PSA: Shame Seamless

in

I need to take break today to rant a little bit. I hate this Seamless ad campaign I was bombarded with on the subway yesterday. It's a terrible message. Don’t cook?! Ever?! This is how New York eats?! I will fully admit that I place at least one order for delivery a week, but denigrating cooking in general and trying to paint it as uncool. Well that just really boils my kettle. 

Standing there on the train I was surrounded by messages like: 

Cooking is so Jersey.  

Avoid cooking like you avoid Times Square.

You don’t drive anymore, why cook anymore? 

And worst of all, 

Cook when you’re dead… or live in Westchester. 

Yes. Seamless. Precisely. We’ll all be dead a LOT sooner if we all completely stop cooking and only order sodium loaded take out from Seamless. 

And also a lot poorer… What’s the average spend on Seamless you might ask? I haven’t been able to find any official statistics online, but from personal experience it’s not that easy to escape for less than $20 a person, or $40 a couple. Think of the groceries that could buy. And the quality time you could be spending in the kitchen bonding over cooking instead of vegetating on the sofa. 

There were two ironies to the situation I found myself in. The first, was that a probably 8-year old girl sitting opposite these ads was locked in a very detailed conversation with her dad about the merits of adding more water to bread dough. A small victory for Team Kitchen. It would appear that all hope has not died with the younger generation.  

The second was that I, completely serendipitously, was holding a bag of exactly $40 worth of groceries from Whole Foods to prep my meals for the week. What’s the average spend on Seamless you ask? Well for two people for dinner, I’d venture to say… $40 is not an uncommon figure. 

So for the next few posts, in protest of this terrible Seamless campaign, I’m going to post all of the recipes for the meals I made off that one bag of groceries. And for the benefit of starting a conversation, here is what was in it (with prices): 

-       Mixed Baby Kale: $6.99

-       1 Butternut Squash: $1.37

-       Raw Pumpkin seeds (bulk): $3.68

-       Shitake Mushrooms: $4.99

-       Dried Cranberries (bulk): $3.37

-       Quinoa (bulk): $10.52

-       Brussels sprouts: $2.86

-       McIntosh Apples: $3.36

-       Purple Carrots: $2.49