Fresh Direct and the Great Experiment

This is the first post. The Rules should explain everything. If you have questions, ask. If you have advice, share.

On to the blog.

One of my greatest challenges in these coming months will be feeding myself enough that I don't begin to look like Jeremy Davies in Rescue Dawn. Thus the need for groceries. Recently in the mail I received a coupon from Fresh Direct for $50 worth of groceries, a god send for a man with my mission.

Fresh Direct is a respectable outfit. When I was living in the crawl space above my friend's refrigerator last fall she would often task me with waiting around for the Fresh Direct people. Seeing as how I often got to nosh on her dime, I was up for the challenge. But there are a few problems with Fresh Direct. It takes a lot of planning, it's not very fun, and the value is questionable. I like wandering the aisles seeing what jumps out at me, Fresh Direct robs me of this pleasure. But it was convenient for my former roommate, she got to avoid the PathMark on 125th and Lex (aka Hell on Earth), and she could skip the hauling her goods through the panhandling gauntlet that was the walk home. But for me it's not so convenient.

Sure Fresh Direct has lots of stuff for sale and the food is pretty good, but you have to sit down and think what you want and how much you want to spend. I live down the street from a grocery store, one that happens to be in the Spanish Harlem, or El Barrio, as we will refer to it hence. This means cheap goods. The selection is very Latino centric, which actually is something I'm fine with. But they don't have everything. And I would've gone there to shop anyway if it wasn't for this promotional coupon burning a hole in my pocket.

I had planned out my menu for the week anyway. The signature dish of the week is Mambo Chicken with Mango Salsa. I've made this dish twice before and it's fantastic. One batch can yield four meals for a single, skinny guy like myself. Add some rice and it's enough to make a man chunky. So I ordered the ingredients for that along with some bread for PB&Honey sandwiches as well as some nacho fixins like guacamole and chips.

Part of my problem with Fresh Direct is you have to order $50 worth of food to get a delivery out of them and they charge $5 for the convenience of waiting around for their delivery drivers to show up in the 2 hour time slot you picked. These requirements aren't cool for me seeing as how the price means I'd have to go 5 days with out so much as buying a hot dog. But with the coupon my total was a quarter shy of $32. I figure after the delivery charge and tip, and the lack of discounts on their prices I got about $15 of free groceries today. But I won't get them until Sunday and I have to eat today.

I recently made a chicken cutlet sandwich and liked it. And since I've got a block of pepper jack cheese in my fridge threatening to go moldy on me, I decided I'd make a panini that combined the two. I went to the grocery store down the street, picked up 3 wheat rolls for $1, a small pack of cutlets, a lime and a tomato; all together it was $5. I marinated the cutlets for a few hours with olive oil, lime juice, chopped garlic, chili powder, salt and black pepper. Then I used a cast iron stove-top grill to cook the chicken. Stuck the tomato, jack cheese, onion, and chicken in the whole wheat rolls, stuck those in the press, and presto, Chicken Pepper Jack Paninis.

I have to add that I had a street tamale (so good) with eggs for breakfast. Tamales are uno viente cinco. I also spent $7.50 on beer tonight. Not on bread alone, right? So all totaled I spent $44.50 on food and beer today. Tomorrow will be a lazy Sunday, so no spending will be breeze. It's the coming week that will hurt.

The breakdown:
Starting Balance: $0

In
Money: $10

Out
Fresh Direct: $31.75
Chicken Cutlet Sandwiches: $5
Beer: $7.50
Tamale: $1.25

Balance: -$34.50