As I’m adjusting to new budgets, a busier school schedule approaching deadlines, and the holidays, I’ve gone and done it: I’m shopping Fresh Direct for a month. More specifically I’m ordering eggs, chicken, some fruits and veggies, and nuts once a week. I plan to augment this purchase with my yoga market, Greenmarkets, and specialty shops like Murray’s. I couldn’t manage a CSA this winter. I realized December is not the time to be waiting on a shipment including, among the unknowns, eight pounds of red swiss chard.

Currently I’m sitting in front of my computer with Julia Child and Sally Schneider at my side. These ladies are not the first place I turn for dinner ideas, but given the task at hand, they seem a fitting choice. Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food is in the background. Jamie’s trying to teach a young mother who’s never turned on the stove before to cook a piece of chicken. I’m hoping these three will help me order my ingredients and enjoy a blissful series of dinners all week.

BUT… I’m having a creative crisis. I can’t figure out what to order. My usual process of fingering the food, sniffing things, and wandering passed all the ingredients obviously can’t be replicated online. Browsing product shots and clicking “add to cart” apparently doesn’t get my juices (i.e. digestive enzymes) flowing. So far I have some swiss chard, egg nog, and two red onions. Somewhere in there is supposed to be dinner.

Fresh Direct claims ease, convenience, no spoiling, and offers a surprising wide variety of organic foods at average (sometimes discounted) prices. The produce I received last week was better than some of the stuff I find in Union Square. My mother was actually there to receive the delivery and saved me the shameful task of throwing all the packaging away. Shopping online also takes the sensory experience out of purchasing my groceries, and well, getting HUNGRY.

I will “checkout” today with some simple items, among them milk and eggs. I can’t help but feel even further removed from my own diet. Human contact with nature’s raw ingredients is incredibly important. Without it, food is just calories, or a typed list of ingredients with dollar signs next to them to be eaten arbitrarily when they arrive.

Who else shops online? Agree? Disagree? Words of guidance?

Photos from Fresh Direct