1 Soup in 3 Trips at the Cost of $47.50

Trip One: Corner Produce Market (Brooklyn), Site of Soup Inspiration, $8
• An aloe plant to bring to a friend’s house, $3
• 2 bags of split green peas that I thought were lentils so that I could reach the credit card minimum and who doesn’t always need lentils, I could make a soup, $5

Trip Two: Extremely Expensive Full Service Grocery Store (Manhattan), After Choosing a Lentil Soup Recipe from The Internet, $36
• 2 onions, $4 (lol)
• Garlic, $2
• Fresh thyme, $3
• Bouillon to make fake vegetable stock, $3
• Really pretty carrots with their tops still on that turned out not to even be in the recipe (misread “cloves” as “carrots?”), $4
• A little head of butter lettuce that was so cute that I wanted to make sure it rotted in my refrigerator, $3
• The cheapest nutmeg, cinnamon, bay leaves, and curry powder they had, $12
• 2 cans coconut milk, $5

Trip Three: The 99 Cent Corner Store Around the Corner Past the Gas Station (Brooklyn), While Everything Else Was Already Cooking Because, Original Lentils Not Lentils, $6.50
• Lentils that are actually lentils, $2
• Additional bag of different lentils that the store owner insisted I buy after I told him I was making soup with the brown lentils, because brown lentils are only for eating with rice and yellow lentils are for soup. These were from his personal supply and he went by the price he paid for them because he “didn’t want to make money off of me,” $3.50
• Cloves, $1

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.