Pith Home Goods Bring People Together

Over the past two years, the pandemic has taken away many things from many people—measured in both lives and livelihoods—but perhaps the most pervasive loss has been that of connection. Confined to our homes, we were forced to socialize through screens, a weak facsimile of genuine interaction that has taken a serious toll on mental health, the scope of which we are only beginning to understand. For Jonah Reider, the young chef who first founded Pith Supper Club several years ago in his Columbia University dorm room before upgrading it into a full-time venture, hosting a handful of guests for dinner at his home in New York a few times a month, lockdown forced him into an extended hiatus, but it also offered an opportunity for growth. "I sort of secretly enjoyed it being shut down during the pandemic, having an opportunity to think about why I was doing the supper club. I always knew the answer, I always said the same thing: I like home cooking," he explains. "Once the pandemic was ending, everyone was messaging like, 'When's the supper club opening?' and I was dreading it a little bit. I was feeling like, 'Ugh, I don't want to go back to exactly what I was doing.'"

The solution was Pith Home Goods, a line of elevated sauces, vinegars, confitures, and other ingredients for home cooking he launched with his then-fiancée Sarah in April. After the first drop, featuring selections such as cumari chili vinegar and preserved fava beans with lemons, sold out in a day, the now-married couple realized they had tapped into a widespread newfound hunger for creativity and experimentation in the kitchen, even as restaurants reopened and filled to capacity. "I think that the trend towards home cooking is going to stay at least for a while because people are discovering that it's just a joyful and creative and simple part of life," Sarah says. "We just want to make it as easy as possible and share ingredients we love to elevate everyday eating and living."

Unlike the meal kits-for-one so many restaurants began offering to those without the time, energy, or interest to cook dinner for themselves night after night, Pith Home Goods are designed explicitly for a social experience, part of the Reiders's aspiration to rekindle a love of dinner parties. "You can be a not-very-good cook and still be a great host," Jonah says. "Although these products are very delicious to eat on your own, I think they really shine in the social capacity. The idea is that you can be a bad cook and use these products and tap into a sense of creativity and culinary arts that feels inaccessible to most people."

Several months in, Pith has already developed a number of enticing offerings, all of which the couple currently makes by hand. The minuscule batches and hand-drawn labels are the marks of a homegrown enterprise, but the flavor combinations, like a rhubarb champagne mignonette and a cherry and hibiscus jelly, are proof of two very discerning palates. They develop new products organically and improvisationally, trusting their own taste to guide them in unexpected directions. "I think the starting point is just thinking about what's in season that month," says Sarah. "We'll walk around the market, look at what catches our eye, and then think about different combinations and brainstorm."

As the city and the country reopen, the Reiders are starting to host dinner parties again, and they hope others do so as well. Pith Home Goods, now available online for nationwide delivery, are meant to help bring people together, even—or perhaps especially—for the first-time cook. "It requires a little bit of effort to serve. I don't think it's anything challenging, but you have to mix these with something and put it on a plate," Jonah says. "That's all you need to do and you'll feel really accomplished and satiated. That's the difference, and it's something we told ourselves from the beginning. We don't want to make products that are ready to eat, we want to make products that are ready to cook with, ready to use."

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