"What I am I am tired of however is eating and drinking crappy food and drink in crappy settings for stupid money." - totally agree!! I never thought I would enjoy cooking a while back, but after several disappointments, I decided home cooked food is much better in many aspect. I love how you perfection your meal experience by offering course menu! We only do that for occasion, such as anniversary, but gave me a good inspiration to do it more often.
Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023Liked by Charlie Brown
Love this idea! We married 3 years ago and by default planned our anniversary dinners would be celebrated cooking at home. I grocery shop and food prep. My husband cooks. This year we chose crab legs, Caesar salad (dressing from scratch), steak (staying tuned for the cut, likely rib-eye or filet), garlic toast (I'm in charge of creating something a little different, but tasty), and authentic wedding cake cupcakes made from scratch (my contribution, complete with almond flavored cream cheese frosting).
Eating out has become ridiculously expensive, not to mention the quality has steadily gotten worse, and no longer seems as special as it once did. The only thing I struggle with in giving up eating out is staying home too much when we are both off from work. We are in our sixties so eating out has been ingrained in us since we were kids. Old habits die hard. But the key is to replace them with something even better, and so far it's working out wonderfully!
My wife and I usually eat out either for convenience or for social reasons or because we're traveling. Food just doesn't inspire us the way it does many other people, so elaborate or fancy meals are just lost on us. We don't host meals for others as a result. Like many, much of our social time is informal "happy hour" get togethers. During the pandemic, most bars here were closed, and if they weren't, they were the last place you'd want to be anyway.
So—in a nod to this future post—we decided to create our own Bar Brown. We called it the Ahwatukee Roadhouse, named after our local Phoenix neighborhood and the idea of a "travelers stopping house" (not the movie), since we open our guest room to a wide number of travelers we've never met beyond simple convos on social media. To make the roadhouse an attractive hang out, we invested some money in our backyard (we've always prioritized our travel budget instead, but we couldn't spend it on that during covid restrictions), adding in fake turf, lighting, chairs, TVs, patio/yard games, and heaters—and beer and wine fridges too. It became a safe yet informal place for local friends to gather during an otherwise isolating time. We even left our gate open so folks could congregate when we weren't home.
We didn't really open the roadhouse this season at all, and...man...I missed it. We're in our 40s now, and it's increasingly difficult to find an informal place to just "hang out" with friends that doesn't involve paying increasingly large amounts of money. It's just less of a thing when you're our age than in earlier in life, when all I did was "hang out" with friends at someone's house. Having a Bar Brown or Ahwatukee Roadhouse can not only save you money you'd otherwise spend out, but also provide some social connection that's harder and harder to replicate in public places.
Loved this post! I feel this way about coffee - it’s become so so expensive!! I just wait now...
"What I am I am tired of however is eating and drinking crappy food and drink in crappy settings for stupid money." - totally agree!! I never thought I would enjoy cooking a while back, but after several disappointments, I decided home cooked food is much better in many aspect. I love how you perfection your meal experience by offering course menu! We only do that for occasion, such as anniversary, but gave me a good inspiration to do it more often.
Love this idea! We married 3 years ago and by default planned our anniversary dinners would be celebrated cooking at home. I grocery shop and food prep. My husband cooks. This year we chose crab legs, Caesar salad (dressing from scratch), steak (staying tuned for the cut, likely rib-eye or filet), garlic toast (I'm in charge of creating something a little different, but tasty), and authentic wedding cake cupcakes made from scratch (my contribution, complete with almond flavored cream cheese frosting).
Eating out has become ridiculously expensive, not to mention the quality has steadily gotten worse, and no longer seems as special as it once did. The only thing I struggle with in giving up eating out is staying home too much when we are both off from work. We are in our sixties so eating out has been ingrained in us since we were kids. Old habits die hard. But the key is to replace them with something even better, and so far it's working out wonderfully!
Great read.
My wife and I usually eat out either for convenience or for social reasons or because we're traveling. Food just doesn't inspire us the way it does many other people, so elaborate or fancy meals are just lost on us. We don't host meals for others as a result. Like many, much of our social time is informal "happy hour" get togethers. During the pandemic, most bars here were closed, and if they weren't, they were the last place you'd want to be anyway.
So—in a nod to this future post—we decided to create our own Bar Brown. We called it the Ahwatukee Roadhouse, named after our local Phoenix neighborhood and the idea of a "travelers stopping house" (not the movie), since we open our guest room to a wide number of travelers we've never met beyond simple convos on social media. To make the roadhouse an attractive hang out, we invested some money in our backyard (we've always prioritized our travel budget instead, but we couldn't spend it on that during covid restrictions), adding in fake turf, lighting, chairs, TVs, patio/yard games, and heaters—and beer and wine fridges too. It became a safe yet informal place for local friends to gather during an otherwise isolating time. We even left our gate open so folks could congregate when we weren't home.
We didn't really open the roadhouse this season at all, and...man...I missed it. We're in our 40s now, and it's increasingly difficult to find an informal place to just "hang out" with friends that doesn't involve paying increasingly large amounts of money. It's just less of a thing when you're our age than in earlier in life, when all I did was "hang out" with friends at someone's house. Having a Bar Brown or Ahwatukee Roadhouse can not only save you money you'd otherwise spend out, but also provide some social connection that's harder and harder to replicate in public places.