The End - Reflections on Eating Fresh, Local and Organic on $6 Day

While no one was looking, and without any fanfare, I quietly finished my quest to eat fresh, local and organic on $6 a day for a year.

A year is a long time.

I began this project for a number of reasons. Everywhere around me the dialogue was that organic was too expensive. That the farmer's market wasn't convenient. That there isn't time to cook. And I didn't want to believe it. And yet I knew that I often felt all of those things too. Why pay more for organic produce when a cheaper alternative is sitting right there? Why go to the farmer's market when all that fresh produce is just going to sit in your fridge because you don't know how to prepare it? Why cook when you live in a city of great take out and restaurants? Why?

One year ago, my routine looked something like this: wake up. Take subway to Manhattan. Stop at Starbucks for breakfast (latte + pastry, $6). Work for a few hours. Walk across the street to nearest deli and get lunch (salad + soda, $9). Work a few more hours. If tired, go back across the street to Starbucks and get another latte ($4). Go home. Feel so tired and deserving of treating myself, order dinner in $15 + tip.) Watch TV while eating food. Go to sleep. And repeat. repeat. repeat.

I played out that scenario for 8 years.

Whether it's getting older and craving more meaning in my life, or simply wanting to reconnect with the pleasures of food, I wanted more. I began this project not to prove that one can (or should) eat fresh, local and organic on the budget of someone making minimum wage, but to force myself to change my habits and explore what was possible...and what wasn't on $6/day.

I'd like to say that it took a year to really learn from the project, but to be truthful, most of what I learned about the realities of our food system I learned in the first month.

I learned that it's nearly impossible to eat 100% organic, fresh and local. The supply is simply not there. Most of our farmers market vendors are not organic and most of the organic food in supermarkets has been shipped from afar. I also learned that if you want to eat well on a budget, you need to plan your menu for the week in advance. The worst weeks of the project - the times when I went a little hungry or when I was dissatisfied with my food was when I got over confident and didn't plan ahead. And I learned that we waste our money daily on things of little value to our bodies (coffee) and on things that are free (water).

People have asked me why I didn't do a big party or announcement to celebrate the completion of such a life-changing project. And I don't know what to say. It was a weird end and it has been a weird re-entry into life with abundant choices. The first morning free from the project was a Saturday. I thought I'd go to the store and get something I wasn't able to afford all year: juice. I stood in the aisle dumbfounded by the options. Fruit juice. Vegetable juice. Juice promising long life. Fruit and vegetable juice mixed together. Juice mixers. Juice smoothies. Juice in a can. Juice in a bottle. Juice in a squeezy tin thing for children. Juice with only real fruit. Juice from concentrate. Juice with corn syrup. Juice with pure cane sugar. Red juice. Yellow juice. Green juice. Juice everywhere.

20 minutes later, still standing there, I began to cry.

I was embarrassed, tired, and overwhelmed. I felt overwhelmingly lucky to have this stupid problem. I felt overwhelmingly mad that for most people the choice is not between juice, but juice at the expense of something else. And I was overwhelmed with the guilt I was about to feel for spending what had been my budget for a full day on a jar of juice.

I ended up buying a mango juice out of feeling it's what I should do to celebrate. I hadn't had a piece of fruit from another country in over a year, and certainly not in the form of juice. I drank the entire bottle of juice when I got home and then it hit me. My stomach started cramping, seizing and twisting. My body simply couldn't handle it. The ultimate reward had become the ultimate let down.

It's taken me about three weeks to reintroduce things to my stomach, but each time I do, it's never as enjoyable as I envisioned it would be. Meals out at restaurants are not satisfying, neither in taste nor conscience. Not nearly as satisfying when you grow the food yourself, reach down to pull it out of the ground, wash it, taste it, prepare it and share it. Then, it is truly good.

I thought about this last blog post for a long time. I thought about writing about all the ways I learned to cook on an extreme budget, how it was possible, why it was hard, and all of the things in our food system that make it so. I thought about writing about environmental impact and how growing, preparing and sharing food can reduce it in dramatic ways and help you find your place in nature. And I thought about writing about how a week on a farm changed my life forever. I thought about writing about how much money this project saved me (over $17,000) and how I am forever changed in my spending ways. And I thought about writing about time, and how we choose to spend it. I thought about writing about the daily choices and tradeoffs those with limited means have to make. And I thought about writing about waste. And I thought about writing about meat and over consumption. And I thought about writing about marketing and how companies make us feel we "deserve" a treat. There is so much to say.

But all I can seem to muster up in this moment is appreciation. Appreciation for my husband who was my biggest supporter and a willing guinea pig with my crazy recipes (even eating Freekeh!). Appreciation for my neighbors Mike and Laurie for being my biggest garden fan club. Appreciation for my boss, Josh, who answered texts from me on the weekends like "can you eat the top leaves of turnip plants?" (yes, boil first). Appreciation for my friends who instead of eating out, chose to cook with me and stay in. Appreciation for those following my project online and offline, keeping me real and asking hard questions. And appreciation for all my colleagues at Slow Food who gave me cooking ideas, and whose curiosity, care and the occasional free food kept me going through a long, hard winter.

If I've learned anything, I've learned that the "more" I needed a year ago in my life was to understand my place in the world and to live in it with intention.

And I guess I'll leave it at that.

Hurricane Harvest

Earlier on in the week, I was planning to write about how-to-eat-on-$4-a-day so-you-can-afford-a-$2-iced-coffee-because-your-office-coffee-machine-is-broken-project (which I’ve mastered thanks to daily lunches of barley (not worth the coffee), but with the news of Hurricane, Irene, plans have changed. For reference, I only have 39 days left of my project to try to eat fresh, local and organic on $6/day.

And I am not about to let a hurricane destroy the food in my garden – or let it carry my pots to someone else’s deck, either!

One day ago my deck was lush with green: bounties of basil overflowing, tomatoes popping out of their tight red skins, baby watermelons trying to hang on to their vines, bright yellow lemon cucumbers, and greens shooting up everywhere. It was beautiful. Now it looks like this:

So, with the news of Hurricane Irene, I declared it harvest day. Six hours later, I had cut everything down – bunches of basil larger than my arms could carry, table cloths filled with Purslane, basket ball sized heads of Thyme and Savory, red and green tomatoes. Spilling over the counters of my kitchen, I had work to do. Sure, the deck was now clear, pots put away so as not to fly through someone’s window, and precious edibles harvested for the eating. The rest of the day, however, would be to try to cook and dry it all as fast as possible. And so, below are the recipes I came up with to try to use it all. Sure as heck beats a box of Ritz Crackers and canned soup.



Eggplant Sandwiches with Basil Aioli
-Flour
-Half eggplant
-Parsley
-Olive Oil
-Crusty Bread
-3 Garlic Cloves
-Egg yolk

Slice the eggplant in coins, and put on paper towel to drain bitter juices for 20 min. Sprinkle with salt to accelerate the draining. While the eggplant is draining, make aioli. Prepare a dipping plate of flour with a bit of parsley mixed in. Once eggplant is drained, dip each coin in olive oil, then transfer to flour plate to coat both sides. Add eggplant coins to frying pan with hot olive oil, fry on both sides until lightly brown. Drain on paper towels.

Aioli: Smash garlic until smooth. In a bowl, separate the egg, discarding the whites. Add a pinch of salt, along with smashed garlic to egg yolk. Mix well with a fork. Slowly drizzle ¾ c olive oil to yolk mixture, constantly whisking with the fork. Add sliced basil leaves as desired. Spread the aioli over a toasted Baguette and add eggplant coins. Enjoy!

Lemon Verbena-Basil Pesto
Having cut down a large Lemon Verbena plant and not being a big tea drinker, I decided to make an unusual bright lemony pesto with it. Came out really well! Pair with a really acidic Italian wine – maybe a Barbera or any Sangiovese based wine. Note: if I had it, I would add Asiago cheese to this.

4 cups Basil leaves
1 cup fresh Lemon Verbena leaves
5 garlic cloves
2 cups olive oil


Zucchini Bread
People in farming communities have a late summer joke: “lock your car doors in August around these parts other wise you’ll end up taking home Zucchini.” And it’s true! When we were up in the Hudson Valley, folks have Zucchini coming out of their ears. Yet, I rarely see it baked into sweets, which is how I love it. So, I made this recipe for the Hurricane, and bonus! Doesn’t need refrigeration and can be a perfect “Go Bag” snack. Screw the granola bar. p.s. this is a knock off of the Food Network. But when you only have so many ingredients, everything is an adaptation.

3 1/4 cups Flour
1 and 1/2 tsp salt
Freshly ground nutmeg (one nutmeg)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
3 cups organic sugar
1 cup olive oil
4 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup water
4 Zucchini's, obliterated in a cuisinart
Juice from 1/2 lemon

Combine dry ingredients and then in a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients. Fold together. Pour into two 9" cake pans or two regular size loaf pans. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick come out clean.


Lemon Verbena-Lavender-Poppy Cookies
A proud achievement. After I made the Zucchini Bread, I ran out of sugar entirely but still had Lemon Verbena left over. So I scoured my cabinets and found a little container of Lavendar Sugar which I took from the office kitchen clean up give away. No one wanted it. Which I understand – how does one use that? But wait…then I remembered just how good lemonade tastes with a sprig of Lavender in it…and so this recipe was born,

2 cups Flour
½ tsp baking powder
2 tbsp poppy seeds
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup Lavender Sugar
2 eggs
Juice and zest from 2 lemons
½ cup olive oil

Combine dry ingredients with a whisk, then in a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients. Combine two bowls together. Grease a cookie sheet and spoon dough on to it. Cook at 375 for 10 minutes or until light brown on the edges.


Purple Potato & Purslane Salad
I am so excited to eat this salad, which I made in the event that power went off and we didn’t have refrigeration. (It requires no mayo or eggs like most potato salads.)

I think I may be the only one to actually try to grow Purslane – which is a weed – but it is also packed with nutrients, including omegas you’d normally find in fish. I love the lemony taste and crunch of the leaves. If you like acidic, puckering mouthfeels, you will love Purslane.

The recipe below is a knock off combo of Jamie Oliver’s purple potato salad and another Purslane recipe I found online. It’s colorful and beautiful and would be a great potluck dish – it will stand out with it’s unique dark purple and lime green colors – but also can hold up to heat and air for quite some time, thanks to the vinegar.

3 large purple potatoes, boiled, skins removed after
¼ c extra virgin olive oil
¼ c white vinegar
1 cup Purslane – tender leaves only
Handful garlic chives, minced
Pinch of salt, pinch of pepper
Combine Purslane and garlic chives
Combine vinegar and olive oil
Mix greens and vinegar dressing together
Slice potatoes and combine


Lavender Hot Chocolate
I woke up to a mild hurricane-ish storm, knowing it had been raining for about 12 hours already. To be honest, I was hoping to run to the windows like a kid rushing to see her first snowflake, and I was just not impressed. Not much else but lots of rain. But, a dark rainy day calls for Hot Chocolate for sure. I had a couple spoonfuls of powdered chocolate from last year’s holidays, and some Lavender sugar and milk. So I created this concoction. Whoa! It was tasty.

1 cup whole milk
3 tbsp chocolate (powder form)
1 tbsp Lavender Sugar

Heat milk in a pan slowly. Add chocolate and sugar. Pour into cup over a strainer/fine mesh colander. Enjoy while watching CNN say the world is now not going to end.

That Funny Feeling

I've had a funny feeling lately, and it seems to be increasing with time as the project to eat fresh, organic food on $6/day carries on. It's been 275 days since I started, and while cooking all three meals a day on a limited budget is a new normal for me, there's something else going on that I can't quite put my finger on.

I think it's harmony.

During the course of the project, I've sown seeds for the first time in my life and am growing over 20 different edible plants. The seeds - a fraction of the price you'd pay for a baby plant - have changed everything. If I run out of money by the end of the week or poorly plan a week's menus, I have the plants. Sure, some aren't ready for the picking, but many are. It's a reassuring feeling: to be able to sustain yourself from the land. And what more convenient way to eat! No need for the bank. No need for shoes. Just pinch and eat.

And then there's the bees. Now, I'm a girl who could barely stand being near a bee just a year ago. Adrenaline would rise, and I'd be a panicky freak out of a person if a bee buzzed by my head. But now...oh wow. I've grown to be more curious and amazed by them than anything else, and it just kind of happened. My plants attract lots of bees -well, actually, if you look closely, you'll find hornets, wasps, bumble bees, big black bees, gosh - I think I've seen at least 10 different kinds. And I know their doing the work in my garden, and going off to make honey somewhere. Yesterday put my nose close to a flower I didn't expect to see in my garden and as I approached it, I found that a bee and I were both interested in it - and interested in smelling it - at the same time. ha! I've become bee-like.

And then there's the worms. Yes, we have worms! Thousands of them. I decided to start composting a couple of months ago, to get free fertilizer (aka worm poop) for the plants I bought. It's like liquid gold and the plants are jumping out of their pots. I feed all of the scraps - like the ends of vegetables you don't want to eat, coffee grounds, paper, etc - to the worms. They eat twice their body length in one week, these amazing little creatures. I told my husband that's what he gets if I can't get a dog or cat. :-) 5,000 little worms.

We used to take out the trash every other day before this project. It would be filled with take out containers you couldn't recycle, paper towels, tops and bottoms of vegetables, left over food, etc. And now the garbage bin never seems to quite be full. There's no food to scrape into it because we eat it all and compost the rest, and we've switched to inexpensive cloth napkins instead of paper towels. I don't by bottled drinks anymore, and since I'm cooking everything, there's no container to throw away or recycle. It's oddly gratifying...and feels, dare I say it: virtuous?

And so as I sit here on Day 275 trying to pin down the wonderful feeling I have inside, I can't but help to feel that it's merely the feeling you get when you find your place in the cycle of it all.

And that's a beautiful thing.

Walking the Line

It's Day 233 of my project, and spring has sprung! The market is glorious - asparagus and strawberries popping up - and eye popping flowers are everywhere.

Last Thursday was my husband's birthday and to celebrate, we ate our way through Sunset Park, an authentic Brooklyn neighborhood. We left work early, and traipsed around the neighborhood among kids getting out from school, grandmothers pushing grandchildren in strollers, and little boys in line at the ice cream truck. The sun was shining and our moods beaming.

Our first stop was Ba Xuyen banh mi - Vietnamese sandwiches and bubble tea. Wowzers! With great restraint, we only let ourselves eat half of them so we would have room for other tastings. It was here that I realized that I probably could not eat banh mi anywhere else, ever again.


Next up was Yun Nan Flavour Snack on 49th Street and 8th Ave and we nearly died. The owner of the restaurant and his wife made our food to order in gigantic woks in a shoebox size eatery, telling us while he stirred the noodles about where he came from in China and how he cooked there.
Ten minutes later, our cold noodles arrived, along with paper thin pork dumplings in a spicy, slippery red broth with scallions.
The dumplings ruined me. I've had some terrific Sichuan food before but nothing - nothing - compared to these dumplings. I will think of them every day.

With full bellies, we walked several blocks to our third stop and unexpectedly, along the way, fresh produce and fish markets started to pour out from every corner.



It was amazing! Wriggling eels, crabs climbing over each other, bright dragon fruit, and dozens of different types of ginseng.
Shoppers would pick up their own live to-be dinners, inspecting the specimens head to tail.
Geese hung with heads and feathers, fish would be scaled and killed at home (and likely the former before the latter). There was simply no line between what was going to be dinner and what was alive.

I have not shopped in a regular grocery store in quite some time now, opting for the fresh and fun colors of the farmers market, but when I do pop in, I am always amazed at how nothing actually looks like real food that was once alive. Take chicken - perfect little cutlets all shiny and packed in styrofoam. The majority of the food we eat has a curtain that has been drawn. Like a magic act, a cloth goes over the chicken, and poof! It's perfectly featherless, with no guts and no blood. By the time it gets to us, we don't have to slice it's neck, feel the warm blood, pull the feathers or butcher it. And that's a great convenience. It saves us time, makes it faster and easier to eat large quantities of food, and certainly makes for an easier clean up. It's also conveniently hiding the stories behind our food, and sensitizing us to things like slaughter and aliveness.

What the Sunset Park folks at those markets know is that if you bring your to-be dinner home alive or very freshly killed, it tastes better, and in many cases, is safer to eat. They know quality is far superior, and have no qualms about the process of killing it or stripping it of it's exterior.

So the question I can't help but to ask is why the majority of us want to be separated from the food we eat? I get how we got to this place of convenience, but why do we continue to pretend that the magic behind the curtain is real?

Fish Heads, Turkey Backs & Razor Clams

...is what I came home with from the market today! Because I had to stock up on some things like flour and oil last week, my budget for food this week was only $19.05.

Luckily, all sorts of random things were free or on super sale at the market today. Free fish heads! Check. An entire turkey back for $1. Check. Razor clams for $4.5/lb. Check. Free Kiefer. Check! Recipes? ugh...

Here's what I have in my kitchen, in addition to some basic pantry items:
-Razor Clams
-Rice
-Turkey Back
-Extra Dough from last week
-Salad greens
-1 Beet
-1 Onion
-Bread
-Apples
-Milk
-Polenta
-Parsnips
-Freekeh
-Red Potatoes

I'm thinking I will use the fish head to make my own organic fish emulsion fertilizer for my edible garden (seedlings have sprouted!), the turkey back for a turkey rice soup, and do Razor Clams and rice. And then I think I'll go in to debt a couple of bucks to get some carrots and celery for the soup and tomato sauce and mozz for a pizza. So here's what I'm thinking menu wise:

Saturday:
B: free keifer!
L: Salad + Bread
D: Razor Clams n' Rice

Sunday:
B: Pancakes
L: Salad + Bread
D: Turkey Rice Soup, Bread

Monday:
B: Apple
L: Leftover Clams n' Rice
D: Beet Salad & Polenta

Tuesday:
B:Apple
L:Leftover Turkey Soup
D:Leftover Onion Pie (still going..when will it die?!)

Wednesday:
B:Eggs
L:Salad + Bread
D:Polenta and Cider Parsnips

Thursday:
B:Apple
L:Freekeh
D:Turkey Soup & Potatoes

Friday:
B:Hard boiled egg
L:whatever is left
D:Margherita Pizza!

P.S. Tomorrow is day 200. Woot!

A Project Siesta: Two Weeks in Spain

I took a break from my project of eating fresh, local and organic on $6/day for vacation. I had promised my husband at the outset of the project that it wouldn't affect him - so, I froze time for a bit - halting the project at day 177 and spent two delicious weeks in Spain.


Friday, March 4, 2011
Barcelona

We began our adventures at the Boqueria – the famed market, thought of as the best in Europe, at a small outdoor café. There is no better place to start the day than the colorful market, with its fruits about to burst from their skins, the fish shiny and still moving.
The market is my heaven. Trying my best to avoid the delicious espresso, I ordered a tea and bread with tomato and cheese with hot oil and fennel seeds. The tea arrived with a fresh bunch – whole bunch - of mint. It was divine.
The tomato and bread staple was a perfect way to start the day. As was watching people pick out their carrots, and onions – the largest, most beautiful green onions I’ve ever seen.

After breakfast, we hopped on a tourist bus, rambling around the city, seeing the famous sites – the crazy Gaudi church, the curving buildings, undulating in their sexiness, and the oldest preserved Roman ruin in the world. Everything was magical.
The fantasy architecture – waving in the wind and teasing you with colors, is inspiring. It seems to break free from all of the logical chains of construction.

After our feet were pulsing and swollen from walking, Mike and I had a long, full lunch at Taxerdimista, a restaurant off a popular square. We both started with white beans and sausage, and then I had braised veal over polenta. (Ok, and two glasses of red wine.) (Hey, it was 3pm already!) Back to the hotel, another hot bath, and off to see some music - we thought we bought tickets for guitar - but ended up seeing a popular trippy band called Pastora at the famous theater. What music it was! Mike and I bopped around with the locals, clapping until our hands stung.

Saturday, March 5, 2011
Barcelona – El Born

Barcelona is alive in all of its fibers. Today was the day that we got to see and taste things we had only driven by the day before, and boy did we go to town. We began our day’s exploration in The Born section of the old city, visiting Café Bubo for a café breakfast (I have already give in to the delicious café con leche and Mallorcan pastries). The pastry was like a gigantic snail of rolled, soft, tender dough, smothered in powered sugar. We delighted our taste buds while in the presence of a wonderful church and watched as the neighborhood slowly came alive.

After breakfast and some wandering, we found one of the oldest tapas establishments in the city and ordered some ridiculously sweet Cava and tastings. It was a shoebox of a place but we managed to squeeze into the bar and get served right away. A delight I will never forget.

Some more shopping, including a fantastic hole in the wall local specialty food store and a store dedicated to all things olive oil, and we were having one of the best days so far.

We ended our day with a nap, tapas and pinxos and then hunted down a club on La Ramblas – the wide rambling street where everyone strolls up and down at all hours of the day and night. We approached the bouncer, feeling silly and old, and got entrance right away (must have been the cool Dolce Vita boots I whipped out for the occasion). Fifteen euros later and up a brightly light staircase and boom, boom, boom. We got our drinks and danced until 3:30am. Whoa, Barcelona.



Sunday, March 6, 2011
Barcelona – Last Day

Unimaginably, Mike and I woke up at a reasonable hour, throats sore from belting 80’s American pop tunes, and made our way to Café Bubo again. This time, we had little pizzas for breakfast – tiny rectangles of vegetables and cheese – and then found the oldest synagogue in Europe. Being the first ones there, we got a private tour of the tiny underground building and pondered what it was like to be Jewish in the 13th century.

Then, Gaudi. This crazy modernista architect created some amazing structures in Barcelona, and we visited two today. One is a private building – apartments and all – and words cannot describe the fantastical creations. Usually I react to unusual modernist art with hesitation, thinking the effect is more in shock value than anything else. Not with Gaudi.
These creations – inspired by nature – made you feel like you were Alice in a Wonderland that was made just for you.
The walls seemed to gently ripple to the touch; the light bounced off of colors you didn’t see moments ago. It truly inspired me.

After the Gaudi buildings, we ate more tapas and headed in for an early night so we would be fresh for the train to Andulasia, the southern area of Spain. And then, it hit me: a tinge of a sore throat, aches and a stuffy nose. I was getting sick.

Barcelona 8. Jenny = 0.

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Monday & Tuesday, March 7-8, 2011
Train to Seville, Jerez

Woke up sick but determined not to feel sick. Headed to the train station at 6:30am, and we were greeted by hundreds – literally hundreds – of teens and college folks dressed in Carnevale outfits
– it looked like the end of a wild Halloween party, but instead of stumbling on the streets home, it looked like they were either just arriving to party at 6:30am, or headed to school from a crazy party elsewhere. Not sure which.

We got terrific seats on the train with a table, sitting across an elderly Spanish couple, and bulleted through the country side, making a diagonal from eastern Barcelona to southwestern Seville. It was beautiful, sights full of sheep, castles, rabbits and more. Oh, and orange trees everywhere.

Upon Seville, Mike and I rented a car and off we were (okay, after a handful of unintended detours) to the South. We arrived in Jerez – Sherry town – and drove up to our hotel, and well. Oh my dear. It looked like a Spanish palace dotted with orange trees. And it kind of is a palace– despite the fact that I am holed up in a super fancy hotel room sipping hot water with lemon and tea – this is the place to be if you are sick on vacation! Let’s just say they have a PILLOW menu. The bathroom has a full marble encrusted Jacuzzi, the shower stall is big enough for an entire family and equipped with not two but four sprayers) and it’s large enough to be a full apartment. Everything in Jerez seems to be catered towards the wealthy Sherry businessmen and Spanish families on holiday. It’s a beautiful place. Even though I’ve been staring at the mint green and pale pink striped walls, feeling like I am locked up in the most spacious, beautiful candy box in the world.

Now, I am about to order in room service with Mike who has just returned, smelling sweet from his Sherry tours – and have some more lemon and honey tea. I detest being sick on vacation but after a fit and complaints today, I think I need to embrace it, do my best to get better for Seville and while I must, enjoy the sweetness of the lemons here.


Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Seville

After what felt like an exorcism of the devil with my illness – first, freezing, then sweating, then freezing and shaking, then sweating and dizzy – I woke up after 10 hours of sleep feeling human again. God must of answered my prayers as I have been looking forward to Seville for so long. It seems every time I asked someone about the town, the person would throw back their heads, saying “Ah, Seville!”

We drove back from Jerez to Seville, stopping at a white-washed town on a hill called Arcos, and soon we were entering the maze of the Hotel La Juderia – situated in the old Jewish Ghetto in the heart of the old city. The hotel rendered me speechless. It’s rambling walls, corridors, tiles, wood beams and open spaces are breathtaking. We opened the door to our room - #36 – and there sitting pretty on top of a beautiful wood paneled floor was a four poster bed, under a wooden rafter overhang where statues posed above. To the other side, a small living room space and then down the stairs (yes there is another level in the room!) a walk-in mahogany closet and marble bathroom large enough to be a studio for rent in Manhattan. Mike and I looked at each other for a second wondering if they accidentally gave us a suite, shrugged our shoulders, smiled and moved right in.


We nestled into Seville via the piano bar room in the hotel, an open expanse of Moorish tiles and upholstered furniture with sherry: Mike had his preferred Fino and for me, the raisiny Pedro Ximenez.

For dinner, we found a street famed for tapas, and popped in and out of a few places. First things to taste was pulled pork wrapped in bacon, and mushrooms sautéed in garlic. Beer for me, taking it easy; Sangria for Mike. I couldn’t stop staring at the bulls hung on the walls. I want one.

After eating, we wandered around the majestic cathedral, mouths gapping wide at its splendor, all lit up a night. Inside it’s gates: rows of orange trees; above it’s tower; swooping bats. Seville, Seville, Seville.

My first encounter with knowledge of Seville was through a cookbook, where David Tanis wrote, “Madrid spoiled me. Seville ruined me.” I’m ready to be ruined.

And ruined I was.


Check out the full photo slide show.

Thoughts on one month of eating on $42/week

Emily's last post is below. Congrats Emily and thank you for participating!
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I had high hopes for this project, which were partially crushed when I failed my first week. I didn't think I was going to be able to recover from and thought about giving up just five days in. I also ate out way more than I intended and found it difficult to stop.

But in the end, I'm glad I did it. I feel like taking a month to reflect on my habits was necessary to get out of the rut I've been in for nearly a year. I'm not going to continue on the strict minimum wage budget, but I have made some goals for the rest of the year which I think will ultimately lead to spending not much more than that and eating better:

1. Stock Up--
I haven't done a great job of keeping my kitchen stocked with staples and long shelf-life items for the past year. It's hard to be creative and eat a diverse diet when I don't keep much in the house. I think the first step towards enjoying cooking (and enjoying eating what I make!) is to make sure I've got a great supply of grains, legumes, seasonings and other staples on hand at all time. It is going to require an upfront cost, but will pay off in the long term. I admire Jenny's ability to include staples in her $40 a week diet! However, I think for my goals--health, enjoyment, creativity and savings--this is a necessary step.

2. Finding ways to incorporate shopping in to my schedule--
Longer work hours combined with doing most of my socializing during the week have resulted in an extreme case of Saturday-laziness. I didn't get to the market for much of the fall and winter and so would either not have vegetables around or would have to buy them from the corner stores in my neighborhood which are more expensive and not great quality. I think by incorporating shopping back in to my morning routine or after work, I'll do a better job of buying the right stuff. The one obstacle left is finding a decent grocery store for pantry items that is affordable and not too out of the way. If only I still lived by Fairway...

3. Eating with others--
Since the end of last year, I've been a lot less vigilant about how much I eat out. I like eating out a good restaurants for special occasions, but I hate spending $20-30 for a meal I could have easily made at home, or one that was better, for much less money. Yet eating out is so tied to socializing for me (and I'm sure most people) in New York and that is something I definitely don't want to stop doing. I need to remind myself, and my friends, that the goal of meeting up is to see each other, and often times it's much more relaxing and fun to do so by cooking food at someone's house. I've also found that I'm much more creative when I have to feed someone besides me, so I want to make it a goal to cook dinner with a friend at least two times a week.

4. $40 a week on the fresh ingredients--
Milk, yogurt, eggs, vegetables, proteins (like peanut butter and tofu), herbs and bread. Looking at it now, $40 a week seems like a lot, but I eat a lot of vegetables as a vegetarian and if I'm drastically cutting back on eating out, this is actually a really reasonable total for food spending for the week. I do also want to leave some flexibility, though, if I need to restock on beans, oil, spices etc. or something special like cheese for that week.

5. The Lunch Co-Op--
The way to mix up my lunches and give me plenty of variety!

It's been a great experience! I will keep following Jenny's progress with the project, and hopefully she can have some more partners down the road. I've taken away some really valuable lessons and I hope others can too.