Enter, one of my favorite things: the open sandwich. These babies apparently have a long and storied history and I like them for a few simple reasons:

1. This time of year, when ingredients are downright beautiful, you get to look at them right before you stuff them in your face (instead of shrouding them in the boring beige additional piece of bread)
2. They are economical as all get out because you use half the bread. Winning.
3. You can usually throw them together out of random stuff you probably have in the kitchen already.

My fave combination lately is some kind of protein salad (egg salad, tuna salad, chicken salad) plus chopped lettuce, some tomato, a drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper, but you can get crazy with it, if you so choose. Happy nomming.

Shoutout to Icons8 for the snazzy icons.

I made these, too.

I’m smart—there, I said it: I am—and I use a huge portion of my brain thinking about so many other, more important, possibly billable, gonna-get-asked-this-on-Jeopardy things, that when it comes to figuring out what’s for dinner I just feel…despondent. Or worse, like I need the guy who runs The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows to name the terrible feeling and make an emo video to capture my angst. So Plated helps me with that: they do the food-thinking and food-inspiration for me so I can get back to pondering important things…like the costs and socioeconomic implications of Dyson spheres.

Google it. Very geeky.

Secondly, their photography is gorgeous and aspirational (for cooking AND photography reasons); their photography is probably the reason I went with them over some of the competition. I mean look at this lovely fish-with-salad thing:

vs. this fish-with-salad thing…

Seriously, is Blue Apron taking photos with iPhones? Sure, I’m doing that, but what’s their excuse?

“Nice salad, Roy. Set it down under these studio lights for a half-hour while I get the camera set up.”

Hope you like gastroenteritis, Roy.