I can’t decide what I think about this. The premise, before you click away: harried women (maybe men) convene at a storefront, walk around a room assembling ingredients for 6 or 12 dinners. Everything’s pre-cut, measured, etc. They take the stuff home and fridge or freeze it. Then, when they arrive home from their harried lives, they pop one of the things in the oven and sit down to a no-fuss dinner with their families. The ingredients for 12 dinners costs $200, and of course you get the recipes and the social time with all the other harried women (and lost single dads).

I know they mean well, but mostly, I just think, “Pussies.”

OK, no. Presumably, these people will learn a wee bit more about cooking through the process, and will appreciate that these dinners are better than some Stouffer’s business, and eventually they’ll come to value food and eating and cooking more. But the reliance on boneless, skinless chicken breasts and the prominent link to nutrition info depresses me.

I really have never bought the “I just don’t have time to cook” argument. Or the “Yech–it makes such a mess” argument (especially because the latter is always coming from people with dishwashers and/or housekeepers). But maybe I’m just rigid and live in a blue state and don’t have any kids or a demanding job. I mean, I ate dates and peanut butter for dinner the other night, standing up in the kitchen, so my cooking success rate is nowhere near 100 percent, and it’s a hell of a lot lower than it was a couple of years ago, when I was just treading water as a freelancer, rather than keeping actually busy with work.

Getting over my crankiness, I guess this is all good. Whatever gets people to the table. Next time I’m in Albany (what looks like the closest one), I’ll have to check it out. Maybe I can slip big pats of butter in everyone’s baggies while I’m at it.