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 31-year-old organic farmer in rural Maine earning $30,000 a year (her compensation also includes free produce, milk, and half a pig) cooks all of her meals with ingredients from the farm. Keep reading for her receipts.
Jump ahead:
The finances
What are your pronouns? She/her
What is your occupation? I’m an organic farmer. The farm has about six acres of vegetables in production during the summer season, which provides for the 180+ families in our community-supported agriculture (CSA) program. We also sell vegetables a la carte via online orders each weekend. The farm also has cows, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, and ducks for the benefit of the family who owns the farm and four (including me) full-time employees. Lastly, we grow and sell native perennials, both directly to consumers and wholesale to seed companies.
In the summer I spend my days harvesting and washing vegetables leading up to the Wednesday pick up, planting seedlings, and weeding. This time of year, however, we’re working on larger projects like building a new animal barn, organizing storage spaces, and placing our annual seed order.
How old are you? 31
What city and state do you live in? Newport, Maine
What is your annual salary, if you have one? I’m paid $16.50 per hour before taxes, and with overtime in the summer, I end up making around $30,000 a year. My compensation also includes free produce, milk, and half a pig per year.
How much is one paycheck, after taxes? Usually around $1,200. More in the summer with overtime.
How often are you paid? (e.g. weekly) The 1st and 16th of each month.
How much money do you have in savings? Right now, almost nothing. We take a two-week unpaid break around Christmas and New Years and my small stockpile is always depleted this time of year.
What are your approximate fixed monthly expenses beyond food? (i.e. rent, subscriptions, bills)
- Total: $1,089.24
- Rent (Utilities included): $850
- Chewy Autoship (Cat food): $124.78
- YouTube TV: $54.99
- Hulu/Disney+: $17.95
- Amazon Prime: $14.99
- Audible: $15.99
- Spotify: $10.54
The diet
Do you follow a certain diet or have dietary restrictions? I try to eat mostly whole, organic foods. I like to support local farms in the area as much as I can. I also eat seasonally because I get free produce from the farm where I work, and every meal of mine includes ingredients from the farm. I love cooking vegetable-filled recipes and make almost everything from scratch. My dream is to journey into making my own dairy products, like cheese and sour cream, but I’m not quite there yet.
What are the grocery staples you always buy, if any? I buy a lot in bulk and then do my best to work down to nearly nothing before I do another big shop. I maybe go to the grocery store once a month, sometimes less. When I do go, I usually spend around $200. I also often buy meat by purchasing 20-pound boxes of ground beef or several chickens at once from local farms or friends and then storing them in a chest freezer I share with my downstairs neighbors. I find this approach keeps my creativity high and my overall grocery bill lower. When I do go to the store, I try to stock up on: coffee, rice, popcorn, dried beans, walnuts, eggs, flour, sour cream, Greek yogurt, cheese, butter, extra-virgin olive oil, aged balsamic vinegar, raw honey, maple syrup, mayonnaise, tomato paste, seasonal fruit, Maine sea salt, peppercorns, and other spices.
I get a gallon of milk each week from work, as well as a CSA produce box every other week in the winter and spring, and weekly in the summer and fall. We also butcher pigs in the fall and each full-time employee gets a half pig if they want in exchange for off-the-clock help with the butchering.
How often in a week do you dine out versus cook at home? I VERY rarely eat out. Every so often (maybe every six to eight weeks), I will order a pizza. On a really hot day in the summer, I love to go down to Sawyer’s Dairy Bar in town for some ice cream.
How often in a week did you dine out while growing up? Once or twice a week.
How often in a week did your parents or guardians cook at home? Around 75% of the time. My dad was the main cook in my house growing up. On weeknights we would eat very basic meals like spaghetti and jarred sauce, chicken breast with rice, or some sort of casserole. We usually had salad, steamed broccoli, or asparagus as a side. About once or twice a week we would eat out at a local diner, Chinese restaurant, Applebee’s, or order pizza. On the weekends my dad would experiment and make things that took longer like beef bourguignon or beef stew, homemade pesto pizza, chili, or cheese soufflé. He is also a big lover of sweets and would often bake a batch of cookies or a pie on the weekend. We would always go out to a nice restaurant on special occasions. Eating together has always been a priority for my family.
The expenses
- Week’s total: $0.00
- Restaurants and cafés total: $0.00
- Groceries total: $0.00
- Most-expensive meal or purchase: Probably the homemade chicken tikka masala, since it had the least ingredients from the farm. I would guess, all ingredients included, the whole batch for the week cost $25 to make.
- Least-expensive meal or purchase: The homemade potato leek soup. Everything in it was from the farm except the chicken stock, which I made myself, and the cream, of which I used about half a cup. The whole batch (8 cups) probably cost about $1 to make.
- Number of restaurant and café meals: 0
- Number of grocery trips: 0
The diary
5:45 a.m. I get out of bed a little later than I should. With my espresso maker, I make a double shot of some of my favorite coffee from Michigan, where I was visiting my parents for the holidays. The coffee shop, RoosRoast, has a super-dark-but-not-burned roast called “Portland in the 90s” ($16.00/lb). While the machine runs, I pour milk from the farm into the milk frother. This sounds like a fancy coffee ritual, but really it takes me less than five minutes and makes the best cup of coffee.
.jpeg)
After a few sips of my latte, I heat up a big pot of leftover homemade chicken tikka masala with some rice (4Sisters Jasmine White Rice, $4.69/2 lb bag from Hannaford Supermarket) to prepare lunch.
Normally I make my own bread, but I’ve been out of town for the holidays and didn’t have time this past weekend. It only mildly bothers me to pull a Bays Sourdough English Muffin ($4.09/6 pack from Hannaford) from the plastic sleeve and put it under the broiler. While the muffin toasts, I drizzle olive oil (Napa Valley Naturals Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, $17.99/bottle from Bob’s Farm Home and Garden) in a pan to fry an egg ($10.00/dozen from Misty Brook Farm). I love how the sides of the egg get sort of crispy and lacy when you fry them in oil. I flip the egg for a quick over-easy, pull the English muffin from the oven and pop it onto a plate, and follow with the egg. I slather the English muffin in butter. I don’t always eat breakfast, but I’m glad I did today—there’s not much better than an egg with toast and butter.
Realizing the time, I hurry through my final bites and fill my travel thermos with the tikka masala. I also pack a salad with a bottle of my favorite balsamic vinegar (Napa Valley Naturals Grand Reserve Balsamic Vinegar, $10.95 from Stonewall Kitchen), and two mandarin oranges ($3.99/3 lb bag from Hannaford).
I finish my coffee on the way to work on the farm.
12:10 p.m. Every day at work, we sit down to lunch around this time and start work again around 1 p.m. I eat lunch in the house with the family that owns the farm and a few other coworkers. In warm seasons I like to eat outside, but this time of year, there’s always a fire burning in the woodstove and that’s more than enough to lure me into the house. This morning we harvested the last of our greens from the hoop houses (greenhouses) for the CSA pick up on Wednesday.
I sit at the long table with everyone and take my tikka masala, salad, and mandarins out of my lunch bag. The tikka masala isn’t as warm as I’d like, but we don’t have any way to heat up food here. I grew up in a diverse city and would go over to friends’ houses and have curries like this pretty frequently. Mine could also have a little more kick to it, but the freshness from the ginger and the warmth and earthiness of the cumin and turmeric take me back to those play dates as a kid.
The salad is made of farm greens grown in the hoop houses, an apple I brought back from Michigan (part of my sister’s local produce box, which she pays $35.00/week from Argus Farm Stop), some walnuts ($10.99/lb from Bob’s Farm Home and Garden), and feta cheese (Olympiana Barrel Aged Greek Feta, $6.99 from Hannaford). I drizzle on the balsamic and alternate between bites of that and tikka masala. I finish with the mandarins, which are sweet and juicy.
5:20 p.m. At home, I often have a big glass of whole raw milk from the farm as an afternoon snack and today is one of those days. It tastes satiating after an afternoon of bagging up the greens we harvested. I drink it as I finish making my potato leek soup for dinner. I sauté leeks and garlic in butter ($9.00/lb from Great Hopes Farm), then add homemade chicken stock, potatoes, some sprigs of thyme and a bay leaf ($4.70/large refill from Gneiss Spice). It only takes me about 15 minutes to prepare and now just needs to simmer, get blitzed with the immersion blender (after I pull out the bay leaf, of course), and finish with cream (Calder Dairy Whipping Cream, $3.99 from Busch’s Fresh Food Market).
6:00 p.m. I had every intention of making some biscuits to go with my soup, but after a long day, I opt for another English muffin with butter. I sit down on the couch with a big bowl of my potato leek soup and pretty much inhale it. The soup is delicate, nutty, and simple. Once I’m almost finished, I sop up the rest of it with the English muffin. I go back for a second bowl.
Monday total: $0 (All food items previously purchased)
6:00 a.m. Another late wake-up this morning as I readjust from vacation. I still have time to make a latte, a full breakfast, and heat up some leftover potato leek soup for my lunch. I drink my coffee while I make everything and end up sandwiching an olive-oil-fried egg between two halves of a toasted English muffin and wrapping it in a napkin to take out the door. Still a tasty breakfast and one I’d choose most days over anything else.
12:06 p.m. I realize when opening my lunch bag that I forgot my bottle of balsamic, which is kind of a letdown. I quickly have some mixed farm greens, potato leek soup, and two mandarin oranges. The soup is satisfying and delightful. Honestly, the greens are now kind of old and would also be much improved with balsamic. Oh well, I still eat them. I make a mental note to buy more mandarins because they are so delicious and juicy. As usual, I retreat to the woodstove after I’ve eaten. This morning we finished bagging greens that we harvested yesterday, and sorted through potatoes, carrots, and other storage crops to be bagged this afternoon before the CSA pick up tomorrow.
4:45 p.m. I look in the fridge for something to snack on while I pull out my leftover chicken tikka masala to heat up for dinner. When I open the fridge’s cheese drawer, I remember I brought home some spicy cured sausage from Michigan (Ferry Farms Spicy Linguica, $8.00 from Plum Market) and have that with a few slices of Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar ($10.99/2 lb from Hannaford) and some Nature’s Promise Organic Golden Rounds crackers ($2.69/box from Hannaford). I will almost always go for a salty snack over a sweet one, and I love the heat from the sausage. I wish I had more of it left!
5:20 p.m. It’s almost always my routine to meal-prep big batches (at least for one person) on the weekends. As much as I love cooking, I know I’m rarely going to want to make something after being on my feet all day. So I have a few meals left of the chicken tikka masala. I heat that up with some leftover rice, throw some greens on the plate with balsamic, and call it good. Before I sit down to eat, I grab a Downeast Winter Blend Unfiltered Hard Cider ($20.99/9 pack from Hannaford) out of the fridge. It has this cinnamon and nutmeg flavor that pairs nicely with the spices of the tikka masala and is simultaneously warming and refreshing.
Tuesday total: $0 (All food items previously purchased)
6:10 a.m. I wake up this morning even later than the last two days and am not feeling top-notch. Mostly just tired, but there’s also a little tickle in my throat. I’m not very hungry for breakfast, nor do I have time to make it. I make some coffee and throw together a quick unheated lunch, which I’m sure I’ll regret when I come in from the cold at noon.
On Wednesdays of a CSA pick-up week, our team starts the morning by building 200+ boxes, which we’ve stored flat during the week. Then, in an assembly line, I, my boss, and sometimes another employee fill the CSA boxes, and then another person stocks them with all the produce we’ve bagged up on Monday and Tuesday. After we pack those, we pack the preorders, which are all customized. When I first started at the farm, I couldn’t believe we made all this happen in just five hours, but now I’m used to it. Some weeks it feels more chaotic than others.
12:00 p.m. For lunch I have a Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Lärabar ($6.99/6 pack from Hannaford) I had left over from my road trip to Michigan, two mandarin oranges, and a mason jar of milk. It’s strange I’m not that hungry, since I didn’t eat breakfast. Everything tastes wonderful together—it’s all sweet, but not too sweet, and the fattiness of the milk and the peanuts in the bar make it surprisingly filling.
5:20 p.m. I snack on a few plain crackers while I figure out what to make for dinner. They fill a void of both hunger and a little boredom. I spent the afternoon taking photos of the CSA share contents for marketing and record-keeping, then bagging up several hundred pounds of extra produce for some local food pantries. A long but productive day.
5:45 p.m. I’m not really feeling anything I have leftover tonight, so I make some homemade macaroni and cheese by boiling pasta (Nature’s Promise Rotini, $2.59/lb from Hannaford) and making a mornay sauce. I put on water to boil for the pasta and put some butter in another pot to melt. Is there anything better than the smell of melting butter?
Once melted, I add some flour to make a roux. At this point the water is boiling and I add in the pasta. I pour some milk into the pot with the roux and stir. Once it’s thickened, I stir in some grated Cabot cheddar and season it with salt ($18.00/lb from Maine Sea Salt Company), pepper (whole black peppercorns, $25.50/lb from Mountain Rose Herbs), a little hot mustard (Nature’s Promise Organic Spicy Brown Mustard, $2.69 from Hannaford), and some nutmeg ($8.00/large refill from Gneiss Spice). I strain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Meanwhile, I put two hot dogs (Applegate Organic Beef Hot Dogs, $7.59 from Hannaford) into a skillet with a little olive oil. Next to them I throw in some kale to wilt down. Once the hot dogs are heated up, I cut them into pieces and mix them in with the macaroni and cheese. A classic. I pour it all into a bowl and top it with the kale. Sometimes you just want a comfort meal, and this definitely does it. It tastes gooey, warm, savory, and salty. It’s also really filling and makes me sleepy, in a good way.
Wednesday total: $0 (All food items previously purchased)
12:15 p.m. This is the first time I’ve called in sick in my three years of working on the farm—I woke up last night with a pretty high fever. I feel miserable. I decide it’s time to pull myself out of bed and try to eat something. I have a headache, which I assume is partially from the fever and partially from not having had my coffee at 6:00 a.m. I make my normal coffee and drink a quart-sized mason jar of water while the milk froths. I want to make something easy, so I fry an egg and toast an English muffin. I top the English muffin with butter and head to the couch. It goes down easily and makes me feel a little better. Despite the caffeination, I fall back to sleep on the couch.
8:08 p.m I’m feeling a bit better after sleeping most of the day, but I still have a fever. I decide to make a cup of chamomile tea (Taylors of Harrogate Organic Chamomile, $5.99 from Hannaford) with raw honey ($24.00/quart from Mossflower Farm). I can’t taste the tea very well, since my nose is pretty stuffy, but it feels good on my throat.
8:45 p.m. The tea helped me feel a bit better and sparked my appetite. I decide to watch Nomadland, a movie I’ve been wanting to see, and make some popcorn. I heat some avocado oil (Chosen Foods Avocado Oil, $15.45/bottle from Hannaford) on the stove and add in some kernels (Organic Yellow Popcorn, $2.59/lb from Bob’s Farm Home and Garden), wait for them to finish popping, and pour them into a large bowl. I melt a pat of butter from my butter dish in the pan. Then I drizzle it over the popcorn and top it with salt and nutritional yeast ($14.99/lb from Bob’s Farm Home and Garden). Popcorn is my favorite snack and it’s exactly what I want right now. It would be good with just butter and salt, but the nutritional yeast makes it a little cheesy and takes it to the next level.
Thursday total: $0 (All food items previously purchased)
9:00 a.m. My fever has broken, but I’m still feeling stuffed up and very tired. I called in sick again today. I make my typical easy breakfast of an olive-oil-fried egg with an English muffin and coffee. Enjoyable as always.
6:30 p.m. I wasn’t very hungry throughout the day today, so I didn’t eat lunch. I heat up the last of the leftover chicken tikka masala, make a fresh batch of rice, and sauté some kale in olive oil. The chicken tastes a little off, so I decide it’s best not to finish it. I hate wasting food, but it’s never really a waste since I save scraps in a five-gallon bucket and bring it to the pigs on the farm each week. They’ll eat anything.
After cleaning up from dinner, I feed my sourdough starter to make bread tomorrow.
Friday total: $0 (All food items previously purchased)
7:30 a.m. I decide to just start with coffee. Same old latte, always a winner.
As the milk froths, I mix up the starter with more flour (Central Milling, $50.00/25 lb bag from Bob’s Farm Home and Garden), water, and salt, and knead it for a good ten minutes. It sits on the counter for about six hours, and I stretch and fold it every half hour for the first three hours, then let it rise undisturbed to make my bread.
10:50 a.m. I feel like something a little sweet this morning, and have some bananas ($0.79/lb from Hannaford) on the counter that are getting a little soft. I combine those with some frozen organic strawberries I harvested at Sheepscot General’s U-Pick over the summer ($3.00/lb), Greek yogurt (Stonyfield Organic, $7.99 from Hannaford), milk, a little honey, and some Yin Power powder I’ve had sitting around since I moved to Maine, three years ago ($118.50/200 gram bottle, Sun Potion). Yin Power powder is a blend of adaptogenic herbs that claims to support immunity and energy. I do notice some difference in my energy when I drink it in my smoothies, but not enough that I’d buy it again. I blend it all up as a smoothie.
I also soft-boil two eggs and sauté the last of my kale in a skillet with olive oil and salt. Once I peel the eggs, I nest them into the kale I’ve already placed in a bowl, split them open, and add pepper. When I was little my mom used to make soft-boiled eggs and then crumble crackers over the top for me, so I do that today too. The eggs are done perfectly—just a little runny in the center. I love the char I got on the kale, but I over-salted it a little. I balance out the saltiness with the sweetness of the smoothie. I almost always make too much smoothie, so I continue to drink the quart-sized mason jar of it throughout the morning.
After about six hours (once the dough is doubled in size), I shape it into a boule, place it in a banneton basket to keep the shape, and let it rest in the fridge overnight.
5:30 p.m. After many days of leftovers, I decide it’s time to throw another player into the leftovers game. I have a few bags of spinach in the fridge and decide to make a crustless spinach quiche. This is a go-to in my rotation, since it can also be eaten for breakfast, and tastes pretty good cold. I use my food processor to speed up the process of chopping the spinach and grating the cheese, then combine them with some eggs, milk, a little flour, dill I dehydrated from the farm, onion powder ($13.50/lb from Mountain Rose Herbs), and nutmeg. I grease a pan with butter and slide it into the preheated oven.
6:30 p.m. While the quiche cools, I heat up a little leftover rice to accompany it. Once I’ve put everything on the plate, I top the rice with a little butter, salt, and pepper. The quiche tastes cheesy and cozy, and the rice is simple and filling. A good meal after having been sick.
8:30 p.m. I’m craving something a little sweet before bed, so I make a cup of chamomile tea with honey. I drink it on the couch with a book (All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr) that I’m reading for the book club I have with my sister and grandma. The tea hits the spot.
Saturday total: $0 (All food items previously purchased)
8:50 a.m. I make my usual cup of coffee and preheat the oven to bake my bread.
10:00 a.m. I take the bread out of the oven. It looks great! Maybe my best yet? It’s so hard not to eat it right when it comes from the oven, but I know it pays to wait.
1:30 p.m I get lost in my book and realize I still haven’t had anything besides coffee. I decide the bread is cool enough to cut open now. It looks beautiful inside, probably the most open crumb I’ve ever gotten, which is what I’ve been working on. I think the long overnight proof helped; I don’t always do that. I cut off a very large slice and spread some beautiful yellow butter across the surface. It tastes as good as it looks. The crust has a wonderful crunch, and the interior is delightfully pillowy.
.jpeg)
5:30 p.m. I’ve been working on a beet risotto for about an hour and it is almost finished. I sautéed beets, celery ($3.99 from Fresh Thyme Market), onion, and garlic in a pan with some olive oil. I then added farro (Organic Italian Pearled Farro, $38.99/10 lb from Amazon), dill, and stock, and let it simmer, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, I’ve also been making a banana bread that I just put into the oven.
I stir some parmesan (Auricchio Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese, $19.99/lb from Hannaford) into the risotto and pile it on my plate with greens. I finish the whole plate with some extra olive oil, balsamic, and some soft goat cheese. My parents never made beets for us growing up because neither of them really liked them. I think this risotto could change their minds. It tastes wonderfully earthy and bright.
8:30 p.m. The banana bread has finished cooling and I go in for a slice. The edges have caramelized from the sugar (Wholesome Organic Cane Sugar, $5.19 from Hannaford) and it gives the bread a distinct nuttiness. The nuttiness could also be coming from the browned butter in the recipe (from Cook This Book by Molly Baz), which I think makes it extra special. I make a cup of chamomile tea to accompany it. The perfect end to the weekend.
Sunday total: $0 (All food items previously purchased)