The 99 Cent Only Stores Cookbook

This cookbook  comes out officially on April 1 but has been all over the place the past few days. It's stunt cooking. Recipes made only from things found at 99-cent stores. Here are some sample dishes:

• Artichoke Spinach Bake on Homemade Pizza Bread
• Green Beans Au Gratin
• Chicken Tetrazinni
• Pinot Noir Poached Pear Tart

After reading Mark Albright's alarming yet interesting "food prices are going through the roof and here's why" story this weekend, I'm wondering how feasible this is. If food costs really have increased so dramatically, how have restaurant prices stayed fairly stable in the past 18 months or so?

For instance, I just got e-mail from Bob Jones of Southeastern Fisheries Association. He shared with me a chart from one of his members, a shrimp fisherman on the east coast of Florida. These are the prices commercial fishing boats paid for diesel fuel each March over the past years:

2000      .90
2001      .97
2002      .92
2003      1.27
2004      1.18
2005      1.72
2006      2.05
2007      2.09
2008      3.25

Unless commercial fishing outfits pass this additional costs on to consumers and retailers, there's no way these businesses will survive. But who is going to pay 3x what they paid eight years ago for fish? It's a conundrum.

Comments

[dreaming]

restaurants prices havent gone up because they were such a rip-off to begin with...there was plenty of fat - pun intended - built in, i would guess.....

[Ed C.]

There are many stories like this coming out now, where producers isolate a single cost, such as fuel or food, and show it's rapid and large increase. How do they stay in business without changing prices?

These costs aren't the entire cost base for most of these businesses. While fuel prices have risen, borrowing costs have declined for many businesses, etc.