Harters, do you have a favorite cheese available at Neals Yard?
I really couldnt pick just one. But I’ve looked at their website to see what they have in stock and, if I was placing an online order today, these are the ones:
Gorwydd Caerphilly
Gubbeen (an Irish cheese that always reminds me of the semi-soft French ones)
Sparkenhoe Red Leicester
Montgomery Cheddar.
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I am still dreaming of the pie I got from Pieminister at the Borough Market. This was vegan, made with jackfruit, ale, and black pepper. Literally better than any meat pie I’ve eaten (and that’s not a small number).
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I’ve had the Cheddar & Red Leicester & they’re very good. Not had the other two. I’m a big fan of their Lincolnshire Poacher.
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I wonder if this side track deserves its own thread. British cheeses or what have you. Shame for it to get lost in a tangent…
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Like many of you, I travel with food related gear, in my case washable utensils, a small knife, cutting board, spices, and a little container of good soy sauce. I go miles out of the way to hit up a farmers market or interesting market that I’ve never patronized before.
And after a few days of restaurant meals, I’m ready for home food. The OP’s situation would drive me nuts.
One of sons gave me this after I scraped the last XYZ college parent sticker off of my car.
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I would’ve had them arrested for trespassing after 2 days.
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You are on a roll! 
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I was being generous. 2 weeks is a likelier scenario, but why bother with hypotheticals.
I second everything you said. I like to go out to try new things. Not typically because other places cook better than I do. Often I’m disappointed with the food I buy. Not always. When we have guests in for more than a couple hours, I like to cook because I know I can please them with the quality and variety of what I can make. It’s still nice though to throw in the occasional take-out for balance and allow the cook to rest. And going somewhere to eat is that, plus a change in atmosphere. But also logistically harder. So we do that some, but not a ton. Otoh, when we travel, I’m not about the cooking usually. If I have the energy to pre-research, then meals become part of the travel experience. If I don’t, and it’s just a crapshoot, then we may do fewer of those out meals (1-2 per day instead of 3) and the remainder, eat some things we picked up in a grocery, bakery, or market.
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Number of days for out food? That depends on the budget and what’s available. Around here, 1 day is plenty.
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In the Before Times, I used to eat lunch out every day, and since I worked at home I’d take more than an hour and read books at the table. There are plenty of different restaurant cuisines here so it didn’t get boring. With the lockdown, I rarely eaten lunch out anymore. I’m a little surprised at how much money I’ve been saving.
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I am saving money because I’m eating out less, and buying more takeout food from bakeries and gourmet shops than restaurants, and buying a lot less fast food and low end takeout.
But I’m spending way more on groceries, splurging on more top quality cuts and vegetables, shopping at more indie grocers and butchers that charge a little more than chains at the same time that restaurant prices are escalating quickly.
I haven’t compared what I’m spending now to what I was spending in Jan & Feb 2020, but everything costs more and I’m spending at least 3 times as much on groceries, but I’m probably spending 1/3 as much on actual restaurants.
I also basically am a teetotaler now, so that’s a cheaper lifestyle. Cocktails at the restaurants I like cost around $18 - $20 Cdn before tax and tip.
I can buy a small ribeye steak to cook at home with that $20 Cdn.
Or 2 quarts of local raspberries and a baker’s dozen corn on the cob (that cost me $20 Cdn today!)
My restaurant ordering style has changed, as well. When I get a take-out order for my family, I tend to spend around $80- $120 Cdn, which will probably allow for lunch leftovers the next day. When I’m solo, I tend to keep my takeout order to less than $40 Cdn, which is enough for dinner for one and maybe leftovers for breakfast or lunch. I didn’t used to order take-out planning for it to last 2 meals.
The Toronto Board has a burger and fries metric thread running. It’s become a game for me to order around $80 of food off the menu, plus our sales tax and tip, and seeing how much I get for roughly $100 Cdn when I order take-out.
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When we travel in Europe, we are “done in” after about a week, and our meals out become more and more simple. Sometimes we’ll pick up prepared food at specialty markets to eat in our rental apartments, but I tend not to really cook while we’re away.
At the Cape (we go one or two weeks every summer), we’ll eat dinner out maybe once, and maybe out for lunchtime oysters at Mac’s, but otherwise we cook dinners in and pack lunch for the beach, or come home for lunch. Restaurants at the Cape are expensive, and mostly mediocre, compared to what we can make in a well stocked rental home. Same for when we go to the Caribbean – we used to enjoy going out most nights, but have come to prefer eating in (and yes, we bring some of our own food from home). Eating out every night/day for a week or more would simply do.me.in.
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I think what most people tend to overlook in the cost of eating out or eating at home is the cost it actually takes to make the food at home.
Aside from the time/labor to make the food (and the cleanup), one also has to account for the cost of buying (and maintaining) the equipment to make the food, from the refrigerator to the stove to the knives, utensils, etc. as well as the spices and seasonings one has to have to make the food at home. And don’t forget the cost of the actual physical space to store all those things, as well as the space to cook the food. Those are not insignificant costs.
So depending on what and how one orders food at a restaurant (or for takeout) and depending on how one cooks at home, there may actually be cost parity between the two camps and in some instances it may actually be cheaper to eat out.
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But the fridge, stove, utensils, cookery, etc. are one-time capital costs. You don’t save on them by eating out, and they’ve amortized drastically over the years. Today’s homemade ramen with fresh noodles, leftover steak, asparagus, snap peas, and BtB broth took ten minutes at a cost of about $3.00.
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I usually get palate and wallet fatigue after about three consecutive days of eating out. We camp near major cities fairly often and I’m often doing a mental calculation of opportunity cost in missing foods local to where we’re visiting versus eating frugally. If money and waistline were no object, I could easily eat out 3 to 4 meals a week. In fact, if we’re counting coffee and pastries, I probably do.
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I remember a cashier telling me she didn’t bake cheesecakes at home because of the cost of using her oven.
Interestingly, back in the day, a communal oven was used in many parts of the world. (Esp Greece and Italy)
A friend sent me this link to “recipes”, which are essentially main meals assembled from Aldi ingredients/convenience products. I was struck by how expensive they still are, especially meals containing meat.
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Agreed.
But if all you did was eat out (and never at home), you would either (1) never buy the fridge or (2) sold it to recover some of the sunk costs of the price of fridge.
My point being that when comparing cost of eating out versus in, the math isn’t as simple or as 1:1 as price of restaurant (or takeout) meal versus price of food at grocery store.
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