Recipe kits bring the world to your dinner table

Global warming and the recession may have delivered a one-two punch to many consumers’ travel plans, but that doesn’t mean people can’t still enjoy an exotic escape of a different kind. Enter Destination Dinners, a San Francisco company that offers a wide variety of dinner kits replicating dining experiences from around the world. Bangladesh, Jamaica, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Israel, Lebanon and New Orleans are all regions that customers can ‘visit’ gastronomically by means of Destination Dinners’ recipe kits, which come complete with everything necessary to create a local-style meal. Premeasured spices, sauces and dried items are part of every package, as are step-by-step instructions, a shopping list for fresh ingredients, and fun facts and trivia about the destination in question. The Destination Dinner kits are designed to serve four adults and are priced at USD 25 or USD 30. A line of dinner party kits is also available—including serving pieces, placemats, bowls, trays and even music CDs—as is a “Destination Passport” plan that ships one dinner kit plus a corresponding cooking or serving tool each month. Offering a healthy platter of dining insperiences along with a generous serving of status skills to boot, Destination Dinners currently focuses on shipping within the United States. One to help bring to home-bound culinary adventurers in your neck of the global woods…? (Related: Cuisine in a box — Ready-to-cook meals delivered to busy urbanites — Modern wine paired with ancient Roman cuisine.) Spotted by: Jim Chiang