Cook at home or eat in a restaurant?

[Wilfrid]

This was being discussed down on Stellabella's bio thread

http://www.egullet.com/ib3....0;st=20

and although I am sure it's come up before in various guises, I would certainly be interested to read more views.

What's better?  Cooking at home, when everything goes okay, or visiting a restaurant?  Or if you like doing both, as I do, what are the pros and cons?  If you had all the time in the world, would you cook at home more often?  I certainly would.  Or is the whole ritual of dining out too good to miss?

[Fat Guy]

Cooking at home increases one's appreciation of great restaurant cuisine, and also one's ability to discern the good from the bad. So I would always want to do some of each.

Advantages of dining out: Assuming the restaurant is good, you get pampered, you don't have to do any work, and the food is better than anything you could cook at home without Herculean effort. And at all restaurants, even bad ones, you don't have to do the dishes. Advantages of dining at home: You don't have to travel, you can have pretty much exactly what you want, you experience the joy of creation, and you can do it all butt-naked.

My dining in/dining out ratio is satisfactory to me. What I'd like to do is increase the average quality of my experiences. I eat too many bad meals out of laziness, both at home and out.

[Wilfrid]

I completely agree with the last point, and I have got better over the last three or four years at resisting the lazy option - some of the time.

I have had to pay a price for improving the quality of my at-home experience, which I could describe as eschewing eclecticism.  I have cooked since I was a kid, but as the years go by time for cooking (and, crucially, shopping) decreases.  I have three or maybe four chances to cook a proper meal in an ordinary week - and I lose many weeks to travelling or other commitments.   In order to cook to a satisfactory standard, I consciously decided to practice only one cuisine - the one I like best.  So, gone are the days when I would try a curry one day, a Chinese dish the next, then a lasagne, and a roast at the weekend.  I work quite hard at trying to cook French bourgeois dishes - mainstream, fairly old-fashioned French family or family-restuarant style food.  The result is that I am a pretty reliable cook in that genre.

The price for improving my dining out experience is more obvious, as a perusal of my bank statement demonstrates.

[yvonne johnson]

There's an old thread on this topic, for what it's worth

http://www.egullet.com/ib3....r+party

which I happen to remember for obvious reasons.

I really enjoy dinner parties and there has to be charades at the end.

[Tonyfinch]

I like cooking at home.It has loads of obvious advantages.Therefore I've got to the point where,apart from my  cheap local Pakistani place where I eat twice a week,I only want to eat out at places where they serve food that  I would not or could not cook at home.

               

These days I would never go to a restaurant to eat,say,a grilled steak,or roast chicken,or ordinary pasta or any "plain" food. When I go I want complex,worked "foodie" food,stuff that tests the chef and gives me a "food experience" which I wouldn't otherwise have.I see absolutely no point in paying restaurant prices otherwise.

[Andy Lynes]

Tony, I agree completely, although for a number of reasons I eat in restaurants that don't meet the criteria you have set out. I try and avoid going out in any shape or form just for the sake of it and save the money for trips to restaurants that I hope will really deliver the goods.

I love to cook at home, and we really don't entertain enough. But if given the choice, I would not sit down to eat with my guests, but join them after the meal. It really is too much like hard work dishing up 3,4 or 5 courses (yes, I know it's my own fault, but that's how I have fun) and being nice to people. I just usually concentrate on the former and see how it goes with the latter.    

The two experiences are entirely different and one is not a substitute for the other in my opinion. I shall continue to do both, just more often.

[mamster]

The other good thing about eating at home is that you can have meals no restaurant would serve you.  The other night Laurie and I bought a kalamata olive loaf and made some peperonata and some crispy bits of pancetta.  We toasted slices of the bread, topped it with the bacon and peperonata, and ate this with a knife and fork.  Then we ate a bunch of LU cookies.

At my dinner parties there has to be Balderdash or Scotland Yard at the end.  These things are also frowned on at restaurants.

When I go to a restaurant, I want food that I would have trouble making at home.  The more things I learn to make at home, the less I enjoy eating out.  Then again, not along ago I had a hugely satisfying Italian restaurant meal of pasta with peas, pancetta, and tomatoes with a bottle of cheap barbera.  I certainly could have done it at home, but not with a view of the Sound and everyone beaming at me for choosing exactly the right wine.  (At home there's no wine list.  At least, not at my home.)

[Ruby]

At this stage of my life, I really do enjoy eating out more than cooking at home unless my One and Only is being Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee. After a hard day at work, I just don't want to shop, clean, cook, clean up some more.

It's been said that New Yorkers eat out so much with their friends because their apartments and kitchens are so small. I also see it as a way to relax, with nice ambiance, and entertainment in the form of how all these new restos and bistros are decorated. It seems every trendy restaurant is coming up with new ideas such as the 'water room' on the Lower East Side. My water room is the bathroom where you'll also find a kitty litter box. Aww, let's eat out.    

[Bux]

You left our eating in someone else's home, but I guess that's an option that's not available until you're invited. There are shades of difference in all the options. I enjoy different aspects of eating out in different restaurants. Eating at home is a dfferent option if you're cooking or if your spouse is cooking.

Fat Guy, you can eat out buck naked in Cap d'Agde and perhaps other places, but you've already reduced my interest in ever being invited to your house.

I suspect I've always enjoyed eating out and at home. I hope I continue to enjoy both, but I can definitely say I enjoy eating out more now than before. I suspect there's some sort of curve in preference change in most people's lives. My guess is that it may even be an asymetrical bell curve. I wonder if it's ever a wave with alternate highs and lows.

Maybe I've left out my favorite. That's having someone who really knows how to cook, come over bringing raw materials and talent and cook for me. I don't have to put on a coat, worry about the weather, and not cooking in my own house is a real luxury that I'm conscious of all night long. Cleaning up the next morning seems a small price to pay.

[cabrales]

Malawry & Wilfrid -- I appreciated Malawry's recent post in the stellabella bio.  I have been thinking about how learning to cooking could further extend and augment the dining experience.  Here are excerpts from Malawry's post:

"It's not so much that I'm trying to say ... you really have to learn how to cook to appreciate food, or any such thing. ...and there is no "wrong"...where would we be without people to sample our treats, whether we cook professionally or at home? I'm just a little sad for you, that's all."

I wonder about a lot of things, but what I miss from not cooking is one of the most consistent things I wonder about. Wilfrid and A Balic discuss the maximum number of people they have cooked for in the "Manners?" thread under "General" (pp. 2, 3). Below are some of my thoughts from that thread:

"I sometimes wonder what I'm missing in not being able to cook. It would seem that cooking a meal could be linked to eating it in so many ways that both parts could, in certain situations, become more meaningful."  

"The reasons are that I have wondered (1) how somebody cooking for more than, say, two people could have the time to appropriately eat each dish while contemplating/preparing the remaining ones, (2) how occupation of the dual role of diner/chef can limit the type of dishes that could be prepared (e.g., dishes that permit a larger proportion of work to be done in advance) (and the extent to which that might have contributed to the prevalence of restaurants), (3) as alluded to an earlier post, whether the preparation of a meal can confer pleasure by becoming an extension of the meal experience (just like evaluating a meal during its progress and afterwards is, for me, part of the meal experience), and (4) how the different number of people typically dining together within different societies (e.g., certain Chinese "family style" dining arrangements) could affect whether the chef can dine alongside."

[Malawry]

Both cooking at home and eating in a restaurant are important experiences for me. I don't necessarily only eat fancy food or food I cannot prepare at home in a restaurant...I frequently eat more ordinary meals, meals I could easily prepare better at home. This is because I can eat with a group of friends and not have to do all the work, and sometimes just because I don't want to do all the work that would come with cooking just for me or just for my partner and our housemate. There's a lot to be said for no dishes, no food prep time, no worry on a weeknight.

A lot of what I cook for a dinner party will have to be prepared in advance. Really this is no different from restaurant cooking. They don't start mixing a dough when you order a pizza, or run to make a batch of tomato sauce, they have all the components ready to assemble and go. And I do the same thing. I try to balance my menus so there's less likelihood that I will spend lots of time in the kitchen, but it doesn't always work. I hosted a latke feast in December that turned into a total mess. You really can't cook your latkes in advance, they must be prepared fresh...and they take a while to cook...and I was attempting to feed 12 people off of them as an entree. Big mistake. Even with three of the four eyes on the stove holding a big pan (the fourth eye was holding warmed homemade applesauce) it took way too long. Live and learn. This is unlikely to have happened in a restaurant.

If I had all the time in the world I'd make more of the plainer meals myself rather than eating them out. If I had all the money in the world I'd dine out more at better places, and cook more challenging meals on a regular basis. I'd also hire somebody to do my dishes, serve, and learn the last minute food prep and plating skills...thereby saving me time I could spend with my guests. Not that I really mind the dishes, serving, last minute prep, and plating...

[Rachel Perlow]

I try to balance my menus so there's less likelihood that I will spend lots of time in the kitchen, but it doesn't always work. I hosted a latke feast in December that turned into a total mess. You really can't cook your latkes in advance, they must be prepared fresh...and they take a while to cook...and I was attempting to feed 12 people off of them as an entree. Big mistake. Even with three of the four eyes on the stove holding a big pan (the fourth eye was holding warmed homemade applesauce) it took way too long. Live and learn. This is unlikely to have happened in a restaurant.

Malawry - latkes can definitely be made in advance. I find that they need to be more of the shredded kind, rather than the finely ground kind. Shallow fry them until medium golden, cool/drain on a rack then individually flash freeze them layed out on a sheet pan (it helps if you have a chest freezer, if not use a lot of smaller flat pans/trays). You can place them in a freezer bag after they have frozen hard. To reheat, do not defrost, but heat at around 400-450F for 15-20 minutes, preferably on a rack over a sheet pan. You don't want to over color them during the initial cooking because to re-crisp they'll need enough time in the oven to take on some additional color.

[cabrales]

Speaking of cooking at home, what have members' experiences been with "pot luck" dinners? Are reheating and other aspects of dishes brought by guests a problem?  Presumably, there might be less satisfaction from planning out the meal, but there would also be less work for the hosting party.  

Also, what is the maximum number of people other members have cooked for?  

Discussions on the board today regarding mark-ups on restaurant wine (UK board) reminded me that cooking would be a good way to reduce the need to pay mark-ups, if one is enthusiastic about wine.  

[Miss J]

A lot of what I cook for a dinner party will have to be prepared in advance...I try to balance my menus so there's less likelihood that I will spend lots of time in the kitchen, but it doesn't always work. I hosted a latke feast in December that turned into a total mess.

Heh - I can completely identify with that. I once hosted a pancake and waffle feast following a trip back to Canada. Naturally, I'd seized the opportunity to fill my suitcase with jugs and jugs of amber-grade maple syrup and was eager to induct my British friends into the glory of the Real Thing ™. Like your latke party, my pancake and waffle party disintigrated into a mad rush of flipping, pan-checking, re-oiling and shipping the results out to my guests. Next time I'm just going to get a huuuuuuuge griddle and make everyone cook their own...

But apart from the (mercifully few) situations like that, like you I tend to plan my dinner party menus in a way that allows for lots and lots of advance prep. There's nothing nicer on the day than sitting around with your guests, smugly hauling out food that you've just sprinkled a little last-minute parsley over before presenting it. My dinner party last Saturday (which I lovingly detailed over in my bio thread) was a case in point. Most of it could be made in advance of people actually showing up (with notable exception of the risotto).

I think the key to the cooking/eating out debate is what the particular food experience you're looking for is. Personally, I'm such a food geek that I derive a huge amount of pleasure out of choosing and shaping food into something I want to eat, as well as the enjoyment of actually eating the food itself. In fact, the only thing better than that is shaping food into something that I want to make *other* people to eat.  

I really enjoy dining out as well, but the experience is really different. It doesn't last as long, for one thing. The end product can be of a much higher calibre than anything I could produce myself, of course. But sometimes the convienience, relaxation and delightful task of choosing off a menu is a major draw (which is the thing I like best about spending a lazy Sunday afternoon in a gastropub).

And of course I consider dining out to be a major source of inspiration for the things I'm going to dream of doing myself at a later date.  

Miss J

[A Balic]

I rarely eat out in since moving to the UK. I love eating out but at the end of the dining spectrum that I can afford the food/wine isn't that interesting, so if I do go out to eat it is for a special occasion or socialisation, not food.

Cooking at home (or eating at friends homes) is my food outlet then by default. I also enjoy cooking, which is nice. I invited two friends to dinner tomorrow, this has now turned into dinner for nine people. As it is a work night, I am cheating a little. Entree: Thai pork salad (made by my wife); Main: red curry duck (duck bought pre-cooked = cheating) with lychees, Veg. Green Curry, Blanchan Spinach; Broken Rice: Desert; Coconut/pandanus claflouti with mango. I will use commercial curry paste jazz it up a little and we will all have a great time for no great effort. This is all great fun, but it doesn't educate me very much about food, which sadly I think that you do need to dine out, or at least eat other peoples cooking, to get prespection on.

[cabrales]

This is all great fun, but it doesn't educate me very much about food, which sadly I think that you do need to dine out, or at least eat other peoples cooking, to get prespection on.

Adam -- When you have a chance: how educational, and how good an outlet, has reading about food in non-recipe books been for you?

[Rachel Perlow]

Also, what is the maximum number of people other members have cooked for?

I used to cook for 25-50 people on a regular basis when I was in college. As the Hillel food event coordinator I ended up cooking a Shabbat meal about once a month. Generally I would make a whole turkey or a braised beef brisket. Naturally, the meat was always kosher so brining was never considered (nor had I heard of doing that 10+ years ago). Accompanying the meat would be 2-3 sides, plus salad, challah bread and dessert. Roasted potatoes and simply steamed veggies were usually among the sides. Sometimes I'd get inspired to make a tzimmes (stewed carrots, yams & prunes), parve mashed potatoes, various bread stuffings.

I made so many turkeys during the 2+ years I made those meals that I find it one of the easiest things to prepare for a crowd. People get so crazy when they only make it once a year for Thanksgiving. I've made turkeys lots of different ways, and the best one I ever had was when we (at home with my family) were late starting it for a holiday meal. The Empire brand bird was unwrapped, rinsed, thrown in a roasting pan & shoved in the oven. Never ever had I made a bird that drew bigger raves! Hmph! (Wasn't there a thread elsewhere complaining about people raving over the simplest or storebought things, while barely noticing the dishes that took the most effort?)

Oh no! I just remembered my biggest kitchen dissaster, I'll post it in that thread.

[col klink]

Naturally, the meat was always kosher so brining was never considered (nor had I heard of doing that 10+ years ago).

You'll have to forgive me, I'm not very familiar with kosher food preparation.  How do you mean that brining was not considered because the meat was kosher?  Is brining somehow not kosher?

I smoke a lot of meats and I brine just about everything except for beef.  I would hate to think that if there is a kosher dietary restriction among my guests that I'd be crossing the line.

[Rachel Perlow]

It's not that brining isn't kosher, it's that the kashering process involves soaking & salting meat to remove blood. Brining would be redundant. See http://www.egullet.com/ib3....+turkey for a discussion about brining and why kosher poultry tastes brined.

The only kosher dietary restriction for your guests would be that if they keep kosher, they wouldn't want to eat meat that was not from a kosher butcher.

[col klink]

Thanks for the great link!  I've been asked many times about brining by the folks who eat my bbq and I've never had an answer better than "because it tastes better that way."

[Andy Lynes]

Advantages of dining at home: You don't have to travel, you can have pretty much exactly what you want, you experience the joy of creation, and you can do it all butt-naked.

You'd want to avoid deep frying in the state I would guess, unless you have one of those fancy plug in jobs with a lid (I'm talking about the fryer here BTW).

[A Balic]

This is all great fun, but it doesn't educate me very much about food, which sadly I think that you do need to dine out, or at least eat other peoples cooking, to get prespection on.

Adam -- When you have a chance: how educational, and how good an outlet, has reading about food in non-recipe books been for you?

Cabrales - my choice of reading material is most often non-fictional works, mostly social history stuff, and trashy Sci-Fi. So the former is educational, but rarely about food. The Peter Robb book "Midnight in Sicily", while not about food, has some of the best food writing that I have ever read. See link:

http://www.duffyandsnellgrove.com.au/titles/midnight.htm

If you would like to discuss this further we could state a seperate thread?

[Malawry]

Malawry - latkes can definitely be made in advance. I find that they need to be more of the shredded kind, rather than the finely ground kind. Shallow fry them until medium golden, cool/drain on a rack then individually flash freeze them layed out on a sheet pan (it helps if you have a chest freezer, if not use a lot of smaller flat pans/trays). You can place them in a freezer bag after they have frozen hard. To reheat, do not defrost, but heat at around 400-450F for 15-20 minutes, preferably on a rack over a sheet pan. You don't want to over color them during the initial cooking because to re-crisp they'll need enough time in the oven to take on some additional color.

I thought freezing potatoes causes them to separate? My assumption was that all those commercial frozen potato products were flash-frozen. I don't have any method of flash-freezing at my disposal. I guess I'm a little confused by your post since you mention flash-freezing.

I will continue to make latkes for my friends at Hanukkah, but in the future I'll do it as an appetizer, or pass them at a party. None of this serving 12 people a meal of latkes.  

[B Edulis]

Speaking of cooking at home, what have members' experiences been with "pot luck" dinners? Are reheating and other aspects of dishes brought by guests a problem?  Presumably, there might be less satisfaction from planning out the meal, but there would also be less work for the hosting party.  

Also, what is the maximum number of people other members have cooked for?  

.  

Liza tipped me off to check out this thread. I'm working on the "Dinner Parties" chapter of a book on entertaining that I'm ghostwriting. I've been thinking about whether people entertain with dinner at home much, and how to encourage them to do it more. So this thread is anthropological research for me!

So. Some comments and questions, if you would be good enough to humor me....

I'm thinking of starting the chapter with the simplest of dinners -- dinner at home for the family, then working up: carry-out dinners, cooperative (pot-luck) dinners, buffet dinners, barbeques, informal dinners, finally formal dinners. Restaurant entertaining is separate. It seems to me that simplest to most comples would be less intimidating than starting with formal. What do you think?

Next, I'm getting the feeling that people don't do dinners because they're intimidated by the complexity and expertise required. Tho' it seems that other people are attracted by those same qualities. Do you think that promoting simple and frequent home entertaining will be effective?

Also, I dislike the term pot-luck and feel like I have an opportunity to introduce a new term. What do you think of "cooperative dinner"? Anything other term you think is better?

In terms of my own experience with dinner parties, I like to have just a few people over for simple dinners as often as I can. What I do is focus on the quality of the ingredients and cooking. Excellent olives and cheese for appetizers. The freshest fish for the main course. Farmer's market vegetables. Hagen Dasz ice cream. Everybody's happy. And I don't say no to help with clean up.

I have done larger dinners, working with others. For years I shared a Catskills house with some fellow foodies. We loved cooking and we got to the point where we could start mid-afternoon, plan and cook a delicious dinner, soup to nuts, for 20 people by 8:00 pm. In a crappy little kitchen with a lousy stove! Tho' we did have a good charcoal grill. And many hands to help with prep.

I've been having a pot luck Thanksgiving dinner for several years now. Even though I try to keep it at about 15 people, it always seems to inch up to 22-23-24. I organize it in advance -- it's definitely not pot luck. I cook the turkey. Those who don't cook bring wine, flowers, ice cream etc. The quality of the dishes varies, but in general, it's surprisingly good. And, contrary to feel less of a sense of accomplishment, I feel the pride of an orchestra conductor, and the guests feel happy and proud that they've contributed to a group experience that's greater than the sum of its parts.

[Rachel Perlow]

I thought freezing potatoes causes them to separate? My assumption was that all those commercial frozen potato products were flash-frozen. I don't have any method of flash-freezing at my disposal. I guess I'm a little confused by your post since you mention flash-freezing.

Sorry for any confusion. I didn't mean commercial flash freezing, but by spreading them in a single layer on a cookie sheet to freeze them they do freeze pretty quickly. Once frozen hard they can be re-packaged for better storage. When I do make them, I tend to make way too many latkes, so I've done this for years. After they are frozen I package them about six to a sandwich bag and put all those baggies in a larger freezer bag. Then when we just want a few as a dinner side dish or snack, they can be reheated & crisped in the toaster oven.

re: separating. I think you may be thinking of frozen mashed potatoes or potato pieces in soup. I have heard of people freezing mashed potatoes successfully, but I've never tried it. I have made twice baked potatoes and frozen them. They are a great way to have a fancy side dish waiting in the freezer. When I'm making something in the oven and have a lot of potatoes on hand I'll make up a batch as long as the oven is on. I'll post instructions in a new cooking thread, here's a link to Twice Baked Potatoes.