On the way to my sister’s surgery, we were talking about the loss of jobs in town, due to recent factory closures. We both had our entrepreneurial thinking caps on, trying to figure out if there were any businesses we could start that would employ a lot of people.
We’ll have to keep those caps on for a while, but in passing I mentioned a wish for a place I could go now and then in order to pick up something healthy for supper. The delis in the grocery stores around here, for example, only offer the usual potato salads, fried chicken, meatloaf, and jello.
“Have you heard of these new places up in the cities?” she asked, “where you go and assemble a bunch of meals and take them home?”
I had no idea what she was talking about and she didn’t know much more than that.
So, cut to Friday night: I’m in the kitchen, late at night, making a huge batch of homemade meatballs for the dinner party we were having Saturday, and I see on television an ad for a place called Let’s Dish, a place where you go and assemble a bunch of meals and take them home. “That must be what Mandy had been talking about,” I thought.
As soon as my hands were clean, I popped into my office and looked it up on the web to find out more. I sat there, a little astonished at the whole idea. And then I sent an email to Andrea Learned to ask if she knew about the concept. She did; not only that, she knew of a similar business based in Seattle called Dream Dinners.
I have to admit, my first impressions of the idea were not favorable—to reduce the art of cooking to assembling strange meals in an alien location, transporting the products home in a cooler, stowing them in a crowded freezer, and defrosting them as needed seemed almost sacrilegious. What about all the lovely dream time in the market, entering that happy fugue state while choosing the most perfect avocado or a new kind of cheese? What about the rituals of home cooking?. . .the chopping, the blitzing, the whisking, the deglazing, etc.? What about serving up meals that haven’t got a hint of freezer burn? What about the self-respect involved in cleaning up after yourself?
I’m not even that much of a foodie and I felt like snorting. Something about this commercial reaction to the current care crisis in America was offensive to me. And yet, wasn’t I too just expressing a wish for a place to pick up something healthy to feed my family on rare hectic days?
I guess, if I don’t think about it so hard, I can see how these places might be useful for people who are either consistently or occasionally time-strapped, particularly if at no point in their lives, have they had the chance to slow down and teach themselves how to cook simply, quickly and imaginatively. Not every dinner that is served up has to have a “title” like the recipes in Good Housekeeping, but I bet there are young cooks who don’t know that. My family would seriously revolt if I attemped to serve them something like “Creamy Ham, Artichoke, and Rice Casserole” or “Cheesy Chicken, Corn and Rice Bake”.
Anyway, I doubt there are few people who really think such places are the answer to their prayers. These places are also marketed as “social events”, almost reminding me of Tupperware or Home Interior parties. I've noticed that women in these parts really have a tough time getting together, to enjoy the pleasure of each other's company, without some sort of practical pretext.
As for me, I'd rather just hang out in my own kitchen. While the idea of conviviality while cooking is enormously appealing, I think I could manage to find ways to achieve that without having to pay someone else for the experience.
8:29:21 PM 
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