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quick #eaton30 wrap-up
Quick stats about my Eat on 30 experience:
$27.74: my final budget
$16.24: my final budget excluding alcohol (DOH!)
$??.??: the amount you are going to donate to Project Open Hand
(infinity): the amount of face-punches you’ll get you if you don’t!
Threats. It’s How I Roll.(TM)
In all seriousness though, thank you so much to Tami at Running With Tweezers for running this eye-opening project. And a big thank you to the other participants. I’m glad to have made your e-quaintance. You all have done a much better job with the spirit and the purpose of the challenge than I’ve done. Still, I’m looking forward to Eat on 30 Take Three! Next time I’ll be a little more sensible.
Here’s a picture of my final Eat on 30 breakfast, a Spanish-style tortilla with potatoes, carmelized onions and herbs, as well the remaining 3 oz of my chicken sausage.
Can I get an OM NOM NOM?
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breakfast, #eaton30 style (or not)
Today I had one of the best breakfasts of recent memory. My usual breakfast is healthy yogurt and fruit or granola or maybe french toast, or a bloody mary, or a red bull and a bag of beef jerky, or a hot dog, or room temperature Antico pizza, or deep breaths while clutching my head.
Today I made this:
That’s three ounces of my chicken sausage (two patties), a whole potato, pan-fried with garlic and herbs, and some scallion scrambled eggs. The fat all came from the sausage, again. Not pictured was a whole milk/banana/honey smoothie. I think I would rather eat my own face than eat another plain banana today.
I have been feeling really good today, and I am not sure if it was the robust breakfast, the absence of hanging out late at unsavory locales with friends (an activity I endorse on days that end in ‘y’), or the endorphin rush caused by eating something other than raw fruit. No more stabby.
And yes, yes, I know that this breakfast lacks bacon. It’s still curing. Just wait; there will be multiple porkgasms!
Breakfast cost an exorbitant $1.38. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go swim around in my vault of gold dubloons like Scrooge Mcduck.
Eat it, Denny’s!
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on shopping for #eaton30
As I shopped for my ingredients yesterday, I found myself picking up some new habits. Tami described the experience to me as ‘methodical,’ and I would definitely agree.
- Every bit of produce was weighed
- Every sale sticker was like a beacon
- Every decision (or most of them, at least) involved a sacrifice in taste
The weight of items is simply not something I was always conscious of. For instance, hollow items like chilis, even though the per-pound price was higher than that of, say, apples, ended up being almost negligible in cost. (This message brought to you by Captain Obvious.)
The sale stickers, plus a little ingenuity, really help matters. I bought the ‘bananas special’ (8 for $0.99) and have already thought of how to work with them as they age. Banana bread could be in my future 5-6 days from now.
The last point is the one that is the most unfamiliar to me. Those of you who know me are aware that I continually sacrifice budget, waistline and health in the sake of taste. However, those organic sweet onions cost over twice as much as the conventional yellow onions. We’ll see if a little extra time (or honey .. 1 cent per gram, essentially) can make up the difference.
Tami also mentioned an important rule, and one which I didn’t follow well enough: no impulse buying. My big impulse buy was a small package of ‘special pork belly’ (the special nature is that the skin was still attached, and the price was pretty low, about $2/lb, so it remains within my budget.) A little of that stuff goes a long, long way, and I currently have some curing in salt in the fridge. Lardons will be on, in and around everything. Poitrine de porc nature will make an appearance on my sandwiches.
(This is the not the belly I just bought, but my earlier batch of closet pancetta: the kind of madness that results when I am let near any amount of hog belly.)
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no access to my kitchen means that these have been my first 4 meals of #eaton30. (see also: stabby)
eating on $30: first thoughts, worries and plans
This week begins my first attempt (and let’s be frank — it’s an attempt unless I prove that I can do it) at Tami’s Eat on $30 project.
The premise is simple: eat no more than $30 of food and drink for a week, which is close to (but more than) the amount that a person in the USA receives for government assistance. A lot of people are participating, and you can find their blogs and twitter names on Running With Tweezers.
In the couple of days leading up to this week, I have had several thoughts bouncing around in my cluttered excuse for a brain, which are worth exploring here:
- What are my reasons for doing this?
- Is this belittling or distasteful?
- How much of a problem will alcohol be?
The first question is the easiest to answer: I believe in the cause … and I need to save money. I filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy this year and have been on a no-credit lifestyle for about six months. My car was broken into last week, and the damage and losses set me back around $650. That’s, unfortunately, a huge chunk of my savings, and doing this for one week is a small step towards righting the ship. One week a month might be even smarter.
The second question is more difficult. I can’t shake this feeling that simulating poverty (for lack of a better phrase) is distasteful. I have no rational reason to believe this, but it reminds me of when celebrities pimp a charity or adopt a child from a beleaguered nation. The worry, I suppose, is that it can become an exercise in vanity. Someone slap me if I get sanctimonious or self-righteous :) One tertiary thought to this is that, while I can always drive to the farmer’s market and get cheap, high-quality produce, someone on the nutritional assistance program might have to ride Atlanta’s pathetic excuse for mass transit to an overpriced, understocked grocery store like Piggly Wiggly, Harris Teeters, or Wiggly Teeters.
The third question is the one that scared me. My first reaction when I considered doing this project was, “oh my god, how can I go a week without going out drinking?” I don’t much like what that says about me. Maybe I will learn something unexpected this week.
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So, onto the nuts and bolts of my plan:
Buy a case of ramen, a fifth of vodka and a fifth of whiskey- Base the weekly menu around a few cheap proteins
- Buy cheap, long-lasting, multipurpose produce
- Supplement with grains (most of which I already have)
- Lay off the organics
- Eat in (obvious)
I spent an hour or so at the farmer’s market yesterday, gathering prices. I have my eyes set on a few things as a result: namely, cheap/trash seafood (squid is less than $1/lb, for example .. cioppino?) and basing several meals off one chicken. Kale and potatoes also came to mind (chicken scraps to make a version of linguica could be good .. then caldo verde!)
About to go shop. Wish me luck!
