Watch the Wallet: Weekly Food Planning on $4/day

Last week I managed to feed myself for 4 whole days on $16 of groceries. (Then, on Saturday, I spent $27 on dim sum lunch with a friend and delivery for dinner. Oops.)

So on Monday I decided to shop for the entire week and track how far it gets me. Since $4/day is pretty much the budget I can accommodate right now, I’m logging everything to come up with a workable formula. I spent almost $25, so I’m aiming to eat for 6 days. So far, my pilot week of food planning goes like this:

Grocery Shopping

• Buy mostly produce, but only as much as I will consume in a week.
• Include dried goods that can rollover indefinitely, gradually building up a pantry.
• One main protein for the week (for me this is usually some type of meat).
• Don’t forget snacks.
• Dry goods:  raisin nut mix  |  barley  |  cannellini beans  |  can of coconut milk  |  pita bread  |  granola bar
  Produce:  cherry tomatoes  |  persian cucumbers  |  eggplant  |  lemons  |  onions  |  kale  |  carrots  |  celery  |  avocado  |  garlic
  Protein:  chicken (3 drumsticks, 3 breasts)
  Total cost:  $24.28

Cooking Log

• Use recipes that use the same ingredients different ways.
• Make staple dishes but also try new ones.
• Stagger a couple main dishes throughout the week to avoid keeping leftovers for too long. Roughly schedule two major cooking times, and prepare quick eats for breakfasts, snacks, and bagged lunches.
• Stock:  Put 3 pieces chicken, 1 carrot, 2 cloves garlic, half an onion, 3 stalks celery, 3 cloves, salt, pepper, and a pinch of tarragon into a pot of water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for at least an hour. Strain and set aside to use for chicken barley soup. Shred chicken to use for chicken barley soup and for chicken salad.
  Chicken barley soup:  Sauté 3 cloves of garlic (minced), 4-5 stalks of celery (chopped), half an onion (chopped), and about half of the shredded chicken in oil. Add to chicken stock. Next, add 2-3 carrots (chopped) to pot, and bring to a boil. Then add 1 cup of barley and reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes. Add seasoning to taste.
  Chicken salad:  Mix the rest of the shredded chicken with finely chopped carrots and celery, dress with whatever seasonings available (I used a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette, lemon juice, cumin, salt, pepper, and some coriander chutney I found in the fridge). Add chopped almonds for texture. Eat with pita bread and tomato-cucumber-avocado salad.
  Crispy pan-fried beans with wilted greens:  I substituted kale (it was half the price of swiss chard at the grocery store!).
  Crockpot chicken, potatoes & carrots:  Place remaining 3 pieces of chicken in the crockpot, along with chopped carrots, potatoes, and onions. Add water, lemon juice, rosemary, and any other seasonings. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Serve with sautéed kale (or above recipe) and/or over some barley.
  Eggplant curry:  Sauté minced garlic in a pot. Add sliced eggplant, carrots, potatoes. Salt and pepper. When eggplant starts to get tender, pour in the can of coconut milk. Add curry paste/powder, and a bit of sugar if needed. Simmer until vegetables are just about done. Add kale and cook for a few more minutes. Serve over rice, quinoa, or barley.
  Miscellaneous and sides:  granola bar and raisin nut mix for snack  |  cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocado for salads  |  sautéed kale for side dish  |  barley to add to salads and eat with eggplant curry or crockpot chicken

So I’m about halfway though, and it’s looking good so far. I’ve still got the last 3 dishes to prepare on Thursday, and everything else has been getting me through the past few days no problem. I’ve got a lunch packed for tomorrow and my fridge is well stocked with things I can just heat up. Let’s hope the weekend doesn’t take me by storm.

A Recipe and a Prompt to Start off 2012!

We’re already Wednesday-deep in the first week of the new year. So, as one of my rather predictable resolutions is to update my blog more often, I’m posting a recipe and a writing prompt fresh from my first humpday of 2012.

Since I’ve been waking up the past few days to temperatures in the 20s, you guessed it, soup’s on. I finally dipped into my stash of handy Filipino flavor packets and made a big pot of sinigang! It’s a tamarind sour soup usually made with pork, shrimp, or fish, along with veggies like radish, sitaw (long beans), okra,  spinach, and/or mustard greens. I usually don’t keep very good track of measurements, but here’s a quick recipe you can work with:

Sinigang na Baboy (Pork Sinigang)

2 tablespoons oil
2 cloves garlic
1 medium/large tomato, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound pork spare ribs, cut into chunks
10-12 cups water*
Salt and pepper
1 packet sinigang mix
Radishes, sitaw, okra, mustard greens/spinach

• Heat the oil in a large pot.
• Sauté the garlic, onion, and tomato until tender, just a few minutes.
• Add the pork and sauté until browned. Salt and pepper to taste.
• Next, pour the water into the pot and turn up the heat.
• Once it reaches a boil, turn it down to a simmer.
  [I usually let it simmer for 20 minutes or so as I skim off the fat, before the next step.]
• Add the sinigang packet and simmer for 20 more minutes, or longer, until the meat is nice and tender, almost falling off the bone.
  [I tried the Mama Sita Sinigang na Sampalok *Hot* this time and it was gooood. I did find it pretty strong though, so I periodically added more water until it reached the desired flavor.*]
• Lastly, add in the veggies according to cook time, roughly: radishes, sitaw, okra, mustard greens/spinach.
• Serve over rice!

Yummmm. Mission accomplished.

In addition to taking my sweet time in the kitchen today, I needed to jumpstart my art. So I looked to this resource I snagged from the Teachers & Writers book sale a couple years ago, Poetry Everywhere: Teaching Poetry Writing in School and in the Community. After flipping through it for awhile, the one that stuck was a simple imitation prompt on William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow”, which focuses on imagery and clear, sharp language to express the meaning in everyday sights. There are days when I read poetry and everything seems to fly right over my head, and then there are moments when I read something that makes me sneeze up a poem. In this case, it was the first two lines.

The Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

“I do…”

…Pledge to Read the Printed Word! Haha, bookworm alert, check out my new badge on the right sidebar.

Oh, it’s the little things that excite me. Anyhow, I’ve been sparse on the posts so here’s a quickie. I went home earlier this month and weighed my luggage down to bring back some wintry stuff. A few coats, my closet-dusty pair of Timberlands, and…more books (as if I need to slowly duplicate my hundreds of pounds of books on this coast). I don’t do e-books, I’m addicted to buying the real things, and I thought the badge was really cute, so here’s a random selection of my current/upcoming reads:

Something old:

The first time I read Sandra Cisneros was the summer before seventh grade, and I was hooked on Mango Street. I’ve since gotten in the habit of reading this collection of her poetry every time I want to re-spark that writerly gut that you’re not quite sure is a writerly gut when you’re twelve and that’s why it kinda feels electric.

Oh, and I’m interested to watch her (and others’) interviews in HBO’s recently aired Latino List.

Something new:

This Sunday at McNally Jackson they’re having a line up of authors who are around for the New Yorker festival come and do book signings. I’m hoping to catch Colson Whitehead at 2pm to get his latest “literary zombie novel,” Zone One. During a visit before I moved out here, I immersed myself in his collection of essays The Colossus of New York, adding a kind of internal sountrack to my subway rides.

He’s also an amusing follow on Twitter.

Something borrowed:

In preparation for an upcoming trip to Turkey, I sought out some writing to get me acquainted with that region of the world. Regrettably, I know very little, so I was glad to find an Istanbul-based memoir. Since I very much identify with the City where I was born and raised, I love the concept of place-as-character. I’ve gotten recommendations for Pamuk’s other novels, and he’s well-known internationally as one of Turkey’s notable contemporary writers. (I’ve actually gotta renew this one—I’m a pro at racking up overdue library fines.)

Something blue:

This anthology is awesome and, I believe, under the radar. An extensive collection that reaches beyond the literary canon, beyond the most noted U.S. women writers, and beyond the best-known works of the writers featured. With a focus on including voices from women of color, queer women, feminist perspectives, multicultural narratives, and diverse genres and forms, it’s a hefty volume. Perfect to keep me company during the winter. I urge anyone with an interest in women’s literature to check it out, and browse Aunt Lute‘s impressive catalog!

What’s Past Is Prologue

How do we, in our present moment, engage with history?

Countless quotes, proverbs, and sound-bites offer definitions, ranging from the professor’s lecture to the Hallmark card. We are obsessed with citing precedence and continuing self-serving traditions, while we simultaneously feed into a globalized sense of urgency to go full-speed ahead through the 21st century. For communities whose health, progress, and civil and human rights have been—and (therefore) continue to be—truncated by oppressive political, racial, and socio-economic forces, the past is prologue; it must inform how we choose to live these crucial chapters as they unfold, and show us what to pay attention to today.

Below are the trailers for two award-winning documentaries screening in NYC this week, Granito: How To Nail A Dictator and The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975.  Decades have passed since the footage was recorded, with both films stitching together archival footage from critical moments in the people’s struggles.

NYC folks hit me up if you wanna catch either/both of these with me.

Part political thriller, part memoir, Granito: How To Nail A Dictator shadows a haunting crime across four decades.  As activists, experts and lawyers build an international human rights case against an elusive and ruthless Guatemalan military dictator, Pamela Yates’s 1982 film When the Mountains Tremble emerges as forensic evidence—a witness to the genocide it documented. Recording the search for truth and accountability, her latest work captures the arc of history as it bends towards justice.

Filmmakers Pamela Yates, Peter Kinoy and Paco de Onís will be at the evening screenings for Q&As the first 5 evenings of the run (Wednesday through Sunday).

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish journalists who came to the US drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Gaining access to many of the leaders of the Black Power Movement—Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver among them—the filmmakers captured them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews. Thirty years later, this lush collection was found languishing in the basement of Swedish Television. Director Göran Olsson and co-producer Danny Glover bring this footage to light in a mosaic of images, music and narration chronicling the evolution one of our nation’s most indelible turning points, the Black Power movement. Music by Questlove and Om’Mas Keith, and commentary from prominent African- American artists and activists who were influenced by the struggle—including Erykah Badu, Harry Belafonte, Talib Kweli, and Melvin Van Peebles—give the historical footage a fresh, contemporary resonance and makes the film an exhilarating, unprecedented account of an American revolution.

Just a Band—tonight at the MoCADA in Brooklyn!

Tonight I’m going to a panel featuring the fellows from Just a Band, a Kenyan house/disco/funk music group, though they definitely go above and beyond making music. While chatting with them over dinner, I learned a bit about their individual visual artistic styles, which range from photography to illustration to video. Their multi-genre leanings are showcased not only in their music videos (above: “Ha-He” spoofs blaxploitation films; below: they incorporate puppetry and silent film intertitles in “Hey!”, and “Iwinyo Piny” brings some pretty dope animation) but moreover through their new video-art installation KUDIShNyAO!, on exhibition until September 3rd at Rush Arts in Manhattan. Come check out the free event, and/or stop by Rush to see their exhibit!

Wednesday, August 31, 6-8pm
KUDIShNyAO!: An artist talk moderated by Wangechi Mutu
The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art
80 Hanson Place, Brooklyn (in the outside garden)
KUDISHNYAO! is the first exhibition in the United States of Kenyan collective, Just A Band. Just a Band will be giving an artist talk hosted by Wangechi Mutu. The exhibition is being shown at Rush Arts from August 18-September 3, 2011.

The Re-Connect: GOTC New York Edition

It’s been a few months since I landed on the most inviting couch on the Lower East Side, just in time for the wildly anticipated New York Summer (it had been, I was told, an exceptionally mean New York Winter). So, as I watched cool layers and cute boots give way to denim shorts and many a floral romper, I flitted about my new city playground,  spent the days, nights, and hybrid hours this city-that-never-sleeps is famed for, engaging in an erratic assortment of activities. But as the Great East Coast Quake of 2k11, lightning storms, and Hurricane Irene seem to signal the climatic transition to Fall, the time has come for me add some structure to my gallivants and start chronicling some of the noteworthy bits.

Before I left the Bay last Fall, I had been keeping a running Get Off The Couch list of local happenings. I suppose I’ll pick up here, the GOTC New York edition. On that note, check the current round-up—

Get Off The Couch, NYC Ed.

—and see below for a few recent highlights.

Recent Highlights

Bookworm  |  Sapphire reading from her new novel, The Kid | Presented by Greenlight Bookstore and Brooklyn Central Library

It was a packed house, no doubt due in part to Sapphire’s boost in popularity beyond the literary world after her novel Push was adapted into the 2009 film Precious. But unlike Push (of which she says she was “still a poet writing a novel”) The Kid is a significantly longer work narrated from the more complex perspective of Precious’ son Abdul. Whereas the assault of social forces in Push threaten to nearly overwhelm Precious, The Kid focuses on deep character development against the equally menacing backdrop of social conditions. As the story unfolds, readers are challenged to feel sympathy for Abdul, who articulates his world-in-turmoil with monologic intimacy, at turns both poetic and harsh.

Sapphire will be reading again soon, this time with Cave Canem poet Tracy K. Smith at the upcoming Dumbo Arts Festival on September 24, at 7:30.

Food & Libations  |  MexiQ  |  Roberta’s  |  Pine Box Rock Shop

Ventured up to Astoria for brunch with some friends and was really impressed with MexiQ‘s twist on eggs benedict—jalapeño cheese cordbread cakes (mmMm..) layered with bbq brisket (drool) and poached eggs, topped with a chipotle hollandaise. Also, their sizeable micheladas (read: Homer Simpson Duff beer mugs) hit the spot, worth straying from the brunch drink specials, if you ask me.

Fresh ingredients grown in their on-site garden are only a part of the story at this Bushwick gem, which I’m sure to visit again soon. Roberta’s boasts artisanal wood-fired pizza, an extensive wine list, and a repurposed shipping containter out back that houses Heritage Radio Network—and on top of which their greenhouse is built. So far, I love the Bee Sting pizza: tomato, mozzarella, soppressata, basil, and honey (culled from their own beehives).

Down the street at Pine Box Rock Shop I ordered my first Jameson-based Bloody Mary. I was a little too full to thoroughly enjoy my Sunday Bloody Sunday, but I can never deny the whiskey girl in me, and it came generous on the veggies. Even though I’m generally not a pickle fan, I liked that they were house-made and surprisingly sweet.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Earlier this month I checked out WonderCon with some folks. Amidst the Stormtroopers, Buzz Lightyears, the hooded and the cloaked, I let my inner geek run free in this ultimate safe zone.

I was excited to see Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. Speaking about his writing, he revealed the origins of the Guide as a project he took on for himself, for the sheer interest in examining what would happen if you took a “fictional” concept and situated it in the real world, with what we take to be true of science, military technology, human psychology, politics, and historical precedent. It was, like most things done for the love of it, created during off-hours, amassed in a drawer, dedicated to that [zombie]-loving kid inside. Despite attempts to categorize him (“Two books on the undead?– Zombie guy!”, “Son of Mel Brooks, writes for SNL–funny guy!”), he said he plans to stick to writing what he himself has a deep interest in, whatever it may be next, because unlike writing something to sell, if he writes something and loves it, it won’t matter if it never makes it out of the drawer.

And World War Z, my first venture into the world of zombies, has been surprisingly great (even though I had to read most of it on sunny weekend afternoons at Lake Merritt because I get the creeps fairly easily). Honestly, I prefer vampires, witches, tortured beings often with twisted semblances of their former humanity in turmoil, or at least, accessible in some remote way. Aliens, even, bring their own values and customs and thinking patterns. Zombies? Soulless. Revolting. The absolutely predictable, guilt-free enemy. Too easy, if you ask me.

But the oral history approach of WWZ–the macro view of what humanity becomes in the face of extinction, how different countries and cultures react–hooked me in. Brooks credited the late Studs Terkel with the inspiration for this narrative structure. In 1992 Terkel published The Good War: An Oral History of World War II, which documented 141 interviews some forty years after the events, winning a Pulitzer Prize.

Over at the Oni Press table, I stumbled upon the graphic novel Lola: A Ghost Story. Jesse, a young Filipino Canadian, visits the Philippines with his parents for his lola’s funeral. He, like his lola, is able to see the supernatural–from his dead cousin to the kapre, manananggal, and other monsters of Philippine folklore. Because the monsters your grandparents tell you about always end up being more terrifying than Hollywood scary masks and Satanic dolls, I did end up having some mild nightmares, but really, I guess I’m going to have to grow up a little. Although I did find out that I probably get this fear from my dad, who is (still) deathly afraid of ouija boards, aswang, and dwende, according to my mom.

And while I’m on it, here are some photos from this fresh exhibit I went to in December, Tabi Tabi Po at 1am Gallery in the City. And below, a clip from Myx on the Move. Contemporary takes on the legendary creatures of my dad’s nightmares.

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November Tastes Like This

A photo story of last month, in food and drink…

Through the vegetable garden

.

An unlikely couple

.

From the Morning After series

.

The usual coffee table suspects

.

The Massaging Of The ‘Ava

.

Waiting to wish

.

Archipelago of cupcakes

.

On a well-earned hearth

.

Painting vegetables

.

More November photos are in the full album on my Flickr site.

Handmade Goods, Walmart, & The Story of Stuff

The winter’s proliferation of “holiday gift fairs” has needlessly verified me as a sucker for original and fresh jewelry. I’ve been making some purchases that probably don’t reflect Best Practices For Personal Finance; I’ve got that holiday broke in full effect.

As is the case, I found a lot of items at these fairs pricier than I prefer, but being able to listen to young entrepreneurial vendors talk about metal molding techniques, watching folks knit scarves live while running their booths, and paying the people whose actual hands created the products was an experience I have to appreciate. I spent my last $35 on a pair of earrings — probably not the best choice for my wallet, but hey, they were python rib bones!

Alas, my experience at these handmade holiday fairs stands in stark contrast to the sinfully cheap midnight shopping trip I took the other night, my first time at Walmart.

Around 2:15am I was staring at a TV tray made in Thailand, probably under questionable labor practices, quite possibly with imported wood, which was then no doubt sent via multiple ships/planes/vehicles to Union City, CA, where it was selling for $8.50. Fetishism of commodities, indeed.

Eight dollars and fifty cents is not what it cost to make that TV tray out of the tree whence it came, and have it “magically” appear in the Walmart aisle where I stood. Now, this realization didn’t make my $35 earrings any less of a financial compromise, or the $8.50 any less appealing, but $35 is probably a hell of a lot closer to the cost of getting python bones from wherever they come from, into bead and craft stores, plus the time and attention spent working the metal and carefully attaching all the pieces.

As you can see, I bought the TV tray.

Ah yes, it’s a complicated cycle, but one that is becoming increasingly important for folks to understand, and there is a definite need for information such as this to be translated into language that’s accessible to the masses. Which brings me to “The Story of Stuff,” a video I saw awhile back. It was shown at a FACES event by someone who worked on the project. It really left an impression on me for its easy-to-follow breakdown of complex topics, not to mention the awesome stick figures. I love diagrams and clear, simple visuals.

It’s about 20 minutes long, so check it out when you have a lil chunk of time.

(It looks like they’ve since added some new videos presented in similar style, though I haven’t watched them yet.)

Anyway, here’s the link:
The Story of Stuff

Staying Off The Couch

GOTC Round 1 went pretty well. Of the events I posted last week, I was able to make it to a few, and the efforts definitely had me braving both the climate-change-cold and the mild-to-moderate insecurity of showing up to things solo–not so uncommon, I think, especially among born/raised natives to the City, and the Bay for that matter, what with our comfortable routines and built-in social networks; yet another motivation for my GOTC initiative).

At the Handmade Ho Down and the CCA Fair, I knocked a couple gift-exchange presents off my to-buy list. Not bad. I did end up buying myself a thing or two, though my favorite item was way out of my budget. After learning recently that the octopus is among the most highly intelligent cephalopods, and that it has three hearts, I’ve developed a growing fascination and fear of them. At the Handmade Ho Down, the freshest – and most expensive – goods that caught my eye were these octopus jewelry pieces, which the woman who makes them told me were casted from real octopus tentacles! High quality stuff. You can check ‘em out here at her Etsy shop. The tentacle ring is my favorite.

I was also able to enjoy a very tasty tamale at La Cocina’s event, which made up for the fact that I didn’t attend the Fiesta del Tamal, where I was hoping to discover where to get good tamales in the City (been on the hunt since I lived on the tamale lady’s route in Santa Cruz; so far, the nacatamales at La Palma on 24th and Florida have made it onto my list).

Then on Monday I checked out the Believer magazine’s party, where I had a free beer and I got to hear Jeff Chang present an excerpt from his upcoming book Who We Be: The Colorization of America; definitely a sold fan of both free beer and Jeff Chang, so it made the slightly awkward space set up and less than colorful crowd no biggie.

Also, I got there early and while I was browsing around the gallery, I came across a book of the Sunday paper strip All Over Coffee, which held my attention until the program began. The artwork features San Francisco streets, buildings, and houses in photo-like detail, with no characters in sight and only occasional snippets of conversation. The artist, Paul Madonna, will be presenting at the last event on the GOTC list below.

from my camera phone..

from the SF Chronicle, Sunday 3/22/09

Now, onward to GOTC Round 2…

• Thursday, 12/10, 5-10pm: Oakland’s Holiday Buy Night: Another holiday gift fair featuring local products
• Friday, 12/11, 5:30-8:30pm: SF Center for the Book Holiday Fair: Organization devoted to book arts
• Sat & Sun, 12/12-12/13, 12-6pm: Bazaar Bizarre: “…not your granny’s craft fair!”
• Saturday, 12/12, 3-8pm: Annual Parol Lantern Festival & Parade: A Filipino Christmas tradition!
• Saturday, 12/12, 6-9pm: “Tabi Tabi Po” Filipino Folklore Art Exhibit Closing Reception: An art benefit for the victims of typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng
• Saturday, 12/12, 7:30-9:30pm: Writers With Drinks: Ongoing literary event at the Make Out Room, $3-5 sliding scale
• Sunday, 12/13, 3-6pm: Mobilizing the Movement for Justice: Fourth Annual Stanley “Tookie” Williams Summit, keynote speaker Angela Davis
• Tuesday, 12/15, Movie 7pm, Community Dialogue 8-9pm: Screening of documentary La Americana: hosted by TIGRA (Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action), $6 admission
• Tuesday, 12/15, 7-8:30pm: Paul Madonna & Stephen Elliott at Green Apple Books: Great indie bookstore hosts local artists and their work, Madonna’s new art publication Album and Elliott’s memoir The Adderrall Diaries