Spoon Fed For Free

Today I woke and packed food. Lots of food. I packed up some of that lentil/barley soup I made on Monday night (here's the recipe, (sub barley for bulgur)), I packed up some oranges, threw in some golden raisins, and made two peanut butter and honey sandwiches. No, I wasn't going camping, but 'Spoon'ing rather. And as my pal Gen has informed me, spooning leads to forking.

Tonight in Rockefella' Park, the Austin indie band Spoon was playing outside for free. I've wanted to see them live every since a pal of mine came back from a Guided by Voices concert raving about this opening act. If you haven't heard them, then skip down to your local "cooler- than-thou" indie record store and ask for them. It might even earn you a tight lipped nod from the wildly pierced and tattooed faces behind the counter.

Right after work I took my foodstuffs downtown to watch the show. But the skies had other things in mind for me and Spoon. Clouds were dumping gallons of rain down on the waiting. I stood out in the rain under my umbrella for a little while until I decided being under an open field near water and trees was not the best idea during a lightening storm. So I found shelter in a parking garage until the rain let up. As soon as it got less biblical, I went back to the concert grounds and waited. I stood inside a forest of umbrellas while the rain got less and less and finally stopped. A woman appeared and announced it would be at least a half an hour until the stage was dry enough for the band to play with out fear of electrocution. Then, to wild cheering, they started removing the tarps covering all the equipment.

Until it started to rain again. I started to lose hope. But I munched on raisins and met a few new friends. Sharing is good. Then the rain stopped and stayed stopped. They decided to skip the opening act and Spoon came out and rocked the park. It was great and even better because I didn't have to pay for it, and I felt a camaraderie with the packed park as we had all stuck it out together. Wet, miserable and rocking. Even when it started to sprinkle and a guy who looked like Ben Gibbard's dad would come out between songs, arms crossed, and sternly speak with Spoon's lead singer Britt Daniel, the band continued to play. Electricity be damned. Eventually the forces that be won and Britt informed us "They're telling us to get off the stage." They finished and waved and our encore calls weren't heard. Still aside from "The Way We Get By" I heard everything I wanted to. It was wet, it was loud, it was Spoon.

THE DAILY BREAKDOWN

The only thing I spent today was a few fun hours in the park.

Starting Balance: $19

IN: $10

OUT: $0

Balance: $29

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