Letters to the Editor
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My two favorite topics in one, creative food and consumofascism
Heather,
You are now one of us. Beans are great, don't overlook dried garbanzos. For similar reasons Ive gone back to cooking the way I did living in a yurt for a summer.
We had a wok, a propane tank with a turkey fryer burner and a pressure cooker. That's it. Everyting was better, even clean up. We simply rinsed it out wiped it down. These simple tools great meals with peasant cuts of meat like round steak, chicken thighs or a handful of frozen shrimp.
I recently bought an outdoor "yuppie" big kahuna wok system on the internet to make quick, cheap, healthy, flatulence free meals.
Try this: Bone and skin chicken thighs and use these parts for stock in the P-cooker with salt. Buy snow peas, carrots and onions and other cheap vegies. If you buy in bulk or at ethnic markets, this meal is still less than $1 per person and prep work aside take 5 min to cook.
The wokibilities are endless. Think locarb vegitarian flavored with small portions of inexpensive protein. My favorite is beef & broccoli with lots of garlic using 75% less expensive pork tenderloin marinated in soy sauce as the "beef". So far everyone thinks I splurged on filet of cow.
P.S. I would love an independant journalist such as yourself to expose the real root of our economic woes. Please note, I have an actuarial background that took me into the bowels of the beast and lived not to tell about it. If you or anyone else for that matter are intrigued, websurf the site: cafr1.com
Ciao, Vera
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@haggismold,
well put.
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Why so flip?
The tone of the article reminds me of Michael Moore's first movie Roger and Me. It was from the late 80's and it was about downsizing and the economic problems in Flint, Michigan. Moore made a big joke about him trying to talk to the head honcho of GM, Roger Smith, and not being able to.
I didn't think it was all that funny actually and I don't find this article humorous either. The author seems fatalistic. In the face of economic uncertainty, all you can do is by dry beans (big fan of them btw, extremely versatile food) and make a joke about it? Gee how about, I don't know, trying to promote economic justice, unionism, changing the administration, learning a marketable skill? Nah. Let's write a snarky column in Salon and show everyone how above it all I am.
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Cheap and convenient
I can well afford to shop at Whole Foods and do, but I grew up in a family with not a lot of money, with a mother who could make wonderful meals out of not much. We baked bread, canned in the summer, grew a few vegetables. There were many meat-free meals, but I never thought much of it. The food was well-prepared and presented. I still relish fried cabbage and noodle dinners and fried pepper sandwiches. Now I refuse to pay for a "can of beans" when I can make my own more cheaply. I also have my mother's old cookbooks from the 30's which have traditional, Depression-economy recipes.
Here's one tip: cook a big pot of beans or lentils, put them in freezer storage bags and press the bags relatively flat, then lay stack of bags flat in freezer. After freezing, bags can be easily stored book-shelf fashion in the freezer. At any given time I have five or six kinds of beans in the freezer. The flattened bags thaw quickly. (Be sure to wash and reuse the bags.)
Here's a recipe for a satisfying, easy white bean soup.
Use a quart of your favorite (chicken, vegetable) broth
Use a blender to liquify 1 cup of cooked white beans
Add this to the broth along with a cup of unblended white beans
Heat this mixture to a slow simmer and then add chopped greens (kale, spinach, chard, etc.)
Simmer until the greens are wilted, but don't cooked them to death
Serve with fresh baked southern corn bread.
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@lemuridae,
I live in the Washington, DC area - an area not known for its low cost of living. Magruders and Shoppers Food Warehouse sell Progresso brand dried lentils for .79 per 16-ounce bag. Most of their other dried or canned beans are also economically priced, and they are of great quality.
About your apples: Apples here are through the roof. A lot of them come from your state. Most stores sell loose Gala, Granny Smith, and Fuji - the only ones not soft and mushy - for 1.69 - 1.99 per pound. I can sometimes get a three-pound bag for $4.00. They are expensive here - but the pears are no bargain. Bartletts run around 1.79 per pound. Once in a while, Magruders has Bartletts for .88 per pound, and I stock up.
We love fruit, but right now we are living on bananas, seedless grapes - almost always on sale somewhere for .99 per pound - and pineapple. (Fresh whole pineapples are abundant here, and can often be had for $2 each.)
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Join the crowd
Heather is reflecting a society wide shift in attitude. This shift expresses itself in their actions (consuming less etc.)which then causes changes in the economy. In other words, the economy is not some stand-alone entity, it is the result of actions taken in a society which largely shares a similar "mood". The financial geniuses who created the "models" which helped wreak economic havoc (and it is just getting started) do not allow for this human component- economists assume all human actions are "rational".
Look for lots of comparisons (ans similar events) to the 1970's and the 1930's, when a similar mindset prevailed.
See Robert Prechter and Socionomics for more on this.
Good luck with the beans.
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Nice Assumption
"I'm not talking about the "bitter" people who have been on the receiving end of the conservative great leap forward for the last 25 years, I'm talking about the habitués of Salon, many of whom theoretically have the time to push for change."
This is what mystifies me - why do you assume Salon doesn't have readers who are both? Can you not reconcile your mind to someone who is intelligent, online, perhaps even college educated, and still is stuck on the low rungs of the financial ladder?
Not every Salon reader benefitted from the dot bubble. Many never really got past the recession of George the First, or have been running in place ever since. The gravy trains only had a few passengers, everyone else had debt or didn't ride.
So if you want to grasp what's going on stop assuming you're at home in a monolithic group here.