There were a couple of weeks in March when I was recovering from surgery but hadn’t started working yet that I would comfortably label The Most Boring Weeks Of My Life. It’s amazing how empty my days seemed when I was home 24 x 7; I devoured the crappiest books off my parents’ bookshelf, I watched The Bold & The Beautiful daily (childhood memories), discovered TMZ (LOVE!) and I hung onto my online life like it depended on it. Well, my sanity surely did.
I replied to all emails immediately, in full and in earnest. I turned my Google chat status to “online” – this never happens, I’m always “busy” because I don’t know why, time is money? – I signed into MSN chat and get this, I even logged onto Facebook chat. I shit you not, up until then, I didn’t even know Facebook had a chat function!
I was so bored I even started reading spam emails. Oh yes, yes I did.
One day an email from Pure Package landed in my inbox. I would normally delete the thing, I mean, home delivered food? Really? I’ve never had the slightest interest in home delivered food. Mainly because they are usually diet related and I’ve always imagined them to be something like the pre-prepared food found in the freezer aisle, only a thousand times worse.
But lucky them, not only do I read their email, I click on their website. It says they’re a gourmet diet food delivery business. Gourmet? Plus one. Diet? Minus one. But I’ll keep reading. Because I have about three zillion hours to kill. I browse the website and land on a page with sample menus. The fact that they don’t just have a weight loss menu is cool, they also offer food for healthy eating, skin and ageing, brain balance, training support, detox and cleanse, pre-post baby and vegetarian (of course). I then begin to read each menu in detail. I mean, seriously, you have no idea how bored I was back then.
Surprisingly, the menus sound fracccccking delicious. There’s fresh berries and nuts and seeds and stuffed roasted peppers! There’s cheese and chocolate and guacamole and NASI GORENG. Diet? I don’t believe it. Anyway, I went back to read the original email again… I was pretty sure it was just a press release but ah-ha, I was wrong. They wanted to know if I’d like to try their eating plan for three days. That’s five meals a day, 15 meals over three days of deliciousness that I don’t have to make!
I’m pretty sure I replied “hell yeah!”. Actually no, I clearly remember saying something like “now you’re making me hungry”. Shoot me now, I’m such a mega dork.
Anyway, here’s the food I ate over the last three days. Gourmet, healthy and delivered fresh to my door every day.
breakfast: fresh grapefruit with organic rye bread & rainforest nut butter
morning snack: fresh figs
lunch: beef pesto & watercress salad with beetroot & butternut squash
afternoon snack: artichoke dip & organic corn chips
dinner: pumpkin & peanut curry served with brown rice & steamed broccoli
breakfast: mixed berries, natural yoghurt & granola muesli
morning snack: apple & almonds
lunch: teriyake chicken served with shitake mushrooms, sesame rice & broccoli
afternoon snack: butternut, feta & harissas dip with oat cakes
dinner: spiced kingfish with black bean, tomato, chilli & onion salsa
breakfast: roasted field mushrooms, tomato & rosti with home-made baked beans
morning snack: ginger infused papaya, kiwi & black sesame seed salad
lunch: feta & herbed lentil salad with green beans & julienne carrots
afternoon snack: stewed pears with coconut & vanilla yoghurt
dinner: organic salmon & grilled Canadian scallops with a sweet, fruity dill sauce
I’ve just completed the three day program tonight and I’m a happy customer. Overall I was very impressed with the quality of the food – it all tasted fantastic and the portion sizes were more than I could finish every day. Actually I lie, some (like the spiced kingfish) were so good, I ate the whole humongous portion
The only con? It’s not cheap. Priced from about £30/day for a five-meal program… or you can choose no lunch or no dinner or whatever, it’s still not just a drop in the ocean for most of us. Panu pointed out that if both he and I did this for real, we’d be spending £420 a week for the two of us – heck, we’d hire a personal chef!
But you know, if you’re rich and lazy and want some healthy, fresh and tasty food delivered to you every day, you could totally do this and be very satisfied.
Happy super long weekend (again) everyone! After my three healthy days, I’m off to Venice to indulge in some serious Italian carbs. Pasta, pizza, gelato… bring it on!
ps. incidentally, it’s only been 3 days since I ate Asian food and I am hankering for some good Chinese or Japanese. But now I’m off to Venice for four days so watch out next week, I’m gonna be cranky til I get me some rice.