Welcome to The Receipt, a series documenting how Bon Appétit readers eat and what they spend doing it. Each food diary follows one anonymous reader's week of expenses related to groceries, restaurant meals, coffee runs, and every bite in between. In this time of rising food costs, The Receipt reveals how folks-from different cities, with different incomes, on different schedules-are figuring out their food budgets.
In today's Receipt, see how a 55-year-old woman living in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin manages food for her, her two kids, and a husband, whose $150,000 salary covers groceries. Keep reading for her receipts.
What are your pronouns? She/her
What is your occupation? Chef/nanny/Uber driver/personal shopper/toilet scrubber/gardener/mom/wife person. I was a private chef when we had our first child, and it made no sense for me to cook and clean for someone else so I could pay someone to do it not as well as me so I unofficially retired. I've tried to work a few times, but cooking is a job that doesn't allow for family emergencies or vacations so it's never stuck.
How old are you? 55
What city and state do you live in? Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
What is your annual salary, if you have one? We are a single income family, with two boys, age 17 and 10. My husband makes $150,000 annually working for a German renewables company. I don't know what he does. I call him Chandler Bing for this reason.
How much is one paycheck, after taxes? After health and other insurances and 401(k), it's $4,200
How often are you paid? Bi-weekly
How much money do you have in savings? $80,000 in 401(k), $13,000 in savings
What are your approximate fixed monthly expenses beyond food? (i.e. rent, subscriptions, bills)
Do you follow a certain diet or have dietary restrictions?
No, but my family each has "preferences," which is why I run a kitchen without running a kitchen anymore. My husband likes to pretend he's keto until I go to bed, and then he eats a big bowl of granola and whatever is left over from dinner. The teenager is never here, but when he turns up he lives on sandwiches and frozen pizza and BBQ chips. The little one sucks at eating and I feel like a failure. He'll eat mozzarella sticks with marinara or cheese pizza, but not burrata and tomatoes from the garden. For him, I throw carbs and salad and fruit his way until dinner, when I load him up on whatever special version of our dinner I made. I am trying to be less resentful. It's not working. For me, it's candy I stash all over the house and apples and half the salad before I call dinner and serve them. There is always salad. It's my thing.
What are the grocery staples you always buy, if any?
How many sentences do I have? If you came to my house and named a cuisine I could make you something from everywhere probably. Stand-outs would be El Pato salsa in the green can, Mae Ploy tom kha and green curry pastes and coconut milk to make quick soup, all the beans because the picky kid loves beans, Better Than Bouillon in all the flavors. Sartori grated Asiago and Parmesan, naan, and pretzel rolls.
How often in a week do you dine out versus cook at home?
We hardly ever eat out. We live in a resort town of 10,000 people and most of the food is really bad. I can make anything I want to eat and nothing is worth the inevitable disappointment. I eat fast food sometimes. If I'm doing errands and run across a Popeyes or Arby's, I'll go. Jon Stewart is wrong.
How often in a week did you dine out while growing up?
Never. My dad is the cheapest human alive.
How often in a week did your parents or guardians cook at home?
My mom made dinner every night until she fell off a ladder when I was 12, and I became her caretaker. That's how I started cooking. I'd go across the street to the local grocery store, Ralphs, and push back a cart over the median. This was the '80s, so they didn't have the wheel locks. I became addicted to flank steak and gummy bears. My mom would send a blank check and I'd fill the cart with junk because no one could stop me. I have never seen my father make a single thing besides a sandwich. My step-mother does it all.
The 10 year-old comes down and asks for Cheetos. I am still exercising some sort of control over his diet, so I tell him no and make him an everything bagel and cream cheese.
5:38 a.m. Marco the dog is licking my nose telling me he has to go out, so that's the alarm. It's coffee immediately when we come back in. I am very analog when it comes to my daily cup. I want water, grounds, pressure-no electronics or unnecessary equipment. I use a 6-cup Moka pot, a mix of dark Kona and espresso beans ($7.99 for Kona, $8.99 for espresso, previously bought), and water from Hygeia Spring, which is a natural spring that a nice man named Curtis allows people to access for donations. We go every few weeks to fill 3-gallon bottles and visit a bit and pet his spaniel Charlie. We donate however much cash we have, sometimes $20, sometimes $6, and sometimes none and make up for it next time. Last time, I gave $10.
I use the water for all my cooking, including pasta. Wisconsin has super hard water with lots of iron, so we have to treat it with sodium or something. Whatever it is, I don't want it in my food. The refrigerator has a filter but the sink doesn't, so randomly driving past Curtis's on our way to Milwaukee and noticing the people gathered and the painted sign was a real gift.
I get to drink my coffee in total silence and pet Marco and look at my garden to see if things are growing back now that we've trapped Larry the groundhog, who was eating my dahlias and best tomatoes. Don't worry. We let him out in the woods to go chuck some more.
10:15 a.m. It's the last week of summer vacation, so the 10 year-old comes down and asks for Cheetos. I am still exercising some sort of control over his diet, so I tell him no and make him an everything bagel (from Original Bagel Co. previously bought for $3.79) and cream cheese. I buy the blocks of Philadelphia ($2.79, previously bought) and whip them in the Cuisinart with a bit of garlic and cracked pepper. I have three separate grinders with Sichuan, black, and white peppercorns so I do a lot of the pink, a tiny twist of white, and a bunch of black. The containers of pre-whipped are convenient, but they're so foamy and you can't taste the tang.
3:30 p.m. We have three places to shop in Lake Geneva: Piggly Wiggly, Aldi, and Walmart. I hate all of these places, but I also hate driving. I do a big shop twice a month at the stores I do like that are at least 40 minutes away and fill in accordingly in between. The Pig has Donkey tortilla chips (salted, $4.29) and Oberweis Ice Cream, two Illinois rock stars I can't live without, so I try to start there if we run out of anything. It's also where I buy Yuppie Hill Poultry eggs. We don't eat that many but I need them for pancakes and cookies so I keep them on hand.
I'm out of both chips and ice cream so I go to the Pig. Every flavor I like is out or has that sticky drip on the side so I get two pints of Ben & Jerry's, which is on sale (normally $5.99, now $3.99). I check the half-price bakery rack and get the teenager a rhubarb pie ($3.49) for his midnight horfing and hide the ice cream under the samosas in the freezer. I get a giant bag of M&M's ($6.99) to go with my nightly popcorn, some more rechargeable batteries for the TV remote because the teen threw away the last pair, and half and half ($4.19) even though I have to pay twice as much here as Woodman's, where I do the big shop.
4 p.m. The younger kid wants the aforementioned Donkey chips and salsa. El Pato in the green can ($0.89, previously bought) is the only one we can accept in our house if I don't make it. I give him enough to hopefully tide him over until dinner, which is grilled chicken that has been marinating overnight in leftover peanut sauce from the bok choy I made on Saturday. Husband will also get basmati rice and some stir-fry veg bin speciale. The little one will eat his chicken with cucumbers because cooked vegetables are very terrible to him unless that vegetable is a fried potato or ketchup. The teen will probably be out all night and I'm on the couch eating my secret sour Haribo Smurfs ($1.59).
6:30 p.m. Husband is still in a meeting and little is hungry, so I pull the Weber out of the garage and start the coals in the chimney. Back inside, I chop up some carrot, celery, sweet onion, some bedraggled cilantro, the rest of the bok choy and some shishitos I picked, along with some flowering Thai basil. The shishitos and the Thai basil are from my garden, and the rest are from Farmstand. For whatever reason, the Italian variety of basil doesn't like my garden, but this pretty purple lady LOVES it and has given me so much for so little all summer. I cooked a batch of rice the other night so there is plenty.
After cooking on a tiny electric stove for years, I still forget the stove in the house we bought last year has a wok-burner. I don't know how many woks I've thrown away in the past three decades, but the current one gets a workout. In goes a few splats of light olive oil, a few drops of sesame oil, a big clove of garlic roughly chopped, a piece of chopped pickled ginger which I keep on hand instead of moldering knobs, the veg, and a splash of mushroom soy sauce. I stir a few times, add another splash of soy sauce and dump in the rice. The sizzling is what gets me. I never could get it to sizzle the right way with electricity. I hate induction. You can't move your pans the same way. You'll never convince me they're for anything but boiling water in less than a minute. Fire is a soulful element that can't be replaced with voltage.
8:30 p.m. It's treat and TV time. The Cherry Crumble ice cream I bought is such a disappointment. It's soggy and weird and I should have known better. I eat over half the Cherry Garcia to console myself. We're watching Five Days at Memorial. That Vera Farmiga is such a delight, isn't she?
Total: $29
One giant sandwich is easier to manage building and cutting than doing a bunch of small ones. I have a feeling the time saved is negligible, but I do stuff like this passive aggressively when I feel underappreciated.
6:30 a.m. Marco let me sleep in so coffee time alone is going to be shorter. Spouse has an early Tuesday call with Australia so I give him the first cup and start another for myself. We should probably get a bigger Moka pot at this point.
10 a.m. Teen stayed out again and little is still asleep so I do some weeding in the garden and pick a quart or so of cherry peppers to make giardiniera out of and some tomatoes for the BLT's we'll have for lunch.
11:15 a.m. The child has declared his hunger so I start frying the bacon and toasting the bread. I buy ciabattas on sale at Walmart ($0.79, previously purchased) and keep them in the freezer for this purpose. One giant sandwich is easier to manage building and cutting than doing a bunch of small ones. I have a feeling the time saved is negligible, but I do stuff like this passive aggressively when I feel underappreciated. The bacon is cottage style ($9.99 purchased previously), which I like because there is way less fat to render and the pieces don't fall apart the way regular slices do.
He doesn't appreciate the perfect heirloom Cherokee Purples I'm growing, so I squirt Kewpie up and down both sides of the loaf. I cover it with green leaf lettuce, sticking slices of the tomato on half of the bread and sprinkling with Maldon flakes and cracked black pepper. I'd like to pretend we saved some for my husband but we did not.
1:15 p.m. The kid is hungry again! Shocker! I wave him off to the pantry to find something until I get off the couch to make him something. He grabs a Cosmic Crisp apple, Justin's honey peanut butter, and Utz dark sourdough pretzels. He also nabs a handful of Smurfs because I left them out and he caught me.
5:00 p.m. We're like seniors at the early bird special. We just went to an open house at the elementary school and came home to eat leftover chicken. I make a salad this time since the rice got used up. Green cabbage ($1), red cabbage ($1), pickled purple cauliflower ($3), pickled kohlrabi ($1), Cypress Grove PsycheDillic goat cheese with dill ($3.50), and some roasted sunflower seeds ($2.29). (All this was previously bought from Pearce's and Fresh Farms.) I toss it all in extra virgin oil to thoroughly coat, squeeze half a lemon, and finish it off with my trusty Maldon, the pink, and black peppercorns. I can't stress the importance of my pepper grinders enough. A different color pepper changes the profile in ways you can't imagine until you try. The three color one is a good intro, but if you can have all three, it's worth the expense.
7:00 p.m. Caftan, popcorn, M&M's, Ms. Farmiga, meds, night night.
Total: $0
The husband and I headed to the abandoned golf course to look for mushrooms. We take a path we haven't tried before and are stunned to find a cauliflower mushroom in a circle of tiny hickory trees.
4:55 a.m. Marco is early and I am not into it, but I take him out and knock a few beetles into my soap bucket while I wait for him. Coffee is the exact same every day because even if I wanted to go somewhere in town to get it, nothing is open this early.
9:00 a.m. The kids aren't up (the teen actually stayed home!), but I decided to make some biscuits and gravy. When I was new to the mothering game, I insisted on making everything by myself, but 17 years later, I let myself be persuaded by the Pillsbury Doughboy ($1.79, previously bought). Yes, mine are better, but the kids eat so fast that how could they tell the difference? I double the biscuits so they puff up and become gigantic. I use Impossible Sausage ($4.99, previously bought) in the chub for the gravy because it's one less dead animal we're eating and that's always a good thing. I use butter for the extra fat it needs to make the roux, sprinkle the browned "sausage" with White Lily flour, add a sprinkle of coffee grounds, black pepper, ground garlic, and whole milk. No salt. The sausage is full of it-almost to the point of too much, which is why it makes a very bad patty. I leave it all on the stove for when the kids wander down.
12:30 p.m. We're out of fruit so it's time for the farm stand. I try as hard as I can to only buy locally in the few months of growing season we have. That means it's cantaloupe, peach, and Zestar apple time at Pearce's, which doesn't open until 4th of July weekend. There are no apples yet and no jam boxes of bruised peaches, which are always a find because I cut out the bad spots and freeze the rest for smoothies.
All the Michigan stone fruit is late this year, so it seems like we've been eating berries forever. I smell a few cantaloupe and pick the most fetid one, knowing it's the stink that means the inside will be sweetest ($3). After a day in my kitchen, it will need to be cut or the smell will be almost unbearable. I pick a half dozen ears of sweet corn ($0.75 per ear), husking them over a bin while I eavesdrop on a couple next to me talking about the property taxes going up again and the potholes still not being fixed out on Highway H. The way back to the cashier is past the bakery, so pumpkin bars ($4) and pumpkin bread ($6) go in the cart alongside maple syrup ($8), a ¼ watermelon ($1.50), and four sunflowers from a white bucket at the end of the counter ($1 stem), among other things. The kids are both gone when I get home so I'm off the hook for food until dinner.
8:00 p.m. The boys ended up staying out, so the husband and I headed to the abandoned golf course to look for mushrooms. There has been an ongoing battle between the city council and the trustee as to what to do with it, so in the years since it went out of business, it's turned into an ash and oak jungle, tall fields of milkweed, and wild grape. Huge sycamores, cracked in half by lightning, are home for families of oyster spores and hen of the woods. We take a path we haven't tried before and are stunned to find a cauliflower mushroom in a circle of tiny hickory trees. A walk around the perimeter, and we've found two more. I have been envying my friends' crazy mycology posts for years, and while I've found plenty of "regular" mushrooms like morels and chanterelles, something like these are special. A quick Google tells me I'll be going back every year until they turn it into condos and never tell a soul which path we veered off.
When we get home, I wash and pat the mushrooms dry, slice, oil and season them, pour a few capfuls of sherry vinegar over the tops, and put them on a sheet pan. I preheated the oven to 500 degrees so they sear when they hit the surface. I turn the temp down to 425 and roast them for 20 minutes, turning them over once.
They go on a platter with some arugula from the garden, and get dusted with grated Asiago ($2.50, previously bought). We eat them with a baguette ($0.99, previously bought from Fresh Farms) I pulled out of the freezer from the market.
9:30 p.m. I am still awake for some reason, so we decide to watch another episode of Vera. I make popcorn. I make a pan of Select white Jiffy Pop ($3.69, previously bought). Then I melt French butter with a squirt of the terrible orangey-yellow popping oil in a mug in the microwave. I pour it over half, toss it, add the rest of the pan and toss again, liberally dosing it with the gross yellow salt that matches the death oil. It's perfect.
Total: $31.12
Sometimes I make something so tremendous that I feel like Nigella Fucking Lawson.
5:50 a.m. Coffee is made, dog is walked, school supplies are packed, snacks are in the backpack and I'd like to go back to bed now but it's the first day of school for the 5th grader, and I'm going to make him a smoothie using the labneh I always have on hand ($3.29, previously bought), hemp protein ($16, previously bought), tart cherry juice ($6, previously bought), frozen peaches, and frozen blueberries. I freeze the squishy blueberries that they won't eat and use it for smoothies; they are truly spoiled and they have no idea. I also add a splash of flax oil, though not enough to taste. He'll know and won't drink it.
10:00 a.m. I start heating coals for a salsa I'm going to make with vegetables from the garden. This was the year I got serious about feeding and mulching, and it paid off. I finally have the "too many tomatoes' problem I've heard about and I am so happy each time I give away my babies.
I put a mix on a sheet pan: all the peppers (whole but stems off), a few small green tomatoes, a dozen tomatillos, five Japanese eggplants the size of baby bananas, and a red onion peeled and cut in half. (The vegetables were from my garden except for the onion, which was probably $1 at Pearce's.) They're all rubbed with my best Ligurian olive oil ($35, previously bought), kosher salt, garlic powder, and cracked black pepper. I don't own any ground pepper. It's wrong. Like ground coffee.
When the coals are ready, I put the sheet pan on the grill. This sheet pan has been my favorite for almost 20 years. It's like a seasoned cast iron skillet; things taste better when I roast and bake using it. When the vegetables are smoky and blackened enough that the sticky juices are running, I throw them in the Cuisinart with a squeezed lemon and season until it hits the sweet spot of salt, sour, smoke, spice.
11:15 a.m. Husband makes a lunch appearance looking for whatever he smelled earlier (the salsa). We heat up some naan (another freezer staple, $5.69 for 10 pack, previously bought), spread it with labneh and top with baby cukes, some gyro meat (another freezer staple, $4.99 previously bought), and the salsa, which is still warm. I am fairly modest about being a really excellent cook, but I'll give myself some credit here. It's one of the best roasted salsas I've made that I can remember. Spouse agrees. This is what I quit my job cooking to do and sometimes I feel resentful and FOMO. I never get thanked for any of the work I document here. I'm usually so burnt out that I serve whoever is here and retreat to my blue velvet couch in my pajamas. But sometimes I make something so tremendous that I feel like Nigella Fucking Lawson, and I think to myself I AM A DOMESTIC GODDESS MOTHERFUCKER AND DON'T YOU EVER FORGET IT.
3:45 p.m. I make an afterschool snack of Kraft Deluxe Mac and Cheese ($6.99 for a three-pack, previously bought) for the young one. When my husband got his last raise I stopped buying the kind you mix yourself because the teen would never put the butter in and I couldn't eat the leftovers that way. I'm not sure we like it better, but I love not having him leave a trail of cheese powder and measuring cups in my kitchen. Did I mention how lazy I am 17 years later?
5:30 p.m. Early birds are in the house and lunch was so good we made it again. The teen is gone, and the smaller one will eat the gyro meat and naan and the tzatziki I make using the last of my dill. Since we have the tzatziki, we leave off the cucumbers. Salsa goes on the bottom, then gyro meat, tomato, and shredded iceberg. It's what I would eat a few times a week if I lived in a city. I grew up in Southern California and became a chef when I lived in Seattle for 10 years. I don't miss those places, but my dreams are filled with Asian and Middle-Eastern food (I'm part Armenian). I can make it myself but who wants to? When I go shopping in the suburbs of Chicago, I find myself pulling across lanes of traffic to investigate grocers and family noodle joints on Lake Cook Road. I look for signs saying "Halal" or "curry."
7:00 p.m. I try to pawn off the bad Cherry Crumble ice cream on the kids, but they won't bite so I let them have the rest of the Cherry Garcia and make do with an Otter Pop of dubious origin. It may be from last summer. I can't be sure.
Total: $0
Shopping perks me up for a few hours in a way my Lexapro does not.
6:45 am Coffee is later again because Marco is sleeping later. It's the first day of senior year and the second day of fifth grade so smoothies again for them to bring in the car. I drop one off right after the other and go home to finish my grocery lists because IT'S TIME!!!!!!
I used to live a life where there was more excitement involved than specialty food items, but I have cast that person aside with my red rubber Birks, my signature footwear in the '90s when women chefs were the exception. Now, my bi-weekly jaunts into places with populations greater than 50,000 are the highlight of my otherwise very sedate existence. I'm bored. Shopping perks me up for a few hours in a way my Lexapro does not.
10:00 a.m. The first big shop this weekend is going to be Woodman's in Kenosha. It's an employee-owned grocery, which is great. But its real beauty is that it has everything "regular" groceries have, plus specialty items like cans of Skyline chili from Cincinnati and Kewpie. There's also Utz Dark Russets, aka the most spectacular potato chips ever; all the flavors of all the sparkle waters; and four aisles of candy so I can get my Laffy Taffy watermelon big sticks ($0.99) and Tony Chocoloney milk chocolate toffee pretzel bars ($3.79). I can't go on, but I can tell you the total receipt was $315.81 (food total: $297.33) and included stracciatella ($3.59), which was next to the burrata ($3.99). I bought two of each. Day. Made.
We check out at 12:45 p.m. and head to Arby's, one of my select fast food establishments. I usually get sliders, but my spouse came to expedite and cart push so we're splitting a 2/$7 value buy with a gyro because the spouse hasn't had enough apparently, a beef 'n' cheddar for me, and a medium Fanta to share. Lunch costs $10.54 total.
6:15 p.m. Dinner is frozen pizza from Woodman's for the boys ($6.59, previously bought) before they go to the fair with their grandparents and burrata and tomato salad for us. We're eating a tomato a day at least with no end in sight. I'm letting all the cherries split on the vine. Best laid plans.
8 p.m. We put on Vera again. I eat my taffy while my spouse cracks sunflower seeds between his teeth like a damn squirrel. He'll do this until I go to bed and then he'll go looking for my candy stash. Sometimes I find gummy bears so old they're like fruit leather. I eat them anyway.
Total: $307.87
The little one doesn't want quiche so I shout at him to get whatever he wants because IDGAF anymore. This happens sometimes.
7:00 a.m. I ate an extra pot gummy before bed and slept in. Luckily Marco held it for me. Such a good boy. I make coffee. I pull out eggs, dijon, half and half, leftover bacon from the BLT's earlier in the week, gouda slices, and pick another tomato from the plate they're ripening on. I keep a few frozen pie crusts ($2.99 for 2, previously bought) in the freezer for fast quiche, so that's what we're doing for breakfast this morning. I make two of them, layering the cheese and bacon, using four eggs, a cup of half-and-half, a teaspoon of dijon, a shot of Cholula, salt and pepper for the batter, and a sliced tomato on top. This should hold everyone until afternoon snacks, I hope.
10:00 a.m. The little one doesn't want quiche so I shout at him to get whatever he wants because IDGAF anymore. This happens sometimes. It drives me insane that he wants something special all the time. Sensory issues, my ass. I am old so we call that a control issue around here. He ends up with potato chips (plain only for the little prince), some blackberries and raspberries, and a Pop-Tart he found behind the flour.
3:30 p.m. I eat a pickle plate. Kohlrabi, castelvetranos, taqueria-style escabeche with carrots, and the cherry peppers from the garden. I add a few slices of black garlic salami from Underground Meats ($6, previously bought). It's just enough until dinner when I see who is here and decide what we're eating.
7:30 p.m. Turns out no one is here, so I'm making hot dogs (Nathan's Famous, $3.99, previously bought) on pretzel buns with spicy brown mustard and crispy onions and pickles. We lived abroad a few years ago, and this is how they do it at Ikea (minus the bun) and I'm converted. If you happen to find yourself in the food section at yours, grab a few containers of crispy onions ($1.99).
Total: $0.
Today is my favorite day of the month. It's Fresh Farms day, where all my international specialty food dreams come true.
4:50 a.m. Coffee and excitement and a Dateline rerun while I make another list. Today is my favorite day of the month. It's Fresh Farms day, where all my international specialty food dreams come true. There are a few locations of the store, which specializes in Eastern European foods. I get things I used to get in Croatia and Germany when we lived there, and things my husband's Polish grandmother cooks. The one closest to me isn't my favorite, but I can settle for the unsalted version of the Isigny butter I like best and a smaller bakery to avoid an extra hour of driving round trip.
This is where I buy my labneh ($3.29), the German rye bread fresh from oven filled with seeds ($5.69), Bulgarian double-cream feta ($7.38), and Cerignola olives ($13.29) bigger than plums. I also get deli meats for the teen's lunches (roast beef, $13.85; turkey, $4.23), the pickles that my husband's Babcia keeps at her house ($0.99), and Schweppes Tangerine ($3.99). The store also has a pastry section that's just like the ones in Germany and Croatia. If heaven exists, it's a pound of freshly made tiramisu ($15.08). I usually get home and we make a buffet on the counter before it gets put away.
I also picked up, amongst other things: San Benedetto sparkling water (two at $2.99 each), balsamic vinegar ($5.99), German seasoned vinegar (two at $2.69 each), green lentils ($2.39), whole wheat kernels ($2.49), tuna in olive oil ($13.99), a bag fusilloni and orecchiette ($2.50 each), Ajvar (two jars at $7.99 each), sunflower oil ($4.99), whole sunflower seeds ($3.49), Milka chocolate bars ($1.69 each), curry powder ($2.29), Maldon flakes ($6.99), Isigny unsalted french butter ($6.49), cottage cheese (two at $5.99 each), sourdough round from fresh bakery ($4.69), rye bread with sunflower seeds ($5.69), Persian cucumbers $7.27 (I'm Armenian and we still say Persian), and Zestar apples ($3.80).
I usually stop at the Korean grocery store Hmart on the way back for sashimi grade fish, but when I get there, there is no wild salmon and the tuna was from yesterday. I decide to wait until next month and try to get there midday, which will throw me off trafficwise but get me my fix. We do fish fry here in Wisconsin. Not albacore.
11:15 a.m. The kids are gone and my spouse is paddleboarding when I get back. I eat my rye bread with some of the stracciatella I got Friday, another amazing tomato coated in salt and pepper, and a Milka dark chocolate bar to make up for my lack of sushi, which I was really looking forward to.
5:15 pm Since my spouse and I are the only ones home, we decide on roast beef sandwiches. Spouse makes them because he is a very good cook whose parents owned a diner growing up; I was his boss at a catering company when we met. Thank god he turned out to have other job skills. He makes them with French rolls, Kewpie, sweet and sour sliced pickles, cheddar, shredded lettuce, and banana rings. My favorite food has been a roast beef sandwich since I was little, and my Armenian grandpa would take me to Philipe the Original for a French dip. Hot, cold, mushrooms, hoagie, whatever. I stan a rare sirloin roast.
Vera has some 'splaining to do. See y'all later.
Total: $211.38