Invaluable book for 2009
“Cheap. Fast. Good.” by Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross is a terrific recipe book that all my unemployed bros should check out. (The link is an excerpt of the first 40 pages— lots of content for free)
Every recipe in the book promises to feed for under two dollars a serving. All the dishes are heavily layered, so if you take out some of the vegetables and get creative, you can make a lot of it for about one dollar per serving. …Which is perfect to maintain our two-serving meals.
The book is more than a recipe book. It trains the reader on how to perform basic staples of culinary frugality — like buying dark meat chicken when it’s on sale and making chicken stock, then using the tender dark meat as an additive in stews and salads.
A recession is an exciting time to tighten our awareness of our own finances while the government spends itself into oblivion. Since losing the Ticketmaster job I’ve been saving money on food that would otherwise be about 40 percent of my monthly budget. Now, about 17 out of every 20 meals I eat are cooked at home. I thought I was always careful not to eat junk or fried food when dining out, but I still feel healthier than I have in the past few years.
By the way, I was hyperbolizing when I said “Cheap. Fast. Good.” is invaluable: For half the price we can eat twice the food with ten times the substance. I got that equation from Warren Buffett.
