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I've gotten a lot of Blue Apron and I don't suck at cooking. The Good: -Constant free offers. If you sign up for a free box, make sure you click "Skip this Delivery" for several weeks after. At some point they will then send you 3 free boxes for friends. Put all of them on different credit cards, give them to friends/family/so. Get 4 or more free boxes. Cancel all those accounts. Profit. -Real cooking. They'll have you fry meat in a pan then deglaze it like a pro. You'll make roux, you'll reserve pasta water for sauce. Real cooks were involved here. -Real ingredients. Potatoes, onions, the works. My favorite meal involved making a cream sauce with pine nuts and dousing that over shiso peppers and noodle. I actually really love that recipe. -You learn. Keep those recipe cards and learn to make real food on your own. -Directions are usually okay. The recipes are made idiot-proof, but a pro is going to see areas they don't make clear exactly what they're doing or why. So it's more like a Homes and Gardens cookbook, less like Alton Brown. -Okay flavor. Yeah it's going to taste like it was cooked by an urban white mom, because that's who it's for. Slightly bland, but not bad. Like an urban white mom who went to a cooking class. -Free cooler bags? If you've been looking for something to stuff your cooler with, get a free box of this poo poo, and you get two gigantic goddamn freezer bags with it. The bad: -They abuse their workers. -Jesus Christ all that wasted packaging. You will hear the environment screaming. -Expensive as gently caress. It's like $10/meal for the two-person option, as in $60 for 6 servings. If you're cooking at home and you spend this much you could be eating goddamn feelay mean yawn. -Have to send an email to a semi-secret address to cancel, can't directly cancel from clicking through site. (or click https://www.blueapron.com/cancel_subscription) -Requires a lot of cooking/mess. Sure you chop your own veggies and stuff, but this poo poo usually takes a half dozen ingredient bowls and 2 pots by the time you're done. You will quickly realize it's not actually easy enough. -Requires poo poo they don't list, like obviously you need a decent array of pans. And your own salt and pepper. And a meat flipper would help. Spatulas, a quarter baking sheet, a good nonstick fry pan, sauce pans in varying sizes with lids, lots of olive oil... I mean this is all basic stuff, but they talk like everything is in the box and don't make it clear what equipment a dummy really needs. A peeler, at least a couple wooden spoons and pan scrapers, lots of bowls for holding chopped ingredients helps a lot... -Won't follow mail forwarding. My free box got sent to my old addess and UPS actually DELIVERED it to old address despite the manager trying to send the package back, which I hope is actually illegal, but luckily I'm friends with the manager so I got the box. Blue Apron refunded me saying it hadn't been delivered, but refused to recognize the mail forwarding even after it happened. Their system just cannot understand a mail forward at all. If your address is tricky, have it shipped to work or something. So who is it for: -If you live in an urban area and you're not near a grocery store, one free box of Blue Apron and maaaaybe a second if you get desperate is not a bad investment. At that point it would be $5/meal for 12 meals, which ain't bad if you're swamped at work. -If you cannot cook to save your life but want to, try and box to get a feel for it. You'll be pleasantly surprised at the results. And you'll have had to do basic things like cut potatoes and onions. Good exercise.
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Dec 7, 2016 23:44
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ME
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Yeah sounds like they're really pulling out all the stops here. Way to be a dick y'all. Just ignore the part about pine nuts and shishito peppers (yes I typed shiso peppers because I forgot that's an in-joke). Which, yes, are a rarity for urban American cooks. I've also gotten pumpkin cavatelli, goat cheese, fresh herbs, shishito peppers, pine nuts, golden raisins (the service has a thing for using golden raisins to punch up a sauce), red wine vinegar, kale, grass-fed beef, scottish salmon... sometimes the recipes are just burgers and onion rings. Sometimes they're Korean rice cakes, fried chicken and biscuits, or stuffed squash with curry. The point is that real cooking starts with basics like potatoes and peppers. So does Blue Apron. That is a fine thing. I mean sure it would be 1000% better for the environment if they made you source your own potatoes, but to be fair, half the time those are coming on a truck from Guatemala too. Food in America is hosed. mindphlux posted:it's great to get yuppies interested in cooking, but if getting them interested in cooking requires tons of wasted packaging & emissions to ship their lazy asses a single potato and onion - fuckem, not everyone deserves to eat actual food. This is a totally fair point. Just like anyone who buys a new smartphone every six months. Consumerism in America is sick. But if you're not planning on starting a commune anytime soon, and you're just using the free boxes because there's no way you should ever pay $10/meal when you're home cooking, Blue Apron is maybe not the worst thing in the world. Now if someone actually pays for Blue Apron every week because they're fine paying $10/meal and throwing away fucktons of packaging every single week, pardon me I stand corrected, yes that person is Literally Hitler. The fact that Blue Apron hasn't gone out of business yet is a total mystery. Also if you've ever gotten their wine or anything else from their store, you are a cancer on society I hope you die.
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Dec 8, 2016 15:58
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Mr. Wiggles posted:I'm sure glad the two choices here are mailed potatoes or living in a commune. This sets out a very logical example! I grew up on a rural farm and helped my grandparents run their tractor. My rig also has a GTX99x9 that hasn't even been released yet my uncle works for NVIDIA and I have kanji stickers on my car. Look I was in the marines and- Ranter posted:I only user Uber Pool so I can order my potatoes over the internet guilt free, assholes. It's almost like we live in a primarily service based economy where people resell items at a markup using value-added services to justify the cost. Is it always like this around here?
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Dec 9, 2016 05:05
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