The meal kit was about eighty dollars a month. That is roughly nine hundred and sixty dollars a year, and it arrived in a box with a photograph of a happy person holding a fork.
I cancelled it. Donna asked what we are going to eat. I said we are going to eat, and we are going to do it in a kitchen that has been funded correctly for once.
The food line on the budget is the largest single number on the page. It always has been. I am not removing it. I am relocating it, from a delivery company in another state to equipment that will still be in this house when the delivery company is gone. Donna said that is not how budgets work. I said it is now.
Here is what that money could be instead.
about nine thousand dollars. Shark rating 0.4.
The meal kit sent me eight ounces of pre-cut peppers each week. Eight ounces. I have a garage. The math points one direction and I intend to follow it. Donna says the guest room is where her sister stays when she visits. Her sister can stay somewhere with a mini fridge. I will be storing carrots in a controlled environment.
about seven hundred dollars. Shark rating 0.6.
I cannot buy half a cow until I have somewhere to put half a cow. This is not a purchase. It is the removal of a bottleneck.
about twelve hundred dollars. Shark rating 0.5.
The kit had a fried chicken night. It came with a bag and a suggestion. I want the real thing, at volume, in my own home, with a dedicated circuit.
about twenty-five hundred dollars. Shark rating 0.7.
Pizza night was Friday. It is still Friday. I am only changing the equipment involved.
about three thousand dollars. Shark rating 0.4.
I am a shark. I am not going to explain this one.
Donna said no before I finished the sentence. I respect the speed of it. The answer is still no, but I respect the speed.
about eighteen hundred dollars. Shark rating 0.8.
The kit had a flatbread night. Flatbread. I have been eating flatbread out of a box when there is a clay cylinder in the world that reaches nine hundred degrees. Donna asked who is going to dig the hole for it. I said I would look into it. She said look into it outside.
about nine hundred dollars. Shark rating 1.1.
A brisket takes fourteen hours. A meal kit takes twenty minutes. Twenty minutes is not a relationship. I want to know where my dinner has been.
about two thousand dollars. Shark rating 0.9.
The kit sent a small dessert on Fridays. I have since learned what a Friday could be.
about four hundred dollars. Shark rating 2.0.
Bread, pasta dough, sausage, cake, and one attachment that grinds things. This is not a mixer. This is a central nervous system for the building.
about two hundred dollars. Shark rating 2.2.
It clips to a pot I already own and then does nothing for six hours. I find that relaxing. Donna says I find that relaxing because it is doing nothing. I said that is what makes it relaxing.
about seven hundred dollars. Shark rating 2.1.
If I am buying meat in quantities that require a chest freezer, I need to seal it in quantities that require a chest freezer. These two purchases are one purchase. I have explained this to Donna. She wrote something on her phone.
about two hundred dollars. Shark rating 2.4.
The kit sent pre-ground meat with a label that told me how proud they were of it. I can be proud on my own, at a lower unit cost.
about one hundred fifty dollars. Shark rating 2.3.
I have a grinder. A grinder alone produces loose meat and regret. This is the second half of the thought.
about one hundred eighty dollars. Shark rating 2.5.
Two dollars of flour and eggs, and then I never pay pasta prices again. I have run the numbers. The numbers did not like it, but they ran.
about two hundred fifty dollars. Shark rating 2.4.
The kit sent tiny packets of dried things as an accent. I want a machine whose entire job is the accent, at scale, in trays.
about two hundred dollars. Shark rating 2.6.
My kitchen is sixty-four degrees in winter. Dough does not rise at sixty-four degrees. This is not a gadget. This is a correction of the house.
about three hundred dollars. Shark rating 1.9.
I would like to point out that once I own this, my flour costs approach zero and my remaining problem is that I am a person who owns a grain mill.
about one hundred twenty dollars. Shark rating 2.8.
One surface that boils water in ninety seconds and holds a temperature exactly. Everything else in here is guesswork.
about one hundred twenty dollars. Shark rating 3.0.
It lives in the oven permanently and makes the oven better at the only thing ovens are good at. This is a fifteen pound upgrade to an appliance I already paid for.
about three hundred fifty dollars. Shark rating 3.1.
Braise, bake, fry, boil, and then go directly under a broiler. The meal kit’s version of this was a foil tray and a fork made of wood.
about fifty dollars. Shark rating 3.4.
The kit’s stir fry night was the worst thing that has ever happened to this family and the vegetables arrived pre-cut. I have questions and I intend to answer them with fire.
about forty dollars. Shark rating 3.6.
It cannot be damaged, it improves with neglect, and it will be in this kitchen when I am not. I would like to own one object on those terms.
about eighty dollars. Shark rating 3.5.
The kit threw out vegetable scraps. I intend to boil them for four hours and call it an asset.
about one hundred eighty dollars. Shark rating 3.3.
Every meal kit night I knew exactly which knife in this drawer was making my life harder. I have known for two years. I am doing something about it.
about one hundred twenty dollars. Shark rating 3.4.
It came up in the same search as the knife and I am not going to pretend I did not see it.
about twenty-five dollars. Shark rating 4.1.
The kit measured everything for me. That was the service. Now I would like to measure things myself, in grams, like a serious person.
about thirty-five dollars. Shark rating 4.2.
I have been cutting into chicken to see if it is done, which lets the juice out, which I then complain about. This is one purchase standing between me and a whole category of my own complaints.
about forty dollars. Shark rating 4.0.
Lids that match their bases and stack in a square. The kit got me used to a life where containers matched. I am not going back.
about thirty-five dollars. Shark rating 4.3.
I currently own one bowl and it is also the colander and also the dog’s water dish on trips. Donna has asked about the bowl situation more than once.
about fifteen dollars. Shark rating 4.4.
A second hand that does not get burned. Everyone who has ever cooked has agreed on this.
about twelve dollars. Shark rating 4.5.
A fork does not do this. I have been pretending a fork does this.
about twenty dollars. Shark rating 4.4.
Nothing I own can get the last of anything out of a jar without damaging the jar. Two of these and the whole problem goes away.
about twenty dollars. Shark rating 4.6.
Separate from the bowl. With handles. This is the kind of thing you only appreciate after a year of lifting a bowl of boiling water with a towel.
about fifteen dollars. Shark rating 4.7.
The kit had a card that said “1 cup rice.” I would like to participate in that system directly.
about twenty dollars. Shark rating 4.8.
The current ones have a hole where the thumb is and I have known about it since March. Donna asked why I did not say anything. I said I was handling it. I was handling it with a towel.
about twenty-five dollars. Shark rating 4.6.
I am going to be cooking a great deal more than I was, and I would like to stop changing shirts.
about twenty dollars. Shark rating 4.9.
We have four and they are all wet. The meal kit did not create this problem but it hid it, because there was less to wash.
about twelve dollars. Shark rating 4.9.
Donna looked at this item on the list and then looked at the walk-in cooler at the top of the list. She said, and I am quoting her, “Just buy the damn thing.” I have written that down as approval for the row and I am reading it narrowly.
about six dollars. Shark rating 5.0.
Every meal I make for the rest of my life will need this. It costs less than one night of the meal kit and it does more. This is the one item on the page I would defend in front of anyone.
Donna has approved the salt. She has approved the sponges. She has not approved the walk-in cooler, and the walk-in cooler is the only thing I have actually ordered, because the man on the phone said it was the last one and I did not want to lose it. It gets delivered Thursday. I have not worked out where the food goes until Thursday.