MY HOMAGE TO CHEF RACHAEL RAY

Just a little over 21 years ago, in 2004, Chef Rachael Ray helped put Asheville’s burgeoning culinary scene on the map when she featured our city on an episode of her “$40 Per Day,” television series. I rewatched the episode on YouTube recently, and it was great to see Chef Ray bopping around our little city, including a visit to Biltmore and the farmers’ market. She was super-enthused to be here, doing all the things, and eating at some new and exciting places at the time! She visited four eateries in total, and approached each with all with her trademark excitement and wide-eyed sense of wonder. She went to…

• Tupelo Honey where she ordered sweet potato pancakes & coffee for $8.85 including tax & tip.
• Spirits on the River where she had a buffalo burger & grains for $7.49 incl. tax & tip
• Picnics for a giant slice of pie for $3.75 incl. tax – NO TIP!
• And finally she went to Early Girl Eatery for dinner for trout with 3 sides & a pint of beer for just $19.76 incl. tax & tip 

Her total for the day was $39.85, for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner with coffee, tea, and one alcoholic beverage. She used a coupon to get a free iced tea at one stop.

Adjusting for Inflation

Chef Ray’s $40.00 from 2004 would be equal to $68.50 today, in 2025, and feeding myself a reasonable and realistic amount of delicious and iconic food in Asheville for $68.50 per day sounded pretty easy to me, so I decided to take on the challenge, in honor of Chef Ray’s historic visit!

I think the tax rate was a little lower in NC back in 2004 (6.25% vs 7%?) don’t quote me on that, and according to Chef Ray, she was tipping 10%, which would mean that, adjusting for inflation, I should be tipping 17%, but for the sake of this post, I figured in a 20% tip to my totals. In reality, I tipped 25% or more. 

When I say “reasonable and realistic…”

Chef Rachael’s online bio says she’s 5′ 3.5″ tall and I”m only 5′ 4″, so unless she’s a power-eater well beyond my own capabilities, I suspect that she may have ordered more food than she ate. I’m gonna try to clean my plate at every stop, or maybe leave one or two bites behind for Jenny Craig, but I’m not tryin’ to over-order, over-eat, throw away a bunch of left-overs, or carry around a doggy-bag all day.

According to her show, the chef ate 3 giant pancakes + 1 large, fully-stacked burger on a big ol’ bun + 1 sizable pile of quinoa & veggies + 1 huge slab of pie + 1 full entree of meat & 3, as well as a beer. I don’t know what her metabolism is like, but that’s enough food to put me in a coma for a week. On my own personal journey, I ate smaller portions than Chef Ray, but I made sure that each meal was A. enough food to fill me up until my next meal, but, B. not so much food that I wanted to die. Also, just a note, I don’t drink alcohol, so no beer for me,which does make it easier to budget for food, obviously. All in all, you will have to consider your own food & beverage intake needs and limitations if you try this experiment on your own. Anyhoo… here’s my results…

ASHEVILLE ON $68.50 A DAY
8:30AM: Breakfast at The Med

The first person-on-the-street that Chef Ray asked where to eat in Asheville gave her the best advice ever, which she ignored! LOL She did just fine, but Dude was absolutely correct, and it was already on my list so, I started my journey by going to The Med for breakfast, where I got their classic biscuits ‘n’ gravy, with a cup of coffee, and it was frickin’ delicious! It filled me up, hit the spot, tasted great, and was all scratch made, in house. I love The Med! I could have added an egg for another $2.00, but the dish didn’t need it in my opinion, and was just right the way it was: Straight-up, and the perfect something Southern to start my day, at downtown Asheville’s oldest restaurant! 

COST:
Biscuits & Gravy = $8
+ Coffee = $3.50
+ Tax = .81¢
+ Tip = $2.46
TOTAL: $14.77 

LOCALS: Since I have plenty of coffee at home, I could have skipped it and saved $3.50. 

TOURISTS: If you’re visiting Asheville, you can usually have free coffee in your hotel room and save a few bucks at breakfast. Some of the hotels even have awesome locally roasted coffee.

BONUS: The coffee they serve at The Med is from a local company called High Noon.

BONUS BONUS: My server offered me a refill, and the person ringing register offered me cup to go. I declined both offers, even though it’s hard to turn down free coffee!

12:30PM: Lunch at Burgerworx

I wasn’t hungry again for a long time but when I finally was, I was REALLY hungry. 21 years ago, Chef Rachael Ray had an elk burger and an enormous pile of quinoa for lunch from a Native American restaurant called Spirits on the River, which closed about 5 years after her visit. I never had a chance to visit it myself, regrettably, and these days an elk burger in this town is probably gonna run about $22.00+, so with my budget in mind, I opted to hit up one of my favorite spots and just jam a giant, fully loaded smash burger into my maw.

I’ve been going to Burgerworx in the Grove Arcade Building Downtown since they first opened. They are an independently owned little “fast food” smash burger joint, and I love them with all of my heart… attack… medicine… inside of me… because gah. So decadent but so delicious. I have a mathematical approach to the number of patties I add to a smash burger: 1 patty for a snack, 2 patties for a meal, 3 patties for my last meal. Since this was lunch, I went with 2 patties, added American cheese for a dollar, plus all the freebies: Lettuce, tomatoes, DJ’s Pickles, and jalapeño wheels. No onions. I could have purchased a side of fries for $4.00, but I knew that for me, it would have been overkill, so I went sans fries, and as expected, I was stuffed.

COST
Classic Smash Burger = $9.00
+ Add A Patty = $2.00
+ Cheese = $1
+ Tax = .84¢
+ Tip = $2.57
TOTAL: $15.41
GRAND TOTAL: $30.18

LOCALS: If you work downtown, let them know. 

TOURISTS: This place might look like a chain, but it’s not.

3:30PM: Snack at Botiwalla

Back in 2004, when Chef Rachael Ray came to Asheville, she had an afternoon snack at a place called Picnics that is no longer around.  She had an enormous piece of pie with whipped cream and fruit, and to be honest, if I ate that much pie in the middle of the day, I’d be DONE. Couch-bound. I usually have a cup of coffee in the afternoon, so I decided to combine my caffeine intake with a moderate snack, and I know of a little trick to get that done on the cheap in Downtown Asheville!

Did you know that every cup of chai that you order from Botiwalla on Battery Park Ave in Downtown Asheville comes with a free package of 10 Parle-G “original gluco cookies?” It’s true!

And yeah, no, I have no idea what “gluco cookie” means, but I like ’em! They are small, crunchy, sweet but not cloying, and have a unique little somewhat vanilla-y flavor to them. They obviously go great with chai, and the chai at Botiwalla is by far the best I’ve ever had. It’s packed with rich, deep, Spicewalla flavors, and is creamy, sweet, filling and served hot or cold. I got mine hot on a damp rainy day and it was the perfect thing to take the chill off.

COST: Chai = $3.79
+ Tax = .27¢
+ Tip = .81¢ 
TOTAL: $4.87
GRAND TOTAL: $35.05

BONUS: 10 Gluco Cookies is 5 too many for me, so I took the rest home and had them as a late-night snack while watching TV.

SUPER BONUS: When there is actual snow literally falling from the sky, the chai at Botiwalla is free. I am not making that up. I’m sure that, like all things in life, it is subject to change, but I have taken advantage of that deal myself, so I know it’s real. 

7:00 PM: Dinner at Twisted Laurel Downtown Asheville

Yeah, yeah, I know: No big surprise that I’m adding these guys to my list. I eat at Twisted a lot and I’m good friends with the chef, and the managers, and pretty much the whole crew at Twisted Laurel Downtown Asheville, which is indicative of how much I love the food and the folks who work there. I wasn’t always friends with them! Seems weird now, but there was a time when we didn’t even know each other. Then I started going in… again and again… on my own, with food tours, with friends and family, and it just became my number one jam. I eat there more often than anywhere else, and I always recommend it to locals and visitors alike, and in particular I point out their trout to everyone I can, so that’s what I had for dinner: TROUT!

Trout is our only local fish up in these mountains, and you can find it on just about every menu in WNC in one form or another, and while lots of people do great things with it, for my money, no one does it as consistently well as my friend Chef Tom LaFauci. He doesn’t mess around. He does it old school, but with his own touch: Pecan crusted, topped with whiskey braised peaches, served on mashed potatoes, with green beans, and topped with a beautiful beurre blanc sauce. It was perfect, and I told my friend Sarah that it’s the kind of dish I could eat almost every day, and it was the best way I could think of to end my Rachael Ray-esque journey through Asheville, with a very local bite from a local chef that I personally know and love. Thanks, Tom!

COST: Trout Entree = $22.00
+ Tax = $1.54
+ Tip = $4.71 
TOTAL: $28.25
GRAND TOTAL: $63.30

LOCALS: Go back for the smash burger.

TOURISTS: Go back for the smash burger.

BONUS: Follow them on Instagram while sitting at the bar & watch their live Instagram-follower-counter go 1 higher!

So there ya go! I had a budget of $68.50 based on Chef Rachael Ray’s $40 from her 2001 visit to Asheville adjusted for inflation, and I only spent $63.30 which leaves me with $5.20 to carry over to the next day, giving me a big juicy budget of $73.70 to spend! Or I might keep it cheap and build up my budget for a few days, then treat myself to something really special. I’ll keep you posted, and in the meantime, follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Substack, and always…

…if you eat something good, let me know about it.

— bye! —

Thank you to Chef Rachael Ray for the inspiration and thanks to David Brown form Doc Brown’s BBQ for prompting me to do it!

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