Case In Point
For those who felt the $10 challenge on Top Chef last week was obviously rigged, this is the exact dish (thanks, Mr. Vongerichten) I'm making for dinner tonight:
| Dominic Armato |
My itemized bill from Whole Foods:
| 4 bone-in chicken thighs | $2.18 |
| 1 lemon | $1.00 |
| 1 lime | $0.50 |
| 1 grapefruit | $0.67 |
| loose greens | $1.12 |
| 1 red chile | $0.21 |
| TOTAL: | $5.68 |
Out of my pantry, I'll be using some leftover sour cream, a spoonful of miso, half a cup of rice (not pictured), oil, salt and pepper. There's easily enough room under $10 there to get some more chicken (I'm only feeding two and a half, and am only using half the citrus and greens) and some sour cream. A tub of miso would put me over, but I'll let you decide whether or not you believe I could have come up with a tasty alternative. And I assume we can all agree that a cup of rice, oil and salt are pantry staples that, even if you added in prorated costs, would be dirt cheap.
Point being, $10 for dinner for four, even at Whole Foods, is not only doable, I just did it without even trying.
Im a big fan of Jean Georges, but i doubt he charges $5.68 for that dish. I guess thats the harsh reality of cooking things out of restaurant cookbooks. Just thought it was kind of funny.
Posted by: Travis | May 7, 2008 at 07:51 PM
Unlikely... but his restaurant probably makes it better than I do :-)
Posted by: Skillet Doux | May 7, 2008 at 09:08 PM
Now try to do it using out-of-season fruits and veggies and then complain on the BravoTV blogs when, surprise, it's a lot more expensive!
Posted by: Gilby | May 8, 2008 at 12:43 AM
I'm a newcomer to your blog, and a newcomer to the world of foodies. I'm teaching myself how to cook. I gotta say, that looks amazing.
Posted by: Bart | May 8, 2008 at 09:50 AM
That looks delish. Would you mind posting your recipe?
Posted by: wc | May 8, 2008 at 10:51 AM
WC... it IS delicious :-)
But this one isn't my recipe, or else I'd post it. That's a photo from the last time I cooked it, but it's out of the Jean-Georges Vongerichten cookbook I linked to above.
Posted by: Skillet Doux | May 8, 2008 at 11:02 AM
I've noticed this phenomena on other occasions, but your blog post just brought it to the forefront of my mind. When did lemons get so expensive? Also, they're the most expensive citrus? A grapefruit is like 3 times its size, but is still cheaper? Any thoughts?
Posted by: Derrick | May 8, 2008 at 11:21 AM
Derrick... well, size doesn't really mean anything. I mean, a larger fruit will cost a little more to ship from place to place, but I don't think we're talking about an amount that's significant to this discussion. We're talking lemons and grapefruits, here, not lemons and watermelons. There are a number of factors that figure in, seasonality and supply being the two biggest ones, I'd think. I'm not sure where most of the U.S. lemon supply is grown, but if prices are high it stands to reason that they're either out of season, they're being shipped in from overseas, or there just aren't enough people growing them.
But yeah, $1 for a lemon is ridiculous.
Posted by: Skillet Doux | May 8, 2008 at 12:52 PM
Looks really good. I think my one suggestion as to how you could improve it would be to remove the skin.
Posted by: Matt | May 9, 2008 at 01:11 PM