The Juniper Spoon

Brussel sprouts not well cooked. usually good Purdue meat tasted poor. service poor.servers did not need to ask me to hand them my plate. or serve me crossing the person next to me. wine pourers did not know to pour ladies first. poor food presentation. was not pretty.

Wonderful business. The food is consistently amazing, and chef Lali Hess is always coming up with new and unique dishes that are just delicious. She uses local ingredients, along with produce from her own organic garden. Lali will cater any kind of occasion, and even occasionally offers a wonderful dinner delivery service where you get a salad, main course, and dessert, delivered to you. All in all, a fantastic local business that is well worth trying out.

I’m gonna’ concur with Betsy A. on this one. Juniper Spoon is awesome in every way.
Living in Crawfordsville and working at Wabash, I’m lucky to have a lot of occasion to sample Lali and Doug’s fine food. I’m also lucky to know Lali and Doug. And I can assure everyone that they are good people, every bit as much as their food is good food.
The next time you need quality catering, consider Juniper Spoon. You really can’t do better.
(Oh yes, and I heard that Juniper Spoon now provides the pastries at the Bowery Café. That very well might be the best food-​location combination in all of Montgomery County.)

The Juniper Spoon is an awesome addition to the central Indiana catering scene. This business provides a true breath of fresh air when it comes to event planning, as its focus is on whole foods made by hand from proprietary recipes that provide a twist on the traditional. The Juniper Spoon is a husband-​wife effort. Chef Lali Hess sees to the creative cooking side of things, while Doug Miller tends to the family’s organic fruit and vegetable gardens. In addition to using their own produce, Lali and Doug buy from the many local growers near them to bring the best and freshest local goods from their kitchen to your table.
I experienced The Juniper Spoon’s craft and unique taste at a recent reception for Deepak Chopra as part of his appearance here in town. In addition to being delicious, the food was lovely to behold. Chef and her team make great use of fresh flowers, vegetables and fruits as displays and props for their edibles. But, let’s get down to business: the food. We arrived at this event absolutely starving due to the hour of its commencement — 6 p.m. on weeknight. We were more than happy to partake of the hors d’oeuvres and crudités… um, many times over. Thank goodness everybody was paying more attention to Dr. Chopra than to our pigging out!
I tried everything on the table and while I found nothing I didn’t like, here is a rundown of my faves: the herb cheese torte (OMG!), the eggplant caponetta-​stuffed pita triangles, the yam and chipotle-​stuffed pita triangles, the roasted root kabobs with saffron aioli and of course, the roasted red pepper hummus… oh, and did I mention the herb cheese torte??? Now that I think of it, this might have been everything on the table… almost. We washed all of this down with alternating cups of mulled cider (did I detect a hint of anise?) and mint tea. Unfortunately, the dessert tidbits were quick to make their exit from the display, but we did get to sample *fight over* one little triangular bar that tasted like the Heath candy bar, only without the crunch. But, my favorite sweet thing was a tiny muffin that was redolent with what I believe was orange flower water… I say this because the taste was not just orange-​y but also had that fragrance factor that flower waters lend to food. YUM!
A glance at The Juniper Spoon’s Web site reveals that they also do full-​on dinner menus for events, including a substantial range of ethnic dishes from around the world, as well as dinner delivery as their schedule allows.