My Very Expensive Pea Soup

Eating out can be dangerous to your wallet and your health. I found out about the monetary cost last week when I met friends for lunch at a midtown steakhouse to watch Barack Obama’s inauguration.

It was a cold day, so three of us ordered the pea soup. It was the soup of the day, so the price wasn’t on the menu. When the bill came, we saw that each bowl was $10.95. This was a dose of sticker shock, especially for someone who cooks 90% of his meals.

The soup was pretty good, but far from pretty good enough to warrant $10.95. Of equal concern was the fact that despite being told it was vegetarian, we all tasted overtones of meat. It’s almost impossible to really know what’s in your food when you eat at a restaurant. I’m sure if butter and cream were used in the soup, they weren’t from grass-fed cows.

The next day I made a vat of vegetarian pea soup and kept a tally of the costs. The ingredients totaled $2.65, which meant that each of the eight portions cost $0.33. It was delicious and vegetarian.

Tomorrow I’ll list the ingredients and costs, plus explain how I made the soup.