Good food on a budget

Being obsessed with food on a student budget can sometimes feel like an oxymoron. I spend most of my time surrounding myself with books and magazines describing amazing food. I look longingly at pictures of 20-course meals on food message boards featuring only the fanciest and most expensive ingredients. Then reality kicks in, and I remember that I have about $20 spending money for the rest of the quarter.

Even though I can't afford a lot of fancy food, I read a quote recently from Ferran Adria, one of the world's most innovative and highly respected chefs, which got me thinking. He said, "It's always advisable to use a very good sardine instead of a not-that-good lobster."

He has a good point. Too often people in the food world become obsessed with rare ingredients like caviar and foie gras (fattened duck liver), thinking that no dish is truly good without at least a dash of the two. Although those things do taste really good, maybe they don't need to be the definition of good food.

Living in the Northwest, we are lucky enough to have a large amount of delicious local food. Fresh seafood is a luxury that most people further inland don't have, but there are lots of places in Seattle to get good stuff, whether at restaurants or grocery stores. There are lots of different types of fish and seafood available in Seattle, many of which are not that expensive.

Similarly, Seattle is great for produce. There are the obvious things like apples, and just to the east in Idaho, potatoes, but if you go to one of Seattle's neighborhood farmer's markets, which will be opening in the next few weeks, you can find lots of interesting and inexpensive produce. Asian markets are also a great place to look for delicious new fruits and vegetables. Most places in Little Saigon, the neighborhood just east of Chinatown/International District, have a wide variety of very inexpensive produce.

A mediocre potato can be covered in fancy ingredients, but it still won't taste very good. One of the best potatoes I ever had came from the Columbia City Farmer's Market, and was baked and eaten only with butter, but hardly even needed that. Just as Ferran Adria said, the most humble ingredients can be better than their gourmet counterparts if they are high quality, and the proof is in the potatoes.

Even though I can get excellent local seafood and produce, I still want that fancy dining experience every once in a while. The key to eating out yet saving money is to look for things like cheaper takeout options or restaurants that offer small servings of food for moderate prices. The concept of "small plates" is becoming more and more popular, letting you try just a few things without spending too much.

My student budget may be bare bones, but I still find myself eating better than my friends with more expendable incomes. It may take a little more searching to find really good, cheap food, but in the end you're better off than having wasted a lot of money on an expensive and mediocre meal.

Reach Intermission reporter Jeremy Konick at [url='mailto:jeremykonick@thedaily.washington.edu']jeremykonick@thedaily.washington.edu[/url].