Day 2 - Value Eating on 01/21/10

Day two of my bookkeeping and I have to say I already find this exercise very interesting. How often have you thought about how much you really spend on one dish? Maybe if we were all aware of the cost of half an onion, the started package of cream cheese – maybe the amount of food going to waste would be less (some statistic I saw once stated that 17% of what the US sends to landfills is food scraps). But before I start another topic, back to Value Eating.

Breakfast. When it is cold outside, I need warm food. Especially breakfast calls for something warm to give me energy to start the day. As much as I admire people that follow the raw diet, I could never do it. Never. So breakfast for me was Fabio & Nicoletta’s Polenta, with a drizzle of honey and a tasty organic blood orange. Cost of this breakfast: 80 cents for the polenta, which I cooked with water, not milk. A teaspoon of honey from our beehive back in Tuscany, which would translate into 15 cents, assuming that a jar of farm fresh honey costs 7$. Finally add 56 cents for the orange and you got the perfect start into the day for 1.51$

Lunch was simple, but not less delicious. I still had to make use of the ¼ baguette left from two days earlier, and as that meant baking it briefly in the oven anyhow, I crumbled two slices of Wisconsin Blue Cheese onto one half of the baguette. While the cheese was slowly melting and the bread gaining a nice crispiness, I briefly sauteed two carrots in a little olive oil. While I still have to be convinced that carrots and blue cheese are the perfect match (but as I mentioned in an earlier post, provisions are really low after having moved in only four days ago), the sandwich did only cost me 87 c (bread), 40 c (carrots), 31c (cheese – I was surprised to see that a 5$ piece of cheese translates into 32 slices. Which kind of freaks me out, cause from a slice perspective it is a lot of cheese and I am worried I might not be finishing it before it goes bad. My next apartment will be chosen only if it has a basement appropriate for the storage & ripening of cheese!). The olive oil I used was so little that I really have difficulties putting a pricetag on it. Assuming it was 25 c worth of olive oil, the HUGE sandwich has cost of 1.83$.

Dinner calculation I have to skip, once more. But I was enjoying a feast prepared by friends for my birthday and that is priceless. Plus, it is rude to ask your host how much was spent on the singular ingredients. Especially knowing that most of what we were savoring had been homegrown, canned and handmade. Priceless in every sense.