fava bean salad with mesculin greens

I have a particular aversion to leftovers. After putting so much effort and love into the original dish, I feel as though there is no way that leftovers can compete with taste memory. I'd rather let leftovers wilt into a nutrition-less mess in the trash can than re-heat and re-eat.

But honestly -- can I really afford to throw out food? No. Moreover, I feel ethically responsible to eat all of the food I purchase, not only for economic reasons, but for environmental reasons as well. After reading an article in New York Magazine about subsistence farming in Brooklyn, I became extremely conscious of the incredible amount of effort and resources it takes to grow, say, one pod of fava beans. Throwing away food is more of a waste than you may realize.

So to discard leftovers is, for me, a truly ethical dilemma. On one hand, I loathe the idea of eating food that has lost its nutritional value and taste from both the elapse of time and re-heating. Yet on the other hand, I lack the peace of conscience to throw away perfectly good food. The solution? One can begin by making smaller quantities from the outset. Otherwise, you can follow Darren Darlin's advice on saving money and make enough of a meal to take as a brown-bag lunch the next day. Not only will your conscience feel great about saving money and the future of food, but you will also become the envy of the office.

The trick is that you need to refresh your leftovers with new ingredients. Here's a simple example of how to do turn last night's side dish into this afternoon's lunch.


FAVA BEAN SALAD WITH MESCULIN GREENS

Serves one very happy employee

Leftover Fava Bean Salad
Half a dozen fresh grape tomatoes, cut in half
Fresh parsley leaves

Mesculin greens

Feta cheese, optional


Re-using the storage container in which you have refrigerated your fava bean salad, toss in grape tomatoes and some more fresh parsley leaves to the leftovers. Re-seal container and plop in your lunch box.

In a separate container large enough to serve the salad bowl from which you will eat, add a handful of mesculin greens. Seal container and add to lunch box.

Cut off a portion of feta cheese, and put it in yet another container or plastic bag to go in the lunch box.

At the office, remove containers. Top mesculin greens with leftover refreshed fava bean salad. Crumble feta cheese on top. Bring to conference room, kitchen, or your cubicle. Revel in your co-workers' compliments -- and don't forget to tell them about that it came from the gourmet dinner you had last night.

beginning advice

Photo © 2006, Conor Dubin

In 2006, New York Times reporter Darren Darlin wrote an article for soon-to-be college graduates about how to save money. His advice was: "Let's Start With That Daily Latte Latte". So often, especially here in New York, we get ripped off for things that become "luxury items" because of name brands, popularity, or even the affluence of the neighborhood in which you are purchasing. A coffee at a bodega in Harlem costs far less than a coffee at a bodega in SoHo. It's no surprise then that many of us in this food-obsessed city pay out the majority of our income on food-related items, whether on groceries, a fine meal, or your Starbucks addiction that only got worse since the corporation went coffee house.

In order to make ends meat, you have to start by being savvy about your consumption practices. Don't compromise quality, but do make what you are paying for count. I demand quality in what I eat, or else eating isn't worth it to me. I buy organic when available and reasonably affordable, and I eat at restaurants that serve quality food that is worth the price demanded. It isn't worth the dollar less to buy discount produce, nor is it worth it to me to buy a plate full of rice (origin unknown) from the Halal cart that could feed a small family for $6.

There are simple things that you can do to maximize the value of your food. For example, shopping at Citarella might be fun because their bags are so tote-able, but Fairway Market right next door is much less expensive, even if their double-bagged paper/plastic bags are hard to carry. Buying lunch at work is certainly easier than preparing something you can carry on your subway commute, but (especially in Manhattan) you'd save an astounding amount of money if you took the extra effort to prepare your own lunch. Getting ripped off on food is something that can easily be avoided. To begin the first of many tips to come, here is Darren Darlin's advice on economic eating:

Make your own coffee You probably know you spend a lot at Starbucks, a company that collected $6.4 billion from coffee drinkers last year. You probably don't have any idea how much of that total came from you. A calculator at www.hughchou.org/calc/coffee.cgi let's you figure that out and also forecast how much you will spend over a decade of coffee breaks. (This Web site contains a treasure trove of financial planning calculators.) Say you spend just $3.50 every workday for your latte. If you drank the free office brew instead, you'd have more than $11,500 to play with after 10 years.

Does coffee shop coffee taste better than the free stuff? Probably, but ask yourself, do you want to live in a roach-infested studio apartment with two roommates your entire life?

By the same logic, if you smoke, now is a good time to quit. Doing so will save you on average $25,600 over 10 years.

Learn to cook Unless you have learned the art of sneaking into conferences at hotels to snag a breakfast croissant or cocktail-hour shrimp, you need to reduce your dining budget. A twice-a-week kung pao chicken takeout habit can easily drain you of about $10,000 over 10 years.

At the very least, learn how to pack a lunch. Taking your lunch to work may seem like the equivalent of sitting with the nerds in the school cafeteria, and going out to lunch with colleagues can sometimes be a smart career move. But bringing your lunch lets you be more choosy about who you are eating with and saves money. How much? Back to the online calculators (www.hughchou.org/calc/lunch.cgi) and you'll discover that the savings could be as much as $23,000 in 10 years.

The tally so far: $34,500 (for the nonsmokers), or enough to make a down payment on a $172,500 house. That won't get you much in most big cities, so you really need to exert yourself.

From Darren Darlin, "Advice to All You Graduates: Let's Start with That Daily Latte", Your Money; The New York Times, June 10, 2006.

making ends meat

Late the other night around dinner time, I found myself staring into an empty refridgerator. The past few nights had been Yogurt & Granola Nights, and the night before that was Yet Another Salad. I was determined not to scramble an egg or nibble my way through the pantry; I was itching to cook and to taste something worthwhile. I couldn't buy more groceries for the week, and I also couldn't afford to get takeout. Living in New York City on my notoriously low publishing salary requires me to budget rather frugally. I have no choice but to adhere to it in order to continue surviving here in New York, one of the most expensive cities in the world. The problem is, I already spend the majority of my money on food (next to rent, of course), and even though I wasn't going hungry, I was absolutely starving.

I was running out of time and patience as I confronted my new reality staring back at me from the chilly refrigerator: my palate has outstretched my wallet.

New York is the culinary capital of America. The culture here is extremely gastrocentric: restaurants are at the top of the city's places to be seen, and social life revolves around the table (or the bar, since we all love dining at the bar now). Everyone is obsessed with food, and the town is brimming with hungry twentysomethings who define themselves as "foodies", though some of them don't even cook. Food is extremely accessible in the city since every restaurant delivers, from the local greasy Chinese joints to the nation's top gourmet restaurants. As a New Yorker, you can even get your groceries delivered, but if you prefer, you can go down to your neighborhood's and finger through crates of produce. Whatever your food fancy, you can find it in this city -- but you just have to be able to afford it.

So what happens when you're on a low budget but you've got high taste? I grew up in a family of cooks and eaters, so it would be impossible for me to neglect the importance of food. My favorite pastime is cooking, and my favorite urban activity is strolling through the maze of the Columbus Circle Whole Foods. But as of late, I've been out of time and out of money to make my food taste good. So now, more than ever, I am dusting off firing up the stove and my calculator to make sure that I go neither hungry nor broke.

making ends meat is my endeavor to show you (and in part, to prove to myself) that with a bit of creativity you can eat gourmet meals any day of the week without spending the fortune you don't have.