Let's be honest, January can be a bit of a depressing month. After a month of festivities with family and friends, we get to go back to real life, where the wine is much diminished and mom's cooking is just a distant memory. My January's been much improved, however, thanks to the following:

1. Having J to enjoy the fine January New York climate with (i.e. Nor'easter cuddling)
2. Winter break from grad school (i.e. having a 9-to-5 instead of a 9-to-9)
3. Plated deliveries (i.e. a subscription service that allows us to successfully pretend that we're the fabulous, imaginative cooks we've always suspected we were deep inside)

Of the three improvements, #3 is actually replicable for those suffering through Winter so let me tell you more about that that.

Plated is basically a curated grocery delivery service that brings pre-measured ingredients for specific meals straight to your doorstep for $12 a plate. That may seem pricey but consider the advantages. Plated allows you to casually whip up Massaman chicken curry for dinner without having to hunt down ingredients in Chinatown and Whole Foods Gowanus (plus the inevitable emergency run to your local bodega when you realize you forgot to buy chicken base). Food subscription services like Plated are ideal for people who live in cities where groceries are really expensive anyway (check!); whose cooking repertoire is limited to a rotation of five dishes (check!); and who would rather not get stuck with a cupboard full of spices and ingredients last used in 2012 (I'm looking at you, ancient bottle of furikake). Oh, and even though it is a subscription service, you have the flexibility to skip weeks and only receive deliveries when you're in the mood to play chef.

After two weeks of deliveries, we've cooked dishes I never throught could come out of my kitchen: beef pho, braised massaman chicken, tilapia piccata with orzo, beef and butternut squash tagine, and chicken with miso soba. As I dug into my plate of fish with chermoula on a bed of wilted spinach, roasted fingerling potatoes and roasted oranges, I was filled with incredulous wonder that I had actually put together all these new flavors that were absolutely not part of my culinary subconscious. J, a true blue Dutch man, was equally stunned after cooking up bowls of delicious beef pho, and said, "Did I actually make that?"

For those looking to improve their Winter hibernation experience, I highly recommend trying this out! To sign up for Plated, click here.