Monday, September 22, 2008

Good Food is Hard to Find

Maybe I’m just crazy. 

I love to cook really elaborate fancy meals like the kind you see in Gourmet Magazine.

I work full time, sometimes more, and have a daughter in middle school.

I love to eat good food.  To clarify, I like expensive food.

I’m an athlete with a propensity to eat the wrong things at the wrong times.

I need to drop 15 pounds, my partner a little more than that, and our daughter as little more than that.

I’m a vegetarian, my partner eats meat as a condiment, and my daughter is a decided carnivore loving only the finest cuts of prime beef.

I passed out when I realized that my little family of three spends over $300.00 per week in food.

 

Are you for real!!!!! $300.00 per week for food!  That’s $15,600 per year or, for comparison, the amount equal to minimum wage in New York State for 40 hour per week before taxes!  That’s NUTS! 

 

I’m not a chef.  I’m not a nutritionist.  I am a smart businesswoman.  I run a multimillion dollar assisted living community.  I have a full kitchen in my place of business and maintain operating costs right around 6.00 per person per day for three meals. For my family of three that would be equal to 126.00 per week.  Why can’t I run my home kitchen like that?  What is wrong with me?  This is my quest. Can I put together a menu that is:

  1.  enjoyable for all members of the family
  2. healthful and conscious of our propensity to gain weight
  3. comparable to an excellent restaurant
  4. prepared within the confines on my work schedule
  5. costing less than 500.00 per month.

Here we go.  The “Good Family Food” project.  Follow along if you want, I’ll post my thoughts, menus, recipes, successes and failures.  There is no reason I can’t do this.

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