Recently within the last month or so, I've become a proud new member of Blue Apron, the food delivery service that sends you fresh ingredients each week as well as step-by-step, easy to follow recipes that teach you some basic kitchen skills and a lot of other useful information about handling food. Some of the tips and tricks that Blue Apron provides are common knowledge, others are quite new and provide for some much needed insight on things like how to avoid crying while cutting an onion or shallot. Overall, I'm really impressed with this company; as a college student, taking care of yourself can be very challenging at times and when it comes to food, extremely stressful. Personally, I am someone who cares deeply about exercise and diet, so finding quick and easy ways to make meals for myself - like actual meals with a vegetable, protein, and starch - is probably the most difficult task that I face on a regular basis. And not only that, my trips to the grocery store to buy all of the necessary ingredients usually end up with me wandering the aisles trying to assemble random things that I think will taste good together. To make matters even more confusing and difficult, food waste becomes a major issue as well, considering the fact that I'm buying different foods without any real plan to use them in a way that makes sense taste and health wise.

As I began my senior year, I came to the realization that I was not only wasting my time, but also all of my money. Food is definitely the biggest part of my budget as a college student. Nutrition is an even bigger concern. With this being my last year in undergrad, I thought that maybe it was time to learn how to actually cook so that I didn’t run into these issues while trying to adult in the future. After seeing many commercials and advertisements on my Facebook sidebar, I finally decided to further investigate Blue Apron as the solution to my food problems. If you are a college student who is kitchen-challenged like myself, here are a few things to consider if you are thinking about joining Blue Apron:

1. The cost: to make things really simple, if you are using this service solely for yourself, you will have to sign up for Blue Apron’s two-person meal plan. That is, you will receive three meals per week, with each meal having two servings. Blue Apron does not have a single-person plan (yet), but I suspect that they will introduce one soon. The two-person plan is about $59.94, which is roughly $9.99 per meal. The Family Plan serves 4 people, so if you really want that much food, good for it. The price is actually not that much different, $69.92 for two recipes per week. The Family Plan that provides four recipes per week is about $130, which in my opinion is really just unnecessary for the average college student, hence the name “Family Plan”. Overall, I think the cost aspect of Blue Apron is completely justified. When I break it down for myself, $60 a week to spend on foods that I can eat for both lunch and dinner is pretty good. And remember, all of the ingredients are fresh, natural and organic.
2. The structure of the recipes: I have to admit, there are a few things that I don’t like about how the recipes are structured. Sometimes you might catch yourself waiting around the kitchen for 10 minutes while something is boiling or toasting. But, if you had read just two sentences more of the directions, you would have been able to plan it out so that you were not wasting any time at all. However, the overall structure of each recipe is actually very easy to follow, there are no fancy cooking words being used and everyone should be able to understand exactly what the directions are asking. With that being said, I’ve figured out that its really best to read the entire set of directions before doing anything because in the end, planning out the procedural aspect of cooking is really important in terms of making sure that you’re not wasting time looking for different utensils or the salt and pepper. And this is exactly what Blue Apron wants to teach you.
3. Not everything in the box must be used for its specific purpose: for one thing, I’ve noticed that Blue Apron loves including things like corn, parsley, or tomatoes. First and foremost, corn seems to appear in every weeks box. I’m not sure about you, but for me, I don’t eat corn that often and second, using parsley as a garnish is not really important to me. Also, I hate tomatoes unless they are on a burger or other sandwich, and prefer them not to be in my salads. Don’t assume that every ingredient is pertinent to that specific recipe. It’s perfectly ok to leave some things out and include others. Another example is the use of garlic: I get that Blue Apron wants me to learn how to chop up my food correctly, but spending copious amounts of time chopping garlic (and making my hands smell for days) is not always ideal. Now I’ve realized that whenever there is garlic involved, I can easy break out that pre-chopped stuff from the grocery store aka minced garlic, and its just as good as the freshly chopped version, if not better.
4. Make sure you have a plan to pick up the box on time: ok this seems very simple in practice but was actually something that I completely messed up during my first week of food! I did not give myself enough time to pick up my package from my landlords office before they closed for the weekend and low and behold, all of the food was completely disgusting and rotting by the time I was able to get it after the weekend on Monday. Remember that this is fresh food. Nothing is frozen and therefore, you should be prepared to get your food the day it’s delivered. Everything that you receive is being overnighted to you in a box that comes with two huge ice blocks that are meant to keep the proteins fresh. Ice inevitably will melt. Get your package when its delivered and you won’t waste food nor will you have to carry a large box full of rotting meat all the way home and discover that most of the other food went bad as well because it came in contact with the spoiled ingredients. Good times.
5. As the weeks roll on, you’ll become a better chef: I know it seems really corny (no pun intended), but you really will learn how to cook from this service. I didn’t expect myself to actually finish recipes within 45 minutes. I thought that everything was going to take at least 1.5 hours or more. I also did not expect that I would become a smarter chef. Along the way, I’ve picked up cooking habits that have made it easier for me prepare the recipes in a way so that I can see all the moving parts, cooking things while simultaneously cleaning up after myself and planning ahead in the recipe as well. Overall, I think Blue Apron is about convenience; obviously it is a product of convenience and therefore, all of its components should be easy. Blue Apron is also about teaching people to cook smarter not harder. So every time you’re in the kitchen, you don’t feel like the effort you’re putting out is for nothing and you can actually sit back and enjoy the meal.

In total, I am going to continue using Blue Apron. I think that this is a great service, and although it might exceed the budgetary limits of college kids, it’s not totally unobtainable. When/if the single-person meal plan is released, I believe it will make much more sense for larger student populations to indulge and actually learn how to cook delicious, healthy meals.