Sunday, December 28, 2008

Further culinary adventures

Much of my love of cooking is inspired by a frustration with pointless spending. The same impulse reminding me to make my own iced coffee and not pay $2.25 outside has encouraged me to conquer, one by one, each indulgence. This also explains the DIY haircut-- a success, I should note, but the photo will have to wait until the post-cold pallor subsides, and I return to my usual shade of ridiculously pale. Meanwhile, some things, like Uniqlo pencil skirts, must be purchased. Jenny Humphrey I am not.

So, fed up with spending $3 on one brownie, I decided to give these a shot, abandoning brownies altogether not being an option. In five to ten minutes the verdict will be in. If it goes well, I may have to get moving on my cooking-blog idea, the No-Dishwasher Recipe Adaptation, in which I make dishes that call for using five different bowls, four saucepans, and the like, and put it all together with a less daunting number of appliances. "In a separate bowl," I think not.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"No-Dishwasher Recipe Adaption," aka, "It All Ends Up Together in Your Stomach Anyway" or "Guess Why this Cake Tastes like Ketchup?".

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

I like the "stomach" one better than the "ketchup" one--combining ingredients all at once need not mean doing so in a bowl that's dirty to begin with!

And, the brownies were a success, too much so perhaps. The latkes, adequate but nothing amazing.

Dana said...

I have become really good at resisting buying anything I can make. I rarely go out to eat, except socially. But aside from sandwiches, I'm horrible at turning leftovers into lunch, because there's no microwave at school. So I just end up eating/working at home, which is not productive. It saves money though. I keep thinking I'd be more productive working at a cafe or at school, but not really, because it's uncomfortable being hungry or feeling guilty about spending money on lunch and coffee. How to resolve this, I do not know.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

I find, with lunch, there are three options. 1) Stay home, which I also sometimes do, which does indeed have its drawbacks; 2) get something like pizza or a bagel and be hungry about five minutes later, but spend $2.50 or under and thus less than a decently-made and transportable home-cooked meal would have cost; or 3) spend the $8-plus on something adequate from the outside (a gargantuan Italian sandwich, Thai stirfry, etc.), have energy for the rest of the day, stay on campus, but feel guilty, only to feel still-guiltier when, if I add on the $1.75 for the coffee that doing work on campus inevitably entails, I realize I'm spending $10 on lunch. Life would be far more productive if lunch did not have to happen, but it really does.

Anonymous said...

"I find, with lunch, there are three options."

4) Bring a bag of cane sugar with you to campus, grab a handful when you feel hungry. Repeat as necessary.

5) Install a hotplate in your office. Learn to cook elaborate meals with it. Write a book about your experiences.

Anonymous said...

6) Eat Nicky's Vietnamese sandwiches. Save $3-plus.