But I’m giving myself bonus points for holding out this long.

First, it was caving to the Peloton cult during the pandemic. But patting myself on the back then for buying one off Craigslist at a steep markdown. AKA: what you can but one for now that they are circling the drain diversifying their equipment. Forgets bikes. Now it’s all about the tread and – crossing my fingers as a stockholder – the new row.

Now it’s the meal prep cult.

I enjoy cooking. For others. When it’s just me, I feel like I waste so much – either by not getting to it fast enough or simply through not using it all. But give me a partner to cook for – or better yet, with – and all that goes by the wayside.

This is how my perpetually single self learned to embrace a Monday Night Supper Club for his also single friends a few years back. But they had to ruin it by being optimistic and dating. So, that fell apart. Imagine it…

Them: Hey, Galbs (yes, sometimes I’m Galbs instead of Galby), can I bring the guy I’m seeing?

Me: It’s fine, I can do the dishes. But…thanks!

Or:

Them: We got married!

Me: Fuck you. You’re out of the club!

Ok, that last one was highly embellished. For my own entertainment.

Aaand, so I subsist on takeout, frozen pizza, charcuterie, Mac & Cheese or bellying up at the hotel restaurant’s bar, conveniently located on my block. It’s a rather upscale restaurant, so between that and my tendency to call cheese, cured meats, crackers and wine “dinner”, I think I’ve offset my infamous toddler palate rather well.

My second weekly box arrives tomorrow. The first week was a steal at around $28. This week and next week are on either side of $45 each. That’s giving me a little pause about continuing with them. Even though I added on a couple of salad kits to tomorrow’s box.

In a startling fit of self-awareness, that last sentence has bugged me every time it’s popped into my head over the last 10 days.

You see, each plan is either two servings or four. There’s a minimum of two recipes for each week, so the fewest I could get was four meals a week. I’m experimenting by adding in the salad kits to see what the portions are like. If it’s like the chop salad kits you get in the grocery, that’s a meal for me. I suspect the two in my order tomorrow will even out to one supermarket kit. If that’s the case, I likely wouldn’t do that add-on again.

Still that would be five meals in a week for under $50. Trust me, that’s three beers and a (very delicious) pizza next door. I don’t know why I’m resisting committing to the program. Hell, even when I go down after a “big lunch” day and have a few beers, it’s $30. Eating more small meals each week for less than one meal there is a win.

But back to my reluctance to embrace this perk of living in the 21st century.

It’s not the waste – and I’m talking packaging, not food waste. I joked initially that I’d probably eat both portions of a recipe in one sitting. Truth is, though, one serving is enough – despite the reality that my Mac & Cheese box confirms me as a family of four.

That was my best case scenario, too – eating smaller portions more often. I’d been on the “one giant meal and a snack later” diet for a few years and my weight has just yo-yo-ed.

<takes sip of wine>

Hey, it’s not all self-awareness, all the time here at Chez Galby, ok?

Anyway, I’m hoping I can stick with an improved temperament toward leftovers and squeeze a couple of lunches out of the weekly boxes. Then I can see if my body drops out of the starvation mode I’ve trained it into and stops storing things as fat.

It’s been a fun week. This stuff sat in my fridge for three days before I got around to cracking the first recipe. I imagined a clock ticking every time I opened the fridge and frequently saw this image in my head…

Then I was reminded of the relationship between a cook and their tools and even fire. Things you forget when you’re only using your oven to cook frozen pizza and your stove to boil pasta.

But the kinks are coming loose. Hell, aside from the inevitable smoke-filled unit while “browning” my sausage – not a colloquialism – for yesterdays Italian white bean stew concoction – I feel like I’ve managed through the first couple of Hello Fresh meals better than NPH!

As a matter of fact, yesterday’s endeavor was successful enough that I finished my leftovers for breakfast today before remembering I hadn’t snapped a pic as proof of execution – so you’re stuck feasting on a pic of the recipe card.

This all ties in nicely to a comment I made last week on a fellow blogger’s social media post about her recent late-night binges.

Obviously, this is going to be an interesting little experiment…we’ll see if I come out of it as The Mummy era Brendan Frasier or the current The Whale incarnation.

Oh, wait. <siiiiigh>