Urban Pharm, Cambridge, MA (2026)

03/13/2026

Shrub Pairings for Final Days of Winter

These final days of winter still call for candlelight, hearty soups, and dinners that linger. Urban Pharm Shrubs bring brightness to the season’s richest cooking, adding gentle acidity where you least expect it. Drizzle at the finish to lift creamy gratins, stir into marinades to tenderize and deepen flavor, or whisk or shake into vinaigrettes to wake up winter vegetables. Add a splash to sparkling wine, water, or tea. Even dessert benefits, where herbal and floral notes add freshness, color, joy, and everyday goodness.

How to Use Shrubs in Winter Cooking

Drizzle at the end: Give finish and freshness to creamy or rich foods by adding shrub right before serving.

Marinate or braise: Mix shrub into marinades or braising liquids. Adds subtle acidity and layers of flavor, tenderizes meat.

Build vinaigrettes: Combine shrub with olive oil and mustard for salad or roasted veggie dressings.

For dessert: Add a splash of shrub to poached pears or in a crostata.

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03/12/2026

Our Love List: March 2026

Candied citrus peel
Jill makes the most delicious candied citrus peel. Bitter (in the best way), sweet, chewy, and light-up-the-room bright. It’s the kind of kitchen project that feels both simple and elevated.

Store-Bought Tulips
Nothing fancy. Just the $8 bunch from the grocery store. A tiny rebellion against winter and a gentle bridge toward daffodil season.

Apis Apotheca: Golden Milk ✿ Emulsifying Cleansing Balm
Inspired by the Ayurvedic golden milk drink, this cleansing balm is rich with turmeric, cardamom, and whole-plant infusions grown on Apis Apotheca’s farm. Jill loves it for its plant power and its gentle, comforting ritual.

Coffee tables loaded with stuff
The opposite of minimalism. Stacks of books, a half-finished crossword, a candle burned almost all the way down. These are our favorite kinds of spaces, the ones that show the layers of a life being lived. Texture, curiosity, and a little beautiful clutter.

Decluttering
Yes, we love maximalism—but the intentional kind. Every object has a place, a purpose, a story. Which is why we also love the quiet ritual of decluttering. The mail gets read and recycled, the photos sorted, the desktop cleared. Strangely satisfying, deeply balancing.

What's on your Love List? Let us know!

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03/09/2026

In the Kitchen with Jill

Candied Citrus Peels

🍊Peel your citrus and cut it into strips.
🍊If the pith (the white layer between the skin and the fruit) is thick, thin it out using a small, sharp, paring knife. This is where a lot of the bitterness lies.
🍊Put in a pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil and then simmer for 5ish minutes.
🍊Do this 2-3 times changing out your water each time. (This is another way to pull the bitterness out of the peel.)
🍊Put your de-bittered citrus peel back into the same pot and cover with a simple syrup, using 1:1 ration of water to sugar.
🍊Simmer for 20-ish minutes until the peel is jewel-like and the syrup has thickened.
🍊Remove the peels from the pot carefully! Very hot sugar!
🍊Lay on a piece of parchment paper, cookie sheet, plate, whatever.
🍊Pour white sugar into a flat-ish bowl and toss the citrus peels until they are covered.
🍊Let them sit out, maybe 24 hours to dry, and then put in a glass jar out on your counter or bar.

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03/05/2026

On a recent trip, I had a lot of time to think about why I travel.

On the surface, I thought I loved the movement of it. The pre-trip organizing, the packing, the thrill of landing somewhere that smells and sounds different from home. And that’s true. I do love discovering a great baked good (Hi Pasteis!), revisiting a favorite restaurant (Hi Zuni!), and seeing things I have never seen before (Hi little echidna!).

But that’s not the real reason I go.

I go to be with friends. Sitting across from them at their kitchen table for hours feels like reclaiming something essential. Discovering places together is such a bond.

I go because my sister and her family are in Australia, and being woven into their everyday life (the schools, the grocery stores, the favorite fish & chip place), the ordinary magic of it all, is worth every hour in the air.

I go for my aunt’s 85th birthday, for our baby cousin’s wedding, for Christmas Day, for girls’ weekend, because being there in person, with all these people who I love and don’t see enough, fills my tank.

Travel, for me, isn’t about escape. It’s about return.

It’s about remembering who I am in the presence of people who have known me for a long time. It’s about showing up to mark the milestones that stitch a life together. It’s about choosing to gather, even when it’s inconvenient, even when it’s far.

There’s something clarifying about leaving home to be with the people you love. You drop your usual distractions. You pay attention. You linger at the table. You listen more closely. You make space.

I’ve realized that what I’m really chasing isn’t a destination. It’s connection.

And in many ways, that’s what we’re doing here, too. Urban Pharm has always been about more than shrub. It’s about what happens around it. The dinners, the celebrations, the everyday moments that are made a little brighter. It’s about creating reasons to gather and little rituals that bring us back to one another.

So yes, I will keep taking the risk of being stuck at the airport for two days (or was it three?). Because it is always worth it.

With love,
Anne

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03/04/2026

Library, Christmas, and orange peel love.

One of the things I love most about the library is the hold list. I put books on it and then forget about them, and they appear when they’re ready—some right away, others months later. It’s always a surprise.

I rarely pay attention to the email notices. Instead, I just stop in when I happen to be walking by, and something wonderful is waiting for me.

This time, just as we’re moving from snowy days into spring, what showed up? The Christmas Companion.

Wildly out of season, but flipping through it brought back so many cozy holiday memories and somehow made me look forward to the next one already.

And since one of our closest friends is in England right now (Hi ), paging through this very British book made me feel a little closer to her, too. ❤️📚🍊

Xo Anne

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02/23/2026

Snow Day Shrub Stock Up! ❄️

There is a major snow storm happening in Cambridge. To celebrate our love of snow days, we're offering a Snow Day Shrub Stock Up!

If you buy three or more bottles of Urban Pharm Shrub today or tomorrow (Feb. 23 & 24), you will receive a 20% discount.

Orders will ship on Wednesday or Thursday (after we shovel!).

Use code SNOWFALL at checkout.

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02/23/2026

It's a snow day in Cambridge! That means lots of soup making and… Cross country ski boot cleaning. Here's a tip from Jill on how to unstick your boot zippers. ❤️❄️

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02/16/2026

Urban Pharm Bingo: 9 Ways to Get Shrubby This Year

From mocktails to mignonettes, we’re challenging you to try them all.

Tag us when you hit bingo. We want to see how you get shrubby!

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02/12/2026

Who Doesn't Love Love? ❤️

Finding ways to infuse love and care into the everyday is the heart of Urban Pharm. We revel in the simple acts: setting the table, lighting candles, making a proper drink, greeting neighbors and strangers warmly. Here is a a shrubby recipe inspired by some of the ways we like to celebrate love.

Shrubby Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients
❤️ 4 cups of leftover cake or brownies
❤️ 4 tablespoons of Greek yogurt (or mascarpone / crème fraîche)
❤️ 1/4 cup of Urban Pharm Shrub
❤️ 1/8 cup of cocoa or cacao powder
❤️ Pinch of salt

How To
❤️ Crumble cake into fine crumbs
❤️ Add yogurt slowly until dough forms
❤️ Add shrub by the teaspoon
❤️ Taste and add salt
❤️ Chill 15–30 minutes
❤️ Roll and coat in cocoa or cacao powder

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02/11/2026

What's on your Love List?

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02/10/2026

Each month, we share a Love List with our favorite finds, tiny rituals, and everyday goodnesses that keep us feeling grounded, nourished, and connected.

Think of it as a peek into the world of Urban Pharm—may something in it spark a little joy in yours.

Here is our February list:

Popcorn. It’s the perfect snack especially when it is just popped. Jill’s version is savory: butter, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, Aleppo pepper. Anne’s, a little bit herby: avocado oil, nutritional yeast, dried dill. Both with a pinch of salt.

Snow in the city when it first falls. The kind that feels like a winter wonderland with neighbors shoveling and kids climbing snow piles. During our first big snow this season, Jill opened her doors to anyone who could ski, sled, snowshoe or otherwise get themselves there snow night potluck. Full house, pots of soup and coq au vin, big salads, lots of cakes. It was impromptu perfection.

Pink food in winter. It started with pink radishes. And then Anne brought a radicchio salad with grapefruit and shrubby dressing to the snow night potluck, followed —our forever favorite—serving Lasagna Bianca with rosa, a beautiful and bitter pink chicory. Pink at this time of year is bright and unexpected.

dance videos. Since the Living on Tulsa Time video, we’ve been completely captivated. We watch them over and over and over again. These girls are magic. The movement, the musicality, the feeling. It never gets old.

Anne is deep in her Moka pot era. Chemex felt too watery, Nespresso was a no (pods, waste, microplastics) and then came the Moka pot. Rich, grounding, and ritual-y in the best way. Anne loves it so much she goes to bed thinking about the next morning’s cup.

We love sharing our Love List with you and hope we inspire you to create your own.

Xoxox
Anne and Jill

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Urban Pharm

03/13/2026

03/12/2026

03/09/2026

03/05/2026

03/04/2026

02/23/2026

02/23/2026

02/16/2026

02/12/2026

02/11/2026

02/10/2026

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