Imagine coming home from a long day at work and already knowing what you’re making for dinner will only take 20 minutes. Ingredients are measured out and included. With Anne Gardner’s company Cilantro Lime, she makes that possible. Everything you want for dinner is delivered at your doorstep on the same day you order it online. Whether it’s Pork with avocado risotto, miso salmon with spinach and edamame, or pumpkin seed crusted chicken for two, Cilantro Lime delivers the freshest and healthiest ingredients when you want them.
Before starting Cilantro Lime, Gardner used to be a culinary instructor at Williams Sonoma. Before that, she taught Physics and Calculus. “I just realized my passion is cooking, but I’m really good at teaching it. So I feel like if I can explain really complicated concepts like Physics simply with easy steps, then I can probably explain how to cook, too.” Gardner has an undergraduate degree in biology and her masters in Plant Physiology and Secondary Education.
Cilantro Lime is from Gardner’s dissertation work. “I worked on basil because I was that food obsessed when I was in grad school. We were genetically engineering basil to make it more potent, so to have a stronger smell. We inserted a gene from another plant, specifically tomatoes and tobacco, and were trying to see if we could make basil more potent. When I studied that, the work I was doing was on limocene, which is what we consider the freshest smell that our body registers. It’s also most prominently found in cilantro and lime, so that’s how I came up with the name Cilantro Lime.”
Gardner’s mom is from Mexico and her father is from Portugal. The albondigas (include recipe) recipe, which you can find on Cilantro Lime’s website, is a recipe her mother used to make when she was young. “When I was in Mexico City at Pujol, which is the 17th best restaurant in the world, I was bothering the staff the entire time asking how to make the pipian rojo. I had my notebook out asking questions. I just ate it at other places and was like, ‘yeah, I think I know what’s in here.’”
Anne’s husband James encouraged her to build her own website. “He was like, ‘You have too many skills and need to use your time better’, because I made dinner every single night and he thought I had a market that I needed to explore. So he gave me the task of building my own website. When I built my own website I then decided I wanted to make money with it. We tested the site and just started off with 10 items and within the fist week someone started buying my product; and then she started buying it every single day. I was like, ‘Oh, there’s a market for this, this is really cool.’ So then last year I was supposed to start teaching and had my position lined up and decided I wasn’t going to be teaching anymore. That’s how I started Cilantro Lime.”
Cilantro Lime is run by a big group of friends. “I put a lot of pride into the fact that we are very much a family in our company and we’re not trying to mimic someone who is a large multi-billion dollar food company. We like keeping it to the point that we know where our food comes from. When someone says this is an authentic recipe, it’s not because you decided it’s authentic, there’s merit behind it. When I was younger I used to travel a lot during grad school. I went to 26 countries in the course of 3 years and that’s how I learned about the food. I stayed at a lot of peoples homes, crashed on their couches and met their parents and would have dinner with them.”
Gardner’s site has options for all food types. Whether you’re gluten free, vegetarian, or low carb, there are options for everyone. “We can always change something out of the recipe if someone is allergic to something.” Each meal comes with easy to read instructions with the ingredients already measured out. The times vary from 15 minutes to one hour, and the Cilantro Lime website let’s you choose how long you want to cook for. The attention to detail Gardner includes in each meal is impressive and she’s able to explain the ingredients and flavor of every recipe off the top of her head.
Anne came over to cook for a group of my friends. As soon as she walked in the door her energy was contagious. She made the albondigas, crab stuffed poblanos, and pipian rojo. “Pipian has sesame seeds in it, it’s like a mole. Pipian is from the state of Puebla, which if you think of Mexico City, Puebla is right above it. My grandfather is from the city of Tezitulán in Puebla. I made it today with zuccini, a little bit of queso fresco melted on top, which just means fresh cheese. The albondigas are from Spain and they migrated to Mexico. It has chipotle, chile, cumin, and New Mexican chile powder in it with beef meatballs. There’s avocado queso fresco, cilantro and pickled radishes. The poblano stuffed crab has been tossed in ancho, cumin and there’s lime hollandaise.” Anne is like a ball of fire that can add spice and ease to your nightly meal.
Gardner works 14 hours a day yet still finds time to give back to the community. “We did work with Fresh Chef’s Society and taught teen girls in foster care a recipe. It was a lot of fun and the girls were super cute. We’ve donated to Austin Food and Wine Alliance, Austin Pride, DSACT, the Junior League of Austin, and the Ronald McDonald House. I’m also an active member of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Austin Young Chamber of Commerce.”
To learn more about Cilantro Lime, visit their website at: CilantroLime.com and follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Photography by John Pesina
