It was the cheese that got me.

The weekend before this project was set to launch, my friend Bill came to visit from Chicago. We walked down to Fairway from my place in Red Hook, to pick up some stuff to cook out.
“You want some cheese?”
“Yeah, why not?” I scanned the counter. Too warm out for a triple creme cow. There were some nice ripe little goats, but I didn’t feel like spending that kind of money. I felt like something sheepy and semi-soft. Nevat. You know you’re in trouble when you go straight to the cheeses that sell by the quarter pound. I got the smallest piece that I thought would do: a third of a pound, or about $9 worth. We ate it on rye crackers with roasted almonds and dried apricots, while I made barbecue sauce for the ribs, and Bill put together a German potato salad laced with slab bacon fried to chicharron crispness. Scalloped in layers at once soft, crumbly, tangy, and rich, the cheese was everything I’d hoped. Chances were, it’d be my last taste for a while. Because, dammit, this Brooklyn food yuppie was going to learn to eat on $50/week.

And not just eat, but eat well.

It started on Twitter. Halfway between desk and dog, a thought struck me. (Somehow I remember it being later at night. That’s usually how I get myself into this kind of fix.) Like anyone who can’t keep his mouth shut, I let it out:

So, twitterverse, whaddya think of this nascent project: eat well on $50/week for a year and blog it? (Mad props to pathfinder @cathyerway.)
- feedmeshow, Tue 19 May, 16:42

Cathy Erway is, of course, the genius behind Not Eating Out in New York (tagline: “Consuming less, eating more”). For two years, this excellent cook and writer assiduously avoided every restaurant, food cart, and takeout joint in what is arguably the greatest food city in the USA, and undoubtedly one of the greatest in the world. She did it to save some money. She did it to make a point: that you don’t have to spend big to eat well. Great success.

I did a little math. $50/week * 50 weeks/year = $2500, or about what I spent at Diner alone when I was flush. Damn.

Diner’s bistro blandishments aside, I don’t think I’d have much trouble not eating out in NY. There would be the occasional lunch debacle and pizza cave-in, but mostly I prefer to cook at home. My problem is I go for the fancy stuff. Though basically a cheapskate, I see nothing wrong with a well-marbled $20 Porterhouse. Condiments are a serious downfall. 20-year-old Jerez vinegar? Yes, please. Aged anchovies, at $11 for a jar the size of a fingerling potato? Bring it on. Garum? The Romans ate it, and so should I. Before the career and relationship meltdown that hustled me west out of NYC, only to see me come to my senses and claw my way back again, my kitchen was packed with this shit. I can’t get out of the grocery store for under $45, and I hit it several times a week — daily if possible. Then there’s the Greenmarket. Fresh dayboat fish, pea shoots, heirloom tomatoes: if it’s seasonal and ’spensive, I’m on it. Never having kept precise track of my food spending — if I want it, and have cash in pocket, I get it — I couldn’t tell you how much this added up to in terms more specific than A Lot.

The Twitterverse responded. Jason Adams, an expert on food and wine, and a writer of class and wit, responded, “I get hungry just thinking about it.” Taylor and Harry at The Brooklyn Kitchen asked about specifics. Cathy, well, Cathy’s harder-core than I: “I think that is way too easy. Try $25/week.” $3.57/day? Yeah, um… no. Baby steps. But, mostly, the response was positive:

@thebklynkitchen: I think go for it. I also think it’s totally possible. You’ll become the re-use master, and leftover re-invention king!

Best of all:

@scanneremily: Weird! I was just discussing this $50/wk idea with my friend at the grocery store today when my bill was $50.03. Group blog??

If you don’t know her by her Twitter tag, @scanneremily is Emily “Casserole Crazy” Farris, pro blogger, cookbook author, and altogether great gal. She recently left Brooklyn for Kansas City, Missouri, to live at a saner pace, be closer to her family, and have, you know, a real house and stuff. She’s full of energy and ambition, and always delivers something inventive and fun. If Emily thinks you’ve got a good idea, and wants to jump in, there’s only one sane response: Hells yes.

That made one blogger in the Northeast, and one in the Midwest. If I had someone on the West Coast, this blog would span the country. I knew whom to turn to. I met Cari Luna when we were eighteen, when she stood next to me and declared that, since she wore Doc Martens and I wore Birkenstocks, we were mortal enemies; we’ve been friends since. A careful, precise, and deeply honest author, Cari’s also an ovo-lacto vegetarian, and a better cook than she usually admits. Another Brooklyn expat, Cari moved out to Portland, Oregon, with her wonderful husband and young son, to concentrate on being a stay-at-home mom and novelist, live at a saner pace, and have, you know, a real house and stuff. To my delight, she responded with an enthusiastic Yes. It was on.

So, welcome to fiftybucksaweek.com. Three writers: a Brooklyn food yuppie, a Midwest cookbook author, and a Northwest vegetarian mom. Each Monday through Friday, we’ll update you on our attempts not merely to eat, but to eat well, on $50 per week per adult. We’ll document our successes and failures, recipes and discoveries. We’ll explore questions of cost and taste experientially, and post them to the blog. Each week, each of us will post a budget analysis, showing how close we came to the financial goal (actually, I think that Emily and Cari will straight-out meet it; I expect a bit more trouble). It’s a blog for the way a lot of us find ourselves in these hard fiscal times: making less money than we were before the crash, pushed by necessity to save where we can, and still determined to eat as well as our means allow.

I hope you enjoy it.

And, I hope I survive without fancy cheese.

- Adam