Would you rather cook or do delivery/take-out/eating out? *money and nutrition aside*

i'd still want to cook sometimes, but after work if i could click my fingers and have nutritious food of whatever type then yeah i'd do it. similarly if i could fly i would no longer commute to work.

I think if I had no time constraints I might hate cooking (and cleaning) less, right now it feels like an extra unpaid job

I have some kind of weird feeling of cooking being good and right, and delivery being self-indulgent and unwholesome. It might be a Midwestern Protestant thing.

but you are creating local jobs and only consuming something that you need to consume anyway

it's really the only moral way to spend your money

A friend pointed out this service http://www.meezmeals.com/ that sounds like a good compromise between cooking and ordering out.

Home Cooking Made Easy

1 -Choose from new tasty & healthy recipes

2 -We deliver a cooler with everything you need, prepped & measured

3 -Follow the simple instructions to make delicious dinners from scratch

They even have a hotline for cooking help.

oh I was hoping it was a service that you found some recipe and sent it to them and they made it for your immediately

but you are creating local jobs and only consuming something that you need to consume anyway

I agree! But my gut reaction is that I should be cooking.

I have some kind of weird feeling of cooking being good and right, and delivery being self-indulgent and unwholesome. It might be a Midwestern Protestant thing.

not a bad feeling to have, cooking is probably healthier most of the time.

i'd still cook when i felt like it but most of the time i don't feel like it

Maybe, but not as a general rule in my case. Often I wind up eating hot dogs and stuff like egg rolls and prepared meals.

xp

This feels a bit like the food equivalent of the "if you could push a button..." thread for some reason. I enjoy cooking a good meal, but it takes time (which I seldom have) and I fucking hate washing up afterwards. I'd be sad never to cook a meal again as it's a rewarding challenge, but if I never had to wash up again and there was no health/nutritional repercussion then maybe I'd go the takeaway route.

I know :(

I wish I'd left out the nutritional aspect.

What have I done.

lots of takeaway services springing up that emphasise the healthy/nutritional aspect of their meals eg http://www.housebites.com/ and if you're eating in a restaurant/café there's no reason to be eating unhealthily at all. on the other hand, i've spent a weekend being cooked for by various people, and i ate probably at least quadruple the amount i would have otherwise eaten, and a lot of it was eg eggs benedict, pies and cakes that i doubt would feature in anyone's healthy diet plan. (left to my own devices, not cooking, prob has the healthiest outcome as i just end up eating fruit and seeds and crackers.)

it will come as a shock to no one that of course i would not lift a finger in the kitchen if i didn't have to, and indeed even when takeaway/eating out is not an option i would rather just scavenge (healthily) than put a proper meal together.

also fuck anyone who tries to make this a moral question or who babbles about how cooking is an essential life skill and people who are less able/willing to slave away in the kitchen are somehow lesser humans for it. fuck them with every one of their fucking stupid cooking implements

I'd rather pay someone to come round and wash up than deliver a cooked meal. Can I have that?

am lucky enough to have enough money that i can get takeout without worrying about the cost. am old enough that in fact nutritional considerations do enter. if the calculus is exactly the same minus issues of money and nutrition, then yes, takeout, but just because cooking and cleaning takes a lot of time. if you take away money, nutrition, and time (i.e. remove two primary costs of purchased food and one primary cost of home-prepared food) then it's cooking, easy. when i had no kids and more free time i made much more time-consuming, more varied, more enjoyable dishes than I do now.

if there were no financial/health repercussions i wouldnt do anything

What about not eating at all? http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/rob-rhinehart-no-longer-requires-food

just the air that i breathe

I think I'd probably cook about as much as I do now. My gf and I like cooking together. It gives a chance to be gustatorily specific yet as creative or experimental as we want. Cleaning isn't that much of a pain; most of our cooking is pretty simple. That said, it rocks to live somewhere where the takeout options are good and plentiful and we probably do that about a quarter of the time.

Hell yes I would get takeaways about 99% of the time because
1. cooking is time-consuming and frustrating and I am not very good at it
2. takeaways are far more delicious than anything I could cook

Admittedly 2 is my main reason and is probably largely because of their nutritional non-equivalence and also because of the last part of 1, but I think 1 is enough reason on its own

(sometimes I cook something new as a little adventure if I have a day off and feel indulgent and have eaten enough takeaways and ready meals lately to have forgotten about 1, so that's the other 1% of the time, p. much)

also fuck anyone who tries to make this a moral question or who babbles about how cooking is an essential life skill and people who are less able/willing to slave away in the kitchen are somehow lesser humans for it. fuck them with every one of their fucking stupid cooking implements

source pls
ffs never mind

i don't enjoy washing up at all but it's definitely the least annoying, least stressful part of the ~cooking experience~

relatedly, my bf has begun sending me out to buy ingredients, and this has resulted in a two-paragraph email explaining exactly what potatoes and leeks are because i got them wrong last time

he has also tried to get me to help him actually make a meal twice, the first time lasted literally under a minute before i was sent out of the kitchen in disgrace for fucking up grating cheese, the second time reduced him to hysterical laughter after i tried to peel a potato and i still don't know why :(

I love cooking and cook all the time and see the rest of my life as a supplement to the next time I get a meal
I don't think there's anything moral at steak, it's more like "do you like enjoying life? me too, let's eat"

there's nothing moral at steak but plenty of morel on steak

I hate cooking. I'm so jealous of people on those fat diets that get hot meals delivered to them daily.

lol

the pinnacle of "enjoying life" - like the one aspect of high-flying oligarch-rich lifestyles i genuinely envy - to me is the ability to eat at restaurants all the time. i fucking love eating good, interesting food and it's a super-interesting topic as well

explaining exactly what potatoes and leeks are

do you ever think this is some kind of self-definition based disorder? it's just on the face of things, you seem intelligent enough to identify a potato.

there are about 5 different types of potato-looking things even in my tiny local grocers and twice in a row i guessed wrong

there has not been a third time yet

sympathize with the lex here. I am pretty pathetic when it comes to food preparation.

you seem intelligent enough to identify a potato

lol

A few American grocery stores have started putting little signs w/ names and prices under the produce. If that catches on, it could really revolutionize potato shopping.

there are plenty of things that look like a potato at a grocers: potato, yams, ginger, mr potato heads, samuel beckett, a society lady's clutch

I love cooking and cook all the time and see the rest of my life as a supplement to the next time I get a meal

this is how i feel, love eating out and love cooking. v different experiences. the stuff i cook may not match the standard of what i eat out but i amn't often trying to replicate it, either in standard or style. cooking is satisfying as it's something i find creative/relaxing. cooking for myself or even better, for friends, with a glass of wine or a beer and some music on is probably one of the best feelings. i don't demand everyone must feel this way, obviously.

xpost you forgot the mud-flecked top of patrick stewart's head obscured by a shelf

A few American grocery stores have started putting little signs w/ names and prices under the produce. If that catches on, it could really revolutionize potato shopping.

supermarkets do this!!! although even then if there's more than one type of thing that i have to choose between, and i have only been given rough instructions, i still have a meltdown. but yeah i was at a proper grocers

being around people who cook has just convinced me more that it's entirely about natural flair/instinct/touch and obv ability to enjoy the process, none of which i possess so there we go

i love eating out, but if i'm staying at home i would much rather cook than do take-out/delivery. mostly because the food is better. and hotter, and exactly how i want it. and if i re-heat delivery food then i end up with dishes, which defeats the whole point, right?

tbf if i cd only eat takeaway currently available in the UK i wd probly get sick of it pretty quick

i would just get this every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchy_box

the munchy box sounds like an epic treat but takeout is v. wearing on the tastebuds imo

If I had time, I'd love to cook way more and eat out more at interesting places. delivery/take-out can get v. monotonous. as much/moreso than boring home cooking even, where at least you can mix up the spice blends each time.

This is also a hugely regional question. Pretty much every big city has better take-away food than I could cook myself but quality drops off enormously once you say get outside of London

good takeout at least in nyc is pretty expensive, i think

on the other hand, stopping by most places to buy food in nyc and grabbing something to cook yourself is also pretty expensive if yr. not subsisting on staples alone.

the question includes eating out! restaurants y'all. they're amazing things.

tbh if i actually did it, a good proportion of my diet would be picking up a salad or sandwich from a local café - really nice, healthy, filling etc

my smug ex was ~shocked~ when I mentioned getting a Chinese takeaway most Friday nights as a treat to myself, like it was amazingly sinful and disgusting to buy a takeaway at all, but once a week was apparently a whole new level of terribleness to him, which he did not shut up about for pretty much ever

and this was before I was fat! which, you know, my fondness for takeaways is a factor in, sure, but only a very small one compared to the rest of my terrible unhealthy lifestyle tbh

"wouldn't your parents be shocked?" (uh no, they get a takeaway approx once a week too)
"but surely you don't know anyone else who does this?" (oh, you mean my friends who all went to McDonald's or got a kebab like pretty much every time I met them, lol students - decided against mentioning that I'd sometimes join them in addition to my Friday takeaway)

on the other hand, stopping by most places to buy food in nyc and grabbing something to cook yourself is also pretty expensive if yr. not subsisting on staples alone.

― s.clover, Tuesday, March 19, 2013 11:28 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i think half of my food intake in nyc is trader joe's bagels + trader joe's cream cheese + trader joes veggie patties + sriracha squirted all on top

takeout only once a week is pretty virtuous imo

This is also a hugely regional question. Pretty much every big city has better take-away food than I could cook myself but quality drops off enormously once you say get outside of London

london take-away is pretty shit in my experience, but i live in the wrong place for it probably. not sure it's great generally though.

Even the thought of eating out in Montreal is limited to a handful of options, otherwise I'd rather take 20 minutes and do it myself

Also I like wearing aprons

I am confused tho I have several friends who're cooking from Mastering The Art of Chinese Cooking, which is imo some Last Frontier of home cooking-- so many cities' quality of life being defined, for me, by the deliciousness of their Chinese takeaway.

lol chinese takeaway is pretty uniform imo

hopefully they're learning about stuff beyond what you can actually get from chinese takeout

xp I'm talking about the entire restaurant experience of London which includes some of the best Indian and Vietnamese food I've ever eaten in my life and at least two fancy restaurants I'd visit every meal if I could afford it

takeaway is prob the least attractive and certainly least healthy of your non-cooking options. i think i get one...about once every 2-3 months? and only when i'm hungover and NEED a meal like that

it's entirely about natural flair/instinct/touch

Natural ability helps a LOT, but it's much more about learning.

My drawing professor went on a lot about how it's accepted as fact that some people can draw and others cannot, but that is as utterly wrong as saying some people can write and others can't. Unless you have a disability, you can learn to write, and likewise, you can learn to draw and you can learn to cook. A few people will quickly master those skills, a few will struggle but be able to do them at a basic level.

It's possible that you, Lex, have an intellectual/motor coordination disability that affects your ability to cook, but OTOH, you seem to promote your inability, which isn't helpful.

NOT THAT YOU SHOULD COOK! Like you, I HATE the idea of cooking being a virtuous activity, and I want to slap passing space cadet's ex.

dayo that is an interesting statement that I don't understand. Really? I feel that Chinese restaurants offer the highest highs and grossest grosses

what kind of chinese takeout are you getting?? I will judge you

Unless you have a disability, you can learn to write, and likewise, you can learn to draw and you can learn to cook

Absolutely. So easy to make the mistake that someone who has been practising something for their whole life has a 'natural' talent.

I like to cook when I feel like cooking. This happens maybe once a week. If I had a lot more time and lived closer to a grocery store, I would probably cook more. Takeout is great on nights when cooking/washing up feels about as realistic as climbing a mountain, but I get takeout major fatigue after awhile. I know that nutrition isn't supposed to play into this, but eating night after night of takeout/restaurant meals (like when we're moving and have packed the kitchen or if we're on vacation) makes me feel really unwell. Plus our weeknight meals tend towards the very simple (baked potato, soup and cheese toast) both due to time/energy but also because that's all we feel like eating, and ordering those things via takeout seem silly.

So basically I voted that I would always get takeout, but now I think that I would rather have the time to cook more. OR really, actually, what I would really prefer is a personal chef who will make me a baked potatoes and cheese toast for dinner.

xp When I'm in NYC (and usually staying in Chinatown) I'll divide my low-to-mid price eating-out desires between Nice Green Bow and Mother's DUMPLINGS!

hahahahhahahahahhaa omg what?

I did not intentionally shout the name of that Chinese restaurant

everyone can write, but some people have beautiful handwriting and some people have ugly, indecipherable spider trails. everyone can cook in the sense that even i can make, say, sloppy pasta and dump some pesto on top, but i don't actually believe i'm capable of cooking a meal to the standard of my friends/bf who really love cooking and do it properly, no matter how much i practice.

o i have not been to new green bo but the photos look okay on yelp

i think you must have mother's DUMPLINGS! confused with some other chinatown joint!

Yes I do! Mother's Dumpl1ngs is in Toronto and is excellent. In NYC I got to Vanessa's.

ah

you pass my test........... but barely

many xposts, but

the pinnacle of "enjoying life" - like the one aspect of high-flying oligarch-rich lifestyles i genuinely envy - to me is the ability to eat at restaurants all the time. i fucking love eating good, interesting food and it's a super-interesting topic as well

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Tuesday, 19 March 2013 15:07 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is gonna sound kind of assumptive (and apologies if I've got you all wrong on this one), but this seems to reflect something about your overall personality and tastes when it comes to things like music as well. Would I be right in thinking that (on the whole) the processes that go into creating something that you enjoy are of little concern to you and that it's really the finished results that you are ultimately interested in? The fact you obviously enjoy good food and yet have trouble discerning leeks and potatoes etc strikes me as pretty unique.

That's not to say that one can't enjoy food without being a good cook, which would be ridiculous and the same as saying you can't be a music fan without being a musician. But I'd have thought that for a majority of people who enjoy food, that they would take a degree of interest in the process by which it's made.

That said, I suppose if I eat a steak in a restaurant, I'm generally not too concerned about what farm the cow was raised on, only that I hope it was raised in an ethical way. So I guess I'm pontificating on the various levels of interest one takes in such processes vs what the finished results end up like.

feel free to peruse my thread and tell me if your friends are cooking anything like the stuff I posted!!! thread of pictures of real chinese food

We'd eat at a friend's house once a week. Best of both worlds. Cook most nights, 30 mins does most things we frequently bother with, unless its a stew or etc which'll do two nights and involves two hours of waiting for ten mins chopping come to fruition

i really can't get chinese takeaway ever because it's so terrible compared to the food i ate growing up

thai, indian etc all fine & dandy though

Would I be right in thinking that (on the whole) the processes that go into creating something that you enjoy are of little concern to you and that it's really the finished results that you are ultimately interested in?

not really. i have little interest in replicating those processes myself but i actually find recipes really fascinating reads, particularly those that involve something unexpected or esoteric, and will often peruse them from a purely abstract perspective

and when it comes to things i can actually do and understand, like writing (and to a much lesser extent music) i'm all about breaking down that technique nerdily

xp to dayo, thanks for the link, that looks fucking delicious and I wish there was a restaurant that did that in Toronto or Montreal (there are but they are $$$$$ so fuck that)

Ennh I just want to talk about delicious NYC food I wish I could be eating now

I really want to visit two Filipino restaurants next time I'm in town, one is this established house of delicious that is unfortunately in Ditmas (Purple Yam) and the other is an East Village yuppie version of Filipino food at Maharlika that looks completely great.

Anyway the one thing I think you should always eat in a restaurant is a dessert. I am not making you a molten chocolate thing or a foam or whatever. I will roast you a chicken and then have a nightcap and a tart around the corner? Perfect evening

My dad and his entire side of the family are all chefs and I really love to cook. That said, I am often tired/lazy and just would rather not. I try to cook a lot on the weekends and freeze stuff for the week ahead but that doesn't always happen. I feel exceptionally gross when I get takeout/eat out too often. Lately I have been trying to cook really simple, quick and healthy things that are good but don't require much prep time or effort. If I'm being totally honest though and solely because I am a lazy asshole, yeah, if money and nutrition were not factors I would mostly likely have everything prepared for me most days and only cook when I felt to it which would probably amount to like 2x a week.

omggggg the homemade desserts i have eaten this weekend

chocolate fondant, lime & coconut cake, banana & cardamom cake and chocolate & chilli cake all in one 24hr period

and i got to bring some of all the last three home with me!!!!!

I try to cook a lot on the weekends and freeze stuff for the week ahead but that doesn't always happen.

Me too! About 75% of my actual cooking (as opposed to microwaving) is bulk. I mean like Costco-level bulk. I recently made a stock pot full of stew that's lasted me for a couple months. Also, I routinely bake 3+ lbs of chicken and then freeze it so I can have pre-cooked chicken to throw into pasta or a sandwich or whatever. Or I'll make and freeze several pounds of hummus or a big batch of scrambled eggs.

Scrambled eggs? They are so easy to make and I can't imagine they are any good after being frozen and thawed.

x-post - Yeah, I do similar things. I feel pretty awesome when I do this too because it makes me feel productive and I know I'll have good healthy things to eat all week and won't have to cook when I get in from work. It just doesn't happen as often as I'd like it to.

and they're only truly delicious within like a minute of coming off the pan

xp

I actually gagged a little at the thought of frozen scrambled eggs

i really can't get chinese takeaway ever because it's so terrible compared to the food i ate growing up

chinese takeeaway is so bad in london, like even for european take on chinese it's just awful. for some reason the chinese takeaway seems to be basically a lower than any normal dive fast food place. i guess nobody uses them and so they decline. in dublin there would be non authentic chinese that at least felt well prepared and like it used some fair amount of edible meat.

even if salty/gungy etc.

oddly enough lex, and I am not ~actually~ having this discussion with you again, but I think you'd surprise yourself at how well you could bake a cake as all the directions are specific and the ingredients plainly labelled and you seem to be interested in cake. But why bake a cake? An hour-plus of preparation and floury cleanup when there are professionals to do it for you. I do pastries for fun but only if I'm staying in a place with a dishwasher

x-post Chinese takeout is so so so gross at most average places here. At least in the UK you can get noodles and chips and curry sauce from a Chinese take away and then put them all on the same plate and OMG SO GOOD. Yes, I am gross.

i like to cook because i look at a screen for 12 hours a day, and cooking is an hour where i don't have to do that.

otm

Chinese takeaway is often a bad idea 'cause it wants to be eaten right after it was cooked. Dim sum is notoriously bad and noodles like fun are gummy by the time you get them home.

I am not an evangelical cook. I did vote that I would prefer to cook than get takeout, for 2 reasons

1) most days I find that whatever little prep work I do for nightly meals gives me something menial to focus on so I can get out of 'work brain'

2) I only ever seem to eat takeout when I feel really shitty and it never really makes me feel any less shitty, it just puts a punctuation on the fact that I feel like crap.

Lex, I'm going to circument the entire usual line of conversation and say something I've wanted to say for ages; I'm so glad you have a lovely boy who enjoys cooking for you and likes to try to get you somewhat involved in the process, regardless of the results. I think that's really great. And I still one day hope to make good on my offer to cook for you also :)

circumVent

I have a terrible inability to cook multiple batches ahead like a sensible person.

Put the lid back on the half-eaten takeaway, congratulate yourself on having a free meal for tomorrow night? Sure! Approach the pan of freshly-cooked dinner with the intention of putting it in a bowl in the fridge or a tub in the freezer and something goes "ping" in my brain and I'm having seconds instead and then there isn't enough left to be "worth" keeping and basically I'm a terrible person.

So yeah, I would like a free magical robot chef in my kitchen, and on the rare occasions I do cook I'd like the robot chef to take it away and hide it in the fridge after my first plateful, without me having to look at it again and test my willpower.

(I would also like some more willpower but that's even further outside the scope of this poll)

VG otm, that's pretty much how most people feel despite vague accusations of "morals"

I like my own cooking and would still eat it often even if the magic takeaway existed but if I could click my fingers and have it ready in one second I totally would.

I love cooking but I think my ideal would be that guy's Soylent drink for breakfast & weekday lunches, eating out for dinner and/or lunch twice a week on say friday and saturday, professionally cooked dinners made for me at home on weeknights, then on Sunday night I would cook something new that I haven't cooked before or try some technique that I want to learn, and somebody would purchase all of the ingredients for me beforehand and clean the kitchen after.

There are def better cooks in the world than I am, so I suppose that if I lived in some ideal world, where I have a staff of personal world-class chefs at my beck and call, whose only concern in life is learning my likes and dislikes and knocking my sox off meal after meal, and this expense is as nothing to me, with my only involvement being sitting down to one fabulous meal after another, then I'd be an idiot to turn my back on this opportunity and insist on cooking all my own meals.

Nice dream. So not gonna happen.

Even the most favorable reality I could fahion out of the restaurant choices within ten miles of my house would eventually pall on me. And most definnitely nutrition would become a concern almost at once. That's just how 99% of restaurants operate.

wk otm

for me the problem with eating out at restaurants every day is not so much money or nutrition but I think I would just get bored of it. but if I had a magical button that could transport me to a different restaurant each day that had a great atmosphere, great food, and interesting company, then I might eat out every day. eating at the same handful of restaurants with the same people every day and having to deal with occasional bad service or a bad meal would get old really fast.

i don't really like the experience of being in a restaurant even tho i like restaurant food

actual decent weekend brunches (as opposed to wait-in-line lolportlandia lolbrooklyn hopeless small table blah blah bullshit) are k-classic, and way better than cooking.

if money was no object and I could just have whatever ingredients on hand if I wanted, I would cook everything. and it would all taste totally amazing.

Oh shit eating out at *lunch* is classic obv

also if money were no object I think I would always drink in bars rather than drinking at home. at least you get a lot for your money at a restaurant but drinking in a bar is ridiculously expensive compared to doing it yourself.

if your home cooked meals are way better than eating out, you are morally obligated to open a restaurant.

If money were no object I wouldn't even have a home. I'd just stay in a hotel and get the food and drinks sent up.

a restaurant that only serves grilled sandwiches with amazing fillings, plenty of salt & seasoning, and your choice of dipping sauces.

Id fly everywhere if gravity were no object

If money were no object I wouldn't even have a home. I'd just stay in a hotel and get the food and drinks sent up.

― Eyeball Kicks, Tuesday, March 19, 2013 1:46 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If I had enough money so that the room was an enormous suite and I could decorate it a little or at least add personal touches I would totally do this.

When I transferred schools during college I was housed in a hotel for a semester until a dorm room became available and I'm not gonna lie, the daily housekeeping service was pretty easy to get used to.

so basically we would all be into being French aristocracy

yeah housekeeping-wise I could live in a hotel if money were no object.

How is eating out less nutritious than eating in? Widespread oversalting? Chefs cutting all their spices with MSG?

but like a big-ass suite with rooms and shit

bonus rat feces/employee spittle

xp

we need a t/s - living in a luxury hotel, vs. living in your own home with full-time live-in staff.

I'd only choose living in my own home with staff if it's a home other than the one I live in now which is too goddamn small and falling apart

live in a luxury hotel with a roof pool and a big fluffy comfy bed and big windows

TNG had best living quarters. DS9 was literally a floating space prison.

no rat feces employee spittle

How is eating out less nutritious than eating in?

more butter & oil that you'd probably use at home, bigger portions, deep fryers?

eat less

Don't order deep fried things

Butter/oil thing is intriguing.

do they do that because it tastes better or are they just super calavier flingin oil everywhere

How is eating out less nutritious than eating in? Widespread oversalting? Chefs cutting all their spices with MSG?

― brimstead, Tuesday, March 19, 2013 1:52 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Watching my dad cook it always amazes me how much butter/oil/cream any other kind of fat (see also sugar) he puts into stuff. I mean, I know those things are a big part of the reason it all tastes so good but it's always surprising to me nevertheless.

if i ate out every day there would certainly end up being many days where i just ordered a small salad

x-post - or what Jordan just said

that = than

because it tastes amazing iirc

xp

I don't get people who do deep frying at home. Salads in restaurants rule because there's a white bean or a palm heart or something you wouldn't think to do in the home

deep frying makes my house STINK so I don't do it. I also have to be kinda sparing with Indian curries, our kitchen has terrible ventilation

I've lived most of my life in smallish towns without a lot of takeout options - not sure if this led me to an interest in cooking or not, but I really truly love cooking about 95% of the time and have gotten pretty good at it over the last 15 years of essentially daily practice. It's cheaper and I have a solid repertoire of a couple of dozen things I can make without having to work or think too hard. I find it really relaxing and enjoyable at the end of the day. If I had better takeout available it might be different, like my cousin who lives in Orange County laughing at me for suggesting he learn to cook Vietnamese food because there are hundreds of good cheap takeout places near his apartment.

That said, I do love eating out at all sorts of restaurants but always try to get things that I'd never bother with at home. After eating out for a couple days (like when travelling) I always feel sort of gross and bloated and crave simple proteins and vegetables and such which is what I tend to cook at home.

Portion size (esp in America) is another huge reason that eating out is worse for you than cooking at home. Also, at home it doesn't really occur to most people to eat, you know, three buttered rolls before dinner.

sometimes i like making food like just taking pleasure in accomplishing a simple task that you get immediately rewarded for having done, its like when you clean your place and everything looks slightly brighter and nicer, its kind of joyful. and sometimes i feel kinda drained and unsatisfied by getting take out, i mean its not like if i dont have time to cook i'll have time for a sit-down meal w/people i like and drinks and stuff it just ends up being w/e its fastest and cheapest

I don't get people who do deep frying at home.

I deep fry pakoras and falafels in about 3/4 inch of oil in a cast-iron pan. It doesn't really stink up the house or take that long or anything. I then I recycle the grease at the co-op.

I freeze scramble eggs so I can slap them in a biscuit w/ sausage (also pre-prepared and frozen) and have a sausage biscuit at any time, just like living at the Four Seasons.

Think abt it: frozen sausage egg n chz biscuits are totally good and they contain frozen scrambled eggs.

add hash brown layer

huh it would never have occurred to me to freeze scrambled eggs... my wife bakes a ton and breakfast breads/scones/muffins all get frozen and thawed out when necessary, but I'll have to try this egg thing...

ooh frozen scrambled eggs damn je55e u blew my mind

do they do that because it tastes better or are they just super calavier flingin oil everywhere

A restaurant makes money by making you come back. They need to impress you that what they offer is a special treat. Fats are a primary flavor that we have evolved to find appealing because fats and oils contain more than 2x calories or carbs and proteins and for the first 140,000 years humans needed all the calories they could acquire.

Not only that, in cooking, fats are the carriers and enhancers of every other flavor, because fats tend to bond with flavorful molecules, and fats spread easily across the wet surface of your tongue where the taste buds are. Ever put a drop of oil onto some water? Same principle.

So, by putting goodly amounts of fat into your food, restaurants are only doing what makes sense. The food seems richer, more flavorful, more deeply appealing and wonderful and threfore you'll willingly pay more for it and you'll come back to do it again.

I am very seriously considering getting a chest freezer even tho I live in a (large) studio apt. My freezer is always overstuffed and I often have to curb my bulk cooking b/c there's no room. And that leads to more takeout. (Freezer would comfortably fit in the walk-in closet. )

The "restaurants serve too much food" thing is insane. It's OK to not eat it all. Take it home, give it to a homeless person, or just... leave it.

Congratulations on your amazing willpower. Not everyone is as disciplined as you are and there is a direct correlation because portion size and obesity.

we were looking for a chest freezer for a long time and then luckily got a windfall fridge/freezer for free from our inlaws. Just having a little extra freezer space is great.

I just wish I was better at keeping track of inventory. My freezer turns into a food archive and it all goes to hell

restaurants use more oil and salt because they know how to cook properly

Also, I think the whole process of dining out tends to make some people eat more. It's decadent and a luxury and something different that feels special which for many people can lead to overindulgence which isn't a bad thing every once in a while but if you were doing that every night or on the reg it might become one.

or just... leave it.

i can't even process that as a concept

US restaurant portions pretty much floor me, even a gravadlax starter comes in a fucking boat the size of my head

in the UK it's pretty easy to choose a restaurant if you just want a relatively light meal. or just order less. obviously there are places you can go if you want to end up having to roll home and that's great too

the fancier the place the less food they give you

like this artesanal donut was the size of a donut hole! tasty though.

Goon tie makes a good point about the answer being region dependent. If I lived in NY, SF, Chicago, Portland or Seattle, I'd probably let somebody else do the cooking most of the time, but where I am, most choices are fast food franchises, terrible meat-and-three joints, Americanized Chinese food, Americanized Mexican food, and catfish.

I love to cook, and love to eat interesting foods, but every day that passes sees my wife's relationship to food become more and more adversarial, so I'm often cooking for one, and I'm just fucking tired of that.

Or even within the city, for that matter. I used to live next to a cheap and delicious Vietnamese place and I ate lunch there every single day. But the place I lived before was right next to a grocery store and I made pho at home more often than I ate pho in restaurants. Now I live next to an amazing butcher so it's hanger steak and shallots twice a week

I don't get people who do deep frying at home. Salads in restaurants rule because there's a white bean or a palm heart or something you wouldn't think to do in the home

― ♫ don't you have your own computer? ♫ (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, March 19, 2013 2:00 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark

duck fat fries, my friend. duck fat fries

intriguing
i'll bag all my clothes and try it out

DS9 was literally a floating space prison.

It's those stupid triangular pillows.

regional, regional. i can live with a small-ass kitchen in europe, asia, most of the rest of the world. good food. good restaurant atmosphere-- i hate going out to eat most places in north america for the unnecessary formality, waiting to be seated, shit like that, the fake solemnity and prestige fuckin thing chef recommends the bowen island crystal grass farms yak chops cooked sous vide in a fuck off right now, or the forced fun informality, the forced jollility and cheer of waitstaff, communal tables, american apparel waitresses havin a good time. let me stay home.

living in shanghai, say... rows and rows of everything you need and would ever want, leave the money on the table cash only, lengthy patronage repaid in kitchen loyalty, sit down and enjoy yourself, ashtrays on the table, byob if you want, warm beer. i'll take eating out and take-out.

mind blown
must get to shanghai now

prestige fuckin thing chef recommends the bowen island crystal grass farms yak chops cooked sous vide in a fuck off right now

god Andrew Zimmern went to some molecular gastronomy restaurant where the dude served rocks and dry ice with some fish and then made patrons drink some concoction out of baby bottles and I just wanted to stab everyone involved

"I like to push the limits of what cooking means" oh fuck you

the only restaurant worth eating at in all of north america is arby's drive-thru.

well uh I wouldn't go that far

chatty filipina girl greeting, jamocha shake, first lick of liquid cheese/bbq sauce emulsification off the papercovered tinfoil, extra roast beef, horsey sauce on everything, curly fries, finished off with a fat hogleg of skoal cherry as you peel out of the parking lot, garbage out the window.

you had me until you pulled into the Arby's lot -- worst alleged meal I've ever eaten was there

arby's is awesome fuiud

but yes, being 'waited on' is the stupidest fucking concept ever. so inane, useless tailbone of the aristocracy

my cousin got a cook for her place and shes told every1 on her block that the cook's her aunt

I dont even know what to think

how does the cook feel about this

she doesn't know

I love my cousin she's my fav, sorry didn't mean to out u

this is good sitcom premise!

but yes, being 'waited on' is the stupidest fucking concept ever.

i mean whatever, but i do like semi-classy restaurants where you pay before eating, and then either just grab your food at a counter when it's ready or someone brings it to you without being 'your server'.

If I lived in a city with virtually endless restaurant options, I'd choose the latter. But I prefer not to live in such a locale (if only cause I'd go broke/get fat from eating out all the time). I like to cook but it's the eating part at the end that really holds most of the appeal.

Restaurant meals during the week, cooking on weekends. Having to cook a full meal every day gets pretty tiresome.

I adore cooking, but I'm (extremely, and gratefully) fortunate that I get to set my own work-hours. I am happiest when I'm working on a complicated recipe that I have to start on in the early afternoon. Restaurants are very convenient if things get too busy life-wise which is the case at least a couple times a week but ideally i would cook every day.

I cook four days a week, mostly on weekdays. I eat leftovers probably two days. On weekends I'll usually grab a restaurant meal or at a friend's.

terrible meat-and-three joints...

Oh, man if I had even a terrible one in my far-north neck of the woods I would probably eat there way too much.

To be a fair comparison I think the question should be: Would you rather have as much free time to cook as you wanted, the best-quality ingredients money could buy, and a beautifully-equipped, state-of-the-art kitchen, or access to the best-available take-out and delivery food options?

meat-and-three

I don't even know what this means

you could fall into this trap of becoming like line cooks at michelin restaurants who all choose to eat at arby's, though.

Mostly, I'd cook at home provided friends would come around to help me eat it. I try to get out to eat about once a week, but it's to places that cook the thing I want better than I could. About a year ago I stopped *ever* getting take-aways and I've hit a groove where I can make a huge batch of something curryish or stewish or *served on rice*, freeze half for later, and keep up reasonable variety (stuff in freezer includes gratin of celeriac, keema peas, wild rice, sausage and mushroom stuffing for chicken, chilli). When I'm home cooking I notice myself going through phases - some weeks it's all about Catalan stewy things with paprika, others it's hanger steak on a bed of rocket with herbed-up hollandaise. Making decent food really makes me happy, possibly even happier than eating nice food outside the home.

Today a friend was over visiting and she reckoned all the processed horse hoo-hah plus rising costs for all the food that doesn't have bits of horse in it is causing people to look a bit further than supermarkets for their food shopping, joining the people who go to street (not farmer's) markets. Pretty sure that even if I were very wealthy and loose in a supermarket where money was no object, there would be a little internal voice forever asking me 'is it in season or is it on special?' because I've had that dinned into me since I was a child.

(xpost) Meat & three = blue plate lunches, basically. Choose a meat, choose 3 vegs from a list of a dozen or so (including non-vegs like mac & cheese.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_and_three

Last one I went to with my parents in a tiny town in Florida I had fried catfish, collard greens, braised cabbage and creamed corn souffle, all perfect.

You can usually opt for all veggies too, although as Wiki notes it's not necessarily healthy eating despite all the vegetables.

huh have literally never seen that outside of BBQ joints

Drooling just looking at this:

http://nashvillefork.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/100_0109-e1275162799153.jpg?w=614&h=373

We are at my in-laws in the 'burbs of Houston, TX for two weeks. The cook the following:

1) coffee
2) tea
3) toast with jam and butter

Lunch and dinner are eaten out. Every day, two meals a day, rotated between Black Eyed Pea, Luby's, Cracker Barrel, and a (very good) local BBQ joint. They'll try other restaurants if we're in town to push them outside the usual rotation: dinner last night was a pretty good Turkish place, and lunch the day before was americanized Japanese (we had sushi, they had chicken teriaki).

This is in total contrast to my parents, with whom we spent the last week and a half. They cook most meals at home, eat out a couple of times a month at either local joints or higher-end "special" spots, have a super-stocked pantry/fridge/freezer, etc.

I have thoughts on these situations but no shit, I have to get up and go to Luby's (seriously not kidding). Will report back later.

the variant of meat-and-three most likely encountered in brooklyn is at various central american/south american lunch counters. i usually get roast pork, rice & beans, greens and mac.

sometimes they don't have mac & cheese, but a lot of the time they do. latin & american cusine!

there are places in chinatown that look like buffets that are called four-dishes-one-soup, same concept... my fav is the one on grand by the grand street stop, in between allen and bowery

it's shitty as hell but it's $4.25 for takeout and i can only eat half of it at one time so i end up making two meals out of it O_O

i would rather eat out because i hate cooking. i do it but i've never been interested/creative enough to get good at it. i also consider it a waste of time, unless done with others.

it's my dream to pay a housekeeper to cook meals for me.

To be a fair comparison I think the question should be: Would you rather have as much free time to cook as you wanted, the best-quality ingredients money could buy, and a beautifully-equipped, state-of-the-art kitchen, or access to the best-available take-out and delivery food options?

This makes the question a lot tougher, to be sure.

The sad thing about meat-and-three places around here is that they've changed to meat-and-two plus a roll or cornbread muffin, they cost $6.50, and the veg options are usually out of a can, even at the supermarkets where the lunch-counter ladies literally can take a dozen steps to get whatever produce they want to cook that day.

I am happiest when I'm working on a complicated recipe that I have to start on in the early afternoon.

^^^this

http://i.imgur.com/dIxwI6Cl.jpg

This thing is going to make my life AWESOME.

Lex, before you ask: Those are fish.

And the device is a fishing rod.

i would probably eat delivery pad thai every single day

the kind that tastes like peanut butter?

i don't know what you mean but sure

Pad Thai is my staple food. (No ketchup or peanut butter or tamarind; soy + lemon juice + chili + sugar for the sauce, chi po, green onions, sprouts, egg, pre-cooked tofu for the "stuff")

i had pad thai at the pok pok pad thai only joint in the LES and it was really good, im still bad at andy tho

I need to learn how to cook.
At the moment I think I'm mainly eating from purchased meals, part of this is because I'm eating lunches at the training centre. & that isn't the healthiest probably. Veg is often extra and doesn't tend to come with the cheaper meals to any great degree.
I keep buying veg at the market at the weekend and not preparing it.

Sundays I go and buy takeaways from the Indian takeaway stall on the market. Probably not as healthy as I initialy thought it was. Nice stuff though.

& I think i'm putting weight on, which is a drag. Cos I was supposed to be losing it.

Subsequently I really need to learn to cook. Would really love to do a cookery course. Or work through the coookery books I was buying throughout last year, and basically haven't used.

damn i wanna eat with dylannnnnnnn

I quite enjoy cooking, I don't particularly enjoy shopping for groceries (save perhaps an occassional foray to a farmer's market).

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

tonight i feel like cooking. i'm in mourning over my cat (who was just euthanized and sent to kitty heaven) and i want something to take my mind off him.

i am a sick fuck who loves grocery shopping

oh I am so sorry about your kitty :(

Cooking the sads away is otm, even if the sads don't go away and you don't even feel like eating. Anything that feels comforting is the way to go.

sorry gb :) cook up something comforting <3

I'm so sorry, gb. I hope cooking helps.

how is your old lady, carl? It tugs my heart especially because she is an old tabby lady like my dearly departed quincie :(

Your cat was also named quincie?

Sorry gb.

Delivery would be my comfort for sads.

cat came before I started posting on ILX; I stole her name. My name is Kate. Wonder why I didn't post as that.

She's hanging in there. She's creaky and wobbly and just physically frail, but her personality is in full effect and she seems pretty content so we're rolling with it. Thank you for asking!

Yeah my little one did frail for a long time, while seeming perfectly happy to be alive, carried around on a cushion (she learned to load up in the evening to be carried upstairs, then carried downstairs to her favorite window in the a.m.), and eating whatever tasty things she wanted to eat. When the time came, it was really clear. I bawled on and off for weeks, but now I have happy memories and two rescue kitties that I constantly remind they have a lot to live up to. Also, her ashes are in a pretty box that goes everywhere with us. Quincie is our co-pilot!

I'd like to eat clif bars, tuna salad, Special K, and toaster waffles all the time.

I misread that as 'all at the same time' and was sad for you momentarily

I do mix and match. The above is the majority of my breakfast and lunch diet.

Aw, quincie, the cushion!

She led our wedding procession, carried on her cushion!

!! what a dignified lady she must have been. <3

I would rather cook, for the most part. It's cheaper, more satisfying, and I thoroughly enjoy it.

Saying that, there are certain things I can't recreate in a domestic kitchen. Like a proper good balti. And sometimes it's nice not to have to cook or wash-up. So take-away / eating out is far from a complete no-no.

Obviously I'd love to get involved in this thread properly and turn it into a proper Lex-in-the-kitchen-panic-attack-clusterfuck, but you can't always get what you want.

i actually hate eating out a little bit, it actually stresses me out way more because i've worked in restaurants for so long and i'm so so aware all the time of the labour and process. also i'm poor so it bothers me to spend any more than i have to on food because there's way more things i'd love to be spending my money on and forking out in restaurants feels sortof just like i'm giving my wages back somehow. that said i like conveyer belt sushi places and takeaway felafel with a can when i have an assignment due and its pretty much the only thing that keeps me from curling up in bed in the fetal position procrastinating. which is almost exactly what i'm doing right now actually.

i love having friends around for food so I cook a big pile of something simple like chili and let everybody hang out and people bring me wine this way and i love drinking wine and hanging out. i'm not in any real way interested in food in and of itself but as an catalyst for socialising im fully on board. but i'd rather eat something quick and spend the whole night dancing and this is how i'm always gonna prioritise.

conveyer belt sushi is the best meal to have by yourself. it's because it minimizes the serving/waited-on component

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

would the 34 ilxors plz submit their names to lex so that he may murder them

He'd approach murder like potato-peeling and fuck it all up, peel his arm instead or something.

man i could just murder a baked potato right now, probably pretty easy to fix up at home too

I'm honestly surprised that 34 people would take the time and effort to cook more often than not if money and nutrition were non-issues,

(I do cook the vast majority of my meals and even like it well enough btw.)

someone should ask drake what he'd murder.

Tbh if I order, I'm likely to get "unhealthy" things, whereas if I cook I have to think about what I'm putting in (and there's no hidden sugar or fat or w/e). Otoh I'm p boring as a cook because I don't mind eating similar things again and again. Pasta with plain tomato sauce, tomatoes and sausage and white beans and sage, beef stew, pot roast, adobo brisket, tuna melts.

there's no hidden sugar or fat or w/e

Well, sure, this is a reason to cook. But I understand this question as meaning that you can assume that whatever you order or eat out is perfectly nutritious (and free).

Yeah I decided to ignore that part because that question didn't interest me.

Money, nutrition, availability--those things are never "aside," they are always operative! Why reduce the question to a level faux-simplicity that actually makes it way less interesting and also turns it into a complete hypothetical?

teh internet

I blame philosophy majors.

It shouldn't have been part of the question b/c like someone pointed out, it makes it too "would you cease to exist."

I'm pretty surprised so many people voted for cooking.

Fixed my own food tonight: franks 'n' beans w/ sweet corn niblets mixed in and a side of Jingos. But I still "cooked" for about 45 minutes, prepping stuff for later meals. Meh.

To each his own. There's no accounting for taste. Different strokes for different folks. And so on and so forth.

If I had the ability to conjure any food in any setting at will - tied to some deep subconscious understanding where it would always be the most perfect possible thing for that exact moment, like a dinner at El Bulli or a hot dog off the grill in my back yard - with no health or money repercussions, I still think I would cook at least a couple of times a week. I honestly like it as an activity that much.

Nothing against anyone who thinks that's crazy, obviously, as everyone loves some chore they enjoy that someone else hates.

I'd have cooking down as a hobby, I think.

What the fart are "Jingos"?

They're a new snack food craze that is sweeping the country!!!!! They're smallish wavy shaped crackers w/ flavors.

wish there were more places where you could get delivery for a small amount of food at a small price point, instead of having to order a bunch of food you don't really want. RIP kozmo.com; there was no way you were ever going to make any money but you identified a need in the marketplace and filled it very well.