Yummy Meal Kit

Salivate at the prospect of time travel on the tip of your tongue as you follow Alan’s surreal culinary journey prompted by a desire for better health in this plot-twisting sci-fi short story.    

A Gastronomic Overindulgence

    In grade school, “pot-belly Zach” was often body-shamed in the back of the classroom. This distracted his learning and diminished his self-esteem. With two first names, Alan Zachary made a case to some grade school teachers. Fairness dictated arranging seating charts by first names. So Alan has early memories both of gastronomy overindulgence and reseating himself back and forth in classrooms.

    As an adult, Alan is now an entrepreneur of A to Z Writing. He prefers isolation, working from a home office in a small New York apartment. Specialties are jingles and slogans, although he writes anything that pays the bills.

    By beginning each sedentary day with a donut and cup of hot coffee — three times on cold winter mornings — pot-belly Zach continues living up to his moniker through the fifth decade of his life. With the sound of crunching salty chips beneath his feet and the dank aroma of sweet snack crumbs within the crevices of his computer chair, Alan frequently orders cheeseburgers, fries, and pizza to maintain his corpulent physique.

A Taste for Better Health

    Afternoon listlessness and long naps prompt Alan to schedule a doctor visit. This skews his nutritional goals toward a different trajectory. Dr. Nathan shares lab reports that indicate an elevation in cholesterol. This portends serious health consequences like ischemic stroke or other cardiac events.

    His medical advice is easier to swallow than follow. Eat healthy meals daily and carve out time for regular aerobic exercise. A prescription for statins looms in the peripheral if Alan is unable to lower his bad cholesterol within four months. His initial reaction is defensive, as though the doctor is bullying and body shaming him. After further consideration while sitting on a bench in Central Park, he calms down. The news of his own declining health and the realization that his father didn’t live to age 60 invigorates Alan to better care for himself.

    Most mornings now begin with a brisk 25-minute walk through the park. He replaces the donuts and coffee with healthier avocado or hummus on toast, orange juice, and a boiled egg. Lunch and dinner meals are problematic because of the high sodium and fat content of take-out food.

    With meager cooking skills and little time to prepare meals, he investigates weekly meal kit delivery services. The options are overwhelming as each offer compelling incentives to win his subscription dollars. Alan begins and then cancels two services before discovering one that enables him to cater recipes to his lifestyle. The ability to select a Mediterranean low-sodium diet with 15-minute cooking time wins him over.

    A box arrives each Monday with lunch and dinner ingredients accompanied by easy-to-follow recipe cards. At least two items are new to Alan’s palate — the bitter feta tzatziki sauce and the mellow chickpea curry. He pairs these with pita bread, falafel, and brown rice. There are many other options for balanced nutrition that he tries first, inspiring better jingles for his clients.

    A much cleaner apartment, void of empty-calories snacks becomes the domain for Alan donning a chef’s apron. He salivates over the basil pine nuts when tasting fresh pesto sauce with veggie linguine. His visions of such dishes help him power through morning walks, eventually picking up his pace and dropping more weight.

    The afternoon exotic aroma of tri-colored bell peppers and shallots sautéing in a non-stick pan transports his mind to the falafel’s Egyptian origins. While reserving the tzatziki for later, he devours the chickpea curry and falafel.

A New Awakening

    Before washing the dishes, he unexpectedly dozes off. Upon awakening, he’s opening the same Monday meal kit. With a sense of Deja vu, he follows the identical routine, returning him back to where he began, like a bad board game of Monopoly.

    After three cycles, Alan wonders if he’s blacking out and losing time. But his project deadlines aren’t expiring. In fact, it seems his current client is the purveyor of the meal plan he enjoys. This inspires the slogan, “Yummy Meal Kit is just right for better health and delight.” He thinks that might require more thought — for the third time.

    Reasoning out the trigger that figuratively pushes him to the back of the class, leads him to suspect the savory curry he enjoys. Either he can avoid it or dabble into the untapped ingredient, possibly advancing himself forward in time. Indeed, the combination of chickpea curry with tzatziki keeps him in the present. By omitting the curry, the zesty tzatziki transports him one week into the future.

    This odd revelation has far-reaching implications. So far, the only benefit Alan can monetize from future memories is a better slogan: “Yummy Meal Kit transports tastebuds to distant times, saving time for new adventures.”

A Culinary Revolution

    Excitement and trepidation blend as Alan realizes the potential his time-traveling taste buds offer. Weeks pass, and Alan experiments with the limits of his culinary-induced time travel. He discovers that different meal kit combinations transport him to various points in the past or future.

    A tangy ginger-soy stir fry transports him to China, where he perfects his ability to prepare Asian cuisine. A foray into baking leads him among top pastry chefs in France. Alan’s exotic travels improve in tandem with better cooking skills. 

    He documents his experiences in a blog called “Flavors Across Time.” It gains immense popularity, stirring the fascination of readers who long for culinary time travel. Alan then becomes a sensation with media outlet interviews and public speaking invitations. 

    As the fervor for Alan’s blog reaches a boiling point, he receives an unexpected message from a renowned scientist, Dr. Eleanor Harmon. Intrigued by Alan’s unique experiences, she proposes a collaboration to understand the scientific underpinnings of his culinary time travel.

    When stating her case to Alan, she highlights her experience as a snack food flavorologist. It’s a title held by few scientists in the world. Major food brands depend upon them to develop flavors consumers crave. However, Dr. Harmon felt guilty with her contributions to obesity. Her emotional regret is the reason for falling back on on her quantum physics education.

    Together, they embark on a groundbreaking journey, sautéing Alan’s taste-driven time jumps with Dr. Harmon’s scientific expertise. There is an initial conflict in opinion between commercializing a time traveling device and enhancing a more organic solution.

    The collaboration flambés a revolutionary method of controlling time travel through taste receptor manipulation in conjunction with Alan’s client, Yummy Meal Kit. By blending specific spices and additives known to flavorologists, Dr. Harmon is able to enhance tastebuds. This makes them mimmic the reactions that Alan experiences. Despite Dr. Harmon’s brilliant contributions, Alan garners the foremost fame in the field of temporal gastronomy.

    Alan begins publishing ideal food pairings for optimum enjoyment. As a testimony to the global impact, there is a major shift away from convenience foods. Yummy Meal Kit rises to the number-one delivery service with Alan’s endorsement. Customers learn to cook quick healthy meals while learning the origins of fine dining, culture, and geography.

A Heartfelt Pairing

    Dr. Harmon and Alan begin joint culinary travels, forging a personal relationship that extends beyond the laboratory. As they sit across tables on different continents, enjoying the best food past and present worlds can provide, a mutual connection forms.

    Alan notices a radiance in her smile, while admiring her intellectual conversation. She is drawn to a symbiotic man with simpler background who fulfills her life’s dreams. This leads to a romantic attachment that brings Dr. Eleanor Harmon’s name into the spotlight.

    As Alan’s time travels continue, he reflects on the profound impact his culinary adventures have had on his life and the world. The once pot-bellied writer is now a svelte time-traveling gastronomist, and his journey has inspired generations.

    Alan recalls the bullies that shamed him in school and drove him into reclusively.    They are tangental catalysts for his newfound success. With better emotional and physical health, he is appreciative of every person affecting his personal development.

    Alan now stands at the forefront of a new era, an unassuming man turned pioneer, leaving behind a legacy that transcends the boundaries of imagination. As Alan frequently says when concluding his promotions for Yummy Meal Kit, “Where your next meal takes you depends on the choices you make in the kitchen today.”

The End

This story includes fictional names and brands that have no relation to, nor endorsement for, potentially similar entities.