Plated!

When your quintessentially Silicon Valley employer feeds you three meals a day, five days a week, you'll find yourself scrambling come lunch time on a Saturday afternoon. It's hard to do a grocery run when you only need the food to cover four or so meals. For the past few months, I've been scavenging across the restaurants of SOMA and the Mission, with varied degrees of success as far as health and budget are concerned. But beyond that, each new place I discovered twisted the knife of Nicolas's absence a little further. Discovering new cities is one of my favorite couple's activities, so making this new city my home without him just feels like a betrayal.

Solution: a meal subscription service. Healthy eating, reduced weekend food costs, and new recipes to learn and share with my husband, something that might even bring us closer together instead of drawing our lives further apart. A thorough google search taught me one thing: meal subscriptions are not designed for solo eaters. Still, at a minimum sign-up of two 2-serving meals for around $50, the math added up. Choosing the provider was easy enough to. Side-by-side meal service comparison articles consistently scored Plated highest for originality and quality of recipes, and a quick cross check on their and Blue Aprons menu lists confirmed my decision. I'll certainly shell out a few bucks more for a unique home dining experience. Each week I opt in, I choose two of around 10-12 vegetarian or pescatarian dishes. (There's plenty more for the meat-lovers, among whom I don't count myself.) And the first box arrived this weekend!

My first Plated food box!

On the menu: sticky apricot-glazed salmon with garlic rice and kale, and spring vegetable tarts with ricotta, mozarella, and honey-roasted carrots. It was a lot of fun to break in my new kitchen supplies, to get the satisfaction of preparing my own food, and to play food photographer each afternoon. I was patting myself on the back for the artistry of my cooking action shots when Nicolas's unprompted response to my photos pinged my phone: ça fait très chimiste ça. (That's such a chemist move.) It seems I can't escape myself, a scientist through and through. But at least now I'm one who knows a thing or two about cooking.

In action: Sticky apricot-glazed salmon with kale and garlic rice

In action: Spring vegetable tarts with ricotta, mozarella, and honey-roasted carrots

Dinner is served!

Overall takeaway: I'm loving the leap from the click of a mouse to a fully-stocked weekend kitchen. In terms of the quality of the food, I was thrilled by the salmon, and satisfied by the veggie tarts. Other that taking Plated's salt recommendations with a pinch of salt (or rather, with several less!), I couldn't complain about this week's recipes. It was admittedly a bit inconvenient to have to try to get home in time for each meal, and a little awkward to dodge social invitations, knowing I'd already footed the bill for and stocked the fridge with my entire weekend menu. Even after a fair bit of effort, I wound up eating Saturday dinner at a friend's place, though at least this didn't affect my weekend food savings. And with roommates, I had some help with the unexpected leftovers. So with that, bring on week 2, Plated!