apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

i'm in agreement with you faith. unfortunately and depressingly, i think that most of those u.s. food dollars in that calculation is spent at fast food places. i want my food dollars, like my food calories, spent on high quality high enjoyment high value food.

Bravo! I think you've got a great mission Faith.

I think AT:Kitchen is doing a fantastic job getting people excited about food and cooking at home by offering good recipes, product reviews and intelligent discussions.

Even if everybody cooked at home there would still be a place for good restaurants because people would go to them for inspiration and a truly unique experience. It would be nice to see most of the mediocre places disappear as people figure out ways to comfortably prepare food at home and spend time at their own tables with family and friends.

I need more information. What is the breakdown of solo diners (people who live alone and therefore cook for one), couples (both of whom might work), and families? Seniors v students?

I find Forbes.com the most annoying web site ever. I just do not have the patience to go trough their antics to get to an article. What did I miss?

once upon a time there where nuclear families and extended families where the men went to work and the moms
did the cooking. they cooked what their mom's taught them
and sometimes jazzed it up or tried something they
may have been influenced to make via peer pressure,
media or because they ran out of ingredients and substituted.

in our world today we all work, or don't, or work at home,
or have tiny kitchens or great food available out and at price,
it's a rather wild brave new hungry world. for forbes to try and break it down like that is so well..'forbes-like".

I am sure 2 income familes in small town america are spending way too much at boston market and the olive garden, but for so many now eating in, eating out
are kind of like having an office to go to..we don't,
we work everywhere, eat everywhere.

It seems that there is a revolution in food awareness
and innovation..we have no norms

too much gray area very little in that study. I would love to
afford french laundry or even a crepe on the street in paris once a year but alas we do what we can..some days it's slow food organics and creating new wonderful recipes, other's it's a subway tuna sandwich..


so sue me forbes..

I eat at restaurants embarrassingly often. In fact, I don't think I've had a dinner I cooked myself in over a week (other people have cooked a few days, but still). I'd kill to have the money to go to places like Masa and French Laundry, but I should learn to handle my own kitchen before I throw away 500 bucks on food!

The biggest obstacle to me is time; even when I find a recipe I'm really excited about, my immediate reaction is "well, when the hell am I going to have time to get all these ingredients? Why would I sit in front of the stove for an hour when I could have Chinese in fifteen minutes?" It's frustrating, but it helps explain why I visit restaurants so often.

I cook the vast majority of my meals at home, so when I go out to eat, I want it to be really special, not simply a shortcut dinner. I'd much rather go out to eat once a week at spend $100 than go out to each four times a week and spend $25 at each meal. So if I buy $75 in groceries in a week and spend $75 on dinner, my eating-out budget is pretty high in proportion to my eating-in budget, but I'm still only eating out once a week.

Also, I think the more you cook the easier and faster it gets. You start to have the ingredients on hand, and you know how to make a number of things quickly. The few times I get take-out, it often takes longer than it would have to just make myself something (particularly if I have some frozen homemade pesto or tomato sauce on hand).

Taking the time to cook your own food is definitely a better option than ordering convenient mediocre food. But when I eat out or order in, I don't feel like I'm settling for second best because I don't feel like cooking or can't afford high-end dining every night. Cheap food can be good too. I know my favorite pizza, BBQ, dim sum, arepa, Japanese ramen places all offer better versions of their specialties than anything I could cook up (for now), and it will be cheaper than making it myself.

That said, I know not everyone has those options, and in the back of my mind I always take notes in case I have to leave New York one day and have to make all those things myself. (I always imagine I'll be in the middle of nowhere rather than another city.)

http://www.howtoeatlikeabird.com/

Though I love to cook at home, and do so the majority of the time, I feel like as a New Yorker, it would be a shame to NOT eat out once a week or so, to experience the variety of good food the city has to offer. It's nice to get out and taste someone else's food every now and again...

Even with a 2 year old we try to dine out and really nice places at least once every other week. Not only do we enjoy the food but we are teaching him about how to eat out, exposing him to new foods and places. It has been really refreshing to get better service at better restaurants than the usual "family" places.