Flathead Lake, Montana -- Cobb Salad -- June 29, 2024

One of our favorite spots for lunch is the "deli" -- full-menu restaurant -- inside a foodie grocery store in Southlake, TX: Central Market, part of the famed HEB chain. 

One of my favorite meals: the Cobb salad, the least expensive of the several salad selections, at $11.00 and a craft beer, $5 / bottle. 

So, about $16 for lunch.

But that Cobb salad is more than I really need, so I can make my own Cobb salad at the salad bar, adding only the vegetables, protein, etc., that I want --- and a really, really nice Cobb salad costs me $3.00.

Then I add a 96-cent can of flavored sparkling water.

Right at $4.00 for lunch. And that included a hard-boiled egg on the salad. A dollar less than the $5 meal at McDonald's.

This is a made-to-order Cobb salad prepared by my nephew out at Flathead Lake, Montana -- at an upscale restaurant this would easily be priced at $20. My hunch: my nephew's cost was a whole lot less and a whole lot more fun to prepare and serve.

The 1957 Chevy Bel-Air -- June 20, 2024

1957 Chevy Bel-Air: link here. Odometer? One mile. Price? $60,000. In front of my sister's home on Flathead Lake, completely restored, runs beautifully:

The $37K Outdoor Kitchen -- June 18, 2024

From The Wall Street Journal. 

The three projects whose costs we’ve broken down here—in Santa Monica, Calif., Alexander City, Ala., and Manhattan—include the features that make these outdoor kitchens feel like rooms, such as pergolas and stone veneers, so the budgets range from $37,000 to $175,000.

The tear-drying news? They retain their value. “There is 100% cost recovery on outdoor kitchens,” said Brandi Snowden, director of member- and consumer-survey research at the National Association of Realtors, citing a 2023 study. No wonder, as the National Kitchen and Bath Association reported the same year, demand for this luxury continues to grow.