I recently wrote for Sixty & Me about how grocery shopping changed for me after I turned 60.
It wasn’t really the grocery store that changed. I did.
I began thinking differently about what I wanted from dinner. I still wanted food I loved, but I also wanted to pay more attention to how I was eating and what that might mean for my health years from now.
I want to cook for the woman I am today and the woman I hope to be 20 years from now.
Preferably, they can both enjoy the same dinner.
But there was another part of this story I didn’t talk much about in that article.
I had become very accustomed to having someone else do the grocery shopping.
I Already Had a System I Loved
For years, I was a Green Chef customer.
The part I loved was wonderfully simple.
I picked the meals I wanted. The ingredients arrived at my house. I cooked them.
No meal planning.
No grocery list.
No wandering through the store looking for an ingredient I’d never heard of, only to discover the recipe required one teaspoon of it.
I could look at the choices and think, That sounds good.
A few days later, everything I needed to make it was sitting in my kitchen.
I loved that.
And I still do.
The problem wasn’t Green Chef. My needs had simply changed.
I wanted meals with a more specific nutritional structure than a traditional meal-kit service was designed to provide.
So eventually I had to leave the service.
And suddenly I had my nutritional freedom back.
Unfortunately, I also had my grocery cart back.
I Didn’t Want to Give Up the Best Part
I knew I could find healthy recipes myself.
I could calculate the nutrition.
I could figure out the sides.
I could make the grocery lists.
I could shop for everything.
I could do all of it.
I just didn’t want to.
Out of this pain Recipe Shop was built.
Not because I thought the world needed another recipe website.
Because I needed and wanted it.
Something that let me choose meals I was excited to eat, order the ingredients and have them delivered—while knowing the meals already fit the nutritional structure I wanted.
And then I used it.
For two and a half years.
Eventually it occurred to me that I probably wasn’t the only person who likes cooking more than grocery shopping.
Or who wants to pay attention to nutrition without having to think about it every single night.
Or who wants healthy aging and really good food to occupy the same plate.
So I decided to open Recipe Shop up for other people to use too.
Maybe what I built for myself can make someone else’s life a little easier.
I still get to choose dinner because it looks delicious.
I still cook.
I just don’t have to do all the work that comes before it.
And perhaps that’s the best part.
I’m cooking for the woman I am today and the woman I hope to be 20 years from now.
Fortunately, they have very similar taste.