Marilyn Haggerty's amazing Olive Garden review and the subsequent viral shitstorm

I buy avocados at Whole Foods and I don't even pay $2 each for them. Organic, no less!

srsly, cooking pasta is about the level of difficulty of, idk, taking a shower

I'm just not good at taking showers, what can I say

yall should move to the city

we have literally just done this conversation in the gay thread

i am incapable of cooking, i also loathe the entire process, and i resent people telling me i "should" cook or "it's so easy, anyone can do it". fuck off!

100% of the time i try to go above pasta or boiling an egg, THINGS GO WRONG

well if you don't resent paying way more to have other people do it for you, fine, but don't make excuses that it all shakes out to the same cost in the end

One of the few advantages of living in Miami: avocados on street corners go for pennies.

the last time i did a big shop i got food for all of our breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for a week and it cost me 200 dollars. that's two adults and two children.

i don't eat out all the time, this is not a defence of shitty chain restaurants

i'm not telling you that you MUST or SHOULD cook, i'm just saying there is no fucking way you are not physically or mentally capable of cooking unless you have a fairly severe disability of some kind.

i mean, can you turn stuff on and off? can you count to numbers like 10 or 20? can you stir?

and LEX just so you know before i had kids i hardly ever cooked. mostly ate out and got take-out. plus, in philly for years i lived in apartments with kitchens that were less than ideal or fun to cook in. kinda made you not want to cook.

frogbs, what recipes are you making that require three green peppers that will be consumed by two people in one meal? Any time I make pasta sauce or chili I use one green pepper, and it makes a vat; I always have leftovers.

i'm just saying that every time i've tried to cook, things have gone badly wrong, and i have NEVER emerged from the horrible process with anything resembling a nice meal. i mostly scavenge apples and crackers and bread and nuts and seeds and yoghurt and stuff. it suits me fine.

well if you don't resent paying way more to have other people do it for you, fine, but don't make excuses that it all shakes out to the same cost in the end

maybe not at Olive Garden but I'd say a lot of local delis/Chinese places/Mexican places will sell you prepared food for roughly the same cost as it would be to make it yourself.

I just imagined lex sweeping the floor for breads, nuts, seeds, and yoghurt :(

That's true in some cases, although you can probably make a fresher, healthier version for about the same price as the carryout.

yeah i would say it's prob possible to eat a selection of takeout that approximates the cost of buying groceries. but you are prob also signing up to die young.

healthy takeout exists

in california

I make basic pasta sauce for 4 with 2 peppers 2 onions 2 tins of tomatoes.

it's perfectly possible to eat healthily and well without a) cooking b) eating out c) ordering take-out.

a) i never do EVER
b) at most once a week, sometimes not even that
c) once in a blue moon when i'm particularly hungover

Grocery bill dickery. Congrats, thread.

Marilyn's review of this thread so far:

"I read the thread. I found some interesting screen names. I also learned that bell peppers, if too expensive, are probably made of gold."

?

frogbs, what recipes are you making that require three green peppers that will be consumed by two people in one meal? Any time I make pasta sauce or chili I use one green pepper, and it makes a vat; I always have leftovers.

stuff like fajitas or stir fry; you use one in the salad, two in the actual meal. I realize that's pretty heavy and probably not what anyone else eats. also there are soups that we make (that are really whole meals) that have like 12 ingredients, that all gets expensive

i swear some of you people are nuts

I can cook. Cooking is the easy part. Navigating the labyrinth of keeping on top of what perishable food items you have, when they expire, what combination you should use them in to avoid spoilage, making sure not to let your leftovers go bad... That's the hard part and that's where the savings of cooking at home truly start to kick in.

frogbs, saying you can't cook a good homecooked meal for under $30 is probably the most offensive thing you've ever said on ilx

Lex cooking pasta:

Fig. 1

http://www.agefotostock.com/previewimage/bajaage/ae675d96406e91458f0d00168cc5f172/OJO-pe0058498.jpg

Fig. 2

http://udleditions.cast.org/indira/docs/all_about_coyotes/glossary-images/panicked1.jpg

it's perfectly possible to eat healthily and well without a) cooking b) eating out c) ordering take-out.

Seriously though, it's not.

Really hate the words "viral shitstorm" together. http://www.christianoutdoorsman.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/two-cents.gif

hi thread, what strange twists have you taken while I've been gone

DJP do you have any solid gold bell peppers in your pantry y/n?

I can cook. Cooking is the easy part. Navigating the labyrinth of keeping on top of what perishable food items you have, when they expire, what combination you should use them in to avoid spoilage, making sure not to let your leftovers go bad... That's the hard part and that's where the savings of cooking at home truly start to kick in.

― Eric H., Wednesday, March 14, 2012 11:17 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, fair. I didn't really master this until I became fully domesticated - you have to do a bit of planning and have a repertoire of kinds of meals you make most of the time. E.g. we always keep some kind of fish on hand, with a few fillets in the freezer and maybe one in the fridge -- you have to remember to throw one into the fridge to defrost and then eat it within a couple days. We have a rotation of three or four very fast and simple ways to make them on a weeknight (in a foil pocket with herbs, broiled with mustard, etc.). We always keep a big thing of salad greens and usually eat salads. Weekends are usually for cooking more elaborate stuff, when we can make a list from a recipe and take it with us shopping.

I have NOTHING BUT solid gold bell peppers in my pantry

yeah, you have to remember to freeze things, mostly

at least ime

I freeze bacon.

it's perfectly possible to eat healthily and well without a) cooking b) eating out c) ordering take-out.

are you sure you are "eating" and not "staring at pictures of food while a tear rolls slowly down your left cheek"

the problem is when you have a wife who is used to cooking Mexican food on the cheap who comes to America and suddenly realizes the ingredients she relies on cost like 5x more

i still maintain that people who eat out frequently don't really waste that much money. maybe $35 is high. but under $20 for a good homecooked meal is tough.

I could name like 10 good homecooked meals off the top of my head that cost less than $20 for two people.

i think you can cook a good homecooked meal for 2 for about $10

Again, that is bonkers. My wife and I eat on about $200 worth of groceries every two weeks, and that's shopping mostly at Whole Foods, AND that includes taking lunches to work.

w/ the caveat that i'm not talking about authentic mexican food, that for sure sounds like a bitch

Our food budget per week for two adults in a not-cheap part of the country (but not London, either) is £70. That generally buys us a bottle of wine, too. We only get free range chicken and eggs and British meat when we buy those things. I make a point of planning most meals for the week at the previous weekend so that I can buy stuff and use it sensibly, and generally make enoguh of main meals to supply lunches later in the week. I freeze some leftovers for much later on, too. It is way more expensive for us to eat out than eat at home, generally. Wife is also amazingly good with vouchers and reward cards and stuff.

Lex, one day I want you to come and visit and cook with me.

are you sure you are "eating" and not "staring at pictures of food while a tear rolls slowly down your left cheek"

this one time when i was pulling an all-nighter and there was no food in the house i did go slightly loopy and GIS pictures of food in the hope that i would somehow be able to download them into my mouth

no, i just eat bits and pieces that don't require cooking. an apple and some crackers with cheese is a perfectly good lunch for example.

i think you can cook a good homecooked meal for 2 for about $10

Spaghetti, butter, parmesan. Done.

Meal-planning is definitely a different skill to cooking. It took me a few years before I'd absorbed enough recipes to be able to look on the fridge, see two leftover vegetables about to go off, and know how to pair them with ingredients in the cupboard or freezer to make a meal. It's a lifestyle thing too. I have kids so I'm used to planning when I'm in and out and who needs to be fed when and it just falls into place. I guess if you're still spontaneously going out for drinks a few nights a week (wistful gaze) then it's harder.

For me a home-cooked meal ranges from about £2 a head (pasta, stir-fry) to maybe £10 a head (expensive cut of fish). I can't eat out for less than £15 at best. You need a new grocer, frogbs.

i can barely plan the bits of my life that matter there are no organisational skills left over for food

so this is going to be a response likely to generate lols and eyerolls but most of the restaurants I go to are $20/person for the entrees alone; add in drinks and appetizers and you are paying considerably more

you're only "saving money" in the frogbs scenario if your idea of eating out is a fast food dollar menu; his $20 meal should be able to feed 4 ppl at least