AskDong

The past three years, my girlfriend and I have hosted an annual holiday party at our apartment for about 30-40 people. This party is pretty much the one big social event that we host a year. We have people over for dinner throughout the year, and I host poker games every so often. However there’s a big difference between cooking for 6 versus 40.

Last year was culinary extravaganza.  I made food ranging from fresh spring rolls to empanadas. We even had a Turducken.  The food turned out only OK. It’s extremely difficult to both set a menu that’s appropriate for a wide range of people, and to prepare it in a manner so it’s warm when it should be and cold when it needs to be.  More importantly, it was bone tiring.  We were preparing the night before. We were prepping the morning of.  We were still cooking when guests arrived. I ended up serving the cold food warm, and the warm food cold.

This year we decided to do something different.  We had half of the food catered. Catering may not be right word.  We didn’t have waiters and waitresses in white shirts serving hor’dourves.  We had big tins of pasta, salad, and eggplant from our favorite local whole in the wall pasta place, Basta Pasta.  The catering was $200 for pasta, salad, and a eggplant parmigiana like appetizer. I was taken aback originally by the cost of the catering, but in the end I relented.  I wanted it easy.

All said and done the cost of the holiday party this year was about the same as what it cost last year.  While the ingredients for the catered food would’ve run only about $70 at most, catering was still a good deal.  Part of this is a result of my own predilections . I prefer cooking many different dishes rather than a big batch of something.  Partially it’s just not very easy cooking pasta for 40 at home.   Had I opted to make pasta, I would’ve made pasta for 10 and paella for another 10 or something like that.  Cooking different dishes is almost always more expensive.  Ingredients are not used as efficiently. More importantly, having half the food catered was a real time saver.  I was actually able to interact my guests before 9pm, and even managed to shower before they arrived which they were greatly thankful of.

As we give thanks for our blessings, I thought I would look at it what it costs to do Thanksgiving.  Entertaining and feeding guest can be expensive, but being anti-social is personally costlier in the long run.

In many regards the traditional Turkey dinner is one of the more affordable dinners to put together for large group of people.  I’ve put together the prices from peapod.com (Stop and Shop’s Home delivery arm).  I’ve always been a guest at Thanksgiving and have no real life experience with a turkey dinner so if this estimate doesn’t meet the muster of a real host, I apologize.  Turkey on a per lbs basis is very affordable.  The real investment is in time spent of preparation.  By my estimates a healthy sized turkey dinner is about $5.43 per person which includes plenty of leftovers for all.

One of the great things about the holiday season is the opportunity it affords all of us to share our good fortune with those who might be away from family and friends.  I hope everyone is doing this and having a great Thanksgiving.  

As I stated a few weeks ago, I’ve been trying to cut back on how much meat I eat. I think I’ve been doing an OK job.  When I have eaten meat which is still pretty often, it’s mostly been chicken which is environmentally friendlier than red meat.  In the end though, I love my steak.  The other night I found myself home alone with no plans and grumbling stomach. My options were:

1. pick up some take out
2. or pickup some groceries and make myself dinner.

I decided on the latter. I went to the grocery store across the street and picked up just enough for dinner of one. I picked up a small steak, some broccoli, and a roll, all for a little less than $4. I could’ve easily paid less for my groceries if I planned my shopping or paid more had I gone to Whole Foods. The grocery store I went to is probably pricier than most. It’s in city of Boston, and is a grocery store of convenience rather than one at that people do a week’s worth of shopping.

Steak Dinner for One:

• .5 lbs Boneless stip sirloin, 3/4 of inch thick.
• .5 lbs Brocolli
• 1 Roll
• butter, salt and pepper

Season steak on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat up a frying pan on high, and melt a pat of butter. As the butter begins to bubble, place steak onto the frying pan. Brown each side for 1 minute.  Lower the heat to medium and continue to cook the steak, flipping periodically.  The outside should be nicely browned. For rare to medium rare (the way I like my steak), each side should cook for a total of 3-4 minutes.

Wash and trim Broccoli to large bite size crowns. Heat up at high a frying pan or a wok. Pour a tablespoon of vegetable oil into the hot pan. Toss broccoli into the pan/wok, and add some water. Season with salt to taste. Cover and cook. Toss every 30 seconds to ensure the the broccoli cooks evenly. 5 minutes of total cooking time should be enough for crunchy yet tender broccoli.

Total Cooking Time: 15 minutes

For a quick comparison, a similar meal at Outback Steakhouse in Boston would’ve have run $13.64 not including tip.  I used the “Outback Special” which if my recollection is right runs $12.99 for a sirloin strip.  It’s one of the better values on the menu.  To be honest and immodest I thought my steak was better.

While I love eating at a nice steakhouse, steak is also one of the easiest things to prepare at home.  If I were comparing the price difference between my steak at home vs. a nice steak house, it would be close to a factor of 10.  Though I’m not sure if my steak would be as good as a $30 steak at the Morton’s or the Capital Grille.  Though I’m convinced that the steak at Morton’s is not 10 times better than a $3 steak.

While my blog probably does not reflect it, I’m a bit of a foodie.  Hopefully not in the snobby sense.  I just love food.  I will try to do more dining comparisons in the future and share some recipes.  Today I decided to “share” what is probably the most basic meal that one can make.

The other day I poured myself a glass of Gatorade, the standard lemon/lime flavor. I like Gatorade, and often have it stocked at home. As I finished my glass, I thought to myself “I think I felt like having water.” At that moment, I decided I was going to stop buying Gatorade, and other drinks for my home. I’m not going to stop drinking Gatorade. I like a nice bottle of Gatorade halfway through a round of golf on a hot day. Nor will I stop ordering a coke with a slice pizza when grabbing a quick bite out. I really like having soda with Pizza.

What I want to stop is consumption by default. I pay about $4/gallon for my Gatorade, and buy a gallon every two weeks, approximately. We’re only talking about $8/month at most. I know those thinking about the “Latte Factor” are adding it up, thinking that’s over $6000 in 20 years at 10% rate of return.  That’s not as much the 53 thousand or so that cutting the $3.5  latte a day would would net you in 20 years, but it’s something.  However, my main point is not even so much how I can save by not drinking Gatorade. The savings are minimal in comparison to many other things I do. A round of golf in the Boston area at a decent but not super nice country club can easily be $50. Two rounds of Golf, and I’ve paid for a whole year’s supply of Gatorade, and I play easily more than 2 rounds a year.

I define my frugality not by a desire to save money but rather to spend money, spend money on the things, people, and experiences I truly want. What the Gatorade represents is consumption by default. Do I really want to spend money on Gatorade? Sure, I like it well enough. But, I like water (tap that is) well enough as well. Often times as consumers we will consume out of habit rather than desire. How many things in your pantry do you consume just out habit? Buy it, eat it. Rinse, and repeat.  By not buying Gatorade everytime I shop for groceries, I’m taking one more small step towards ending the cycle of consumption.

p.s. If I really do want to spend money on Gatorade, I should really look into
Buy Gatorade powder and making it on my own. An old roommate used to do this, and while not quite the same, it wasn’t bad.