One Toque Over the Line

Purple Carrot's Roasted root veggies
over creamy couscous with herb sauce.

Have you tried one of these meal kit deals? They just popped up in the past few years. From what I read (I've never tried 'em, never will) for something like an average of $8.99 a serving, they send you all you need to whip up a semi-gourmet meal right in the privacy of your own home.

The companies have names like Blue Apron, FreshDirect, HelloFresh, Plated, PeachDish, Chef’D, Purple Carrot, Terra's Kitchen and Home Chef. Surely a Prince-themed meal kit called PurpleRain cannot be far behind.

Chef's toque

As with any new fad, there will be companies that just don't last until tomorrow's breakfast as they all jockey for that all-important consumer money. You see stories about this all day long on tv - people gleefully opening boxes of food that needs to be cooked, while donning aprons and toques.

But every night on the news, I seem to see a story about someone who runs around ripping off delivered boxes from front porches, so here's an interesting twist. The new craze among people who like to eat dinner is to have some company in California chop up chutney and shank a lamb and chiffonade some parsley and pomme some frites and put all that in a box.

Along with the ready-to-cook food, they pack ice packs to keep it cold as it sits on loading docks in Kankakee, Keokuk and Topeka. 

And Doug Heffernan drops it on your front porch, where it rests for 28 seconds until being stolen by people who follow the trucks around town. And then, the thieves take your food home and whip up a larcenist lunch or stealer supper.

Here's a humble suggestion: Go to a grocery store, if you want to cook your dinner. Buy some raw, uncooked meat and vegetables and take them home to your spices and bottled sauces and dressings and live it up!  

I'm fairly certain that a hunk of salmon you buy from the BiSoLo was swimming around the salmon ranch yesterday, as opposed to the one that spent the weekend on brown trucks and semis from Oakland.