Eat Like Royalty on the Cheap

Mary de Bassecourt | Jan 24, 2018

At home and on their royal yacht, the Royal Family eat simply cooked but elegant food from the Prince’s Highgrove/Duchy Home Farm. When she travels, the Queen has her own water brought with her because she can’t afford to get sick. Looks like the good food and water work for her!

Peter and I often say we eat like royalty, thanks to the wonderful food our local farmers and our garden provide. (Buying only local meat isn’t hard at all, and isn’t more expensive.)

Burger night at our house means about 4 oz. per person of local grassfed ground beef, costing $2, with oven fries (potatoes from our garden or organic ones from Memorial Farmers Market at $.50 per person). Our veggie could be green beans or peas frozen from our garden or organically home-grown sprouts in a salad with grated carrot and celery. Sprouts and winter veggies like carrots are also available at Memorial Farmers Market in Kingston, open Sundays all year round. The cost per person for the salad with homemade dressing is estimated at $1.50. Add a glass of organic wine from Sharbot Lake LCBO for $1.50 and a glass of sweet, pure well water, bringing your grand total for this princely meal to $5.50 per person. Compare this unbeatable grassfed burger dinner (including salad and wine) with McSomething’s quarter-pound burger with cheese, medium fries and drink at $5.79.

Added benefits of cooking your own locally grown meal are the delicious smells that waft through the house from the oven fries baked in organic olive oil and the grassfed burgers cooked in a cast iron frying pan with real, organic butter – not to mention the health benefits of more vitamins and minerals in the meat and a healthier ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, with no hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides. Most truly local organically grown vegetables (according to solid independent studies and contrary to some industry-driven reports) have higher nutritional value, taste better, and haven’t been grown with pesticides.

If you want to try eating like Royalty on the cheap, our Sharbot Lake Farmers Market vendors offer ground beef and other beef cuts, pork, chicken, lamb, and sometimes turkey. Their meats are all government inspected and frozen. You can contact our meat vendors outside of the market season at Tryon Farm - beef, pork, chicken, turkey (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Maple-Lim Farm – lamb, preserves (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). Memorial Farmers Market in Kingston offers sprouts, winter veggies, meats, cooked lunches, etc. and is open Sundays year round (memorialcentrefarmersmarket.ca). Verona’s Frontenac Farmers Market vendors are listed on their website (frontenacfarmersmarket.ca).

Bon appétit!

Sharbot Lake Farmers Market is looking for new vendors and volunteers. Interested? Join us at the potluck lunch vendors’ meeting, noon, Jan 27, Sharbot Lake United Church, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Market supporters also most welcome! Please bring a dish to share.