1 hour ago, Tropicalsenior said:but somehow I would feel cheated sitting at the kitchen table eating reheated soup.
There are a whole lot of people though -- at least in cities -- whose entire food life is prepared commercially. As a friend of mine put it to me: most of our peers (middle-aged professionals) don't *cook* dinner, ever; they arrange dinner. Daily.
In my observation, the food budget for that version of life has exactly no idea how inexpensive soup can be.
But, as another friend put it to me when I, unkindly, said something critical about her family's restaurant habits: "well, what you, SLB, don't spend out of your pocket you do pay for in your time." And she was not wrong about that, I've been reflecting on how much time I've spent making things that, in NYC, can be functionally purchased.
Anyway -- for them, it might feel totally reasonable/really nice to eat something as delicious as Vivian Howard's food without having to go out to dinner and manage the kids in a restaurant.