Posts Tagged summer

Letter from Austin: On Onions

Today we have a special treat for you: a letter from our friend Anina Moore, who has been doing the Fifty Bucks a Week thing down in Austin, in the great state of Texas. We’re looking to make these letters from friends in far-flung places an occasional feature of the blog, and we’re delighted to bring you Anina’s take on onions as a first offering.

Now, take it away, Anina!

red onion

red onion

Anina in Austin writes:

When some good friends of mine moved down here from Albany, one of them referred to the winter days we’d spend inside watching movies and playing board games—then she stopped herself and said, “I guess that’s not what winter’s like down here.”

No, that’s what summer’s like. This summer, we had over 60 days of 100 degree temps or higher. We broke records that weren’t set all that long ago. And we were hot. It’s hot outside, so unless you’re going swimming, or exercising in the dark, it’s too hot to get any nature-based fitness fun. It’s hot indoors, even with AC (which is considered a God-/Flying Spaghetti Monster-/Ceiling Cat-given right around here), since I want to spend less on my electric bill than on my mortgage. Summer is when I gain weight—not with winter’s carbs, but with summer’s: ice cream.

As for the meals I have between ice cream scoops, I’m not really interested in turning on the stove (much less the oven). In the summer, I eat salads and sandwiches a lot: humble, healthy, easy, simple.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , ,

4 Comments

Sharp Flats: a Bacony Bread Salad

warm lavash salad

warm lavash salad

It’s been some week over here at fiftybucksaweek.com. We got served up as a feature on Time Magazine’s Cheapskate blog, and washed it down with a tall glass of haterade. A TV anchor in KCMO sniffed out our own Emily Farris’ star quality, and bid her brace herself for the descent of his camera crew to watch her shop and cook on Monday. Praise poured in from the good people of the foodterwebs. We struggled more or less mightily to deal with it all (Emily, by putting on her cheese medallion and brightest camera-ready smile; Cari, by gardening in the back yard with her growing kid; me, by resisting the temptation to crawl under the couch until it was over, the success of that resistance owing mostly to having to fight the dog for that cool, shady, comforting spot). With all this attention, plus the stresses of our everyday lives (um, anyone know how to block DHCP traffic between physical networks connected by a CentOS router?), it would’ve been easy to forget to cook, feel the stomach gnaw, and order out for pizza.

Not on this blog, chickens. Not this week, anyway, especially not after I overspent last week’s budget by a record margin.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

3 Comments

Reimagining Breakfast for Summer

a summer breakfast: bread, cheese, eggs, fruit, coffee

a summer breakfast: bread, cheese, eggs, fruit, coffee

The older I get, the more important breakfast becomes. In my twenties, I’d have nothing but coffee in the morning — or, worse, coffee and a cigarette. Now, at thirty-six, if I don’t get a decent breakfast, I’m dizzy by ten, incoherent by ten-thirty, and drool-napping at my desk by eleven in the morning.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

4 Comments