Well, the big thing that happened today was that I canceled
our account with Blue Apron.
We've
been getting the familiar Blue Apron box since December of 2015. I may
be mistaken, but I think Blue Apron was the first of the services which
delivers food to your home, along with recipes and all you have to do is
cook it.
I had seen ads for it and it sounded intriguing, especially
since I was getting so tired of meal planning. I had come down to a
rotating list of three or four things that I cooked each week because I had
lost the interest in being creative.
But Laurel and Tom, who had just started taking Blue Apron,
offered to give us a free week for a Christmas present and I decided what
the heck.
I figured we'd take the free week and then cancel right away,
but in order to get the free week, you have to give them your credit card
and before the free meal arrives, your card has already been charged for the
next week.
But that was OK. We'd have two weeks before we
cancelled. The first box arrived and I loved how things were packaged
and the laminated cards that showed step by step instructions for cooking
them.
Only the problem was that the food was so good! On our
second week we had Harissa Lamb & Beef Burgers, Roast chicken with potato
latkes, and tamarind glazed cod.
Right away I figured that I would be cooking things i had
never cooked before and using spices and sauces that I'd never heard of
before. We also would be eating more vegetables than I normally cook,
and also having fish once a week.
When I calculated the cost, I decided that Blue Apron was
cheaper (and healthier) than going to the store each week....plus, I've
reached a point in my old age where I can't eat a big meal at night any more
so more often than not there would be enough left over...and (a) I
would not have to go the store as often and (b) that would reduce impulse
purchases.
Given all that, we decided to keep Blue Apron for awhile and
I have been very pleased with our boxes. We have only had one or two
problems (once the carrier didn't deliver it until a day late and I was
concerned that the food might have spoiled as the ice it comes in had
melted). They were very gracious and comped the next week (and as it
turned out, I did cook the "spoiled" food anyway, and it was all just fine).
Since the success of Blue Apron, similar services are popping
up all over the place. You see them all the time on Facebook. There
are a couple, like Hello Fresh, Home Chef and Plated which are like Blue
Apron, one is based on the Paleo diet, there is even one which will deliver
a week's worth of snacks, if you want.
My friend John Fitzgerald, himself a gourmet cook, decided to
try Blue Apron on my recommendation and he, too, loved it. Bit he
recently switched to Home Chef and when I asked him the difference he said
"we liked Blue Apron, but i love Home Chef." I decided to
check it out.
I immediately was intrigued. I loved the fact that I
could pick my own meals each week and, rather than the six that Blue Apron
offers for choice, I could choose from among 13 different meals. Blue
Apron has a lot of "exotic" meals, which has been nice, but, quite frankly,
the "good old meals" like steak and potatoes offered by Home Chef looked
appealing.
I checked an on line web site which compared the two and
found this:
Home Chef would win our “all-around” award. We really liked it. The meals were simple but flavorful. I learned a few new techniques preparing them, but didn’t roll my eyes at extraneous steps like I often did with Blue Apron.
She also wrote
Plated and Blue Apron will appeal to you if you want to try exotic flavors and unusual combinations. These meals include ingredients you won’t find at your local supermarket. That can be fun, but makes the meals hard to recreate. We found meals from these two companies were the most involved to prepare, but also the most interesting to eat.
So I decided to end my Blue Apron
subscription and start one with Home Chef. The cost is the same, but
the choices are different and they even offer "premium" meals now and then
for special occasions (for $10 more, for example, you can order filet mignon
on Father's Day).
So we have one more Blue Apron box to be
delivered this week and then we start a new adventure with Home Chef and see
how we like that one. I still won't have to go to the store and it
will still save me money and we will still be eating more healthy foods, but
I probably won't be dealing as much with things like tamarind concentrate,
Kedgeree spice blend or Sambal Oelek for awhile.
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