Elana Karp - Plated: Weeknight Dinners, Weekend Feasts, and Everything in Between

ABOUT PLATED

(ITS NOT JUST THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK)

At Plated, were all about the power of cooking at home. Dinnertime is meant for slowing down at the end of your day, connecting to real food and real ingredients, and reconnecting with the people youre sharing them withbut sometimes all that is easier said than done.

In 2012, Nick Taranto and Josh Hix, old friends from business school, were both working long hours in finance and struggling to make home-cooking a reality. Instead of spending time at the market and then in the kitchen (applying their admittedly scant culinary skills), they opted for the ease of takeout. But they were tired of eating that wayimpersonally, sometimes wastefully, and usually unhealthfully. Thats how the food-delivery company Plated was bornwith the idea of getting fresh, preportioned ingredients and chef-designed recipes in front of people at home. The goal was to enable anyone to create a meal he or she could be proud of without the hassle and confusion of weekly meal planning.

What began with two guys hunting down salmon fillets and fresh basil at the local grocery store, then hand-packing boxes to send to friends, has since grown into a sizable company that delivers a new way of cooking to customers at home, all across the country. Over the past few years, amid the growing pains of a quickly scaling business, Plated has never strayed from its core mission of helping people cook how they want, and helping them share it with the people they love around their table.

Every box we send out is carefully hand-packed with local, sustainably sourced ingredients at one of our regional facilities, ensuring that everything arrives fresh. Each meal comes with a step-by-step, easy-to-follow recipe card, so home cooks can relax and actually enjoy cooking.

Now that you know about Plated, we thought you might like to get to know your guides a bit better. Were members of the culinary team at Plated. That means its our responsibility to dream up recipes, put them through rigorous testing, and scour the country for ingredients that will continue to inspire home cooks week after week. With our combined classical training and time working in the food industry, were proud to have built a Plated culinary program that has developed thousands of different recipes.

Elana stumbled upon Plated back when it was still in the two guys packing food stage. At the time, she was working with school-based food education programs. She has grown the culinary program from her own in-home test kitchen (her apartment still smells like bacon) to the uniquely designed professional research and development Plated Test Kitchen we work in today.

Suzanne found Plated soon after that, and was an early recipe contributor while working at Food Network. She eventually joined Plated full time, helping to build a culinary team to support what was beginning to look a lot like a real business. Obviously, it turned into one!

But more important than any of our qualifications is the fact that, well, we love food. In a deep, real way that left us no choice but to make it the center of our day, every dayand were lucky that means its our job! We discuss our lunch options before we eat breakfast; spend hours contemplating the best melty cheeses; posit hundreds of recipe ideas a week (some of which we wake up thinking about); and light up in the presence of a new restaurant, dish, or food destination. And we care just as much about sharing food. For us, the best part of cooking is watching people enjoy what weve made for them. Whats the point of patiently creating two-day ramen if not to hear someone try to tell you how good it is while slurping a mouthful of noodles?

Our philosophy is that food should be fun. Its about embracing the experience in its entiretyfrom planning, to prepping, to cooking, and, of course, the satisfaction of actually eating. So how could we encourage other cooks to feel this way, too?

When we sat down to brainstorm our direction for this book, chicken became our inspiration. Specifically, the . Seared, then roasted over a bed of vegetables with a rosemary, garlic, and white wine sauce, this dish utilizes a classic technique, a few simple but reliably delicious flavors, and only one pan. Its a nourishing dish that our customers go crazy over, relishing that ta-da moment when it comes sizzling out of the oven with crisp, golden skin. Theres just something about setting down a roast chicken on the dinner table that evokes prideits the Platonic dinner ideal. Giving customers the tools to feel this way about something they cooked and the type of food theyre eating is our motivation every day at Plated, and it serves as the founding principle for this book.