Gift Giving For Dummies: Fullosophie's DIY Meal Kits

fullosophie.com

What do you get the person who has everything? This question comes up year after year, birthday after birthday, holiday after holiday. And while there are plenty of creative ways to answer it, there are few solutions more rewarding than a gift that ends with the receiver cooking the giver dinner.

Enter fullosophie (pronounced "philosophy"), a new, local gourmet food delivery company, and their DIY Meal Kits, specifically. Imagine if you will ... a perfect little cardboard box arrives on your doorstep. Inside there are the ingredients, preselected, preportioned, prewashed, prechopped, pre-mise en place-ed and ready for you to play chef. It's foolproof. Better yet, it's guess-proof. And if you have a frustratingly skilled guesser in the family like I do, you'll certainly appreciate that. Because nothing ruins Christmahannukakwanzaakah quite like somebody guessing his gift before it's given.

I digress. Let's get back to your perfectly portioned, perfectly idiot-proof meal kit. Each week offers a choice of dinner themes and coordinating sides. Choose yours (like Greek marinated chicken and tzatziki with a side of tabbouleh) and it arrives a few days later with instructions and everything you need to make the magic happen.

A new item that's now become part of their regular offering, the DIY Meal Kits have joined fullosophie's ready-made meals that are based on recipes from food magazines and blogs owners Tarin Holcomb and Jess Shain admire. The two ladies emphasize a "farm to fork" approach, featuring gluten-free, low-carb and vegetarian and kid-friendly options. But the most interesting part is the genesis of fullosophie. Two longtime friends who were both sick of their corporate grinds decided to quit their day jobs and focus on their passions: being healthy and eating right. They designed fullosophie for their former selves: businesspeople on the go with a good bit of disposable income to spend but without the luxury of time to dedicate to clean eating.

All that said, Tarin and Jess are almost too perfect to be real. They work out like crazy, make healthy yet delicious food and are cute as hell. And their dedication to their "fullosophie" is obvious. This time of year -- now that it's almost resolution-making time -- might be just the perfect time to rethink your own "fullosophie."

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