It’s not often that I suffer from restaurant fatigue, but when I do, a night in is the only cure—which, on Friday, meant that my weeklong plans of (finally) getting over to SPQR had to be put on hold. Luckily I had a ready-to-cook meal kit from Cook! SF and a few good bottles of wine handy to lure my pal Lisa away from SPQR and to chez Sarah’s instead.



Cook! SF is a relatively new meal-prep service, but you’d think they’ve been doing this for years because they thought of everything. My only complaint was that the window for delivery—between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.—is worse than the cable guy’s. Anyway, my black cooler bag arrived at 3 p.m., perfectly packed with that week’s meal: sustainably caught halibut with lemon and caper dressing, spinach, salad and spiced cocoa ganache cake.



Eating a home-cooked meal is nice in theory, but it’s not often that I have the energy to go to the market, chop and prep food, cook, eat and clean up after a full day’s work and working out (which explains my love of cereal). The folks from Cook! SF understand this and have developed kits that require only a pan or two and the most minimal amount of steps without sacrificing flavor. I made some brown rice and Lisa brought some coffee ice cream from Swensen’s, but everything else had already been measured, marinated and prepped.



In about 20 minutes, we had a healthy gourmet meal on the table. I was about as proud of us as if we had made this by ourselves from scratch.

A monthly subscription for two is the basic order, then you can add appetizers and dessert or family-size it to feed four. If you’re busy juggling a zillion things on top of work, this is the perfect fix—no grocery shopping, not much clean-up and delicious, healthy food.