a post about splurging.

Molly says:
This is a post about splurging -- strange, I know, for a blog about all-things-thrifty. But I'm on this email list for a fabulous restaurant I visited while in Portland a few months ago, Simpatica Dining Hall. It's a wonderful place -- local foods, their own butcher shop and charcuterie, they're open for only brunch and dinner on the weekends. If I had a restaurant, I'd want it to be just like this. If you're in Portland and you go to one restaurant, be sure it's this one.
Or Apizza Scholls.
Not only was the food at Simpatica out of this world, it was also very affordable. Their most recent email newsletter really resonated with me. It's all about buying quality rather than quantity, and if you can only afford a little bit of quality, that's ok.
Excerpt from the newsletter from Ben Dyer, one of the founders of Simpatica:

"Before I talk about this week's menus, I wanted to spend a little bit of time on one of my favorite places, my soapbox. As some of you may have heard, Fred Meyer/Kroger issued a huge recall of some 5.3 MILLION lbs. of tainted (E. Coli) ground beef last week, right before the holiday weekend. I received a lot of questions from customers, mostly regarding what I thought about it. I decided I would include those thoughts into this week's email. Now, I realize for most of you that I'll be preaching to the choir, but still, maybe some of you can bring this up in conversation amongst your friends, or even just mull over what I'm about to say. I am often struck by Americans' attitude toward the consumption of meat. Many Americans seem to hold the belief that daily meat consumption is on par with some sort of god-given right. That meat should be plentiful, and that meat should be cheap. Most people don't care where their meat comes from, just so long as it's inexpensive. This level of consumption has forced/enabled many companies to produce their meat, especially beef, pork and chicken, at a much lower standard of animal well-being and a need to do it cheaply as possible. So am I surprised that an event like what happened last week came to pass? Not at all. Perhaps the American populace needs to take a long, hard look at what they put into their bodies, and what sort of practices are used to raise the food they consume. My reaction to these events is twofold. First, this is yet another example of why people should support their local butcher and treat themselves to a higher quality product. Unfortunately, and I know this better than almost anyone, a higher quality product is more expensive, as a higher level of care and love is needed to produce a healthier, happier animal. Which leads me to my second point, and this one may seem very strange coming from a butcher... maybe the high level of meat consumption is not the self-evident right most of us have been led to believe. I'm pretty sure there was no clause in the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights that referred to meat consumption. Maybe eating meat should be more of a special occasion. Instead of eating some crappy meat everyday, maybe you should eat something that costs two or three times as much (but with a quality at a much higher level of magnitude) once every two or three days. It may be more expensive, but it's not going to make you drop dead (or give you Mad Cow disease). Plus it tastes better. Just a thought. But really, aren't you worth it? I think so."