Date nights just got a little tastier - and not in the way you might think. After many couples start to settle into a relationship, their routines can shift to be on the comfortable side. The pull to curl up in sweats with your significant other to Netflix and chill, in the literal sense, is strong. But where’s the romance in that?
A new box subscription, called Culinary Cupid, is looking to revive date night at home. Yumna Jawad, a mother and social influencer working out of her home, is behind the venture, which recently launched a Kickstarter campaign. And with these boxes, she’s hoping to bring couples closer together with minimal planning on their part.
According to Jawad, the inspiration for Culinary Cupid was her Instagram account, Feel Good Foodie. She uses the account to share pictures and videos of food she’s prepared, along with simple recipes. And it’s gained more than two million followers.
Culinary Cupid is less about the food and more about the experience.
“I said to myself, ‘Two million followers: Wow, I need to monetize this,’” Jawad laughed. “I’m a foodie, so I believe there’s no better way to connect with another person than through food.”
Working with a family out on the West Coast, Jawad zeroed in on couples, so the subscription box comes with all the makings of an entertaining date night in. Each month, there’s a new box focused on a different region of the world. It provides you with a Spotify playlist to set the mood, a recipe card, as well as the hard-to-find ingredients and a cooking instrument that go with it. Lastly, Culinary Cupid provides subscribers with a game and conversation topics to facilitate playfulness and discussion once the cooking is completed.
For example, one of the boxes will include the instructions to make homemade sushi. It includes some ingredients (like wasabi), the bamboo mat used to roll sushi and activities for you and your sweetie to do together. All you have to do is pick up the rest of the ingredients, say sushi grade salmon, and you’re ready to get cooking.
“There are a lot of other subscription boxes out there,” Jawad said. “They’re all pretty similar: They give you a recipe card for the week, the items to cook a meal so you can put something together and voilŕ! I’ve done a lot of them and have been a subscriber for some. But Culinary Cupid is less about the food and more about the experience. It’s more about, ‘Let’s put our phones away and pay attention to each other.’”
In fact, each Culinary Cupid box includes a sound-proof pouch in which couples can put their phones, forcing them to be all in during date night. “You enjoy the food more that way,” Jawad added.
Culinary Cupid lets you know the themes of upcoming boxes 30 days in advance, so you can opt in or opt out on a monthly basis, depending on your culinary preferences.
From $20, you could land your first month of Culinary Cupid through the Kickstarter campaign. And if you’re a big spender who really wants to woo your date, spending $5,000 through the campaign will hook you up with a private cooking class with Top Chef’s Chad White and Next Food Network Star’s Aaron Crumbaugh - airfare and accommodations included.
Photos are screen shots from Kickstarter page.
