Assembly Dine

Businesses let busy people put together home-cooked meals in batches

CARY (Wednesday, January 04, 2006) - When Margarita Cohen's sister told her how much fun she was having putting together a dozen meals in a couple of hours while visiting with her friends, Cohen didn't quite get it. "Meal assembly" businesses might be popular in New Hampshire, where her sister was living, but there wasn't anything like that in Cary.
But that was two years ago. Now at least six storefront locations in the Triangle cater to busy locals who want to put a home-cooked meal on the table but don't have time to prepare dinner. Half of those stores are in Cary, with another location scheduled to open there next month.

"They've heard about it at the book clubs and the Bunco groups," Dana Advant of Cary says as she fills a freezer bag with ingredients for Quick Chick Stir-Fry with Walnuts at the My Girlfriend's Kitchen location in Cary.

Next to her, Margarita Cohen scoops corn kernels and diced carrots into two small aluminum trays for split portions of Molasses Glazed Pork Medallions. Her sister, Sheila Ramsey, now also living in Cary, is putting together Easy Elegant Fish Vera Cruz at another station and their mother, visiting for the holidays, helps them retrieve cooking instruction labels from a separate counter.

"The thought process is taken away of always coming up with ideas of things to cook," Cohen says. With a stockpile of ready-to-cook meals in the freezer or refrigerator, she's less tempted to stop at a fast-food place on a busy day. "We're definitely eating out less."

Although the businesses go by different names, like Dream Dinners and Super Suppers, they operate almost identically. Clients visit the business's Web site, come by the store or call to sign up for a meal assembly session, typically about two hours for 12 entrees that will serve four to six people each. They review the month's menu of about 14 meals to choose the ones that will appeal to their families.

When the client gets to the store for a session, she (or sometimes he) gets an apron and directions to the various stations to assemble each meal. The stations look like a restaurant salad bar: All the vegetables have been chopped and the raw meats are bagged separately. All the client has to do is measure and scoop the ingredients into a freezer bag or aluminum pan, adjusting for family tastes, if necessary. (Kids don't like capers? Husband hates raisins? Leave them out.)

Then the dish is labeled with cooking directions and stacked on a shelf. When done at one station, the client moves on to the next, until all 12 meals are ready to be loaded into the client's cooler and taken home.

At home, meals that will be used first go in the refrigerator while the others go in the freezer. When it's time to cook, the meal may be baked in the oven, simmered on top of the stove, stir-fried in a wok, braised in a slow cooker or grilled outside.

How much it costs

Prices for a 12-meal package range from $180 to $215, depending on the location. Assuming each meal serves six, that's roughly $2.50 to $3 a portion. Most clients view the service as a bargain replacement for fast food or restaurant meals. Business owners say they are providing families with a way to get out of the drive-through lane and back to the dinner table.

Meal assembly is a concept that is growing nationally. Super Suppers alone sold 160 franchises in 32 states in the last 11 months. The Easy Meal Prep Association trade group listed 217 meal assembly companies and 566 outlets operating in the United States at the end of 2005.

"It's a good way to budget," says Geralin Thomas of Cary, a Dream Dinners client. As owner of Metropolitan Organizing, she also advises many of her clients to use the service. "I have a single mom with two growing boys who was spending $700 a month on takeout food. It's working extremely well for her."

Some meal assembly clients like the fact that they can zip through meal preparation in two hours or less. Others like to come with friends and a bottle of wine and make meal prep a social occasion. Some parents bring their kids and make it family time. And they all like working in a kitchen where they don't have to slice, dice or clean up.

Clients also say that they find themselves eating a wider variety of meals than they would normally. And they don't worry so much about additives and preservatives because they have assembled the meals themselves using mostly fresh ingredients.

"I think I'm eating much more healthy meals," says Thomas, who often scoops extra vegetables into her selections. The mother of two boys zips through the grocery store, buying just what she needs for quick breakfasts and lunches.

"I think it's a brilliant concept," says Barbara Turner as she and her husband, Trey, prepare split portions of Handsome Husband Almond Chicken. "We're getting 12 meals divided in two, so that's close to a month's worth of dinners."

"And I don't have to clean up the kitchen," Trey adds.

And while the Turners may end up eating a My Girlfriend's Kitchen dinner nearly every night, that won't be the case at the home of the Advants. Dana still enjoys creating meals for her family, but she also likes knowing she can fall back on her Girlfriend meals on certain desperate days.

"I don't have to say, 'Let's go out to dinner,' " she says. "These are what I would make at home if I had the time."

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