Can Blue Apron Help Me Learn How to Cook? - Chris Plays Gourmet
Channel: Chris Plays Gourmet
Date: 2019-01-21

For my 2019 focus on learning to cook, the key thing I want to do is get everything else out of the way: meal selection, ingredient purchases -- anything I can to try to make sure that I actually focus on getting the food on the table. Can Blue Apron solve this problem?

This video is based heavily on my blog post about the same topic: https://www.chrisplaysgames.com/gourmet/2019/01/03/blue-apron/

The key thing that I need to do to get into cooking is to get in the habit of cooking. That is, the point of the experiencing isn’t to create the perfect meal every night: It’s to start cooking anything.

I need to learn skills that will let me expand my repetoire: I need to learn how to make cooking something that I do routinely. All this means I need to do everything I can to eliminate any steps that could cause me to not cook – and include a forcing function that will make me do so.

Blue Apron is helpful on a number of fronts here:

First, I’ve got all the food I need to make a meal pre-gathered and packaged for me. No shopping – and most importantly, no trying to buy everything for a meal and realizing that the vegetable oil I thought I had actually turned to sludge because it’s been sitting unmoved in the cabinet for the past 9 months and having to give up on the whole meal. This drastically changes the potential risk of getting flummoxed in meal prep.
Second, I’ve got all the ingredients I need gathered in one place. No need to dig through the cabinet to find that bottle of cardamom I just know I have… somewhere… among the other 56 spices I have never used. The ingredients all come together, and I know that I’m going to have what I need all in one place, making my mise en place easy.
Third, the recipes are pre-selected: you don’t have to do any thinking about the meals you’re getting, just take what you’re given. Remove any cognitive load on the process possible.
Finally, this food is going to keep coming – and I’m going to keep paying for it – whether I cook it or not. This forcing function – having meals show up, and I have a limited time to make them or lose out on that meal. As both someone who dislikes food waste and someone who dislikes wasting money, I hope that this will help with forcing me to put in the effort to get things done.
I’m fully willing to acknowledge that Blue Apron is not the best way to cook in the long term. Anyone who has any real experience with cooking will quickly explain to you all the ways in which the Blue Apron experience is sub-par:

The recipes are nothing special.
The ingredients aren’t outstanding: for folks living in the broad swaths of food deserts around the United States, the options may be stellar, but living in a dense urban area, there’s no question I have better options available within walking distance, much less driving distance.
The environmental impact of this convenience is significant: shipping individual sized food in packaging meant to protect it and keep it safe in transit is problematic for a whole bunch of reasons, no matter how environmentally friendly they try to make it.
There’s a significant cost to the convenience you get from these offerings: while Blue Apron is likely still significantly cheaper than “ordering in every night”, bulk buying is far cheaper once you’re set up for it.
With all that said, the benefits of Blue Apron for my particular needs far override the problems: Without a forcing function like this, it’s possible I won’t be able to get started with cooking at all.

So, I’ve bought in on Blue Apron. My first meal arrives next week, and I’m hopeful. It’s a new year, and I’m committed to giving this my best go. I think that Blue Apron – or if not Blue Apron, some other recipe delivery box subscription – may be my best way to get started on actually cooking things: a way to actually be forced to cook, and practice the skills that I need to get better so I can more easily make real meals once I have the experience.

For someone who has not had cooking as a component of his daily life since he left for college, I think that I’ll need whatever help I can, and I think Blue Apron can help me get started in the right direction.

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My opinions are my own and not those of my employer.