Goodbye to Chef Boyardee, hello mushrooms and mimosas

I have just discovered nirvana. It's the greatest invention since the washer and dryer, and it's pure paradise for moms.

It's called Super Suppers, and for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it's a meal assembly service.

You make 12 meals in about two hours and it costs you about 200 bucks (half that if you go for the three-serving size).

The veggies are already sliced and diced and they whisk away the dirty dishes the minute you're done. All you do is go from station-to-station assembling ready-to-freeze dinners using their recipes and stuff.

No more Tuna Surprise night after night. No more guilt over fast food. And no more screaming kids asking, "When's dinner ready?"

They provide everything. They've got enough spices to keep Emeril "Bam!"-ing for six seasons, and their restaurant-quality cooking utensils would even pass mustard with Martha.

It's like being the star of your own cooking show without ever learning to cook. And at the one near my house, they even serve you wine and appetizers while you work.

To say that Super Suppers (www.SuperSuppers.com) is simply meal assembly understates the magnificence of the concept.

For one thing, the meals are actually healthy. Thanks to Pesto Salmon and Vegetables in Papillote, my kids know what a caper looks like. And after Beef and Mushroom Steaks with Baked Beans, they realized you don't have to shout into a clown's head to get a burger.

But beyond saving my family from fast food and frozen French fries, Super Suppers is saving my sanity in a big way.

The witching hour in my house is 5 p.m. The kids are cranky, I'm trying to wrap up my work, the phone's ringing and the nightly nagging about homework, chores and baths is about to commence.

Pre-Super Suppers, I would succumb to the stress - lose my temper and shake my finger at the kids with one hand while I dialed Domino's with the other. Or I'd grit my teeth, throw a bag of carrots on the table along with the Hamburger Helper and hope those morning vitamins really pack a punch.

My mom faced the same dinner drudgery. As she staggered home from teaching school each day, my brother and I usually greeted her at the door with, "What's for dinner?"

No, "Hello," no, "Can I take that screaming baby off your hip?" Just, "When are you going to feed me, woman?" The fact that I'm alive today is a testament to patience and pot pies.

But while many of us have proven that man (and kids) actually can live on bread alone, science has proven that cooking solo is a completely unnatural state.

A study from the UCLA School of Medicine revealed that when women are hanging out with their women friends, their bodies release a hormone called oxcytocin, a feel-good chemical that cascades all the way through your body and does what Prozac and Percocet can't.

Given this evidence, sentencing a woman to solitary confinement in the kitchen is downright torture.

And herein lies the most magnificent element of Super Suppers: You can go with your friends!

Previous generations may have spent lonely hours in the kitchen with only a whirring blender of margaritas to ease their pain. But now you can grab a few girlfriends and cook up a storm. You may feel too guilty about last week's business trip to leave home for an evening out with the girls, but who can't justify making six servings of Tandoori Pork with Pitas?

Did I mention they let you drink while you cook?

I spent last Saturday morning sipping a Mimosa while I introduced my thirteen-year-old daughter to the Joy of Cooking ? Super Supper style.

The angels sang and the oxytocin flowed as women everywhere tore up their grocery lists, scattered the scraps to the wind and heaved a sigh of relief.

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