I’ve been a cook and then a chef for about 17 years. I’ve had the very good fortune of being taught from a young age how to prepare exquisite, tasty meals. Largely everyone in my family is a good cook; some very, very good, and some better than others.

1. 2011
Learn to Turn
Whatever’s in the
Kitchen in to Dinner
Tonight & Keep
Household Food Cost
Down
AT ThriftCultureNow.com
Travis Grier

2. Have Greater Control over Household Food
Cost: Learn to Turn Whatever’s in the Kitchen
in to Dinner Tonight
I’ve been a cook and then a chef for about 17 years. I’ve had the
very good fortune of being taught from a young age how to prepare
exquisite, tasty meals. Largely everyone in my family is a good
cook; some very, very good, and some better than others.
Following those early teachers – my family – were a series of
foreign and domestic, highly trained and extremely talented,
world-class chefs. No one you have seen on the Food Network’s
cooking classes , and no one widely known to the masses like
Gordon Ramsay or Jamie Oliver, but most certainly extraordinary
cooks by any measure. I think I’m qualified to teach you many
skills and techniques which can be put into action immediately.
You will have to take my word for it, for now.
There’s one thing that’s really holding households back in terms of
cooking and it’s ‘the recipe.’ It’s really a crutch, an anchor. People
are stuck without a recipe and can really only resort back to
methods and dishes which they have been exposed to by their past
– things they have eaten and old recipes which they have mastered.
If you want to have greater control over your household food cost,
you have to learn to only use recipes for inspiration. That’s it. On
my website ThriftCultureNow.com, I only ever present recipes in
my free cooking classes as guides—not gospel. My purpose is to
expose you to the information necessary to mastering techniques
which you can apply to a HUGE variety of meats, poultry, fish,
shellfish, vegetables, sea vegetables, herbs, spices, fruits, nuts,
grains, beans, dirt, water, air….just kidding about the last three.
Anyway…get away from recipes and learn to really cook, utilizing

3. whatever is in the kitchen, right now. You get home from work,
look in the cupboards and in the fridge to see what’s there, and just
bang out a beautiful meal for you and your loved ones. No recipe.
That’s what you’re going to do.
In keeping with our mission of presenting you with the best
solutions we can find for cutting household costs and living a
thrifty life (building wealth!), I will outline why this information
will dramatically lower your food cost as your learn and apply it.
In a nutshell, if you’re constantly using recipes then you’re
constantly buying ingredients that you don’t already have in your
kitchen. If you’re making these extra trips to the grocery store
you’re not only wasting productive time, but you’re also wasting
gasoline and risking getting sucked into unnecessary impulse buys
while in the store, and your food cost skyrockets. You want to
avoid over shopping.
Being able to cook using a variety of fundamental techniques will
allow you to cook whatever is in your kitchen. You will steer clear
of fast food and dining out excessively, and you will avoid buying
processed food from the freezer aisle in the centre of the grocery
store (no man’s land), because it will be a snap for you to whip up
tasty and healthy dishes using whatever you have.
Secondly, in terms of thrift and our new and exciting Thrift
Culture, being able to cook anything and turn it in to an exquisite
meal can turn you in to a master buyer of all foods. It’s pretty
stupid to buy ingredients that you don’t know how to prepare—if
you’re serious about frugal living, there isn’t any room in your
food cost budget for ingredients that you don’t know how to
prepare, in a variety of ways. You run the risk of destroying the
ingredients and thus flushing your hard earned money down the
drain. So, that’s all about to come to an end.

4. The cooking classes you will find at ThriftCultureNow.com will
teach you the techniques that you of food. Braising short ribs has a
lot in common with braising chicken thighs and blanching
asparagus has a lot in common with blanching green beans. Just
learn the techniques and apply them.
Let’s get into the kitchen
Travis is a chef and the founder of ThriftCultureNow.com