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Thursday roundup for Eat on 30, plus a poetic lesson on night cooking
First, the lesson. *waterfall, chirping birds and gong sound*
I make remarkably good fried chicken. I cooked some last night for lunch today. I’m not sure what happened, so I’ll write a haiku about it:
on the frying of chicken late at night
why’s it in my hand?
should be cooling on the rack—
damn! it’s in my mouth.
So… I wasn’t hungry at all this morning, and a banana was all I needed. Lunch was potato-leek soup and some burned, soggy caramelized, marinated eggplant, and dinner was a brined and grilled chicken breast over red leaf lettuce with a splash of vinaigrette. Total for the week is now $10.38. I’m supposed to meet a friend at a dive bar to watch the Phillies, so I plan to nurse one Guinness for the entire evening. (Wish me luck. A lot of it. [First Editor’s note: Alternately, you can wish him a PBR.])
The real excitement, culinarily speaking, is that my chicken drumsticks are now curing (parsley, thyme, garlic, orange zest, green onion, pepper, and lots of salt) for my chicken confit, which will be served with my ‘deconstructed paella’ on Sunday. Maybe I will fare better than Ron on Top Chef!
BREAKING NEWS: [Second Editor’s note: Observant readers (in other words, anyone but Zack) will notice that the green onion seems to be absent in the above photo. It was on the counter, which is a difficult place from which to impart its flavor unto the chicken. This has now been rectified.]
[Third Editor’s note: I mean what the hell, man, seriously.]
on building blocks, fish heads and my approach to Eat on 30
A few days, a few meals and a few conversations later, I have a lot of thoughts. Some of them are actually about food and the Eat On 30 project! (Most are about fancy ladies, contemporary dancing and Kanye West.) Time to clumsily up-end the old noodle. Coincidentally, this post begins with pasta.
Tuesday night, I spent the whole night creating “building blocks,” staples I would use throughout this week (and into the next). The fresh egg fettucine you see above cost $0.32 in ingredients, and scientists have labeled the quantity indicated as 1 mc (metric crapton.) It didn’t take much money, but it took time, tools and knowledge. More on that after this Fox News shock/shlock-style graphic:
I Show You Fish Heads, You Decide(TM). This magnificent bastard is the head (gills removed and carefully rinsed) from my whole tilapia. Also in the pan are leek tops (otherwise discarded from recipes for things like potato-leek soup), a carrot, salt/pepper and some herb pickings. I got about two quarts of fish fumet from this guy. His leering, voyeuristic face was peering out through the veg; his skeleton lurked below the surface, a cliche Dungeons & Dragons encounter waiting to begin.
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After a lot of my somewhat-complicated pictures had been posted, I had a pretty detailed discussion with Tami about her — to use a word that is probably harsher than what she meant — objections to my approach. I freely admit that her method of simple, quick, nutritious and affordable meals speaks more truthfully to the goals of her Eat On 30 project. It’s her project, after all.
What I realized in the course of this productive conversation is that, while I changed the amount of money I am spending on food, I did not change who I am or how I cook. To be a little rude and crude, my poverty simulation lacks versimilitude. (Whoa, I just rhymed.) Greater truthlikeness requires the acknowledgment of other factors besides money: tools, time and knowledge.
Tools: To make the sausage and roll and cut the pasta, I used probably $400 of kitchen equipment. Truth be told, you could do it all with a knife and a rolling pin, but I didn’t. Having a meat grinder is an initial investment that is too steep for the food assistance recipient, but allowed me to make sausage: the ultimate waste-no-scrap food (and also the food that makes me consider the possibility of angels, heavens and gods for an oh-so-brief instant.) On an even more basic level, I have sharp knives and a stove … lots of people don’t even have those things. Though it is not my place to make this suggestion, maybe this factor could be limited in future challenges. Tools could be allotted as well as the food budget: one saute pan, one stockpot, one knife, one spatula, one peeler, one colander, etc. And you have to use the microwave.
Time: I am lucky to have a somewhat flexible job that gives me ample time to cook, especially on the weekends and in the evenings. My old job was not as flexible, but in the interests of full disclosure, I will admit to taking several ‘sick days’ to stay at home and make stock. (Sorry, Dan.) I also only work one job (for the time being, but there’s a certain Chapter that has something to say about that) . Cooking, for me, is recreation, even cooking “on 30.” Especially cooking lone-wolf-that-rides-alone style, like some sort of duckfat-doused, amped-up culinary Rambo, I would not be able to get by without a lot of time to spend. Future challenge idea: time limits, and no cooking in advance?
Knowledge: This is the biggie, and it’s hard to compare what I know with what a hypothetical/archetypal person would know. Would he know what to do with a pork belly? I would hope so; this knowledge lies deep within all of us, clinging to our genes like remora, waiting to roar to the surface in a frenzied tsunami of saliva and gnashing teeth. Would he know how to clean a squid? (I didn’t; I had to look it up, but I picked it up quickly.) Would they know the basics of stock-making? Maybe. Would he know how to season, chill, grind and mix a sausage? Mehhhhhh. This is how I cook. This is not how others necessarily cook. One of Tami’s thoughtful and beautiful ideas — and she has many — is to organize an adult cooking class, emphasizing on the kind of foods made for Eat on 30. (Well, not the kinds of food I make.) Though time would be a factor, she suggested that it could piggyback off of church services. Church came to mind immediately for me, too. (Tangent: what does it say about me that when I thought “where would people without knowledge congregate?” I immediately thought of a church. What a biased jerk I have become!) Future challenge idea: hell, beats me! Nothing requiring a specialized tool?
Here’s the thing. To mutate a phrase from everyone’s least-favorite Supreme Court nominee, do these restrictions send us Slouching Towards McDonald’s? Let’s hope we can Bork that idea.
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Another thought that has colored my approach is, what I believe, the innate disadvantage in cooking for one. Evolutionary and gustatory urges drive us towards a varied diet, but the budget for one person for a week makes that more difficult. Food, especially cheap food, is sold in quantities large enough to feed one person for four meals (a head of cabbage, a slab of pork, a package of premade pasta). This may seem Nitpick McGinty and insulting to the actually-hungry, but eating the same thing for four meals sucks. My personal challenge has become something more like Eat On 40 For Two Weeks Or At The Very Least Don’t Spend So Damn Much, and I am pretty sure I can meet that goal. Everything I’ve made so far easily feeds two (and I’ve given away a bit of it already) and I’ve been freezing leftovers for next week. If I was cooking for two, the menu would be less repetitive. (Filed under: suck it up, Zack.)
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It is hard to leave old habits behind, and harder still to try and LARP someone else when I cook. If you’re curious, here is what five cents’ worth of that pasta, one fourth of that stock, some seafood and some basic tomato sauce became:
Zuppe di Pesce with squid, tilapia and giant shrimp the size of Miley Cyrus (thirty cents worth of shrimp, FYI) over fettucine. The bowl ran me $1.28, but a shameful amount of time, tools and knowledge.
