I remember seeing Schwan’s trucks around occasionally.
This reminds me of the one delivery service I was aware of growing up–Chicken Delight (“Don’t Cook Tonight. Call Chicken Delight!”). My parents thought it very odd that anyone would order a cooked chicken to their door but, like @sabaray’s parents, they were poor growing up and couldn’t even imagine going out to eat much less having anything brought to their doorstep. We didn’t know anyone who actually used the “service.”
I’m also laughing about a restaurant (that did catering) near where our son used to live in GA called “WifeSaver.” I guess that’s a convenience worth paying for,
Money aside (we’ve discussed plenty the idea of being able to afford or not afford these extra services…) how about some focus on other possible detriments of food “convenience”. And it can work both ways.
Using an Instacart type service can help avoid the pitfalls of impulse food shopping. You make a list and overall, that is what gets delivered to your home. No seeing that ice cream is on sale so picking up extra. No being drawn in by the end aisle display of 40 types of Oreos. No smelling the freshly made pizza slices and throwing a couple in your cart.
One or two items less of impulse buys and you’re probably SAVING $.
Re: prepared food delivery…I might be a little worried about the effects on nutrition. Are they ordering fresh salads 3x a week or burgers and fries? Or is it that younger people are enjoying more ethnic food than we had on a regular basis - instead of a week of meatloaf, roast chicken and stew they are experimenting with indian food, japanese food and sushi???
Editing to say, that while it is a holiday today…and I don’t order delivery very often at all (actually only my kids order it if they are at my house!) I have received 3 texts today for free delivery of different food places: Panera, City BBQ and another more local/regional place.
WifeSaver is funeral food…people brought boxes and boxes of it when my nephew died. My family moved there in 1975 and I never had their chicken til that time. I just can’t get past the name…
We don’t order food delivery, when we do takeout one of goes and gets it (it helped most of the places are close). Even when restaurants had their own delivery we rarely used it unless we were all sick and no one could go out. It amazes me the cost of doordash and uber eats, I can see someone using it when they really want something that doesn’t deliver or they need something like cough medicine or something and can’t go out, but the price, wow.
With us we really don’t need to order anything and with supermarkets close to us, ordering groceries and having them delivered isn’t a big deal. I know my son and his group use uber eats and doordash with all the traveling they do, they often are too tired to go out for food (classical music chamber group), and given it is the 4 of them, the cost per isn’t that high.
The only thing I got upset at is I saw an article about I think doordash, where they had a line that said “taxes and other fees”, that was crazy large and people blaming it on sales tax when it clearly wasn’t (it was like a 25 buck total; unless they ordered like 250 bucks of food in a really high sales tax area, you can bet that was fees).
For me going out and getting the food is part of the experience, I guess I am weird. We don’t do it all that often, we cook most of the time, but to me it is enjoyable, especially when you like the people who run the place, like the local chinese restaurant that we have been a customer of for like 30 years, or the fantastic take out pizza place with the owner/chef who is a hoot (if you live anywhere near Madison, NJ area, ping me, this place has incredible food grin).
My college roommate was from Madison, we are still in touch. We are the opposite, we prefer delivery, but don’t use DoorDash/uber eats, a lot of places have offered their own delivery way before those companies existed. Parking here can be an issue. We are close to Montclair, another good restaurant town, they have everything.
That is a good question, most of the restaurants I use have their own delivery service, I wonder what the charm of uber eats or door dash is. Have restaurants basically given up on their own delivery? I don’t get stuff delivered so I am clueless.
Not to mention, these kinds of premade foods are full of toxic additives, artificial coloring, and more. In fact, maltodextrin is 4 times more glycemic than corn syrup, and it’s not even sweet. They put it in taco seasoning…basically turning tacos into a glorified “pastry.” I ate those foods when I was younger and less wise. I noticed when I started avoiding additives, health issues started going away.
During COVID, I tried having someone else shop for me for groceries twice at a two different stores (Whole Foods and local grocery store). I wasn’t happy with either time. The shoppers weren’t great at selecting produce nor meat, which was mostly what I wanted both time. I gave up and opted to do my own shopping.
These days, I admit I am sometimes lazy and buy foods that are ready to reheat and eat. I supplement with other items to round out the meal, but it provides a nice change of pace and a quick meal. I’m sure cooking is healthier when I do it but sometimes I am lazy and impatient and we just want an easy meal. If one is easily at hand to reheat and eat, we will reheat it at home instead of going out. It’s cheaper to buy reheat and eat foods than takeout nearly always.
I actually enjoy grocery shopping—checking out what produce is fresh, what the meats look like, what’s on sale, and what I’m interested in eating. Sometimes I buy based on what great bargains I find and other times I try to stick to a list. Either way, It’s a big savings from going out to eat all the time and gives me more control over what we eat and when.
Ready made food is no longer limited to Stouffers now. Many grocery stores have their own fresh made meals without preservatives or other additives. There are also more gourmet ready made meals that are delivered/shipped to you. D1 subscribed to one after she gave birth. She said they were very tasty.
I do agree that there are a lot of plastic packaging, but I do recycling.
This is true and there are a few good, but very expensive, pre made meals. The issue is that they are often cooked in vegetable oils and have added sugars.
As a Brooklynite without a car, pickup involves a walk, and I have only gotten takeout/delivery when I was too sick to walk and/or had Covid and/or early in the pandemic when it was extremely difficult to get a delivery appointment.
As a person who lives alone, I often use frozen single-serve meals (Lean Cuisine/Stouffers/Marie Callender etc.) that go in the microwave, supplemented with a portion of frozen vegetables or, my fave, cut up Campari/cocktail tomatoes. I buy them when they are on sale and out of the box, I can fit more in my smallish freezer than freezing my own home-cooked entrees. I do cook too–just not every day and evening. And I never buy frozen latkes–I make them myself and on the rare occasion when I eat out, if it’s the right kind of restaurant, (Junior’s in downtown Brooklyn, Veselka [Ukranian] in the East Village), I order them, with applesauce, no sour cream please.
This is something I would usually get. It takes 4 min to cook. https://www.freshdirect.com/deli_prepared/meals/meals_entrees_single/sc/meals_entrees_single_fish/p/hmr_ds_dlslmn
Ingredients: Atlantic Salmon*, Fingerling Potatoes, Asparagus, Lemon Vinaigrette (Lemon Juice, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Sea Salt, Lemon Zest, White Pepper, Xanthan Gum), Dill.
The pricing is acceptable to me. It saves me an hour in food preparation and clean up.
I ordered my grocery for the week last night before I went to bed and it was delivered this morning at 9. I was able to have a leisurely Saturday morning instead of rushing out to go to the grocery store. Last week I was on vacation. The day before I returned I ordered all my grocery to be delivered next day.
NYC is very efficient with delivery of any kind. Freshdirect does not out source their delivery, so if I have any issue with quality of food they would refund my money right away.
Paying for convenience is very personal. What I may consider to be mundane (like cooking or gardening) others may consider as hobby and enjoyment. I try not to impose my value on my kids as long as they are financially prudent.
I tell my kids we have lived through “peak convenience.” Pre Covid, fast food places and retail stores were open ridiculously long hours. Who was going to the mall at 9 pm in the dark of winter? Now places like chipotle might close at 8 some days, which makes sense if they aren’t selling enough food during late hours to be worthwhile. I have one environmentalist kid who refuses anything Amazon and tries not to consume much. The other loves Door Dash. We have a local Indian restaurant we first tried on a Door Dash gift card, and the price is the same (for pickup) if you order on door dash or directly. So I like to order directly from them so they get the money.
I grew up far enough past the suburbs that we could not even get a pizza delivered back in the 80s, so I do love that I can now get delivery. But I don’t think I have used it for other than pizza, except on a college trip in a hotel when we didn’t know where anything was to go pick up. I do like to get takeout because in my formative years, eating out was such a rare treat. But the older I get and the more cooking experience I have, I realize I can make exactly what I want myself, healthier and cheaper, if I have time. The exception for us is ethnic foods with lots of ingredients we don’t stock, like Thai or Indian.
I have never done grocery delivery because the apps take me so long to figure out. I like the idea of having them delivered the day returning form a trip though!
It’s more difficult the first few times, after you have used it a few times then they have a list of your previous purchases. What I do now is I go through the list and click on what I normally buy and then add few extra items if necessary. My daughters and their Hs add items throughout the week and someone review/submits when they want a delivery. If you have a nanny/housekeeper you could also have them add items for the house and children. I can usually do my shopping in few minutes.
I use readymade and take out foods more than I should, particularly when I am feeling overwhelmed by work and parenting. It doesn’t help that I don’t like to shop or cook. Being able to save time by avoiding certain chores is appealing in moments when it feels like there is way too much on my plate.
That said, I think there is something insidious and almost deceptive about certain timesavers. Relying on convenience foods might work a bit like email; email and remote work can make my life easier and more efficient, but it sometimes functions as a way to work constantly. It is way too easy to communicate with my colleagues off hours and the boundaries between work and home get blurred. Theoretically it gives me some badly needed flexibility as a working parent, but answering work emails can also interfere with the parent that I want to be. Similarly, in the chaotic heyday of my early parenting years before my oldest kids went to boarding school and then college, we were always eating convenience foods or packed dinners on the go so that I could get various kids to various different activities spread across the city. In theory, the ability to get takeout or make a meal super quickly, made it possible for my kids to spend more time engaging in sports, dance, music and so forth. So did it make our lives easier or just more busy?
In retrospect, sometimes the convenience made our life more busy. And maybe we would have all been happier if we spent more time at home cooking together, doing chores (ugh), and having family time. I just think that by speeding through some tasks, sometimes other important moments can get lost along the way. Now that I only have two left at home, I’ve slowed down, and I think that is a good thing. I don’t want to get too sanctimonious though. I still don’t like cooking, but at least now all my kids are way better cooks than I am so I don’t have to!
I was at Costco yesterday buying ingredients to make lettuce wraps for two parties and stumbled across clearance Morracan chicken. It was 2 1-lb packages of chicken already prepared with delicious sauce that you just reheat and eat for $6.97. We had it with rice and vegetables last night and we both loved it. We have enough for 3 more meals for the 2 of us, as each of the 2 packets serves 4. I couldn’t have bought the ingredients and made it for that price!
