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, a 32-year-old restaurant chef makes "clean out the veggie drawer" nachos, chicken galantine with chimichurri, and frozen pizza with hot giardiniera. He lives in Chicago (where The Bear's second season has recently put restaurant chefs in the spotlight again). Keep reading for his receipts.
Jump ahead:
The finances
What are your pronouns? He/him
What is your occupation? Restaurant chef
How old are you? 32
What city and state do you live in? Chicago, Illinois
What is your annual salary, if you have one? $75,000
How much is one paycheck after taxes? $2,100
How often are you paid? (e.g., weekly) Every other week
How much money do you have in savings? $5,000
What are your approximate fixed monthly expenses beyond food? (rent, subscriptions, bills, e.g.)
- Total: $1,440
- Rent/Utilities: $1,000
- Student loans: $250
- Car/Moped insurance and gas: $150
- Subscriptions: $40
The diet
Do you follow a certain diet or have dietary restrictions? No.
What are grocery staples do you always buy, if any? Eggs, lunch meat (mortadella, ham), and Muenster cheese, usually. Red pepper, red onion, usually a cucumber or tomato. I really like to shop before every meal. I don’t keep a ton of extra stuff on hand.
How often in a week do you dine out versus cook at home? I probably eat out two to three times a week, cook at home two to three times a week, and eat at work the rest.
How often in a week did you dine out while growing up? Maybe once a week, probably two to three times a month. We would go out and have pizza on Fridays pretty often.
How often in a week did your parents or guardians cook at home? Almost every day. My dad would grill a lot when it was nice. Hot dogs, hamburgers, a chicken breast here or there. Nothing crazy. My mom’s side of the family is Sicilian and she would make pasta sauce with meatballs and sausage. Stuffed shells were made for holidays and always a treat. Minestrone soup was another pretty common meal. We had a sit-down dinner as a family most nights of the week.
The expenses
- Week’s total: $191.26
- Restaurants and cafés total: $91.08
- Groceries total: $100.18
- Most expensive meal or purchase: $37, Go Tavern and Liquors
- Least expensive meal or purchase: Spanish onion from Cermak Produce, 48¢
- Number of restaurant and café meals: 3
- Number of grocery trips: 2
The diary
8:40 a.m. Coffee from Aldi (previously bought) from my French press.
12:00 p.m. Two pieces of grilled chicken and some grilled zucchini and broccoli. I am at work; it was decent. Free because it’s at work. This is a pretty standard lunch for me. Something quick and easy to eat.
7:30 p.m. On Monday nights I bowl in a league. Usually we have some sort of snack. I bring pimento cheese and Ritz crackers—they’re left over from a party we had at work. Didn't cost me anything. I also have a couple of edibles. A friend of mine made them and gave them to me, so they’re also free.
10:30 p.m. I’m feeling hungry (maybe because of the edibles). I eat some pasta salad: fusilli with grilled zucchini, squash, and red onion, all toasted in piquillo pepper vin with some feta on top. I previously grabbed a deli container of the salad from work. Cost me nothing.
9:00 a.m. I go to Foodsmart, the corner store by work, and grab a can of cold brew coffee. Dark Matter is a local brand of coffee that makes pretty good cold brew ($4.04 for 8 oz.).
12:45 p.m. One of the chefs from another restaurant in the group I work for reaches out and asks if we want to trade food with them for lunch. It’s a welcome request. Everyone gets sick of eating food from the same restaurant every day. I eat three traded al pastor tacos for lunch and drink a can of Squirt, the soda. The bar had some left over from when they were riffing on a paloma cocktail.
2:00 p.m. I have a handful of french fries and a couple of chicken nuggets from work.
7:00 p.m. Normally on Tuesday nights I ride with my moped club. We usually go to a different classic Chicago hot dog place every week. But it’s raining, so we have to cancel. I stay in and order Thai food. I try a new place, S&S Thai, and get the spicy basil noodle “khee mao” ($11.00). It’s greasy and spicy and delicious. Wide noodles and a ton of veggies: carrot, baby corn, tomato, bean sprouts, bell peppers, onion, some sort of spicy pepper. And a spicy garlic sauce. I really like the amount of veggies in it.
I also get some egg rolls ($5.00). They’re nice. I can tell they’re rolled by the restaurant and not frozen. They have a nice mix of chicken, shrimp, and rice noodles inside ($27.74, including taxes, delivery, and tip).
8:30 a.m. This is one of my days off. The weather is looking really nice and I want to grill.
My partner and I are spending some time together before she goes to work. Over coffee (French press, previously bought Aldi coffee), we decided to grill chicken for dinner. She says she wants boneless, skinless thighs and I say how much I like the skin and how much flavor the fat adds. She says, “Why can’t we do boneless skin on?” I start to explain how they don’t sell chicken like that when it hits me. I can make a galantine, deboning the bird and still leaving skin on. I decide to stuff it with chimichurri and roasted potatoes and serve with roasted peppers, mushrooms, and grilled plantains.
I go to Cermak Produce to get all the stuff I need. I love Cermak Produce. It’s a grocery chain specializing in a variety of Hispanic products with very reasonably priced produce and meat. The prepared food at Cermak is also fantastic—I have a gordita for lunch ($3.99) made fresh on the comal right in front of me and stuffed with carnitas cheese, tomatoes, cilantro, and onion. It might be the best lunch under $5 I have ever had. I eat at the grocery store before I shop all the time. Nobody wants to shop hungry.
I grab a couple of other grocery staples: some romaine for a salad or something this week (79¢) and a half pound of mortadella ($3.34). I always need to make sure the mortadella has pistachios. The strawberries look good, so I grab a pound of those ($1.99). A bag of celery ($3.50). I impulse-buy some jerk-marinated chicken wings ($4.93) for an appetizer while the galantine cooks ($63.68 total). I also make a quick stop at Aldi, the other grocery store I usually go to. I get snacks and crap: cookies, potato chips, tortilla chips, a frozen pizza, Cheez-Its, a wheel of Brie, and string cheese ($28.52 total).
2 p.m. I get home and start on dinner. I keep it pretty classic with the chimichurri. An assload of parsley, raw garlic, red pepper flakes, red wine vinegar. I roast some russet potatoes until they’re almost done but still have some bite. I cover the inside of the chicken with the chimi potatoes and raw white onions. Roll it up. Tie and truss it.
4 p.m. I light up the trusty Weber kettle. I have some old applewood chips that I put in a foil pouch. I get the grill to just a little over 300°, then throw on the wings and the smoke chips. I do an indirect heat and grill them for a little over an hour.
5 p.m. I put the galantine on the grill, going low and slow. After two hours I add some more coal and toss on all the veggies: cubanelle and poblano peppers, white mushrooms, ripe plantains, and cebollitas. When they’re almost done, I toss them all in chimichurri and then put them back on the grill quickly just to cook the garlic a little bit. Everything comes off the grill together, and after the chicken rests for 20 minutes I make some margaritas and we dig in.
It’s fantastic. The chimichurri and the potatoes inside the galantine worked out really well. All the chicken juices are mixed with the chimichurri and soaked up by the potatoes. I parcooked the potatoes before they went into the bird. I didn't really get any of the smokiness from the wood chips, but the quick grill for the veggies in the chimichurri makes all those flavors really pop. The chimichurri is full of raw garlic, but just a bit of char from the grill makes the garlic not so sharp. Raw garlic can be too much sometimes. The highlight of the meal is the grilled plantains. And we have lots of leftovers (no plantains though).
9 a.m. I have a Metric cold brew, which we sell at work.
12 p.m. I make myself a sandwich at work. Grilled chicken breast, avocado spread, arugula, and smoked pickled onions on a ciabatta roll. It’s good and free.
8:00 p.m. For dinner my partner and I go to Falafel & Grill, a Mediterranean restaurant. We split a Greek salad with chicken ($12.00), six falafels ($5.50), and a small hummus ($6.00). The salad is full of tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, feta, Kalamatas, and a balsamic vinegar. Hummus always tastes better at a restaurant than when you buy it at the store. It is so light and fluffy, served with some grilled pita. The pita is slightly overgrilled—I like my pita to be nice and soft and this has a little bit of a crunch. It’s all still delicious. It’s hard to beat dinner for two for $26.03 total.
9:30 p.m. I make popcorn. The Sox game has just started. I generally just buy popcorn kernels from Cermak Produce, ($1.99 for a pound, previously bought) and I can make about eight batches of corn per bag, depending on size. I pop it in a pot with a little bit of vegetable oil. With butter and salt, it’s maybe 50¢ a batch.
9:30 a.m. I start the day with a cup of coffee at work.
10:30 a.m. I have three chicken nuggets and a small handful of french fries. I eat them because I’m hungry, and they’re what’s in front of me.
12:30 p.m. I make myself a sandwich for lunch: grilled chicken thigh, avocado, Little Gem lettuce, pickled red onions, and spicy mayo on a brioche bun. It’s good. I have a couple handfuls of potato chips to go along with it.
8:00 p.m. For dinner we make nachos from the groceries I already have. This is a pretty common thing for me to make for dinner. I make a cheesy sauce from a béchamel with cheddar and American cheese. Dice up some jalapeños for the sauce as well. Lay out all my chips on a ¼ sheet tray, drizzle with cheese sauce, do another layer of the same. I also use chicken left over from the galantine, poblano, and red bell peppers. A lot of romaine lettuce. The lettuce needs to be cut to a super-fine julienne. Atop the lettuce is avocado chunks, some vine tomatoes, sour cream, and hot sauce.
I love making nachos. We sometimes switch up the meat. It’s an easy way to play “clean out the veggie drawer.”
10:00 p.m. I have a small bowl of Cheez-Its and a couple of cookies from Aldi. They’re the knockoff Girl Scout cookies, caramel chocolate coconut. They are delicious.
9:00 a.m. I have coffee at work.
10:30 a.m. I make myself some breakfast. I have one farm egg, sunny-side up. A piece of dark rye toast, half an avocado, two breakfast sausage links, and 12 tater tots. This is a pretty standard breakfast for me when I am working on the weekends. We serve brunch on Saturday and Sunday, and when the brunch line is set up, I usually just make myself some sort of hodgepodge. I love our biscuits and gravy, but if I eat that while working I will just want to take a nap.
Throughout the day I have a few small bites here and there. Couple of chicken nugs. A handful of fries.
5:30 p.m. I have a burger and some Hamachi crudo from work for dinner. The crudo is a new dish we put on the menu last week, and we’ve just changed the plating on it. It’s a really nice, subtle dish. Hamachi with jícama and radish in a citrus vin with jalapeños. Served with potato chips to eat it on. The burger is two smash patties with pickles and a spicy dijonaise on a brioche bun. This is a pretty typical dinner for me if I know I am not cooking at home. I am going out later to have some drinks with friends.
7:30 PM. I meet up with some friends at a neighborhood dive bar with a patio, Go Tavern and Liquors. I have three PBRs ($4.00 each) and three Four Roses on the rocks ($5.00 each). ($37 total, including $10 tip).
11:30 p.m. Back at home, I have three slices of mortadella, a cheese stick, and a handful of Cheez-Its. I could eat more, but it’s getting late.
10:00 a.m. At home I make a breakfast sandwich on an English muffin: toasted muffin, sunny egg, sliced deli ham, Muenster cheese, hot sauce. This is a very typical breakfast for me if I am not working that day.
2:00 p.m. At my partner’s house hanging out with her niece, I have a handful of peanuts. I can’t remember the last time I had peanuts in the shell outside of a baseball game. They make such a mess that I’m glad we’re outside. I’m teaching the two-and-a-half-year-old how to get the peanuts out of the shell. She gets the hang of it after a few.
7:30 p.m. For dinner I make a frozen pizza: Home Run Inn sausage pizza from Aldi ($8, previously bought). I pile on some veggies from the fridge—onions, red bell peppers, and some hot giardiniera. I have frozen pizza probably two to three times a month. It’s so easy and cheap, and once you dress it up a little bit it can be really tasty.
I make a little salad to go with the pizza, romaine and cucumbers with a red wine vin. I wish I had carrots or tomatoes, but it’s fine.
9:30 p.m. One of my partner’s friends is having a get-together, so we go to enjoy the weather and have some drinks. I’m very surprised by how big the food spread is. Among dozens of other dishes, someone has made bagel dogs from scratch, bagels and all. Parties with industry people always go one of two ways: an insane spread of too much food or nothing at all. This is definitely the first. I have a bagel dog, and even though it’s been sitting for an hour or two it’s delicious. The bagel is nice and chewy and the dog is a nice plump beef dog. What a pleasant surprise. I chat with the guy who made them, and he does pop-ups and sells at farmers markets. It’s a delight.