This actually makes a lot of sense. I had no model for this growing up because my parents never had people over and I wasn’t allowed to have friends over past small childhood. Because my mother always thought someone would be judging our house. Which at that point had no hoarding going on so I don’t even know why she thought this. The house was… fine? Small, not fancy, but just a normal middle class house?
So no wonder I struggle with this since not only do I have no model, I grew up being told “people will judge you and your house if you have them over.” This has happened to me in adulthood, people criticizing my apartment’s flaws and pointing out dirt I missed, though not in a while. But there are also plenty who haven’t.
I feel like on that there’s something to be said about getting to initially practise hosting in an environment where the interesting mould growing on the tightly sealed saucepan in the corner of my friends room was a fun conversation starter
I’m sorry people have made you feel like your home isn’t good enough
Me too! I didn’t have a dining room table until recently, so even for dinner parties I had to wing it a bit with tv trays and lots of people standing or perched or on the floor/ easy finger foods and buffet set up, guests bring the drinks, etc. I felt so fancy when I finally had a proper table to host people for dinner! No one ever seemed to mind folding chairs or my cramped old places without A/C, and I definitely kept food costs low too (curries, stirfrys, pasta salads, falafel, etc.).
That’s a benefit of hosting from a young age that I never considered before; you have to start doing it without 100% of all proper “stuff” because you just don’t have it yet. So you learn it’s mostly the vibe and company and food that matter and not having perfect place settings or the most expensive food. I think it makes it a lot lower pressure for future hosting because you know that even if things aren’t perfect, most people will still have an awesome time!
Yeah, so just where does the ride stop? Armstrong says inflation is going up. It’s around 7.5% currently. Ideally “they” want it at 3%.
However he openly admits wages won’t keep up to the levels we have now. And banks don’t want to pay us that much more interest on our money to keep up with inflation. He also says prices won’t drop. So the consumer is falling further and further behind.
So ultimately what I’m seeing is there’s eventually going to be a major contraction of the economy because no one will be able to afford to buy anything other than necessities. Ultimately people have to be paid more just to survive.
Pink, I totally know how you feel. After my divorce my income was cut in half and then inflation hit. I cut every non discretionary expense from my budget and made substitutions when possible that were cheaper. Anything big like car or home repairs has to come out of my savings. Luckily I don’t need clothes and my car although old has low mileage. I have pet insurance for the dogs. Inflation has been brutal this year.
It’s been SO bad, and add the costs of a cross country move to that (which, don’t get me wrong, I have ZERO regrets about) in my case. An acquaintance who’s a realtor here just shared out an article about how all the affordable properties here are being snapped up by investors in cash deals which is only making things worse. I’m really concerned about the housing situation; rents are also likely to go up due to so many major insurers (including whoever was insuring our house, according to our landlord) have pulled out of Louisiana entirely.
I have a lot of “when does this end” worries, for sure.
I used two frozen bags of chopped ham making two huge pots of soup and it turned out really nice. I started with ham hocks and potatoes and onions and garlic and cooked for a long time, then pureed the potato and onion/garlic and added in carrots, cooked that, then added in celery, cooked that, then turned the heat off and added the ham and a bunch of zucchini (I like it crunchy and thin). Really nice! I’m not even missing bouillon now that I have a bunch of ham hocks in my freezer. Those plus salt and spices is A+.
In snack world I took a chance on some Salt and Vinegar pistachios this week (Sprouts) and woah are they good! Highly recommend if you are a vinegar enthusiast.
purchased my half bushel of tomatoes for winter - I have started slow roasting the first batch and butter chicken sauce will be tomorrow. There are a lot of smaller tomatoes, but they seem well ripened and not overly so.
my experimental cold brew with the tinned coffee from 2G2G seems to have worked.
I made my first ever batch of almond flour pasta! It also has eggs, salt, tapioca flour, and arrowroot powder. My verdict is: it’s a start but there’s a lot of work to be done, lol.
The dough looked and handled similar to regular pasta dough at first, minus the gluten stretch. When I rolled it out by hand I could pick it up off the counter easily but only one go through on my pasta machine to flatten it tore it apart. I tried multiple times and also tried chilling the dough. I was going to run it through the machine chilled (and was considering chilling the roller itself, is that crazy?) but by the time that happened I just wanted to be Done In The Kitchen for the day, so TL;DR I made these kind of ugly pastini-adjacent guys. But then, in a twist, I realized the best use for them was in tomato soup…so then I made tomato soup which means I still stayed in the kitchen longer and also didn’t get to see if chilling it worked.
I’ll definitely give it another go with a different recipe, I have some ideas. I don’t want to live a life without pasta and this type of pasta from the store is so expensive I’m too embarrassed to say. If I can figure out a recipe that works reliably AND freezes well? That would be ideal! If it can’t freeze that’s ok too, I mostly want to be able to make tortellini and ravioli again because I really miss that. It’s my favorite thing to do when I’m stressed or anxious because it’s such a soothing motion and sensory experience.
There’s a local restaurant that makes gluten free pasta from “corn and rice flour”. This may be a lead for your recipe hunt? I can buy some to test if you want to know if its any good before going down that route?
I feel like something and tapioca starch will be key - was quinoa a go? I love dried quinoa pasta and it has a higher protein level, like wheat. If I do a pasta experiment I will try buckwheat.
And I have fallen in love with this guy https://youtube.com/c/PlantChompers
On youtube for sciencey breakdowns of nutrition stuff. His episode about wheat and ancient grains was really interesting. When I am having a good health patch I am going to try one! Plus maybe try them for the kids if I can at least safely have them in the kitchen.
Yes, there is tapioca in it! I used a recipe but I will search out others. Quinoa has never been my favorite, the best thing about it IMO is how calorically dense it is, so if you can’t put much in your stomach volume-wise it seems advantageous. But I don’t care for it much, for ancient grains I’ve always preferred farro, millet, freekah, bulgur, barley, or amaranth but as of right now I’m happiest with none at all.
This youtube is a great rabbit hole! I especially like the interview with Marion Nestle. I wonder what MP would say? Haha, because they like Nestle but dislike Ansel Keys so much, and she sings his praises a lot (plus she’s super pro CICO and she likes Pollan).
Alright, bringing back my weekly spending forecast.
Week of 8/22
Monday: Groceries. Budget is $120. We have restaurant reservations on Wednesday and Saturday so there’s no reason we should go over $120. Tuesday: No plans–should do some baby prep stuff. No spend day. Wednesday: I’ve been slacking on bringing my own food to the office. I am still giving myself $5ish for a snack, but I am determined to pack lunch this week. And tea! Dinner out will probably be $100. This is our rich life thing! Won’t be as easy/common to enjoy all of these fabulous restaurants we live near once baby is here. Thursday: DH has kickball. Leftovers and more eps of Indian Matchmaker for me! No spend day. Friday: No plans yet. But might have friends over for Shabbat? There’s no reason we should spend $ on this day–if DH makes pizza there’s always leftovers we could share–but it’s kind of a wild card for now. Saturday: Dim sum in chinatown for a friend’s bday brunch–estimating about $80 for our share? Wedding in the evening, will gift $200. We might drive if we still have access to DH’s grandma’s car. Otherwise CTA there and lyft home, $25. This could be grocery day for next week as well, so $120 again. High spending day for sure but an outlier since it’s a double gift day! Sunday: DH’s parents’ block party. $20 for all you can eat grilled items and beers (for DH…I will bring my own NA, which I already have).
Total spend: $275 for my half. A pretty high spend week, but we’ve got double groceries and a wedding in there so
ETA: OH I forgot we’ve been using Visa Giftcards we got from our wedding to pay for our rich life eating out lol. So that might be covered entirely, or pretty close.
For many days now I have wanted egg salad but the problem was we didn’t have enough mayo, today I looked in the forgotten packet shelf of the fridge and found enough packets of mayo to make it!
I’m trying to avoid trips to the grocery store because I am so bad at sticking to a list and we need to get more creative with the stuff we have at home when we wait longer between trips.
We are out of bread, bananas, lunch meat, and other staples in our house. Mr. Ninja was saying we needed to go to the store to refill things for lunches. In the spirit of making food from what we already have we made pasta and burrito bowls for lunches this week. I am making homemade focaccia today to satisfy all of our bread desires (and more, this recipe uses 1cup of olive oil and it’s amazing).
We have successfully pushed off the grocery store for over two weeks! I’m wondering how much longer we can keep making meals from what we have. Also on the next grocery run I want to be better about sticking to the list so we shall see how that goes.
With pushing off grocery store visits, and not buying food “to stock up” we have gone from $1000-1200/month in food (for two people) to $600-800/month. I’m thinking lower alcohol consumption and work travel are playing into these numbers too but I think every bit helps.
which means I still stayed in the kitchen longer and also didn’t get to see if chilling it worked.
