Oct 1, 2021 4 min read

Would anyone like to make fiery meatballs for dinner tonight? If so, I could set you up. Also, beef flautas? How about chickpea tacos?

If there were a way for me to get them to you, I would. The makings for all those meals – and half a dozen others – are in my fridge right now, each tucked into a brown paper bag, waiting for me to get cooking and start eating.

In July I subscribed to a meal delivery service, one that provides the ingredients that I then prepare myself. It’s for people who like to cook but don’t like to shop. I don’t really like to do either, but I live alone now, and the deliveries seemed like a way to avoid eating cereal for dinner.

Those first meals last summer were just what I needed: easy enough to prepare and pretty tasty. I’d cook two servings, eat one for dinner and have the other for lunch the next day. The system worked well for a couple of weeks, but then I’d skip lunch the next day and I wouldn’t feel like eating the leftovers for dinner and pretty soon there would be a logjam.

Feeling guilty – and not wanting to waste food – I canceled my subscription.

And then, two weeks ago, the company sent me a coupon for some free meals and I decided to give it another whirl.

That first week went well. I’d log into the site and select my meals for the next Wednesday delivery, usually something involving chicken or my beany little pals, chickpeas. I paced myself through that first week, keeping with the dinner-then-lunch schedule.

And then the boxes started arriving uninvited and unannounced. Two boxes showed up on a Wednesday, and then this week, I arrived home on Tuesday to find my box had been delivered a day early. But that wasn’t merely an early box, it was an extra box because the next day there arrived not one but two more boxes.

The company was inundating me with meals I hadn’t ordered. Calls to the company brought assurances that the snafu would be corrected, but the boxes kept coming.

“I think the universe is trying to tell you that you should stop eating cereal for dinner,” said my friend Gina. While that puts a reassuring spin on my dilemma, it doesn’t take into account the teetering tower of empty delivery boxes that are filling my garage. For a company that prides itself in being “green,” they sure don’t worry much about recycling the boxes or the ice packs.

My fridge was now filled with brown paper bags. It was time to get cooking.

I was Lucy Ricardo working on the candy assembly line. As I dragged the latest box into the garage, I looked out into the woods and wondered if deer would like some tacos.

I froze some of the meats, but many of the other ingredients can’t be frozen. I’d been giving meals to my neighbor, but she’s gone vegan and I’ve run out of meatless dinners. I began spreading the wealth.

My mom got two meals, and so did a friend. But those meals have become like late-summer zucchini that nobody can get rid of.

I canceled my subscription again. We’ll see if they get the message.

In the meantime there are four meals awaiting me: a spinach ravioli, some kind of hamburger, beef tacos and pecan-crusted chicken. If I plan things right, I will use them all before they go bad.

And then it’s back to cereal for dinner.