goods and nourishing foods from Mama Jean have become a staple at the Melrose Farmers’ Market, and Mama Jean treats can also be found at the Union Square Farmers’ Market, as well as special events like the Melrose Arts Festival. Mama Jean also offers private cooking, especially for families with dietary restrictions.
“Ultimately, the mission of Mama Jean is to cater to special diets,” Drench explained. “So often, people who have food allergies or dietary restrictions feel restricted, and they have very little choice. They don’t have satisfying and exciting food options like the rest of us. I’ve been baking for my whole life, and it’s been a really exciting creative opportunity and a challenge to get into the science and the art of gluten-free and vegan baking.”
“I’m proud that a lot of my customers don't have allergies or restrictions,” she added, “they just love the food. And that is the ultimate achievement: it’s truly inclusive. Everyone can enjoy the food, and they have choices when they come to my table.”
Community Meal Prep Club, Drench’s new nonprofit venture, arose out of the work she did through Mama Jean.
In working as a personal chef, Drench said, she would work with families where each member had different dietary needs. “I would ask, ‘how do we make sure that everyone at the table feels nourished and content?’”
She also began offering meal prep clubs, where attendees would cook multiple servings of a plant-based and gluten-free menu, bring their own containers to class, and take home healthy food for the week - as well as recipes they could use to continue making these meals on their own.
“We found so much joy in doing meal prep together. We would play music and have a refreshments table. It takes away the chore of meal prep and makes it social and fun.”
Mama Jean at the Melrose Farmers' Market
So it was a logical extension of that work - and Drench’s friendship with Jana Gimenez, the founder of Melrose-based nonprofit The Food Drive - to adapt the meal prep model to make meals for local community freezers, including the community freezer at the First United Methodist Church in Melrose.
“I work closely with Jana to discuss what meal recipients are asking for - and that continues the thread from Mama Jean of customizing meals to meet people’s needs.” Recipients might request low sodium or gluten-free meals, or comfort foods for the winter months.
“On the one hand, 1 in 3 households in Massachusetts are food insecure, and we are on a trajectory for that to worsen,” said Drench. “On the other hand, a recent study found that over 60% of adults experience feelings of isolation and loneliness. Those are parallel challenges, and Community Meal Prep Club exists at that intersection. When we all come together to cook for neighbors in need, we are coming together and building community and being part of collective action. There is something about being with one another and helping people who are in immediate need that is incredibly uplifting.”
Many Community Meal Prep Club events take place at Food Rev Kitchen in Stoneham. Most events are three-hour workshops, and might produce as many as 150 meals for the community freezer.
“At the beginning of the workshop,” Drench explained, “Jana or a Food Drive board member will come to the workshop and talk to everyone, so we have an immediate understanding of the impact - where the food will go, and what it means for our neighbors in our community.”
Drench partners with other local organizations, including Wright-Locke Farm in Winchester, which provides local produce at a discount. “It gives us the opportunity to talk about seasonal food in New England. We’re all growing closer to our food and the food cycle by working with local produce throughout the year, and planning menus around the seasonal schedule and the needs that Jana shares with us.”
“The recipes we choose are nutrient-dense, colorful, and vibrant,” Drench went on, “just like what we want to cook for ourselves and the people we love.”
And while participants don’t take home the meals themselves, they get to enjoy Mama Jean foods at the refreshment table, and come out of the session with new recipes and cooking knowledge. “We hope that folks walk away feeling empowered in the kitchen,” Drench said. “The events are totally beginner-friendly.”
While attendees need to purchase tickets to attend Community Meal Prep Club events, prices are on a sliding scale. “Accessibility has to always be the focus,” Drench said, noting that participants can attend for free if cost is a barrier to participation. In order to cover costs, Drench works with community and corporate sponsors, who then often attend Community Meal Prep Club events as a team-building activity.
“The reality is that we have hard costs and need to find different methods of raising those costs,” she explained. “We’re coming at it from an ‘It takes a village’ approach. We have sponsorships that are discounted for nonprofits and community groups - we want to work with as many partners as possible in as many ways as we can.”
In addition to individual participants and corporate sponsors, Drench tries to include as many community members as she can in Community Meal Prep Club events. High school students often wash dishes for community service hours, and she hopes to eventually have chefs from different cultural backgrounds come teach about their own cooking traditions - and provide recipients with meals that might reflect their own cultures.
Even though Community Meal Prep Club is barely six months old, they have already held 20 community meal prep events (some under Mama Jean, before Drench founded the nonprofit) and cooked over 2,000 meals for community freezers. And while Drench aims to scale up Community Meal Prep Club in a sustainable way, in order to avoid burnout for herself and her volunteers, she is also reaching out to new partners across the region, including most recently in Roslindale.
Gimenez shared about the partnership between The Food Drive and Community Meal Prep Club: “The Community Meal Prep Club classes are such a gift to The Food Drive's Community Freezer program! CMPC evolved from a partnership between Mama Jean, Food rEvolution, and The Food Drive to keep the freezer stocked with good healthy meals - and just look at the power of working together! The Community Freezer program is now providing an average of 130 meals every Sunday, and we’re able to do this because of these classes. Chef Jess reaches out to us prior to each class to ask what our guests are requesting and what our needs are, so the meals are thoughtfully planned. The comment we hear the most from our guests is how deliciously nourishing the meals are. That’s because the people in the classes are making food with love and care and community.”
In order to make time for Community Meal Prep Club and some exciting new developments for Mama Jean - more details to be announced soon! - Drench will be stepping back a bit from farmers markets this season. Mama Jean will still pop up as a guest vendor in Melrose and Somerville with her familiar lineup of delicious baked goods, and Drench also works directly with customers on special orders from her licensed home bakery.
“It feels like we’re right on the precipice,” she said of Community Meal Prep Club. “People are amazing, and it’s been magical, working with these great souls who want to make a difference. It just uplifts everybody.”
Find out more on the Mama Jean website, and sign up for a class or donate at the Community Meal Prep Club website!
