For many people, living and working in the city often leaves little time for planning healthy meals. During the week, it's all about time: you don't have enough or you can't spare any more. This is how most justify zipping through drive-thrus and ordering take-out. But, if you've just left the gym (and barely had time for that), that's the last thing you want to do. That's where Cooking Fools comes in.

Upon looking at the place, passersby may just assume Cooking Fools is a culinary school of sorts, which it is (it offers casual, non-recipe-following classes to teach even the frozen dinner king and queen how not to screw up a decent meal). But Cooking Fools is also a gourmet deli/grocery that prides itself on a wide array of healthy prepared entrees (like the turkey meatloaf with brown rice and garden veggies or the ginger-crusted Mahi Mahi) and homemade soups (gazpacho, chicken chili, etc) and salads (watermelon, tomato and feta, who knew?), making it just as easy and non-time consuming to eat good as it is bad.

One big difference, of course, is the price. Cooking Fools' entrees-to-go range from $9.95 to $17.95 a pound but like anything else, you get what you pay for. Besides, you can always try to find time to take one of the classes and maybe someday, in a year or five, you'll be able to recreate some of the pricey specialties yourself.

Centerstage Reviewer: Jamie Murnane