I love food. I love cooking it, eating it, looking at it and reading about it. I could read cookbooks as if they are novels. I could get turned on thinking about a piece of cheese. Unfortunately, I have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes. My family has a long history with the disease, so I have a pretty high chance of becoming diabetic. This means abstinence, and unlike some, I don’t want that. I would prefer safe sex as long as I can manage to do it. In order to have sex (oops food) for the rest of my live, I have to watch my insulin levels. I have to eat well and frequently; but carefully.
Unfortunately, I also hate the food sold at where I work during the winter. Summertime is fine, because there is plenty of food carts that feed you for less that five bucks. Walking 15 minutes to get food is also fun when the wind chill is not -30 degrees. In winter, all we have is a cafeteria, a vending machine and a communal kitchen abundant with food thieves. Our dear cafeteria is like a Sandra Lee semi-homemade episode, the menu is perpetually stuck in 50s as well as having other vices: First of all, it is extremely expensive for what you get. “Four dollars for two slices of pre-frozen white bread and American cheese? No, thanks! Second, and more importantly, majority of the food is over-processed Sysco crap, like the sloppy joes from a five pound plastic tub. I could go even further to claim that most food sold at the cafeteria, other than the occasional bean salad, steamed broccoli and baked potato, possibly bear negative nutritional value. God, I don’t want to think about what is in that meatloaf. Anyway, you get the point.
Another constraint is that all my food options close at 2:30 during winter time. Damn, I get hungry at 2:30! I don’t want to spend a couple of dollars at the vending machine just for a snack, especially a horrible one; nor I want to freeze outside, trying to get a piece of fruit.
So long story short, I started packing up a grown-up lunch box every day. After a few weeks of flickring and lunchbox blog reading, I saw that there is a niche in between Vegan Lunchbox and Cooking Cute. Both are my favorites, and they were extremely inspiring in my lunchbox endeavors, but they do not particularly cover my kind of food. I am not vegan, and I don’t want to restrict myself with “no dairy” rule since I am a sucker for cheese; and unlike Cooking Cute, presentation is not my forte. I always asked myself “Does the world need another ‘Dear Diary, Today I ate Cheerios’ blog?”; but this time, I saw that I can say something unsaid. At least I hoped so, and thus I decided to start my own blog. I hoped that there are some people out there, who might share the same point of view on brown bagging and might even enjoy reading my brown bagging adventures. But first, I decided to set some ground rules:
1. Preparation
(a) I will cook for leftovers, if possible. This is a time and cost efficient way, but it is also a new concept for me, since I have been training myself to do otherwise for quite a while. The thing is, left to myself, I never can/could/would have leftovers. However much I cook, I end up eating everything. If I cook a box of pasta, I believe I can finish it. Yet, planning lunch boxes seem to curb my “clean the pan” habit. The key is serving yourself an appropriate portion and immediately transferring the rest to freezer and/or to next days lunch box. I have to do this before setting down to eat, otherwise I have an excuse for seconds.
(b) I will predominantly cook from fresh (seasonal) and frozen or dried unprocessed food. Convenience food is OK, but only in moderation. This means nothing with more than three lines of ingredients at the back of the box, no high fructose corn syrup or trans fat, no cheese product, nothing KraftED. The exception is an occasional Morningstar farm product, at least for a while until I find a way to bring real animal protein without the fear of spoilage. OK, they are over-processed, they are as bad as Kraft products and I am a hypocrite. OH well, kill me. While there, let me eat some Trader Joe’s frozen stuff; I am not going to roll raviolis or make mini quiches on a weeknight. But again, I will not eat this stuff predominantly; and I know that if I do, I will die early.
2. Budget and Contents:
(a) All lunchboxes should cost less than four bucks, and should include two servings of fruit and/or vegetable, one serving of protein, one-two servings of (preferably) low glycemic index carbohydrate, a snack (a piece of chocolate, nuts, dried fruit, cheese and crackers) and one serving of calcium (Hey, I am a 30 year old woman, my bones have started to shrink!). In most days, where the fruit is an apple, a clementine, or raisins, this cost could be pulled down to two bucks or less. Better than the five dollar sloppy joe with a soggy pickle, eh? In addition to all this, there will be within and across lunch box variation. No lone sandwich or soup allowed: even if I eat lunches like that (and I do more often than this blog suggests), they won’t be blogworthy. Other than the dead-tired Tuesdays when I come home at 10:00 pm, repetitions from the past day will be frowned upon.
(b) I will say this many times, again and again: This is not an expensive way to eat. But it is not cheap either. A balanced diet is never cheap, unbalanced diets ,or worse yet, eating over processed plastic usually is. At the same time, most real food is pretty affordable especially if you buy in season. If you have a budget of 100 dollars for grocery for a month, it is almost impossible to get your essential fruit and vegetables, especially in this country where the supply chain markups are insane; and I am deeply sorry for that. I am deeply sorry that most lower class Americans have to eat Kraft dinner or pocket Ramen just because that is all they can afford. However, I am not sorry for those who can afford a fresh apple, are borderline diabetic, but then think you are a snob because you brought fruit (gasp) for lunch instead of ho hos. I am not sorry for those who think you are spending way too much money on food because they saw your avocado and cheese sandwich; and then go down the vending machine for a “quick pick me up” that cost 3 bucks. I am not sorry that I cannot understand the way they relate to food.
While this is not a “a caviar, blini and champagne everyday type of blog”, it is also not one for extremely tight budgets, or people who live below poverty line. What I make is on the poverty line (graduate student stipend). I have zero debt, and I rarely get help from my parents, which is an anomaly for the culture I am from. If I can make it, most middle class Americans can. I am hoping that, one day, middle class America will realize that eating fruit is not expensive; it is the liquid plutonium (aka. Mountain Dew) and the orange foot scab (aka. Doritos) from the vending machine that is costly, to their pockets and their health. I am hoping that, one day, people will know what a real cauliflower looks like and realize that, for two bucks you get at least five servings of vegetables (12 according to FDA, but I doubt it). I hope that one day, middle class America will realize that it is not that hard to mix oil and vinegar, and that simple mix beats the crap out of the oxymoronic non fat vinaigrette.
One further explanation here: I am not a purist. I like potato chips, I have a soft spot for custard donuts, I enjoy occasional junk food. I cannot tell people what they should eat, but I have right to criticize the dominant culinary ideology. I mostly have concerns about people who confuse donuts with actual meals and then become obese; or people who insist that fresh food is not accessible on a middle class budget and hence processed food is their only option. Proof? All my lunches will be cheaper than a fast food menu. Proof? According to one USDA report, fresh vegetables cost 12 cents per serving, while canned cost 17 cents and frozen cost 22 cents . Since this is an average number that ignores seasonal variation, you can get even more mileage from shopping according to season. More on that…
(c) Tips for budgeting (most are pretty obvious):
- Try to shop for seasonal items. In northern hemisphere, unless you live in California, strawberries in December will be expensive and barely delicious, but apples, kale and sweet potatoes are abundant.
-Avoid easily exchangeable convenience foods that come with a premium price tag. Frozen corn is cheap and helps you to bypass the prep work, but canned clementines in winter is a ridiculous concept. Remember the Seinfeld quote, “Why would anyone eat canned fruit?”. I know why. I did, when I lived in some small Midwestern town, in a dorm room with no stove and refrigerator. I didn’t have a car, and I could shop for groceries once a month, only when I got a ride from my assigned exchange student mentor. I am hoping that most of the readers will have a car to make weekly trips to a store or live in a metropolitan area where they could walk to places. Seriously, when fruits are in season, buying syrupy canned fruit is only necessary if you like the taste of the canned fruit. I don’t. If you like the convenience of chopped onions, buy a 3 pound bag, chop them (it takes 10-15 minutes for the slowest chopper), freeze them in ziploc bags. There you go, you have enough onions for the month.
-Shop wisely. I try to make multiple shopping trips every week to minimize cost. One to Trader Joe’s to get bulk stuff, staples and occasional guilty pleasure; another to farmers market (in summer) or Whole Foods to get fruits; and if I am not lazy, another one to the Asian markets to get noodles, rice, sauces and surprisingly affordable fruit, seafood and vegetables. Know your prices, don’t get 4 dollar white flour from Whole Foods. In fact, if there is a Chinese or Korean grocery around, or better yet Chinatown, go there first. Mine is far from where I live, but every time I go there I get the most affordable fruits, vegetables and seafood.
- Eat less. I am serious. Most of us eat at least twice the amount of what we need and then complain about spending too much on food or being overweight. I admit, I am fighting against those demons since I always had the “clean the pan, clean the plate” habit. I spend too much on food and I am slightly overweight. But, I am learning: A chocolate bar is not one serving, a bag of frozen ravioli is not a proper dinner, a bag of chips should last you at least a week. I realized that I used to pay a lot for food because I had no sense of serving sizes. There is no doubt that wedge of brie is expensive, but it is also not something you eat in one sitting. Once I started rationing, everything fell into place. Don’t eat as if there is no tomorrow! There is tomorrow, and it is better if you save some of that brie for tomorrow: you can enjoy it once more.
-Waste not. Doggy bag that leftover even if it is some fried rice; there comes the side dish of lunch. In fact, eat for leftovers. Most restaurant food is inappropriately portioned, you only need half of it; so eat half of it. Better yet, ask for a doggy bag before you start your meal, immediately transfer the half to the doggy bag and then start your meal. Again, leave no excuse for eating more than necessary.
- Learn not to depend on recipes. Rather, plan around the raw materials you have at home. Look at the contents of your fridge and see what could spoil in the next few days. Search some recipes with that ingredient. Cook around that ingredient. Nothing has to be book-perfect. Sometimes, serendipitous creations are the best. From my experience, buying ingredients just for recipes is the a wasteful thing to do, especially if you live alone. Learn substituting, so you do not have to buy something that you have no idea what to do with later.
- Bulk bins are your best friend.
3. Presentation:
I like good presentation, but I am not obsessed with it. I am in awe with some of the bento bloggers that turn every lunch box into kawaii art, but I don’t have the motivation -nor the talent- to do that. I also am very opinionated about the mcdonaldization of food images due to increased availability of photo editing software. Haven’t you realized that all food photos started to look the same, with a uniform editorial aura over them? All food photos look equally decadent; they almost look like as if they come from the same kitchen, made by the same person and even possibly taste the same. It is as if, the connection between the object and the final photograph is lost, eaten by the giant editing machine. The food doesn’t look like food, it just looks like a photograph of food; food becomes a truly inaccessible and unattainable image. Unfortunately, I don’t like that; hence I won’t do that. I will try to present the food as well as I can for whatever it is, but I will not allow myself for food porn. That means no photoshopping, no correcting, no glossing. In fact, I will only take one or two shots of the lunch box, under the fluorescent lights of my dinky rented apartment kitchen. You will see the beige laminated counter top. You will see the tomato stain that I forgot to wipe. This will be the dogma95 of foodblogging. The photos will look like as if they are on a table in front of you, in your cramped apartment; not something out of Saveur magazine. They will look delicious (hopefully), but they won’t be objects of fetishism or status symbols. They won’t be inaccessible art objects that perpetuate class barriers in an already messed up American food culture. The cauliflower ain’t the De Beers ring.
4. Storage/ Serving
This is getting longer than I thought, so I’ll cut to the chase. Since I am a stinky hippie, I am worried about the effects of microwaving my food. So other than a few exceptions (say tamales that get rubbery when cold), I will prepare foods that could be enjoyed at room temperature or could be carried with a thermos. I have some cutesy bento boxes, but any divided tupperware or pyrex will do. Just don’t re-use plastic that is not FDA approved for multiple uses (i.e. Chinese takeout tubs). They leech plastic into the food, and that is why they are approved for short term use. You can get an insulated carrying bag for less than 10 bucks, a few ice packs and a mid size thermos at Target or your local camping store; it will be the best investment you’ll ever make. If you have a communal fridge that is dependable, there you go. You don’t even need that insulated pack unless it is 100 degrees out there and you have a long commute. Our kitchen, on the other hand, is inside a campus building that serves a couple of thousand students, faculty and is open to general public. I am afraid, even if I write “I spat in this” on my sandwich, someone might steal it.
“That’s all.”
