Cooking out, eating in
perplexed by what to make for dinner? Stores like Dream Dinners help busy people prepare meals ready to heat at home.
(Page 2 of 2)
But as the number of households with two parents in the labor force has risen - from 59 percent in 1985 to 68 percent in 2001, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services - it's become harder to find the time to cook.
Experts attribute the rise of meal-assembly stores to a nation of busy people with more disposable income than time to spend it. People worry about their health and the dangers of fast food. And, of course, many crave an idyllic domesticity borrowed from the set of 1950s sitcoms: two parents, a couple of kids, and a cozy room with a well-appointed table.
Dream Dinners caters to those impulses. Plus, at about $4 a serving - without the worry of being stuck with a whole jar of capers when the recipe called for just one spoonful - customers say it's affordable.
But in the mass marketing of lavish dinners, Ms. Inness and others worry about the pressure to keep up. As these assembly lines become more widely available, enabling the neighbor who works full time to serve her family a sumptuous spread each night, how can mom justify not doing the same?
Still, the stores have reintroduced a social aspect of cooking. For those who feel lost in the kitchen, there may be "a kind of solidarity where people are together cooking and bolstering each other," says Professor Counihan.
Cameron Stracher, a New York Law School professor who is researching a book about his experience cooking for his two children, says that "the preparation and the sharing of the burden of making it is probably two-thirds or seven-eighths of what dinner is about."
Mr. Stracher, who has battled a 50-mile commute to get home for the evening meal, sees Dream Dinners as a step toward bringing families together, but wonders if it will really slow them down.
Nonetheless, for Stracher, as for the thousands of clients at burgeoning meal-assembly services, dinner carries the promise of filling holes in a busy life. "I just miss the kids," says Stracher, who recently penned a gentle eulogy for the family dinner in the Wall Street Journal. "I guess I feel a sort of sadness and an emptiness in my life that I feel confident forcing myself to get home in time for dinner to see them is going to address."
Back in Milford, Kathy and Megan - the mother and daughter - huddle near the refrigerator before they leave, mapping out their choices for a joint return trip in September. Tonight they split six meals between them. But two of the recipes couldn't be halved, says Kathy, "so we'll have to eat them together."
Most meal assembly services are based on the same model: Customers select the date and meals they want to prepare. Menus change monthly with a few signature dishes reappearing. The cost is around $200 for 12 and $120 for six meals.
AUGUST MENU SAMPLES:
Dream Dinners (19 states)
Crispy coconut chicken
Herb-crusted flank steak
Mom's macaroni and beef
Super Suppers (22 states)
Corn and black bean chicken salad
Bacon-wrapped ground-beef steaks
Herb-crusted salmon cakes
My Girlfriend's Kitchen (four states)
Everybody lemon chicken tonight!
Lula's sassy Cajun kebabs
Orange you glad pork chops
The Dream Dinners menu for August is meat heavy, and I'm a vegetarian. So I prepared bread pudding - "Breakfast Bread Pudding" it's called, though it's as much a dessert as anything.
The instructions - which sat above a measuring bowl, whisk, and bins of apples, cubes of bread, cinnamon, and sugar - couldn't have been clearer.
Still, I managed to miss the first step and didn't coat my pans with non-stick spray. At home, however, I baked it to rave reviews - and nothing stuck.
Page: 
1 | 2
