Welcome to the new home of the soliloquy. This will be the first post published on the new platform only, and therefore will make a concerted effort to be less silly, flippant and quite frankly dithery going forward.
Good, enough of that.
On a more interesting note, the Jabberwocky had a whole new experience last weekend, and finally got to actively engange in the last of the three tenets of Jabberwockism. We went round to someone else’s house and cooked for them. Chef for Hire is our idea for covering times when people do not necessarily want to eat outdoors, like the winter, or shortly after having a baby, or during an apocalypse. All of these things presumably make eating outdoors harder than usual, and that is where we leap in, brandishing spatulas and singing the theme from the A-team.
The dinner in question was shortly after the birth of my lovely new niece, and as a result my brother and sister-in-law were in need of a birthday celebration that could happen in the home. We directed their attention to the website, and they came back with a menu they wanted. We were delighted at the functionality of the website, and praised the internet for being so frighteningly useful. Although it does need a nicer button for the menu. Perhaps a pictures of something. Suggestions welcome.
They chose the chicken liver parfait followed by 90s fine dining classic the prawn cocktail. For mains they chose the steaks, and then rounded everything off with the chocolate tart. As usual I can take no credit what so ever for the cooking, because other than spending 5 minutes eyeing the roast chips I didn’t really do anything useful. Roast chips, by the way, are the glorious and wonderfully happy medium between chips and roast potatoes. I could talk about them for hours. Incidentally as we’re talking about how amazing the cooking is I should mention that the parfait is so light you can easily forget that it is almost entirely cream. It also melts in the mouth like nothing else I have ever tasted. I would also like to mention that my lack of assistance was partly due to my 3 week old niece who began to cry every time she was put down.
Dinner and 176 repetitions of twinkle twinkle little star later we got to discussing the services rendered. The evening had been a success! The meal had been delicious and the babysitting (me walking round the kitchen, jiggling new-born and singing, occasionally eyeing the chips) had also been very welcome. I love it when a plan comes together.
The task was now to find a way to make money from this concept. Here’s the thing. The average cost of a meal out in the UK is about £20, not including drinks. So lets say £60 for two people if you throw in a nice bottle of wine and perhaps a bit of water. You’re getting close, but bear in mind that our chef needs to buy all the ingredients, prepare them in advance, travel to and from you and not have any other source of income that night. I’m not a bit fan of talking money, as it’s just a means to an end, but would you be willing to pay £80+ for an evening of fine food for two and an absence of washing up?
On a more serious note: are you humming the theme tune to the A-Team as well now?
It disappoints me a little that people only average £20 for a meal. That means a lot of people must class eating the 5.99 deal from weatherspoons as “eating out” where as I rate that slightly above eating a KFC.
From personal experience if I take my wife out for a meal then we are probably looking at 5-10 each starter, 15-20 main, 5-10 desert with £10 of drinks each. Meaning we would spend 35-50 each or 70-100 (plus tip on top).
Admittedly only on special occasions will we hit the top end of this, but more often we are at the lower end but even so, for the average to be £20 people have to be eating a lot of weatherspoons.
I’m afraid this isn’t very post related, but as it was food related and you are the food oracle to me I shall ask for help here. Do you have any ideas (with consultation with the cooking brains of your operation) for a vegetarian, nut free main? Let’s just say a friend will be cooking a roast soon and would appreciate any suggestions.