Luxury canned tomatoes

Quick question: how is an increase in profits at Whole Foods indicative of a rise in "luxury shopping"? Yes, yes, "Whole Paycheck," but it occurs to me that any supermarket, however snooty, is an alternative to dining out. I can't speak for all the locations, but the NYC and Chicago ones tend to be a) in areas where supermarkets generally are kind of posh, and b) where there are lots of restaurant options for restaurant-inclined yuppies. Maybe people who used to buy groceries at Walmart have upgraded, or maybe, just maybe, the yuppies are just cooking at home more, which would if anything indicate a decrease in yuppie self-indulgence.

There's always a catch

In NY, food establishments can only meet two of the following three criteria: cheap, delicious, and comfortable. By "comfortable" I mean a number of things, but mostly chairs or benches rather than barstools, at least a hint of space between you and your neighbor, and no seats where you're perched on a stool, facing the street, during your meal.

Alas, two of my favorite lunch places fail the comfort test so much it's not even funny. Old favorite Taim (Waverly off 7th Ave South) and new obsession Dos Toros (14th Ave and 13th St), selling falafel and burritos, respectively, are both places where everything tastes fresh and delicious, where you'd have to have seconds to reach $10, and where you will end up getting a very messy food all over your face, clothes, and neighbors as passersby look on. By "you," for that last one, I mean "I."

Given that years of experience have not taught me how to eat falafel without a fork, I don't know what I was thinking with my forkless approach to the two soft tacos overflowing with rice, beans, salsa, guacamole, and hot sauce. Other people were picking theirs up just fine, but the same goes for falafel. It's not cheap ethnic foods, it's me. It was only by the second taco that I realized forks were available, but at this point 4th Avenue was strewn with the contents of taco #1. This was unfortunate both because I was sad to lose the contents of so much of my lunch, and because I teach next to Dos Toros, meaning I was fairly convinced my students or colleagues were about to witness the mess I was making. If I read anything on this semester's course evaluations about black beans, I'll know my fears were well-founded.

So what's the answer? Proper restaurant dining? More compact food items? Lunch at home? Abandoning shame?

Bliss!

Me: How much are those slices of pie*?
Cashier at pie shop: $4.
Me to Jo: I'm not getting it then. (Keep in mind, we'd walked nearly 20 minutes to get to this pie shop.)
(Insert endless agonizing over how these were actually more like two slices of pie, so maybe $4 was OK...)
Me to cashier: (Something affirmative regarding the pie.)
Cashier: I'll give you another one as well, since we're about to close.

It's the little things...

*A brief return to the Americanness discussion here and here: Apparently, 'American' is defined by considering a) pumpkin pie, and b) peanut butter foods worth eating. In that case, call me doubly American.

Dollar off delights

The canned tomatoes were on sale! I knew it! At least I returned, with Jo, before it was too late.

The anti-frugality brigade: the food edition

The food movement can't seem to decide where it stands on frugality. On the one hand, we're told that cooking at home saves money, that we should be buying raw ingredients in bulk and eating virtuous 20-cent meals 'recession friendly' meals rather than the fried deliciousness we now consume. On the other, we're informed that we should shop only the fresh-produce-and-meat aisles of the supermarket, that is, if we absolutely must shop at a supermarket - we should really be setting aside a couple hours each day to farmers' markets, butcher shops, fishmongers, cheesemongers, and other quaintly-titled artisans - and that's before any cooking-time enters into it. We are told that we should - if we care about health, taste, and the environment - spend a larger proportion of our incomes on groceries. Which is it?

What seems like contradictory advice is just lecturing directed at different audiences. The grains-and-lentils bit is meant to argue against the notion that anyone's so poor as to have to eat at McDonalds, while the 'mongers suggestion is aimed at those of us who, the movement wants us to believe, could eat well if only we stopped being so damn cheap.

So, a couple things. Is price even a proxy for health-promotion when it comes to groceries? With restaurant food, it certainly is not - most of what a fancier place serves resembles fast food grease-wise but comes in larger portions. For better taste, to an extent, although attempts to gussy up basic foods - English muffins, potato chips, candy bars - tend to produce inferior results to the low-end brands. What about for sustainability? Shouldn't local foods that are in season - and, in theory, that taste best - be the ones that cost less? I can see how, as it stands, some better food choices cost more than some worse ones. But shouldn't we be striving for a situation in which good foods cost less? Isn't asking the middle-class-and-up consumer to spend a greater proportion of his income on groceries - 'like they do in France' - asking not only something unrealistic, but also something that will make those same groceries a major burden on the less wealthy?

But more to the point: is denouncing consumer frugality really the best road to go down? The food movement has come under so much criticism for ignorance of the poor that, to its credit, it has, I think, become a bit more self-aware when it comes to those for whom 'where does each ingredient come from?' artisinal grocery shopping is logistically inconceivable. But consumers with somewhat more choice in the matter are blamed for wanting to keep costs low, as though thrift is in itself suspect, at least when it comes to food. Which it is, if we're looking at all who sell food-movement-approved establishments as particularly worthy charities, not as places where consumers, you know, consume.

If you have to ask

Everyone knows that baked goods are cheaper to make at home than to purchase on the outside, that the markup on a brownie is far greater than that on, say, steak. But baking takes time, and sometimes you're outside and want a cookie or whatever, and you must make peace with the fact that you're paying vastly more than the ingredients and labor seem they could possibly add up to. This much I can accept.

What I can't accept are baked goods that are price upon request. Many, many New York bakeries and coffee bars decline to affix prices to individual items, or to list prices on a menu of some sort. The idea here is that baked goods are, even if being sold for exorbitant amounts, inherently 'from the heart', and that the homey experience of a pastry would lose something if crude and cold numbers entered one's line of sight. Such establishments assume most people will be too ashamed to ask, because to ask is to admit that you're the sort of person who'd get that muffin if it were $1.75, but that $2.25 isn't going to work for you.

Well, I am that sort of person, so today, at a bakery in Tribeca, I asked the man behind the mini-cake counter how much the cake I was interested in cost. I also asked what it was, because the display lacked labels altogether, not just those involving price. I learned that what I wanted was an opera cake, and that it cost somewhere between $4 and $5.25 - the guy didn't know for sure and apologized for having not put up labels, but did not offer to find out where on the spectrum this particular cake fell. He was, however, quite confident that $5-ish was the most a cake could possibly cost.

Now, normally this would send me running in the opposite direction, but a) the cake was to be split, so I could think of the price as half whichever amount, and b) more to the point, we were at this bakery in the first place because we'd just gone to a brunch place, seen that French toast there cost $11.50, and, disappointed, decided to just buy some bread and stuff and have lunch at home. The cake was meant to compensate, and even $5.25 for two seemed less ridiculous than $23 plus tax, tip, overpriced restaurant coffee...

So we're at the register, and the woman ringing me up enters the amount for the cake: $6. I started to try to correct her, but realized I didn't know how much the cake cost, and she looked at me like I was insane when I started telling her about how we'd received an estimate on the cake from the man behind the cake counter, and that $6 fell above our estimate. Who gets an estimate on a pastry? The cashier then told me that the man I'd asked didn't know what he was talking about, in a tone that implied that I'd been quite foolish to look to that guy - that is, the guy working in the pastry area - for such information. Yes, what was I thinking?

This is where I should have said forget it. But a momentary lapse of judgment later, there I was with a baguette and a $6 cake, both of which we proceeded to take with us grocery shopping. During which I mentioned to my boyfriend, oh, maybe 20 times (his estimate - accurate, I think) that I could not believe I'd bought this cake, and that now we couldn't even enjoy the cake, given the circumstances under which it was purchased, not to mention the price.

(I realize, given the experience, that although I'm unlikely to return to said bakery after this incident, I have not given its name, an omission that normally comes when I think there's a good chance I will want to return somewhere and do not want to burn the bridge entirely. I mean, they have really good croissants, and until I find an alternate source...)

It's moments like this that I think about that time in class when my students and I all discuss our weekend plans, so as to facilitate use of the future tense. And I think, trust me, kids, you don't want to know.

There's no such thing as a brought lunch

Well-meaning advice-givers will tell you that if you want to save money and eat right, you should bring lunch. Well-intentioned grad students named Phoebe have tried this approach, but found it lacking.

For one thing, bringing lunch means, if not an extra trip to the store, an extra bag to carry to campus, given that The Backpack is permanently at-capacity as is. The 'bring dinner leftovers' approach sounds so efficient, but if I make too much of a dinner I like, I just finish all I made right away, such that if there are leftovers, it's because whatever it was was so-so to begin with. And with lunches prepared specially bread's always stale by the time it comes out of the bag, plus add up the price of all the ingredients - purchased, inevitably, at various NYC establishments - and the difference is hardly that of making coffee or pasta at home.

But I just spent $8.17 (with tax) on a sandwich, and I'm ashamed. (I'm not counting the $1.75 on tea - the second of the day - because this is an investment in my not coughing for the whole duration of the class I'm about to teach, as I so charmingly did on Monday.) This can't be right!

DIY Eiskaffee

The best thing in the whole world is the Eiskaffee at Florian Steiner, in the Neuenheim section of Heidelberg. On the remote off-chance any of Cheapness Studies's three readers are currently in or around the Lutherstrasse but not up for spending the requisite 4.90 euros, here's a step-by-step guide to recreating that nectar of the gods in your own home:

-Prepare some cold-brewed iced coffee. You'll only need half a cup or so for the final product, but it's good stuff to have around. Instructions here, but you can skip the step where it says you need to dilute the mixture with water. It will be diluted plenty by the other ingredients. Once brewed, refrigerate.

-Chill an elongated, conical glass. Or just do as I did, because I don't have one, and use a mug slightly warmed by the dishwasher.* Do what you've got to do.

-While that's brewing, get some ice cream. The classic Eiskaffee is with vanilla, but Florian Steiner's used Ben and Jerry's (carbon footprint be damned), either the chocolate-brownie flavor or the cookie-dough one, and either way, it was spectacular.

-Before assembling the final product, you'll need one more ingredient. The all-important difference between the typical Eiskaffee, which is amazing, and the Florian Steiner one, which is almost indecent to eat in public, is that the latter uses foamed milk on top rather than (shudder) whipped cream. To foam milk without any device specially designed for this, heat a small amount of milk (a third of a mug) in the microwave for 30 seconds or less, then quickly pour it into a small French press. Then, using a vigorous and vaguely obscene motion, push the assembled press up and down, up and down, until the texture turns into something indistinguishable from the top of a cappuccino.

-Assemble: Put a scoop of ice cream at the bottom of the glass, followed by the cold coffee (no ice needed), followed by the foamed milk, so the whole thing looks something like the Platonic ideal:



Strange fact: in this photo, my nose looks hooked, which it does not in any other I've ever seen of myself. (Prominent, yes, hooked, no.) Something to do with being in Germany? Anyhow, no photo of the DIY one, because in a mug, it really does just look like a cappuccino, latte, something along those lines.

*I am - you guessed it! - staying at my parents'.

Bringing back the victory garden, indoors

I've been considering how I could go about growing my own herbs for some time now, even before FLG suggested it. It wouldn't really be a move towards actual cost savings in the way not washing my hair would, since I don't currently buy fresh herbs very often. It would a kind of hypothetical cheapness, since I could be paying more if I were paying anything. Plus, I like projects, and basil.

The problem is two-fold, however. First, the garden needs to be indoors so that I can eat basil all year. Second, it needs to be cat-proof. I've considered two options in this direction:
1. I could grow it under artificial lights in my closet. The downside of this is that the LED lamps cost at least $50 (not thrifty), and also that I couldn't use my closet for more useful ends, like clothing storage. Plus, I'd have to constantly explain to people about the "herbs" I'm growing in there.
2. A chicken-wire covering for the plants so that the sun can reach them, but the cat's teeth can't. Chicken wire is only a few bucks, so the cost wouldn't be a huge issue, but it's possible that space constraints in my new apartment will be. How can I convince my roommates that the best use of half our living room floor is for a chicken-wire domed indoor farm?

On a related note, I was recently hunting for Amazon cart filler to get my order up to $25 and qualify for free shipping, and I realized this is always a bad idea to do at the last minute when you just need to stick something--anything--in there to avoid a shipping charge. I typically select ridiculous things like cat toys and muffin pan liners because I don't have time to take stock of all the little things I actually do need. So, to remedy this problem, I started a shopping list on Amazon dedicated specifically to cart filler items that I need generally but not urgently. Now, whenever I think, "Oh, I could really use an X at times like these," I add it to the list. So that next time I need to add $4.70 to my cart, I will remember to buy a tape measure or a flashlight or, now, chicken wire for my basil farm.

Cheapness goes to the market

In some thread, somewhere, about local-sustainable and all that, someone asked a question I thought needed to be asked: why does food from farmers' markets, which cut out the middle-man, and which promise only to grow what's appropriate for the region/season, end up costing so much more than even groceries from upscale chains? I go often to these markets, and... yeah. Asparagus at $4 a small bunch, bell peppers at $4.50 a pound, newly-trendy scraps from the garlic plant, $6/lb, and so on. And, either because this food really is fresher than equivalents elsewhere or because I've been brainwashed by the great Alice Waters hovering like so over Park Slope, I recently bought some, not tons, of all of the above.

So are the prices just a question of economies of scale (as in, the food at markets actually does cost more to produce), of look-what-the-rich-urbanites-will-pay-for-'rustic', or something similarly obvious? Is the idea that the desk-job-having urban consumer feels guilty questioning the price of items the farmer must have worked really hard to grow/slaughter, when it's the farmer himself (or someone we assume to be a farmer) selling the goods? I'm not hating - I remain a fan of the farmers' markets, and happily give them whatever they ask so long as the resulting extravagance will at least end up garnishing a 40-cent mound of pasta. But I am curious about the reason why even the stands not promising 'organics' make Whole Foods seem the more sensible option. So if you know, by all means...

(The new and much-hyped gourmet market that just opened on Flatbush, where the ice cream is $9 a pint but 'housemade'? On that, I'm not conflicted in the least.)

Pasta, undressed

One of the most popular searches leading people to my home blog is, no-quotes, 'what to put on pasta.' Every time I see this, I think, how boring are people? Unlike those searching for 'hipster porn', 'sheygetz jewish woman', and 'is watermelon fattening', the pasta folks have perhaps not the most fertile imaginations.

Or so I thought, until I found myself with what looked like as many bags of pasta as days left in my apartment. This was months ago - once discovering the 99-cent bags at Whole Foods, and weaning myself off the marginally superior but once-$2-then-suddenly-much-more DeCecco boxes, I started hording the bags. And kept doing so. (My boyfriend warned me I might be going overboard, but did I listen?) And now, I have officially run out of things to put on pasta. I have tried everything. Every pasta dish I've ever seen on a menu and thought, 'that looks interesting,' I've made. (Turns out broccoli rabe, at least as I made it, is of no use.) Every interesting-looking Greenmarket vegetable has found itself on a bowl of pasta, as have non-vegetarian toppings of all kinds. Every possible variant of tomato sauce has made its way from cans of tomatoes to the pan. Every food I eat otherwise, with the notable exceptions of oatmeal, pizza, and Twix, has made its way onto a mound of pasta, such that there are no longer dishes that don't 'take' pasta, cheeses that don't 'go' with pasta, pasta, pasta, pasta....

So, I'm stuck. To preempt a reasonable suggestion - giving the remaining bags to charity upon moving out, as we'll probably have to do with some other stuff in the cabinets - I should note that the way our kitchen's laid out, with no ventilation (no window or vent), and with storage above the cabinets, all the bags are covered in a thick layer of kitchen grease. The contents of the bags are, I think but don't know, still viable, and I've been treating them as such, but to someone who didn't know the back story, the bags to not look or feel as though they contain edible food. The pasta is ours or it's garbage.

This is where I ask, after all, for suggestions for what to put on pasta. Linguine, to be precise. An Alice Waters pasta cookbook I consulted was of little use - some suggestions were excellent but obvious in their minimalism (although the fact that putting a few basic, fresh ingredients on pasta seems obvious owes a lot to Waters's influence); others were tailored to a climate with a bit more produce variety; and still more violated the Cheapness Studies credo - I'm all for what goes on the pasta being a higher price-per-pound than the heap of starch below, but a pasta recipe that begins with shucking oysters or requires the addition of caviar or truffles, however delicious the results, misses the point.

Free donuts tomorrow!

Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts are giving away free donuts tomorrow in honor of National Donut Day. Well, you have to buy a drink to get in on the DD deal. I assume this does not just apply to DC, so I am not being parochial.

Keep in mind though, donuts make you fat, and being fat is expensive.

Via FLG.