Eating Well on $50 a Week

Three writers. Three cities. One culinary experiment.

Posts Tagged bbq

Emily’s Spending, Week 11: A Day Late and a Few Dollars Over Budget

Aug 13

Posted by emily in budget analysis

You know how when you go on a diet and you lose a few pounds you start to think Oh, it’s okay for me to eat this piece of chocolate cake, I’ve been so good? And then you realize you can’t have the chocolate cake without the ice cream. And since you had that, and already screwed the day, what harm is a little burger and fries going to do?

Well, folks, that’s what happened to me last week, except with my spending diet. And I didn’t even get any damn chocolate cake. 

It was my sister’s birthday so we went out. Then a friend was in town and insisted on going to a fancy barbeque place for dinner (I know, fancy barbeque!?). So I can’t even tell you exactly what I spent on food last week.

What I can tell you is that as of this exact moment I am doing a hard reset. I am going to be stricter than strict and if my friends or family want to go to dinner they can go without me (or foot the bill).

So there.

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The Not-Too-Hot Shoulder

Jul 29

Posted by adam in recipe, update

pork shoulder, slow-cooked on the grill

pork shoulder, slow-cooked on the grill

In 1998, when I first visited New York City with an intent to move there, while walking with some friends from their apartment on Driggs Ave. in Williamsburg to a nearby bar, a piece of graffiti caught my eye. It wasn’t artful, it wasn’t artfully artless; it was blunt, a spray-painted scrawl on a construction barrier: YUPPIE GO HOME. Sensing my confusion, my friend explained: “That means us.” I hadn’t known before. The signs of my Yuppiedom had been there all along, as surely as if they’d been tattooed into my skin, but, until that moment, I didn’t have the eyes to see. It was my Yuppie Awakening.

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Chickpea Stew, and an Unexpected Guest

Jun 4

Posted by adam in recipe, update

chickpeas

chickpeas

I began in the middle. Or, by cheating, however you want to count it.
On Monday night, I ate leftover ribs and potato salad from the weekend’s barbecue.
On Tuesday night, I took @listenmissy to the movies. She snuck me in a falafel sandwich. Later, she bought me a beer. I guess you could say that made it an eleven-dollar falafel, or a twelve-dollar falafel, including the small service fee I paid to preticket myself for the nearly-empty theater. You could even call it a twenty-four dollar falafel, given that there were two of us. You can call it what you like. I didn’t pay for food. (We saw Jarmusch’s “The Limits of Control.” In an interview in Film Comment, he said, “as a filmmaker I can’t not travel in a plane or drive my car or use a credit card, you know?” Consider this exchange my credit card, my plane travel.)
But now it was Wednesday night. I had to cook something. I had to cook something good. I had to cook something cheap.

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