On lentil soup and economizing.
We’ve been on a lentil soup kick lately. Red lentils, french lentils, any old lentil we can find for cheap in the bulk section of our grocery store, we’ve been buying it. There’s not a recipe that we’ve been using so much as a series of habits: sauté some amount of savory onion or shallot or leek in butter or oil, add lentils and other scattered nubs of carrots or leafy greens, add sea salt and water and heat until a soup develops that’s nourishing and warming and everything that wintertime food ought to be.
Last week I made one such batch of soup and served it to friends. I won’t say I wasn’t a bit shy at the prospect. Somewhere along the way, I’ve gotten the impression that food served to company should be better-than-usual fare. Even if you’re on a tight budget, heating up a packet of ramen noodles and inviting friends for dinner doesn’t seem like quite the right thing to do. Serving bowls of lentil soup seemed like the slightly more healthful equivalent.
When you’re still relatively young and childless in this city—or maybe at any time—going out with friends can be almost astonishingly expensive. Cocktails at one bar run you a day’s food allowance and before the end of the night you can easily spend as much as you’ve allotted for the entire week’s groceries and then some. Inviting friends to your home for a pot of lentil soup seems terribly boring in the face of artisan cocktails and mustachioed waiters and oozing cheese platters.
But when my husband and I realized that our plan to live frugally in 2013 had meant that we’d allowed January to slip by without spending substantial time with any our friends, we resolved to reassess. Our conclusion is utterly predictable: invite your friends over for lentil soup. The truth is that no matter how humble the ingredients, lentil soup is delicious and having friends to your apartment for any kind of meal is better than never having them over at all.
There are some lessons I’m not sure why I’ve taken so very long to learn.
Feb 19, 2013 @ 12:17:19
I love this, Erin. It made me think of the children’s story Stone Soup. I haven’t read it since I was a child, but I think the takeaway was that everyone in town contributed a little here and a little there until they’d cooked a soup that they could enjoy together–the act of eating together being the most nourishing part of the meal. Sometimes it feels like the most important lessons we learn as adults were ones we first encountered in our childhood favorites.
Feb 19, 2013 @ 15:45:47
Indeed. I’m sure I haven’t thought about Stone Soup since first grade–useful lessons for tiny folk and larger ones alike.
Feb 19, 2013 @ 12:48:16
I don’t live in a big city, but it’s expensive to go out to eat all the time anywhere. So, I absolutely buy in to the invite friends over thing. Potlucks are my favorite — plus, cooking is entertainment in itself, especially with a good glass of wine or beer :)
Feb 19, 2013 @ 15:48:22
Yes, true enough. Potlucks are so sensible! Resolutions to host them more often! (Our friends did bring dessert)!
Feb 19, 2013 @ 13:03:28
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/dining/beans-and-red-wine-party-hearty.html?hpw
The NY Times take on the same idea!
Feb 19, 2013 @ 15:50:13
Terrific!
Feb 19, 2013 @ 14:20:34
I love lentil soup. I love this piece. And you guessed it, I love you.
Feb 19, 2013 @ 15:50:39
Right back at you, friend.
Feb 22, 2013 @ 08:26:18
love lentils so much!! I make them with small pasta… so delicious and filling!
Feb 22, 2013 @ 10:40:16
Lentils with pasta sounds even better! Looks like that might have to be this weekend’s version!
Feb 23, 2013 @ 18:22:04
What a great post! I love lentil soup (in all its various incarnations). We receive a farm share and to help stretch our food even further we invite friends over every other week or so and they bring items from their farm shares; we all cook together and swap vegetables. It’s a great chance to see our friends, share different vegetables, and save money.
Feb 25, 2013 @ 09:17:12
Robin, that sounds absolutely lovely.
Mar 11, 2013 @ 23:55:26
Hear, hear. My husband and I, also living frugally in a big glamorous city (Los Angeles), have definitely made it more of a habit to invite friends over for tacos or whatever we happen to be having that night. One friend remarked that it felt “grown up” to have dinner at our place instead of meeting at a restaurant…which was a nice reassurance, because I was feeling the opposite! Now, I even often suggest to a friend a cup of tea at my place instead of meeting at an impersonal coffeehouse. It’s so much cozier!