When I worked full time, and my husband wast still among the living, we ate out regularly. As in at least 3-5 nights a week. I'd get home from work, we'd head out for a walk, and stop somewhere for dinner and drinks. If we didn't go out, we'd fend for ourselves, often with whatever was in the prior night's doggy bag. Sometimes we ordered a pizza, Chinese, or Thai, walking over to the restaurant to pick it up. I typically cooked on Saturday night. So there'd be leftovers on Sunday.
I didn't particularly enjoy cooking, but had about a dozen recipes on my menu. A couple of chicken dishes. A few pasta meals. Chili. Meatloaf. Stuffed peppers. Hot and spicy greebeans with pork. Quiche. A few of my dishes were sufficiently interesting that someone might actually think I was a cook. The curried chicken with currants, almonds, and peppers, served with couscous. The pasta with black olives, roasted red peppers, parsley, and walnuts, which I picked up while casually watching Julia Childs one day back in the early 1970s.
So I could cook. While I always loved baking, I just wasn't wild about cooking. And was in no mood to cook when I got home from work. I was just as happy to get a little walk in and plunk myself down in a restaurant and start reading the menu.
I still don't cook every night, but I'm more of a cook now, and my repertoire is vastly expanded. In the past couple of weeks, I've made spicy lemon shrimp with lemon'd basmati rice. A shepherd's pie (which I left on the counter overnight, so only go one meal rather than four out of it). Scallops with orzo and cherry tomatoes. Peppered chicken breast with mashed potatoes and broccoli. An omelet with grilled asparagus.
Other than the omelet, I cook in volume so there'll be something for at least two nights plus extras for the freezer. My brother comes over once a week for dinner and I'll send him home with Rubbermaid containers full of meals for his freezer, as his idea of cooking is opening a can of soup.
Not that mine isn't.
It's not as if I've never made a dinner out of a can of Italian Wedding Soup. (Or some instant oatmeal doctored up with apples, nuts, and raisins.)
These days, once in a very blue moon, I'll order a legit (non-pizza, non-Chinese) meal from a local restaurant and walk over to fetch it.
Never say never, but I have only had food delivered a couple of times in my life. And that was before DoorDash and Uber Eats. Never say never, but I have never had a meal delivered by either of the above.
Not that there's anything wrong with it.
Other than that a lot of the local deliveey drivers are on unlicensed ebikes, and are a menace to pedestrians. They ignore stop signs, red lights, one way streets. They weave along sidewalks, scattering walkers as they speed by. They drive pell-mell through the leafy (other than in winter) pathways of the Boston Public Garden. They make an awful lot of noise revving around. I live in fear that I'll die in fear being hit by one of them.
Yes, I know they're all just trying to make a living. But I really don't like having them around.
Yet I know that there are a lot of folks who rely on them.
Some even live in my building, where three young women share a flat and where some mornings I walk out and find on the mail table in the foyer a bag containing what looks like an Egg McMuffin that's just been dropped off. Is the nearest McDonald's even a 10 minute walk away? And how hard is it to pop an English muffin in the toaster, scramble up and egg, and microwave a slice of Jimmy Dean sausage patty?
But as someone who has eaten out an awful lot during my life, who am I to judge?
Yet judge I do.
The NYTimes ran a recent article on the meal delivery business. Turns out that:
In 2024, almost three of every four restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant, according to data from the National Restaurant Association. The number of households using delivery had roughly doubled from 2019, just before the pandemic, the group said. And in a survey last year, about one-third of American adults told the association that they ordered food for delivery at least once a week. (Source: NY Times)
Some are ordering in a lot more than that.
Like at young woman in San Diego who spends $200-300 a week (on a salary of $50K!) dining in on meals like spaghetti with marina from a spot just down the street. When she could cook up some pasta and open a jar of Rao's for a fraction of the cost.
And all that delivery isn't making her happy:
Ordering in has eaten away at her savings, she said, and led her to socialize less. She tips generously, but worries that the delivery drivers are poorly paid.
Then there's the Atlanta-based marketing exec with two kids..."he and his husband spend about $700 a week to order in."
“I am so burned out and tired, I would rather just throw my credit card at the problem and delay that unhappiness until the bill comes,” he said.
I understand perfectly. Cooking after you've put in a solid workday plus commute is a colossal drag.
My favorite sitch in the article was that of a young data analyst in LA who moonlights for Uber Eats "to pay off his debt from ordering too much food delivery."
What a world we live in...
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