Cooking Ahead, Almost as Good as Making Dinner

I hit another WiFi coffeehouse today in Northampton, MA. I sat at a big table with five others, three of whom also typed into their laptops. But I couldn't get a signal, so I had to write this and post it later.

There was a story in the NY Times about a burgeoning new idea--'cooking centers,' where people can go prepare a week's worth of dinners ahead of time, without having to chop, peel, or defrost. All of the recipes are simple, and all of the ingredients are waiting for you....chicken breasts, chopped parsley, cooked pasta.

It started in Seattle, where Dream Dinners" was started. It's like a cooking session with friends, they bring in wine, play music, and in a few hours walk out with five or ten ready to cook dinners. It makes time-challenged moms feel like they cooked dinner themselves, and now they won't have to serve take-out pizza or Chinese. "They can say, 'this is something I made...I can have my inlaws over to dinner and I won't get a hard time from them."