A lesson in economics

Or how sometimes making food from scratch can cost less (but not always).

I drink almond milk, the unsweetened unflavored kind. I usually get it from Trader Joe’s but I’m brand-agnostic and will pick up a half gallon wherever I happen to be.

Three weeks ago, a half gallon cost $1.69. Two weeks ago, the price was $2.69. Saturday, the price was $3.69. 

Well that’s a big jump in price and yes, I know all food costs are rising. This one just happened to catch my attention. So I decided I would make my own–while there are recipes all over the internet, I used the one in my Bad Manners cookbook. 

To be honest, the flavor blew both Kent and me away. It’s creamy, rich, and utterly delicious. It’s also a lot of work as after soaking the almonds, and then blending them in a very high powered blender (so glad we have our Vitamix), you have to strain all the nut pulp out. That was a real chore.

Still, the milk is amazing and I suspected we were saving money. I ran the numbers and no, no we were not saving money. At least not using that recipe.

Bad Manners uses two cups of almonds per batch, which yields six cups of almond milk. All the other recipes I found use just one cup for the same yield. So today I added more water to our current batch of milk and it still tasted just wonderful.

Here’s the cost breakdown if you’re interested:

Commercial almond milk (76 ounces): 

• At $1.69 a carton, it’s 2 cents an ounce
• At $2.69 a carton, it’s 3.5 cents an ounce
• At $3.69 a carton, it’s 4.8 cents an ounce

Homemade almond milk–the almonds cost $10.99 a package. If I use two cups per batch, I get 27 cups. Dropping the almonds down to one cup means I get 54 cups.

• Using two cups of almonds per batch yields 216 ounces at 5 cents per ounce
• Using one cup of almonds per batch yields 432 ounces at 2.5 cents per ounce

One last post from 2021

As I mentioned here, Kent and I flew to New York the Saturday before Thanksgiving for a few days’ vacation. (We went to Nashville for Thanksgiving and I have exactly zero photos of that, you’ll have to take my word we were actually there).

Kent used a ton of loyalty points that were about to expire and we chose the ultra-cheesy tourist route and stayed right on Times Square. Click the photo of the buildings so it’s bigger, and look closely: that’s the Statue of Liberty off in the distance. As Kent said, if we’d been one room to the right or left, we wouldn’t have seen that. 

Saturday night, we had Indian food and that restaurant was the only one that didn’t check our vaccine cards, although the sign in the waiting area indicated that they would. Masks were required there, and everywhere else. The food was really good; I’ve always said that the best Indian food outside India is in London and New York. This restaurant supported that theory.

We deliberately planned only a few things as we mostly wanted to get away, be with each other and not feel compelled by a schedule. This was a restorative trip, and since we’ve been to New York many, many times we did not miss anything.

Sunday we saw the Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggeheim. This was paired with Etel Adnan’s Light’s New Measure exhibit and Gillian Wearing’s Wearing Masks exhibit. Adnan’s work was interesting but it didn’t reach out and grab us the way Wearing’s work did–her masks were compelling, creepy, provocative and I thought about them for days afterwards. 

Monday, Kent and I met with a friend of mine and wandered the Christmas Market at Union Square Park. In an example of “this is a really small world,” I bought something from a kiosk and the vendor’s payment machine needed to be restarted. He apologized and I made a comment that we’re from the Midwest and don’t get irate easily. He said he was too, he was from Kansas. Well lo and behold, he’s from Prairie Village which is perhaps two miles from where we live.

Then Kent peeled off and my friend and I met another friend for lunch at ABC Kitchen. This restaurant had all vegan food and I had the best ever vegan burger, and the most amazing chocolate cake for dessert. Writing this post reminds me that I need to track down a recipe for that burger.

Before dinner Monday evening, we had drinks at The Rum House, which of course specializes in rum. I'm not a huge fan of rum but my drink (the Tortuga) was pretty good as it had ginger in it.

Other than that, we walked a lot, we slept a fair amount, we ate really good vegan food (Beyond Sushi did a great job with sushi, and P.S. Kitchen was so good we ate there twice).

Tuesday we headed to Nashville, all relaxed and rested.