TRAVEL HERE: BYE-BYE FRESHLY AND SUN BASKET

Well, I’m on the decision end of my journey.  I’ve tried these meal kit companies, in this order: Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Sun Basket, Home Chef and Freshly.  Two are now out of the running for my on-going business.  Let me tell you why.

Bland, Blah, Boring!

I was skeptical of Freshly from the moment Bill suggested it.  I wanted to be out of the meal planning and food management business, but I like cooking.  Freshly seemed like a pretentious form of frozen food to me, but since he’s the one I’m trying to please, I gave it a shot.

Our first meal was Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Zucchini & Potato Cakes.  These are three of my favorite foods, so it should have been a shoo-in for delicious.  NOT!  Last night we had Chicken Provencal with Roasted Pepper Cauliflower Mash.  Lots of reasons we should have enjoyed it, but we didn’t.  Peppercorn Steak with Carrots and Green Beans is still in the refrigerator, but after choking down two disappointments we’ve already made up our mind.  We’re even going to forfeit the discount on the second week’s delivery.

If you read their packaging, they do warn you they go easy on the seasonings and suggest ways to spice up your meals.  Well thanks, but there is only so much ground pepper and lemon juice can do. If your pork, potatoes and zucchini all taste the same to begin with, just adding condiments is not going to fix them.  The items may then have more flavor, but they don’t taste like pork, potatoes and zucchini with pepper and lemon, they taste like mush you are trying to doctor up with pepper and lemon.  Freshly prepares the meals, flash freezes them and then they defrost on their way to you.  What’s more, that’s exactly what they taste like.

A Basket of Mistakes

Sun Basket’s meals were actually pretty good, but they were fired for cause – two causes, in fact.  First, I hate their recipe book.  It’s a waste of paper for one thing, for another it gets all yucky in the cooking process and finally, their book is bereft of helpful photos and clear instructions.  Instead they have chatty blogs and vague do-this-until-that suggestions.

My second beef with them was the unreliability of their produce and packing.  You may or may not get your seasoning packages.  Your cucumber might have been frozen and rendered useless.  Your lemon might have a big spot on it.  We had six meals and had a least six oops.  I don’t want a weekly $10 refund.  I just want all the ingredients to arrive and for them to be top quality.

Their packaging was of the brown paper bag sort, like Hello Fresh, but while it’s not my preferred method of receiving my stuff, it wasn’t the reason I abandoned them.  With the other two complaints, it was just one more thing I didn’t like.

So, that leaves Blue Apron, Hello Fresh and Home Chef.  There are pros and cons to all of them.  So who wins the Meal Kit Challenge?  Come back next week and find out.

TRAVEL HERE: THE FINAL MEAL KIT CONTENDER

Here we are at Meal Kit Service #5 and for this particularly homemaker, the final contender.  Freshly’s box arrived pretty early on a Friday morning and I felt a deep sense of relief.  I’ll tell you why.

Juggling the Vendors

I didn’t exhaust the list of possible vendors, but I saw enough to feel as if I could make a reasonable decision.  If you’re the type who pursues bargains over and above everything I have an idea for you.  Pretty much every meal kit company will give you a bargain on your first week or two.  You could take all of them up on their offers and save lots of grocery money, but I’m warning you, as soon as the bargain week(s) are over, cancel the service.  Juggling them all until you pick the one(s) you want will make you feel like you’re chasing a three ring circus.  It’s a game of we’ll-send-it-unless-you-say-no and you have to say no on a week-by-week basis.  There’s no going to the site and clicking “hold.”

I’ll also say this.  If you’d like to try any of these, let me know.  By referring you to them, I can get discount on a week of food and after all this work, I think I deserve it!  In some cases, you’ll get a free box or a deeper discount, too.  It will also be nice to know that someone is benefiting from my ramblings.

Freshly’s Arrival

“Your food is here,” Bill called up the stairwell.  His office overlooks the front porch, so he’s always the first to know about deliveries.  When I opened the front door, the box was sitting there on it’s side.  Would it kill those delivery guys to set the box upright?  I know it’s a small thing, but it shows a level of pride that just doesn’t seem to be a part of today’s reality.  They could also lean over and ring the doorbell.  They have to know that a Freshly box contains food and if my husband didn’t see them, it would be nice to know food had been delivered – but I digress.

I like the Freshly box. It’s very simple as you can see from the photo, but there’s an elegance about simplicity I appreciate.  As I began to unpack, Bill strolled in to observe.  He’s almost as curious about packaging as I am.  Instead of throwing the insulation materials into the recycle bin, he’s actually recycling them in our attic.  He says we’ll end up with the best insulated house in the neighborhood! 

The items inside the insulating materials were pretty boring.  Six microwave meals in individual cardboard sleeves, printed with the name of the entree.  Blue Apron is still my favorite delivery.  Classy box, attractive packaging and a wonderful assortment of ingredients to marvel at as you unpack the box.

Since Freshly food is already pre-cooked and all you have to do is nuke it, there’s no recipe card to pore over.  I’ll confess, I don’t think this is going to work.  I’ve really enjoyed cooking with meal kits, so this pre-made stuff is probably not going to fly, but we’ll see.  Come back next week for the Freshly reveal.

TRAVEL HERE: THE YORKSHIRE PUDDING MIRACLE

I lost my mom four years ago, but she is so much a part of my life, every day, that you might think she actually lives in my house.  She was my friend, my confidante and the biggest challenge of my life.  In her later years, when preparing holiday feasts had become too difficult for her, one of her favorite things to do in the whole world, was to gather the family for a holiday meal at Lawry’s.  This tradition was not a favorite with my husband, for several reasons.  This is just one of the many situations where I was caught between the two most important people in my life.  Sometimes I sided with Bill, but when it came to Lawry’s, Mom had an edge – Yorkshire Pudding! 

Home Chef Has Yorkshire Pudding?

So, here I am on my tour of meal kit companies and it’s Home Chef’s turn.  One of their choices was Sunday Supper English Roast Steak with Yorkshire Pudding.  I was amazed it was even an option and I doubted it would meet my expectations, but I couldn’t resist it.  Lawry’s isn’t the only place I’ve eaten Yorkshire Pudding, but they certainly did a good job with it.  I confess that as much as I love the dish, I never tried to make it.  I’d looked at recipes and I couldn’t imagine how those instructions could end up being the dish I loved so much.  So here was an excuse to give it a whirl.

Cook Within X 

A little bonus on the Home Chef Recipe Cards is a note to cook a dish within X days of delivery.  I’m food savvy enough to know it’s fish first, then chicken or pork and finally beef, but the little notes on the card remind me – otherwise I would have probably cut right to the Yorkshire Pudding, in spite of what I knew.

Within three days, we were supposed to consume the Parmesan Crusted Salmon, so I made it the first day and was not wowed.  The meal was fine and Bill was content with it, but not me.  I would have enjoyed a little less salad and a little more protein.  Edible, but marginal in my book.  Next up was Seared Chicken with Tzatziki Sauce and Harissa-Roasted Cauliflower and I loved it.  I can’t say it made it to the top of the list, but it was a lot more delicious, in my book, than the salmon.

Time for Yorkshire Pudding

It was a Saturday night and I recruited Bill to help me with the meal.  He just does steak better than I do, on the stove or on the grill.  Besides, I had my hands full with the Yorkshire Pudding.  I was a little intimidated to see that Home Chef rated this as an “Expert” meal (another little addition to their cards I had not seen elsewhere), but I was determined to conquer it.

Making the Yorkshire Pudding was not as difficult as I thought it might be.  The card warned me of all the possible pitfalls, like not having the pan hot enough or opening the oven door.  I just did what they told me to and voila!  The meal looked so good I pulled out the good china!!

The meal tasted as delicious as it looked.  The beef was sirloin, not Lawry’s prime rib, but otherwise I could have fooled myself into thinking I was back at Thanksgiving dinner with my family.

So, cooking with Home Chef was a lot of fun.  Of the three meals, one was below par in my opinion, one was fine and the third – REMARKABLE!  Next on the list Freshly.  They actually prepare the meal to be micro-waved, so I doubt they will be my final choice, but Bill wanted to give them a try.  Come back next week and see how it went.

TRAVEL HERE: PRESERVATION DALLAS HONORS A DALLAS LEGEND

Preservation Dallas’ Fall Architectural Tour honored Frank Welch, an architect who passed away earlier in the year.  The day started at The Lamplighter School in North Dallas with a tour and a symposium – a tour because Welch had contributed to the design of the school and a symposium to tell us what we’d be seeing.  After I got over the shock of discovering a former First Lady sitting two rows in front of me at the symposium, my bestie and I made our way to the car.

Regional Modernism

Confession here, and it won’t be a surprise to my usual followers, I’m not all that big on modern anything and Mr. Welch was a master of “Regional Modernism” – think Austin hunting lodge without dead heads.  Give me a Gothic cathedral or Renaissance palace any day of the week, but I’m in the process of growing my preferences.  I have no desire to be one of those little old ladies with pursed lips, panning everything that’s happened in the world since my heydays.  So, while I would have preferred a day devoted to more traditional styles, I was prepared to find things I liked among Mr. Welsh’s houses.

And I did.  Mr. Welch created homes with simple elegant lines.  Nothing fussy.  Perhaps a little plain from the street for my personal taste, but not boring by any stretch of the imagination.  The roofs were either flat or metal. Exteriors were stone or stucco.  In most cases, the entry offered a surprise of some sort: a fanciful metal grill, a whimsical light fixture or even a unique water feature.

Inside form gracefully followed function.  Every home featured a plethora of storage – some homes had bookcases in every room, while cabinets formed most of the walls in others.  No clutter was allowed.  The stars of the show were the staircases, fireplaces and great swaths of counter top.

Perhaps my favorite thing about any Frank Welch house was the integration between interior and exterior spaces.  There was a constant harmonious conversation between the two.  In almost every room, doors provided access to the out of doors, whether that was to a courtyard, a generous screened-in porch or a lakeside lawn.

The Other Side of the Coin

There were also things I didn’t like.  I’m just not into blonde wood floors, white walls, plain doors and an absence of hardware.  I prefer paneled doors in frames, crown molding, fireplace mantles and base boards.  I prefer representational art.  I like gorgeous hardware dripping off of everything.  Most homes had joint offices and while I adore my husband, I don’t want to share office space with him.  I guess the real magic of Frank Welch was he could put things together that I’m not particularly fond of in ways that made for a home I could enjoy.

Even with style differences keeping some of the houses off my love list, each had touches that I had to love. Almost every house had a luxurious gym.  Skylights made even interior rooms bright.  The roof of one large garage was a garden.  While color was almost absent, texture played an important role.

At the end of the day, I loved it.  Preservation Dallas will have another one in the Spring.  You should go ahead and join so you won’t miss it.  And speaking of things you don’t want to miss, on Wednesday we’ll be leaving Heliopolis and heading to Giza.  Join us for the drive.  Then next Monday we’ll get back to the Meal Kit Comparisons.

TRAVEL HERE: PRESERVATION DALLAS HOSTS FALL ARCHITECTURAL TOUR

OK, so I don’t actually know Laura Bush and I wasn’t in her entourage as she enjoyed the Preservation Dallas (PD) Fall Architectural Tour, but I did spend my day touring the same houses she did.  For much of that day we were actually in the same houses at the same time.  A few times I could have just wrapped my arm around her and said, “Isn’t this fun?”  To my bestie’s great delight, I didn’t, but honestly, I wanted to. 

Preservation Dallas is My New Thing

I only recently joined PD, but I am so glad I did.  Shortly after joining, I learned about their Fall Architectural Tour.  Deb and I thought it would be a great way to celebrate her birthday, so I bought Patron Tickets unaware that I’d just signed us up for one of the best weekends ever.

The Patron Party was lovely.  Held on the top floor of an architecturally-significant Turtle Creek home, we sipped wine and tasted canapes with an eclectic bunch of movers and shakers.  We made some new friends and I even ran into someone I’d known from the glory days of the DMA’s PM League.  (In case you didn’t know, I call them the glory days, because that’s how I met my husband.)  We were primed for a great day of touring homes designed by the architect Frank Welch.

The Lamplighter School

The day began at The Lamplighter School.  Dallas is full of amazing private schools, but since I’d never had kids, I haven’t spent much time thinking about them.  An optional tour of the school was offered before general registration and even though I had doubts it would be of any great interest, Deb and I rarely miss a thing.

The elementary school is charming.  The tour began in a light-filled library with three kid-sized fire-place nooks for curling up with good books.  The body of the school is a big open classroom with groups of teeny tiny chairs.  A hall lined with paint-daubed smocks leads to a large art classroom redolent with the smell of drying clay, crayons and tempra paint. OK, so this was a pretty cool school – but I hadn’t seen anything yet!

Their newest building is sort of a life lab.  It’s got hydroponic tomatoes from the Dallas Arboretum, science labs and other classrooms.  The central court is a cooking lab with kid-sized counters.  Nearby is the wood-working lab.  Yes, a wood-working lab for primary students.  Now I was really impressed, but the Lamplighter had only begun to strut its stuff.

The large playground begs little ones to come outside and climb all over the colorful play equipment.  Even us big ones had to admit 30 minutes swinging on the rope swing, digging in the sandbox and zipping down the slides would have been fun – but they were way too small for us.

The big surprise was a barn full of farm animals.  When is the last time you visited an elementary school with with’s own chickens, goats, pig and cow.  That’s what I thought!

The Symposium

After the tour we were delivered to the gym for a symposium about the featured architect, but first there was a continental breakfast buffet.  Deb and I connected with some friends who were also enjoying this event and then found seats behind a large gentleman in a navy blue topcoat and an earplug.  Yep, Deb and I were sitting right behind Mrs. Bush’s security detail, we just didn’t realize it yet.

I’ll just come out and say it.  The symposium was (shall we say) a little dry.  These were architects after all and they get paid for thinking on a higher plane than the rest of us.  Of course, at the time, I didn’t realize the nice lady in the tan sweater, who’s neatly bobbed hair bounced with every nod of her head, was our 43rd First Lady.  After I found out, I gave the speakers some grace.  I might have had a hard time putting together coherent sentences with an audience like that.

Unaware of the distraction on the first row, I struggled to pay attention and grasp the information being presented like a scavenger hunt on a long and winding dirt road.  I couldn’t even watch the slides being presented without losing the thread of the conversation.  Deb, on the other hand, blew off the panel completely, enjoyed the slides and speculated on the guy with the earpiece.

Time to Tour

Suddenly, just few feet away, a small petite lady with a familiar face was greeting old friends around her.  The guy in the earpiece moved out of the immediate crush and spoke into his wrist.  I was looking right at First Lady Laura Bush and she had a sweet smile for everyone.

I’m not the groupie sort.  Even when I go to hear one of my favorite people, I’m never one of the ones who crowd the celebrity after his/her presentation for a handshake or a word.  Sometimes I think it would be cool, but I also think it must be stressful to face a crowd like that and I don’t want to be a part of it.  I doubt if I would even attend a meet and greet.  It feels contrived.  In this particular situation, Mrs. Bush was not there in an official capacity, so there was no way I was going to interrupt her enjoyment of the day – but I kind of wanted to.

I think you’d enjoy hearing about the rest of the tour, but I’ve run out of words for today, so come back next week.

TRAVEL HERE: A PEP RALLY FOR PATRIOTS

Sorry!  I have to interrupt this little discussion about meal kit services to talk about a couple of things I like better than food – God and America.  My Liberal friends aren’t required to read this.  It’s meant to be a group hug for my Conservative friends.  Sean Hannity visited First Baptist Dallas yesterday.  I had waffled back and forth between going and not going.  I don’t listen to him often enough to be qualified as a fan, but I have been listening to him for several years now.  At the last minute I decided to take the trek downtown.

The Pre-Service Experience  

I usually spend my Sundays at Rockwall Bible Church.  We have about 35-40 families in our membership – a far cry from First Baptist Dallas.  For this adventure I found FBD’s guest parking garage on their website and let Google Local give me driving directions.  Once I exited off 75, the number of cars headed my way was huge, but everybody was polite.  Even though I ended up in the wrong lane a couple of times, I was always allowed back into the herd with relative ease.  I just didn’t know if this was the usual Sunday morning crowd or whether there were this many other folks who wanted to come see Hannity.

Google Local got me right to the parking garage and I was directed up to the 7th floor of the garage to park.  I decided not to wait on an elevator and hit the stairs.  Along with other invigorating things about this event, I managed to get in a lot of walking.  I found out the church takes up six city blocks!

Once inside FBD, I found out Hannity devotees had turned out in droves and later a parking attendant told me they’d arranged for parking in three extra garages.  This wasn’t Sunday as usual.  The nice greeter who walked me across the foyer and got me going in the right direction assured me this was a much larger crowd than a usual Sunday.  She told me greeters usually escorted guests all the way to the sanctuary, but they changed protocol for this special event.  She seemed disappointed she wasn’t going to have the opportunity to do that and maybe she was.  Imagine how impressed I was when she saw me on my way out and remembered my name!  I was blown away because remembering names is definitely not my spiritual gift 😉

The journey to my pew was something of it’s own adventure.  This place is HUGE and it was wall-to-wall people.  The main floor was packed to capacity, so I had to go to the balcony, which was also filled by the start of the service.  The later morning service was supposed to be even more packed, so I don’t know where they put everyone.

Let Us Sing!

While I don’t usually worship at a mega-church, I’ve been in several.  Let me tell you, there are mega-churches and then there is First Baptist Dallas.  It was so overwhelming I couldn’t even sing the first couple of verses during the opening of the service.  Tears kept filling my eyes and I had a frog in my throat.

Instead of the cold, canned feeling I’ve gotten from visiting other mega-churches, FBD managed to transport me to another level.  I thought to myself, “This is a small picture of what it will be like to worship in heaven.  The choir will be in the millions instead of the hundreds, there won’t be walls and we won’t need the sound equipment, but it’s going to feel just the way this does.”

My imagination went down a rabbit trail thinking about heaven.  I imagined the angels in heaven singing a song I’d written the lyrics for.  With an eternity of worship to fill, they’ll have time for all of us to fulfill our hearts’ desires.  A change of songs brought me back to the present and soon Sean Hannity was on stage with Dr. Jeffers.  Hannity got two standing ovations before he ever said a word.  The audience was charged up.

A Simple Story of Faith and an Invitation.

The audience might have been charged up, but Hannity was just himself.  Dr. Jeffers asked him to share his personal testimony and Hannity told us his unremarkable story that made all the difference in his life.  I’m sure you can get a recording of it from FBD, but for such a celebrity to have such a humble vision of themselves was refreshing.

Dr. Jeffers’ follow-up question was about the movie Hannity had come to promote, Let There Be Light.  Again, humility.  There was a natural pride showing from being part of a good thing, but no superlatives.  He invited us to see it when it comes out on Friday and suggested bringing unbelievers to be a part of the experience.  I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t that.  My admiration for him doubled and I will see the movie.

America at the Crossroads

Then Dr. Jeffers took over and presented a sermon on his new book America at the Crossroads.  The skeptics out there are thinking, “Aha, I bet they were selling copies in the lobby.”  You’d be wrong about that.  They were giving them away.

Many Liberals think Conservatives are against everything, but this was a celebration.  Dr. Jeffers is concerned about our nation, but his solutions are all about embracing life, family and faith.  The sanctuary was filled with hope and hope is one of my favorite things.  It was also about love.

Perhaps one of the most important things he said was that we don’t get to heaven in a group.  The only way to get there is one by one.  And we don’t win people to the Lord in crowds.  We reach them one at a time, one person to another.  That gave me hope.  I’m not a Sean Hannity.  I have an audience, but it is small – minuscule in the full scope of things.  I have fun sharing my travels and talking about food, but that’s not what I’m here for.  I’m here to share hope and if I do that from time to time, then I’m fulfilling my role in the big scheme of things.

On Wednesday we’ll be back in Egypt, doing a little belly dancing and Friday we’ll talk about staging for your home’s photo shoot.  So my visit to see Sean Hannity did not turn me into a flaming Conservative that can’t talk about anything but politics.  I’m still just me.

TRAVEL HERE: HOME CHEF STARTS OUT ON THE RIGHT FOOT

Well, here we are, trying out meal kit company number four.  A blogging friend told me to give it up and go to the grocery store, but obviously he’s got a better grocer than I’ve got out here in the boonies.  Hubby thought it was good advice, but I’m not giving up yet.

The Home Chef Vibes are Good

The proof might be in the pudding, but I have to admit, my scrutiny begins when my box of groceries arrives on the front porch.  Home Chef (HC)arrived before 11 AM.  That put it on par with Blue Apron (BA) and Sun Basket (SB).  I even liked the box.  Nothing fancy, just a logo and line drawings of fresh produce.  A box isn’t everything, but it’s something.  So far, my least favorite box is Hello Fresh (HF).  It seemed as if if were trying to hard to be happy and fresh.

Opening the HC box, I was glad to see someone had thought it through.  On top were recipe cards, my preferred format, just like with BA and HF.  SB’s recipe magazine was not my friend.  What’s more they provided a binder for the recipes and hole-punched the cards.  You’d think they already knew me.  Their packaging materials were customized and attractive.

Comparing the HC recipe cards to BA and HF, put HC somewhere in the middle.  BA has remained my favorite recipe card and one reason is their pictures of the finished plates.  Each photo is a mini-masterpiece with an attention to every item in the shot.  Without resorting to fine china, a unique place-setting is created for each meal.  I appreciate that.  These’s really nothing fancy in the photos, but someone with an imagination set them up and they use a variety of table accouterments.

HF has unique shots for each plate, but the settings don’t inspire me.  The only tables HF seems to have are distressed wood, which might be in vogue, but are a bit depressing to me.  When plates, cutlery and linens are in the shot, they aren’t to my taste, either.  Chances are the millennials out there might approve of the sleek minimalism, but it just looks boring to me – and careless.  The picture of my favorite HF meal featured a wrinkled napkin, but at least it had a napkin!  When HF has sandwiches they forego a plate altogether and set the sandwich right on the counter.  Maybe they’ll add a napkin or some white butcher paper – or maybe they won’t.

HC uses the same depressed wood table and plain white plate in every shot.  Talk about boring.  But they have other things on the recipe card that keeps them out of last place.  They have the nutrition information right on the card, rather than sending you a separate card with the weeks nutrition information all in the same place as HF does.  HC’s pans and utensils are a little more upscale than the HF choices.  If I can get past the same boring plate every day, I might end up enjoying the service.

Perfect Packaging

Move over BA, you have some competition.  The ingredients for each HC meal are packed together in their own clear bag, stamped with the name of the meal.  The clear bag gives you an exciting peek at what’s in store, unlike the brown paper bags of SB and HF.  I can already tell the ingredients provided do not have the quality and uniqueness of BA, but that uniqueness is what got me in trouble with my husband.  The crisp, clear packaging doesn’t put HC ahead of BA, but it puts them ahead of SB and HF.

So how was it to cook and eat their meals?  Come back next week and I’ll tell you.

TRAVEL HERE: AND JUGGLING IT WITH HELLO FRESH

So for a week, the Sadek family was wading in meal kits.  It was all my fault, so I was the one who had to figure out how to squeeze all the meals into our schedule.  Sun Basket arrived bright and early, just like Blue Apron, which ties them for first place in the delivery department, and Hello Fresh came along in the afternoon.

A Hello Fresh Packaging Surprise

Among my Hello Fresh (HF) complaints was the huge grocery bags in which they packed their meals.  There must have been a supply line problem, because my second week showed up in the same small bags Sun Basket (SB) used.  So now, HF and SB are neck-and-neck in the packaging race, with Blue Apron still slightly in the lead.

Juggling My Meals

So what would I do with six meals ready-to-cook?  Fish first, chicken next, then steak, a burger, chicken and finally falafel.  That was the easy part.

First off the stove was SB’s Salmon with Cucumber Avocado Salad.  Bill thought it was fine, but as I said last week, I wasn’t pleased with quality of the salmon, the cucumber was unusable and two other ingredients were less than optimal.  Bill was happy with the meal.  I was reserving judgement.

Next up was an HF win – one of Bill’s favorite dishes ever – Chicken Under a Zucchini Blanket.  OK, I’ll admit it was pretty darned good.  I’d pretty much written Hello Fresh out of the competition, but they were coming back strong on the second week.  They down-sized their grocery bags and this was a very delicious meal.  The instruction actually began with prepping all the veggies, so maybe I wasn’t the only one who likes to get that out of the way first.

But SB was back with a strong recipe – Steaks with Paprika Butter – only they failed to send me one of the primary ingredients, sweet smoked paprika.  The paprika from my spice cabinet was fine, but I wondered what I was missing.  The recipe suggested we grill the steak outside and since it was a Friday night we did.  Very, very delicious.  Oh and by the way, the recipe featured gremolata, something I had never even heard of, so extra gourmet points to SB.

Saturday was HF burger night and it was a fine burger served with parmesan-crusted zucchini fries.  Obviously, it was zucchini week at HF, but we love zucchini and could pretty much eat it every night.  The burger was triple-sauced:  a mayo aioli, ketchup and onion jam.  Even Bill noticed the complexity of flavors, but he thought it was good, not weird, so good for HF.

Monday was another HF night with Warmly Spiced Chicken Thighs – another winner.  Bill loves dark meat chicken.  The meal was easy to make and delicious.  Hello Fresh was having a good week.

Then it was falafel night.  We love falafel, but I was nervous.  We’d had falafel one time with Blue Apron, but it had been a colossal fail.  It wasn’t Blue Apron’s fault, but our attempt was disastrous.  I over-processed the garbanzo beans and Bill didn’t get the oil hot enough before trying to fry the patties.  We found out what the term “hot mess” really means.

SB Falafel Burgers were a better version of the dish that BA’s had been.  This time the recipe came out right, but not right enough for us.  We’ll stick to eating falafel when we dine away from home.

Our meal kit marathon over, I had to admit Hello Fresh won.  SB’s Steak had been very, very good, but HF’s chicken/zucchini rocked our world.  Throughout the week SB had been plagued with bad or missing ingredients, while HF had been flawless in that department.

To get the bargain price we’d scored with SB, we had to sign up for two weeks, so even as I prepared my falafel burgers, we had another week of meals waiting in the frig.  All three dishes, Steaks with Chimmichrui and Harissa-Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Moroccan-Spiced Chicken Skewers, and Pork Chops in a Southwestern Sauce with tomatillos and sweet potato were good, but nothing received rave reviews from Mr. Bill and that’s what this wife is looking for.  And yes, they did leave out an ingredient – preserved lemon for the chicken skewers and this customer hates missed ingredients!   So, come back next week and see how we do with Home Chef.

TRAVEL HERE: A FRIENDLY DRAGON JOINS THE GREAT CONTRIBUTORS

Gary Lee Price sculptures have been gracing the Dallas Arboretum for a long time.  His “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” statue in “Nancy’s Garden” was a favorite of my mother’s, so I’m sure she would have loved this summer’s exhibition of his “Great Contributors.”  I bet,”Delbert the Dragon” would have charmed her, too.

Media Day for Delbert

I envy my mother’s devotion to the Dallas Arboretum.  For many years she volunteered as a docent at the DeGolyer House and her regular visits to the garden, rain or shine, were a highlight of each week.  Visiting the gardens is one of my favorite things, but in spite of my good intentions I’m never there as frequently as I wish I could be, so I’m always glad when they notify me of a media day.

A few Saturdays ago I was invited for a peek at Delbert the Dragon in Pecan Grove.  the charming dragon is devoted to reading and is displayed with several other Gary Lee Price statues devoted to children and books.  These lovely pieces are well worth venturing out into the summer heat, but the faint of heart will be glad to know they’ll be on display until November.

Great Contributors on the Move

A few weeks before Delbert’s debut, I discovered Gary Lee Price’s Great Contributors had played a game of fruit basket turnover, but on that particular day I was there for business and didn’t have time to wander the garden.  I’d been intrigued by the possibilities of that news and was eager to walk the garden to see where the statues had landed.  Delbert’s Debut proved a perfect opportunity.  No speeches or fanfare accompanied the debut, so after taking a few pictures and watching the activity at Toad Corners I went on a sort of statue scavenger hunt.

I’d already seen the first Great Contributor as I entered the Garden.  The father of our country had been moved out of his nook along the Paseo de Flores and given a shady spot in the Ginsberg Family Plaza.  I thought that was a smart move.  Old George was probably suffering beside the sunny Paseo and much preferred his new spot.  It also allowed visitors to get a taste of the exhibition right away.  Chances are many people didn’t even know to look for the sculptures.

As I strolled through the garden I discovered many of the statues had remained in the spots they’d originally been placed, like Ben Franklin in the Fern Dell, Mark Twain by the Fogelson Fountain, Albert Einstein in the Lay Family Garden and the Wright Brothers on the Camp House Lawn.

I couldn’t decide whether I liked the new placement of Monet or not.  He and his easel were moved to the edge of the Jonsson Color Garden which got him under the shade of some trees, but I had sort of liked him on a hilltop looking out toward the lake.  Which placement do you prefer?

The other sculpture which was moved was not moved very far.  Mr. Shakespeare is still in the Magnolia Glade, just a little easier to find.  I had definitely liked him better when he was more hidden.  It seemed to me he’d prefer to be a little less out of the limelight as he rested there in the garden, but I’ll have to admit he didn’t complain.

The Gardens had Changed Their Frock

With all due respect to Mr. Price, no sculpture can compete with the gorgeous floral display of the garden.  I visited the gardens within just a few weeks during Blooms and was amazed by the differences in the flowers.  The first visit had featured daffodils and other early flowers nestled on the ground, but the trees didn’t even have leaves.  A few weeks later the trees were glorious.  The shy daffodils had disappeared other spring blooms dominated the beds.

Returning in summer it was hard to believe I was in the same gardens I’d seen earlier in the year.  The colors were brighter and warmer.  It was as if the garden had changed out of a demure Easter frock and donned a dramatic sundress.  I’ll leave you with some pictures of the flowers.

TRAVEL HERE: AND SO DOES HELLO FRESH

Trying out all the available meal kit plans does not come without some challenges.  While they are basically all doing the same thing, trying to juggle several of them at once can trip you up.  That’s how I ended up with two boxes of food in one week.  We’d skipped a week to go out of town and somehow, though I meant to just get Sun Basket, I also got Hello Fresh. See what I go through for you guys!

A Color Change

I guess it would be no surprise that Sun Basket’s (SB) color theme is yellow.  Right away I thought their pictorial box was more engaging than the text heavy Hello Fresh (HF) box, but something about that crisp Blue Apron (BA) box still gets the points in my book.

Opening Up the Box

SB used the same grocery bag packing method as Hello Fresh, however, their bags were smaller and I was able to put them in the refrigerator.  That put them ahead of Hello Fresh, but behind Blue Apron.

In the box were several pieces of literature.  A nice welcome brochure topped the pile.  Next I realized SB sent a magazine-like booklet instead of the cards I had gotten from the other two.  Since I had already started a binder to hold my recipe cards for future reference, SB was bucking the system.  I’m calling it a tie between HF and BA, with SB making a foul.

The magazine is attractive, but it has all the recipes SB offers for the week, so in my opinion they are wasting paper.  I only needed the recipes I had ordered.  What’s more, they assumed I already know how to cook, so they completely did away with the how-to pictures I found so helpful with the other two services.  I do know how to cook, but it was nice to have a picture to refer to when I was following the directions.  Since I liked BA’s recipe card better than HF’s, BA steps into the lead.

No one else would probably even notice this, but there’s a difference in all the boxes’ insulating materials, too.  SB uses some generic foam insulation they have cut-to-size inside the box.  They tell you to roll it up and send you tape to keep it rolled up.  It was such nice sheets of foam that we put them in the attic in case we needed something like that.  HF uses a different style of foam covered in a shiny material that is designed to fit the box, rather than generic stuff cut-to-size.  My friends at BA have wonderfully customized pieces that have all kinds of wonderful BA messages on them.  Points to BA.

Preparing the Meal

SB follows HF’s method of preparation, instead of BA’s, which means you prep the ingredients for each portion of the meal as you work through them, rather than getting all that out of the way ahead of time.  However, they also print that part of the instructions in a different color ink, so that people like me, who want to do all the peeling, chopping and stuff at first, can follow their inclination.  So points to BA.  SB is only slightly less desirable and HF loses this point.

To me, the SB instructions were easy to follow, because they were specific about times and not so dependent on do-this-until-that-happens, as HF had been.  However, I had that whole magazine thing to move around the kitchen with me and there are no pictures with the instructions.  By the end of the preparation, the book was a mess, just like the cards, but I still had two more meals to prepare out of the messy book.  Taking all that into consideration, Blue Apron is still winning in the preparation portion of the meal.

SB edged close to BA when it came to the items they expect you to provide. Olive Oil, salt and pepper are the only things they require you to keep on hand.  HF expects you to also keep butter on hand for them.  So SB and BA should be in a tie, except that I’m a real fan of butter and in my opinion, BA has better butter than SB and the packaging is superior.  BA butter comes in a little round foil covered package.  Both the consistency and the flavor are excellent.  SB butter is in a small plastic tub and looks like it was cut off the same stick of butter as is in my refrigerator.  Points to BA and HF loses a point.

The biggest SB fail was in fulfillment quality.  On day one, there was a frozen (read that useless) cucumber, a lemon with a big spot on it and an iffy shallot.  The salmon was disappointing, too.  It said it was Wild Yukon River Wild-caught Salmon., but you could have fooled me.  Looked run-of-the-mill.  Pretty much the same fish I reject in Kroger’s seafood department.  The following SF day there was no paprika packet in bag for the paprika butter.

I’m not giving any points here and it’s one of the most important categories.  BA has the highest quality, but they regularly leave stuff out.  There’s usually at least one failed ingredient a week and their steaks are gristly.  HF gets everything in the box, but it falls short on being the quality I expect.  If I wanted their ingredient quality, I could get it at Kroger.  I’d still have to do the planning and shopping, of course, but part of what I want in the service is superior ingredients.

So how was the food.  Come back next week and I’ll tell you.