(Dis)Trust of Fellow Man

Walking through the supermarket parking lot today, a young man seemed to be walking toward me. I tensed up a bit, wondering why he was coming close to me. He said "Gotta love it when you can't find your car," or something like that. He pivoted away from me and walked on. I watched him until he in fact stepped into his car. Hmmm. Nothing more than a guy walking to his car.

I have documented a beating I received, long ago, at the hands of a stranger. Since then, I've been on edge in public space. Also, recall I recently witnessed an angry man shouting obscenities in a crowded store. You just wonder when someone is going to snap.

And yet, my brief parking lot interaction was only about twenty minutes after a pleasant interaction with a stranger who sold me chairs. I responded to a Craigslist ad for these chairs.

$35 for the pair. A pretty good find, I'd say.

I was only a little nervous going to meet the seller, who turned out to be friendly and easy to deal with. I wonder how one's position in society (race, gender, class, etc.) influences their anxiety level prior to a Craigslist transaction. The man I dealt with actually made a remark about Craigslist. I already forgot how he put it, but the point he was making was that there are dangerous people in the world and you never know who you might encounter. Maybe we were both relieved at the ease of our transaction.

On a lighter note, the reason I went to the grocery store was to buy a sweet potato, so I could make sweet potato pancakes for lunch. Can you have sweet potato pancakes for lunch? It's an important food question, much like the question of whether a hot dog is a sandwich (of course it is not). I don't know what the rule book says about sweet potato pancakes for lunch, I just know I need to eat something other than deli meat and salads for lunch on occasion.

Hoping Our Budget Doesn't Blow Up

What is this unattractive food? It's the Beef Noodle Casserole I made a few days ago. Let's talk about how we got there.

On Sunday, our 5-year-old complained that his stomach hurt. Before long, he was sick to his stomach. A small bowl of crackers was about all he could handle. I ran to the store and grabbed egg noodles in case he'd be hungry later. I figured he might eat some plain or lightly buttered noodles. His appetite didn't come back by dinner, so we saved the noodles for the next day.

So what to do with those noodles? I googled around for recipes and came across an idea from Allrecipes.com. Not glamorous, and certainly doesn't pass the foodie test, but it turned out to be pretty tasty and I like meals that are budget friendly. Five bucks for the beef, two for the noodles, two for the cheese, one for the onion, one for the tomato sauce, 50 cents for the garlic. $11.50 thank you very much, with leftovers for lunch. When I use recipes from the web, I read the comments to pick up suggestions. One helpful tip was to use beef stock instead of water. I had beef stock on hand, so that worked. I added extra spices because some reviewers complained it was a bland dish. I didn't use the full package of cheese, yet it was still very gooey. I drained the beef before adding the tomato sauce and beef stock. I also added a bit of Worcestershire. If you can spell Worcestershire without looking it up, you're better than me.

This sounds like a paid advertisement for Allrecipes.com, It is not, though I will kindly take on sponsors. I have a student loan balance that I would like to pay. One reason for describing what I made is that the recipe reminds me of the recent Slate article, "If You Are What You Eat, America Is Allrecipes." It's a good read. The author observes that the popular recipes on the site reveal "most people are far more concerned with convenience and affordability than authenticity or novelty."

I love to cook. I try to make inexpensive, good-tasting meals. I prefer they include vegetables, and most of our dinners do. I have to be realistic about what our kids will eat. Budget, convenience, and the palates of children are key factors in our meal planning.

Budget takes on greater significance this year. We are trying to save for a family vacation. Last year we road tripped to Boston and Chicago, and the year before that we road tripped to New York City. But we'd like to leave on a jet plane in winter and end up somewhere with blue water and beach. The kind of vacation when you send postcards. And so we are being extra careful in what we spend. The budget smiles when a meal doesn't cost too much and leaves enough for lunch the next day. Our vacation fund is looking pretty good. But we're afraid there will be a surprise that empties the jar, like the scene in Up that makes me cry.

I write this as I await a call from an electrician with an estimate to do repair work. We have a few problems that need to be addressed. You know the feeling right before you hear what something is going to cost you? I'm just hoping the number is lower than the guesstimate I have in my head. The number in my head is one we can manage. Something a little bit higher will be hard to absorb. And anything higher than that means breaking the vacation jar.

Of course, life will go on if we don't get the postcard vacation. Expensive vacations are not something we expect or feel entitled to. We're fortunate to even have a realistic chance of taking a pricey vacation. If we stay frugal and don't encounter too many surprises the rest of the year, off we go.

Crock Pot Sunday

"Hearty Beef & Beer Stew for the Slow Cooker" - let's give this a whirl. Recipe here.

Don't mind my not-HGTV-approved backsplash.




Update: So how did this stew turn out? A miserable failure. I don't know where I went wrong, but it didn't come together. I'm thinking of joining Facebook just so I can tell my family and friends about this horror show. I don't even think I can eat this for leftovers tomorrow. This is not the way I wanted to start the week in the kitchen. Crud.

Fast Food, Wendy's Style

So...been driving past this sign at a nearby Wendy's.

According to Wendy's website, the Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger is 680 calories. The sodium content is 1110 mg, almost as much as recommended daily levels.

I politely decline the invitation to try this cheeseburger.

Extreme Couponing, Extremely Processed Food

When I watch Extreme Couponing on TLC, I think mostly about food. When I first watched the show, I was a little bit impressed by the themes of saving and thriftiness. It struck me as a countercultural message, considering how many families live in debt and how people are so good at throwing money away. It was kind of nice to see people rack up big savings. As I watched more episodes, that message got lost. I paid more attention to what ended up in all those grocery carts. What I noticed was a lot of junk food and the absence of actual food. I saw a lot of sugary cereals land in the cart, along with boxes of pasta, sugar-filled beverages, and unhealthy products posing as healthy products (bottled water with vitamins isn't healthy when it contains a lot of sugar. Nor is bottled water flavored with artificial sweeteners). I also saw lots of frozen dinners getting thrown into the cart. Here's what I haven't seen: apples, bananas, broccoli, or carrots. Or other fruits and vegetables. Or meat and fish that's not in a frozen package. Who knows, maybe these folks buy produce in other places. Maybe they head to farmers markets on occasion. Maybe they buy lots of organic goodies with the money they've saved at the grocery store. I haven't watched every single episode, so maybe some decent food gets mixed in once in a while. All I can say, based on the episodes that I've seen, is that the show features processed foods that are unhealthy. It seems to suggest that savings only come when you buy junky foods at grocery stores. This brings to mind Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, page 157, in which he points out that "bogus health claims and food science have made supermarkets particularly treacherous places to shop for real food." Pollan advises consumers to stay out of the middle of grocery stores, because processed food products dominate the center of the store: "If you keep to the edges of the store you'll be that much more likely to wind up with real food in your shopping cart." Furthermore, he advises getting out of the supermarket when possible: "You won't find any high-fructose corn syrup at the farmers' market. You also won't find any elaborately processed food products, any packages with long lists of unpronounceable ingredients or dubious health claims, nothing microwaveable, and, perhaps best of all, no old food from far away."

I want to point out that some episodes featured people who bought items for charitable purposes. I've seen two episodes in which people used their couponing powers for good, donating their bounty. And I also want to say that I know food costs a lot of money. I do most of the grocery shopping in my family. Many times I've come home from the grocery store having spent $150 and had little to show for it. I do a lot of shopping at grocery stores--I live in Buffalo, NY, so farmers markets don't happen year round in my neighborhood. And I definitely buy some processed foods. So I'm not here to say that people should buy exclusively fresh and healthy foods. Not everybody has access to affordable healthy foods. And lots of people who do have access to healthy food without financial constraints make questionable food choices. My purpose here is not to harshly judge the shoppers themselves. I actually think they have some form of talent for being able to save a ton of money at the grocery store. My main criticism is that the show celebrates big savings on food that is hazardous to our health. The contemporary grocery store enables bad eating habits across the socioeconomic spectrum. And that's not entertainment.

Food and Social Class

Below is a link to an excellent blog about food and social class. The author makes several good points in the blog. Food and social class are definitely connected. In my case, I grew up on home-cooked meals that were enjoyed around the dining room table with my family. We ate well and ate healthy. Outside home, my friends and I spent a ton of time at a pizzeria in our neighborhood, so we ate a lot of pizza and other unhealthy food. We also ate more than our fair share of hamburgers and hot dogs at a local place on Hyde Park Boulevard that was called Luzi's. I like to say that the owner created the first value meal. Way before you could Supersize meals at McDonald's, Luzi's figured out you could package a burger with fries and a soda and people would go for it. So I'm thankful to my parents for providing good meals at home (and making us sit together at the table) and in our working-class/middle-class neighborhood there certainly weren't any health food stores -- mostly fast-food places and junk food in locally owned convenience stores.

Here's the link to the blog about food and social class:
http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2011/07/food-whats-class-got-to-do-with-it.html

As the author asks, what connections do you see between your social class position and the way you eat?