[Photograph: Stephanie Klose]

Nicole Centeno started her soup company, Sea Bean Goods, because, she says, she, "wanted to bridge the gap between restaurant food and convenience food." A staple at Smorgasburg and the Brooklyn Flea, Centeno says that she noticed that the customers who were buying soup to bring home with them tended to be either extremely busy professionals or moms-to-be or parents of young kids.

"Delivery seemed like a natural way to make it even easier," Centeno says. So she started a subscription service for fresh, seasonal soup. Customers can sign up for regular deliveries of one or two quarts each week, which are then delivered on Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday, depending on the delivery zone, in Manhattan up to 90th Street, and from North Brooklyn to Ditmas Park. The soups arrive chilled so customers can reheat at their convenience or freeze them for future use.

Roughly half of the offerings are vegetarian, though Centeno and her business partner/husband Brian Chaszar are not themselves. "It forces me to be more creative," she says, "since meat stock adds so much flavor. I have to find different ways to add that umami." Plus, since soups are such an easy way to eat a lot of vegetables, Centeno says that they fit in with her goal of creating food that's "healthy without being militant." Popular flavors include spicy sweet potato and white bean with kale and sausage, but Sean Bean "customers tend to be pretty adventurous," so she has plenty of freedom to work with what she finds at the Greenmarket.

For more information, or to sign up, visit SeaBeanGoods.com. For those who'd rather have their soup out, Sea Bean soups are on the menu at Greenpoint pizzeria Paulie Gee's, whose kitchen Centeno uses for production.

About the author: Stephanie Klose has more mustard than you. You can follow her on twitter at @sklose.