How to be a Cat 101, in 10 easy steps:

(1) Whatever your human expects you to do, do the complete opposite. 
(2) If your human needs to use the toilet, stand guard. Bonus points if you can get into the restroom before they close the door, extra bonus points if you can fall asleep on their trousers while they are down and act like it's a super-huge inconvenience being awoken from the position after about 15 seconds.
(3) Ensure that your human does not sleep more than 4 consecutive hours. If they go to bed early, stay up yowling and chasing non-existent squirrels through the windows. Make sure to curl up right on top of their bladder at about 12-3 AM, depending on when your human first fell asleep. Depending on when they fell back asleep after your initial torment, curl up on their face and cut off their breathing at about 4-6 AM, the earliest possible that doesn't literally kill them from sleep deprivation. If they go back to sleep, start kneading them with claws unsheathed no later than 9 AM.
(4) Knock over the water bowl as soon as it's filled, especially if it's put down on carpet.
(5) For just about no reason at all, be sure to kick your fresh turds out of the litter box. No one wants a turd-laden litter box.
(6) If you feel queasy, go hide in the most inconvenient place for your human to clean it up in order to throw up. Bonus points if they have to move an entire bed or couch to clean it up.
(7) If your human is cooking, choose that time to demonstrate how high you can jump. Extra bonus points for jumping onto the table with the cutting board and sharp knife or onto the stove that is turned to high.
(8) Everyone loves to walk into a room and see a kitty curled up in a sink. Do this somewhat regularly, but immediately evacuate if you see a camera come out. THERE CAN BE NO EVIDENCE!
(9) Mew loudly at the door to be let out, then disappear for hours. Act pissed off at your human when they aren't there to let you in the second you want to go back inside.
(10) Collect and fight any and all socks or hosiery belonging to the owner. Make sure that socks and hose are now disposable things, intended only as cat toys. While she's sleeping, arrange these destroyed artifacts artistically around her head. Mew loudly at 4 AM to let her know it's time to wake up and view your masterpiece. If she ignores you, swat her in the face a few times with your claws sheathed. If she doesn't wake up, do full-claws-out kneading on her neck. Look upset and hurt when she wakes up angry that you woke her up rather than appreciative of your artwork. Grab a sock and offer it to her, and then paw at the others to let her know that you did this for her. If she tries to go back to sleep after seeing your masterpiece, curl up on her bladder again, and this time make sure you move around a lot.

Food Stamps Challenge Day 3

Well, as much of a day as I could call it, totally outside of this challenge for the most part. I forgot I had to bring in bagels for my team ($11 total) for breakfast, so my breakfast plans were shot and my budget if I were supposed to do this on food stamps only.  Also, lunch was taken care of for me.  I did eat dinner: leftover curry and rice.  I still have a quart of leftover curry to get through.

Someone wise once said, "plans are useless, but planning is critical."  I think this is 100% true.  You can have a perfect plan based on an ideal situation, but of course it will fall apart the second real life intervenes.  However, if you had not planned, you would not be prepared, and then be stuck quite hungry and eating out of a jar of peanut butter stashed in the trunk of your car.  You would also have no context for how the shifts in plans impact your life.

So far my cheese and charcuterie snack is still waiting for me in the office fridge, along with a pint of strawberries.  I did eat an apple, because it was quick to grab and eat between meetings.  I should perhaps incorporate more of these flexible snack / breakfasts into future plans.

Lesson learned: Plan.  Don't worry if your plans don't work out perfectly.  Learn from where it broke down, and make a plan closer to reality next time.  For me, it looks like a single "large recipe" on the weekend can tide over my lunches and dinners at least through Tuesday if not further. 

Food Stamps Challenge Day 3 Update!

Today went about as planned, except for the following:

• Breakfast was leftover rice pudding and tea (I had a jar of strawberries ready but no time to eat them)
• Lunch was as planned
• Dinner was leftover veggie korma (man I love that stuff)
• The Snack wasn't eaten

Tomorrow there will be a couple changes - I will have the yogurt and granola, and lunch will be covered via an event I am attending.  Dinner will probably be Sichuan boiled fish.  The snack of cheese and charcuterie leftover from last week will go on the menu for tomorrow's snack.

In other news, I managed to finish out the day with only 1 un-checked item on my to-do list.  That's down from 3 yesterday, and 5 the day before.  I'm making some real progress on multiple fronts!

Obviously, I have no good context for how much just one person eats, especially when that person is me!  Ha ha, let's see how tomorrow goes!

Food Stamps Challenge: Day 2 Update!

Yesterday, I started the Food Stamps Challenge #2: Georgia!

Recap

I planned the week, went shopping, and came in a bit over due to an impulse purchase of a really stinky fermented vegetable that no one should eat one handed while driving home, unless they enjoy spilling stinky fermented vegetable in their car.  I really should treat my sweet baby Green Bean (it's an "alien green" Kia Soul) kinder.

Summary of This Post

I'll basically walk you through what I did with my Saturday evening and Sunday to prepare the goods procured prior to last post for the week.  There will be a few recipe updates, and some general food prep updates.  I'll follow-up with some commentary on what is and is-not possible for someone actually living in poverty.  A lot of this is more for a "poor person with really good infrastructure," e.g. farming in a rural area or suddenly unemployed after a good run.

First: Dinner Last Night!

I made Sichuan Boiled Fish.  I had most of the ingredients on-hand, only had to purchase the fish.  I also added some cabbage in for good measure.  The "vegetables" used were 1 carrot and a little shredded cabbage:

These were just poached in a little boiling water until tender, then dropped in the bottom of the serving bowl.
Next steps were to prepare the remaining ingredients (read the full recipe here):

I had to clean and filet the fish; remember I got a discount for doing this myself.  Here are the remains:

As always, we use every part of the buffalo (or fish) in this household, so those scraps were buried in the garden, which will use that nitrogen to make more food later this year.  You'll notice all "clean bones" parts were removed and added to the dish.  I don't care for picking out scales, so I rarely use the skin, fins, head, etc... in an actual dish unless I can be sure to strain out the scales afterwards, or be 100% confident that no scales are going into the dish.  If you don't like picking out bones, either, well, just put that in your garden as well!
Here is the final dish!

I may have made it a tad too spicy.  Look at all that red oil at the surface!  OOOOH SO WONDERFUL!  The fish is tender but holds together, the veggies are infused with flavor, and I will have enough leftovers to feed me again at least twice.

Second: Breakfast This Morning!

On the schedule was rice pudding with coconut milk from my pantry and leftover rice from my fridge.  Turns out I was fresh out of coconut milk.  It's okay, there are two basic ways to make rice pudding: add a milk / dairy product and heat until the rice goes soft and creamy, or boil the rice in water until it goes soft and creamy and add an egg and dairy product and make a custard.  Since I had yogurt and eggs, I did the custard route.

The Recipe:

1 c pre-cooked rice
0.5 c yogurt (usually you would want cream or milk, but any dairy thing will do, including non-dairy milk substitutes; even sour cream works in a pinch, just up the sugar if you have to go this route)
1 egg
0.5 to 1 c trail mix
Vanilla, honey, salt, and other seasonings
Water

Add enough water to rice in a small saucepan to cover the rice, bring to a boil.  Continue to simmer and add water until the rice goes actually soft.  While this is going on, separate the dried fruit from the nuts in your trail mix.  Add the dried fruit to the boiling rice mix.  Roughly chop the nuts and toast them if yours is a "raw" trail mix.  Combine the yogurt and egg in a bowl, mix VERY well.  Add honey, vanilla, salt, and other seasonings to taste.  For me, about 1/4 tsp salt, 0.5 tsp vanilla, and 1 Tbsp honey was about right - but if you like it sweet or feel like you're not hitting every part of your tongue, add more salt.  For vanilla etc.., most people do this with like cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg, the general pumpkin pie spice mix.  I'm 100% not a fan of cinnamon in sweet things, so I stick to vanilla and honey.  Add enough water to thin it into something pourable but not fully liquid (should fully coat everything you mix it with, but should still pour).  Boil down the rice mix until it's mostly rice and fruit, very little water.  Add some ice cubes to cool it down so you don't scramble the egg when you add it.  Pour in the egg-yogurt mix, and reheat on medium, stirring constantly, until thickened, but don't boil because the egg will scramble out.  About 170 F is where you're looking to get.

Here are some photos:

First, I can't get away with this except for the fact that I have an over-abundance of dry goods procured on wicked sale.  This trail mix was gotten from Sprouts on a blow-out sale at something like $0.59/lb:

 Up close, you can see it is a mix of purple and golden raisins, cashews, almonds, and pistachios.

 Separating the mix shows it's about 50/50 nuts and fruit by volume.  Perfect!

 Rough chop the nuts:

 Boil down the fruit with the rice:

 Mix together the egg, yogurt, honey, and vanilla:

 While we're at it, since yogurt is on the menu for breakfast later this week, might as well prepare a sweetened yogurt for later!  This is in a 1-c canning jar with a wide mouth.  I try not to use plastic anymore if I can help it, for a whole host of reasons, and these jars have SO MANY USES!

 Okay, the rice and fruit mix is softened and mostly dry:

 Here's the thinned-down egg and yogurt mix.  I didn't mean to spill it, I'm just clumsy, but the photo nicely shows about what texture you want to get to.  Pourable and liquid, but thick enough to not really run all over the place.

 Nuts are toasted!

 After adding the custard to the rice and fruit, and cooking.  I ran the spoon through the mix to show how thick it is, but it didn't come out well in the photo.  There's a rice pudding Grand Canyon in the shadow.

 Now topped with nuts (I am going to stir these in for the most part):

 And that, right there, is a perfect breakfast!

Breakfast Recap:

I don't really love rice pudding in all honesty.  Same goes for French Toast, waffles, pancakes, and other sweet breakfasts.  They're good, sure.  Totally edible.  Preferable to other things, like natto, for sure, but some people LOVE rice pudding.  Given that I don't love it, I have no context for the upper end of the scale, and therefore I can merely rate this on at the top of the edible scale for sweet breakfasts.  It's not a donut (which I usually HATE), but it's also not fried rice (which I really like).  Yes, I will eat it again, but that's because I ALWAYS have leftover rice and I can't throw away good food anymore.  It's also basically a different preparation of "leftover rice with egg" of which I am sure we will have many examples of from multiple different cultures as we move through this experiment.  Perhaps it should be unsurprising that from Chinese congee to Korean bipimbap to Japanese rice porridge to British rice pudding that many cultures have found a way to combine yesterday's rice with this morning's fresh egg and call it breakfast!  (French Toast is just a way to combine stale bread from yesterday with this morning's fresh egg, so it fits the trend.  In fact, the custard mix we made for this recipe is the exact same one I would use for a French Toast if I had stale bread!  I'm sure there are countless other examples as well.)

Third: Dinner Tonight!

For dinner, we were planning to use up some of those carrots in a vegetable korma, courtesy of India.  We're really jetting around the globe with this post - first Sichuan province of China, then a very British rice pudding, and now to India, perhaps equal with Sichuan province in how to make otherwise not-very-enticing ingredients taste like pure heaven.  For this, I'm using as a base this recipe.  I didn't want to buy peppers, as they were expensive, and I found out all my potatoes were ready to plant in my garden rather than ready to eat.  As a compromise, I dug into my freezer and found some kabocha squash (hokkaido melon) and some zuchinni.  I also disagreed with the way the recipe online used spices - in an authentic preparation spices would have a very special treatment including specialized toasting and timing of addition.  As a compromise I found from my stocks 2 tsp curry powder, 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp garam masala (that I made, every house has it's own blend in India), 0.5 tsp ground coriander, 0.25 tsp cinnamon, 0.5 tsp ground cumin, 0.25 tsp ground cardamom.  These I added with the garlic/ginger mix because I wanted them to toast a little.  It's not perfect nor authentic, but it's a decent compromise.  Also, I found that I needed to add water with the tomato sauce to achieve a good enough consistency to actually allow the veggies to cook without the tomato sauce burning.

The Recipe:

• Korma: I followed this one with the caveats mentioned above.
• Rice
• 1 c basmati rice, dry
• 1 c water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 star anise
• 6-10 allspice berries
• 1 small pinch safflower (not saffron, that is expensive)

Here's how it went!  First, the korma.  Sauteed the chopped onion in a little bit of ghee (clarified butter, where you basically pull all milk proteins away from the fat so the butter won't burn at a higher temperature).

Got them nice and brown:

 Then added spices, including garlic and ginger:

 These really should smell amazing before moving on.  I also added the jalapeno at this stage.

 Then I added the carrots and winter squash (kabocha), tomato sauce and water.

 "Well if you liked it then you should have put a lid on it," - otherwise it will burn.  Lids can be useful for things like kabocha that need a long time to cook.

 After adding the ground up cashews, the sauce thickened nicely, and I also unceremoniously dumped a pile of frozen zucchini on top.  This stuff cooks in 2 seconds, especially from frozen, which is why I didn't add it earlier.

Now it's ready for cream!

 And that is the final dish!  Isn't it glorious?!!

Now for the rice.  I have a rice cooker, so I just washed the rice about 3x in a lot of water, then added the cooking water and spices:

When it was done:

Tossed with a fork and ready to serve!

The Commentary

That was actually a really easy dish.  A tad prep-intense for a weeknight, but wonderful for a lazy Sunday when I could watch the Food Network while chopping onions and peeling carrots, etc..  It does taste like comfort food heaven.  This is how cinnamon was intended to be used, my friends.  My only fault with this recipe is now I have about a gallon of korma.  I hadn't intended to eat korma, and only korma, all week, and didn't plan my purchasing accordingly.  I also still have Sichuan boiled fish leftovers from last night.  I think we're looking at an unfortunate major re-plan of the week's meals to accommodate these oversights.  Ramen may not be happening to us this week, and breakfasts may be korma.

Food Prep!

In any case, I will not make it through the week without some general prep for those work nights when I come home late and have limited time to cook.  In retrospect, my focus on preparing for cooking future meal (shredding carrots, marinating ramen eggs, etc...) may have been misguided.  Also, I picked up 3 pounds of strawberries for $3.00, and those go bad as soon as you look at them.  

Strawberries

First, I cleaned and froze the strawberries.  I use these in smoothies, and have learned from experience that if you freeze things in a bag or box, you get a block of frozen thing, not something easy to pull out just what you need, so I laid these out on a sheet tray before freezing:

These strawberries aren't that awesome for eating fresh, but I did clean some for breakfast tomorrow and a snack today.  They have a sub-par texture and not much sweetness.

Ranch Dressing

I mostly run off a recipe from the Pioneer Woman for my ranch dressing since the horrific incident of 2012 (see prior post for details).  Basically, it's a large bit of mayonnaise, a smaller but still large bit of sour cream, mixed together with spices added.  Ree uses fresh garlic in hers, but I find it makes the dressing a bit too hot for my tastes, so I use only dried or roasted garlic in mine.  For this version of what is actually a glorified aioli, I used a tsp of Worcestershire, a tsp of dried powdered garlic, a pinch of dried dill, a tsp of hot sauce, a minced green onion, and a handful of fresh herbs from my garden including sage, thyme, and oregano.  These I mixed all together, and then added salt and white vinegar until it tasted right on a cucumber.  A dressing has to be a little powerful to taste right on its intended target, so I find it best to always do taste tests with something you would use the dressing on.  It turned out heavenly.

I've already eaten this down a bit.  I only made a pint or so.

General Food Prep

Well, I shredded carrots and cabbage in prep for salads and noodles.  Same for soft boiled eggs for ramen (currently marinating in soy sauce and mirin), and hard boiled eggs for a salad later in the week.  I prepped lunch for tomorrow, which is a greek salad with the leftover chicken thighs that I sliced thin and canned, a bit of hummus, some of the ranch dressing (come on, it's really an herbed sour cream mayonnaise sauce), and a wedge of lemon.

I kept the toppings separate from the main salad (just lettuce, jalapeno, green onion, cucumber, and tomato) because lettuce starts to fail miserably the second you load it up with oils and vinegars.  It's more tiny jars to wash, but I have a dishwasher, so YAY!!

I also want to reiterate a couple things.  First, I couldn't do this without a well-stocked (if disorganized) pantry.

I also can't do this without some thoughts to making sure every part of everything finds a use in my kitchen and not in a landfill.  The best way to cut costs, after all, is to actually use every bit of everything you buy.  Food waste goes into the garden - you already saw my fishy get buried, here are the kitchen scraps for the compost:

I even started saving freezer bags.  These things are SO EXPENSIVE if you look at them on a per-item basis, they add $0.10 to $0.15 to food products when I use them, and if you saw my budget on the last post, that's anywhere from 10% to 100% of the cost of a single food item.  They're also bad for the environment (microplastics are everywhere).  OKAY it's a little crazy to reuse a disposable, but it's allergy season and I'm using a million tissues and I hate taking out the trash.

Really, all my eco-hippy ways of "reduce, reuse, recycle" come down to one fundamental principle: I REALLY HATE TAKING OUT THE TRASH.  I would rather go bury a fish skeleton in my back yard than take out the trash.  I have a problem.  Fortunately, it's an easily-justifiable problem if I look outside the neurosis itself to higher matters.

Final Synopsis

It was a good day.  I'm going to wind up with a lot more meals off my $34 dollars than originally planned or anticipated.  Things are looking up for this project.

Leftover Roundup

• Leftovers used up
• 1 c rice
• 1 c hot and sour soup
• Lots of carrots (these aren't leftovers, just so much a surplus they belong in this category)
• Leftovers created
• 4 c Sichuan boiled fish (dinner yesterday)
• 1 c rice pudding (breakfast today)
• 2 qts vegetable korma (dinner today)

Leftovers are net moving correctly, old things are being turned into other things, but overall a net positive in leftover accumulation.  We'll have to work on this in the coming days.

Food Stamps Challenge #2

A long time ago, I tried a food stamps challenge in California.  The goal was to eat completely and totally within the range of the typical food stamps allocation.  I need to save up a little money for a new roof on this house anyway, so I thought I would try it yet again, but this time in Georgia!

A couple notes about the challenge:

• Food stamps in Georgia for a 1-person household are median $134/mo.  That's in the ballpark of about $31/week.
• Yes, I could get by on 30 trips through a drive through dollar menu each week.  That's $4 a day, at about 250 calories per dollar, which gets me to 1000 calories.  I'd definitely lose some weight, but it would take me about a year to fully starve.
• Yes, I could eat only rice from the Sprouts bargain bin at $0.69/lb.  That's about 6.5 lbs or rice per day, and at each pound of rice coming in at about 1700 calories, well, I'd have a little left over.  I could even do beans AND rice, and butter, and an occasional pack of bacon, and still GAIN weight.
• The GOAL is to eat healthily, with an abundance of home prepared meals and fresh fruits and veggies, meeting most nutritional needs, and once I get good at this I might try adding in the nutritional info for macronutrients, and then eventually even micronutrients.  That sounds wicked hard right now, I don't have the hang of this yet.

A couple notes about how I am cheating:

• I don't actually suffer from food insecurity or poverty.  That takes a lot of the stress out of this, and a main way we counter stress is via seeking out comfort foods, even if they are expensive.  I'm not fighting fair here.
• I also have a fully stocked kitchen, pantry, a large fridge, and a stand-up freezer.  I have the luxury to buy in bulk and store the surplus for when I need it later.  This takes single one-time ingredient investments (doubangjiang, dou-chi, Shou-xing cooking wine, a handle of good soy sauce), and one-time equipment investments (wok, rice cooker, immersion blender) and reduces them to mere pennies in my budget.  Someone actually on a food-stamps budget would be getting by with the $15 non-stick skillet kit from Walmart, have no way to store nearly as much surplus as I have, etc...  If you are on a food stamps budget, you definitely don't have the space to store 25-lb sacks of three different varieties of rice.
• The refrigerator / freezer space also means I have the luxury to prep time-intensive recipes once, and eat them spread out all week or month.  Someone living in poverty would not have this luxury.
• I also have a car and a seemingly unlimited gas budget, so I can shop around for the best prices on food and travel to places remote from MARTA stops that have good deals.  If I was on foot, in a food desert, and every trip cost money for MARTA or an Uber fare, I'd have a LOT harder time of this.

Okay, let's see how Week #1 of the 2019 Food Stamps Challenge is going so far!

The Plan

Back in California, where there was so much random seasonal fluctuation in prices, I rarely went to the store with a plan.  Here in Georgia, I have some idea of what will be cheap and what won't, because the local microclimate doesn't fluctuate nearly as much as the annual seasonal variation.  Therefore, I actually made a plan before embarking on this adventure.

First Step: Inventory

Since food waste will be the enemy of this challenge, I first had to check my fridge for perishables that would need to be consumed before they go bad.  I've been on a lot of travel, and had already done a decent job of eating down my surplus, so here is the list of "use it or lose it" items that made it into the plan:

• 1 c hot and sour soup
• 2 c cooked rice
• 1 large stick ginger
• Carrots (about 8 lbs, actually, I usually buy 5-lb bags and then had a house guest who also eats a lot of carrots, and she didn't know I already had a 5-lb bag so added a 10-lb bag to the cart)
• 2 slices pizza
• 5 oz hummus
• 2.5 chicken thighs, marinated and cooked Thursday night
• 1 dozen eggs (the remainder of a pack 30-ct pack purchased prior to house guest influx, so a commodity to be used quickly, not spread out)
• 1 box leftovers from a cheese and charcuterie plate gotten at a restaurant, where, oddly enough, the initial plate would have more than blown my entire week's budget
• 1 large flour tortilla
• 2 oz random trimmings of nice cheeses
• 1 6-ct package of Babybell individually wrapped cheeses (starting to get old, gotta take care of that, too)

The other consumable inventory includes a lot of non-refrigerator things, like dredges of chip bags, jars of nuts, random chocolates, etc..  Again, these luxury items are on-hand, and I will count them in my budget when I must replenish them, but in order to get an overall weekly average, we're going to have to ignore those expenses for now.

Second Step: Initial Menu Plan

Of course this will change as the week goes on and based on what I find at the supermarket.  Since I'm starting with a plan, I thought it worthwhile to detail it here.  As you can see, I'm planning "large prep" meals on Saturday and Sunday, and lower-prep meals during the week.  I've also tried to make week-day breakfasts meet my schedule - on days when I know I will be running out the door as soon as I wake up, I have easy-prep or prep-ahead breakfasts like cheese and apple and nuts, or yogurt and fruit.

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snacks
Saturday	Fried rice, using 1 c rice and 0.5 chicken thigh from leftovers, 1 carrot, and 2 eggs	Pizza	Sichuan boiled fish, with rice	Fruit and something from the larder
Sunday	Rice pudding, using 1 c rice from leftovers, coconut milk from pantry, and trail mix from larder	Leftover fried rice from Saturday, hot & sour soup from leftovers	Vegetable korma focusing strongly on carrots, with rice	Larder raid + fruit
Monday	Steamed egg and fruit smoothie	Greek salad, with green lettuce, carrots, leftover chicken and hummus, cucumber, ranch, green onions	Ramen noodles with ramen egg, leftover chicken, cabbage, and carrots	Cheese & charcuterie leftovers
Tuesday	Cheese, apple, nuts	Leftover ramen	Rice noodles with cabbage, carrots, and a poached egg	Carrots and hummus
Wednesday	Scrambled egg and fruit	Salad with 2 boiled eggs and ranch dressing with carrots	Leftover Sichuan boiled fish with a side salad of lettuce and cabbage	Fruit, Babybell cheese
Thursday	Yogurt and granola	Bento leftovers*	Leftover vegetable korma	Carrots and hummus
Friday	Cheese, nuts, and apple	Greek salad repeat	Turkey and rice and carrot soup (leftover turkey scraps and stock in the freezer)	Cucumber and ranch

*Note: Bento leftovers = any time there are very small quantities of a leftover item, I pack it carefully in a little lunch-scale bento box procured in Japan.  One layer is for things to reheat, the other layer is for things to eat cold.  This allows me to cut down on food waste and have an adorable little lunch.  Bento day is ALWAYS my favorite day - I have a cute little cloth that I wrap it carefully in with a little bow that has the chopsticks stuck in, and I unwrap it as though it were a little present, laying out the cloth as my placemat and really enjoying every second of the experience.  I planned the bento for Thursday, as I can often with with someone on that day, and while private bento unwrapping is fun, it's even more fun with another person.

**Also note: After the horror of the ranch dressing incident of 2013, I no longer eat pre-packaged ranch dressing and insist on making it myself.  There is no excuse for a creamy food product left in a jar in a car in the hot California sun for a month while I was in Iceland all July to come out as though no time had passed.  That stuff has to be toxic for nothing to have colonized it.

Third Step: The Shopping List

Again, I know this will change when I get to the store.  Something will be cheap, something will be expensive.  Substitutions are allowed.  Overages are allowed (they will just get bundled into the consumables for next week, on average after 10-15 weeks, we should be able to finally get a handle on actual weekly expenses).

Here was the initial list:

• Fruit (4 servings)
• Sour cream (for making non-toxic ranch dressing)
• Parsley (for the ranch)
• White fish, unless there are no inexpensive white fish and then tofu is okay
• Garlic 
• Green onion (1 pack of 5)
• Cabbage (smallest, cheapest head)
• Iceberg or other lettuce, 2 heads total
• Cucumber (1)
• Tomato (1)
• Jalapeno (1)
• Apple (2)
• Heavy cream (1 cup)
• Yogurt (enough for 1 serving)
• Lemon (I like lemons)
• Lime (I also like limes)

Fourth Step: The Shopping Trip

My weekly budget is $31.  My monthly budget is $134.  If I go over or under a little, that's cool.  I should attempt to get the best deal on anything that won't go bad within a single week, as I only do shopping once per week as would someone on a limited gas budget (also I'm on a limited time budget).  To note, I do all my food shopping at Nam Dae Mun these days, unless I'm looking for a specialty item.  

Let's see how we did:

• Fruit (4 servings planned) - Fruit is always where my plan falls apart.  
• Strawberries: Fresh strawberries looked amazing and were only $0.99 a pound.  I got 3 lbs.  I will freeze 2 lbs for smoothies and eat the other 1 lb fresh.  That's $2.97 in strawberry expenses.
• Nectarines: These were on sale for $0.99/lb.  They looked so good, and you never just get one nectarine because you could be sorely disappointed if the first one goes bad.  $0.60 in nectarine expenses.
• Navel Oranges: These were either $0.59 each, or $1.00 for two.  Oranges take a long time to spoil.  I got two.  $1.00 in orange expenses.
• Sour Cream - 16 oz for $2.29, being the entire expense for that item.  This is an ingredient for ranch dressing, and it doesn't spoil quickly, so this will still be in the fridge next week.
• Parsley - I couldn't find the parsley.  This was for the ranch dressing, and I can make do without it.  Take this off the list.
• White fish or tofu - Tilapia was in the bargain ice bucket (pick it and clean it yourself for a discount) at $1.99/lb.  Tofu was $1.49 for 14 oz.  I was feeling kind of lazy and had a fever after getting my TDAP booster yesterday, and didn't know if I would feel up to the challenge of cleaning the fish in time, so I got both.  $2.67 in tilapia, $1.49 in tofu.  One of these will carry over to next week.
• Garlic - I only wanted a single 5-head pack, but it was on sale for 2 for $3.00.  Total garlic expenses $3.00, and some of this will definitely carry over to next week.
• Green onion - They had a 4-pack special for $1.00, but 4 packs is more than I can use before it goes bad, also I have green onions in my garden if I need to supplement, so I just got the one pack of 5, at a total expense of $0.39
• Cabbage - Cheapest was either kohlrabi or green cabbage at $0.79 / lb, and I didn't want to put the extra work into shredding kohlrabi, so 1.21 lbs for $0.96 is cabbage expenses.
• Lettuce - Iceberg at $0.99 / head, same for green leaf.  One of each means $1.98 total lettuce.  WORST $$/ Calorie ratio EVER!!
• Cucumber - Just needed one, but 2 for $1.00 beats $0.69 each, and I will totally eat these.  $1.00 total cucumber expenses.
• Tomato - Roma was cheapest at $1.19 / lb, just got the one, $0.37 total tomato expense.
• Jalapeno - I got this really cheap - it isn't on my receipt.  Would have been about $0.13.  Errors happen, if I had noticed during check-out I would've said something, but in the grand scheme of things, this isn't that big a loss to the checker nor the store, nor a great gain for me, so I probably won't be storming back in there tomorrow demanding they take my 13 cents.
• Apple - Gala looked good and were $0.99 / lb, which was in line with the cheapest of the apples today.  I got two at 0.95 lbs, or $0.94 total apple expense.
• Heavy cream - I got exactly 1 c at $1.99 total expense.
• Yogurt - I was supposed to get a single-serving container.  However, just one single-serving container was $1.19, while a full pound was $2.99.  You know what I selected.  It'll be a little extra work to package it up for daily use, but honestly, if I can't be bothered to scoop yogurt into a container, then I don't deserve to eat yogurt.  One pound of Gopi Indian-style full-fat yogurt for $2.99.
• Lemon - These really make the Greek salads amazing.  Deal was 3/$1.00, so I got three, total lemon expense $1.00
• Limes - These really make pho-style noodle dishes amazing.  Deal was 4/$1.00, so I got 4, total lime expense $1.00.
• OTHER - this is where we SHOULD be trying to limit purchasing.  These are unplanned purchases that do not have a pre-determined dish that will be eaten to consume them.  This is how someone winds up with tri-color quinoa in her cupboard that she forgets about.  THIS IS BAD.
• Tomato Sauce - Okay, actually this one is okay.  It didn't make it onto the original shopping list because usually I have it in my pantry, and I checked just before departing and saw I needed to add it.  $0.89 for cheap ass, probably not very tasty, canned tomato sauce.
• Onions - Well, this is again another staple, and I thought I had them but didn't, and I will need an onion for the salads and the korma.  I got 3 at $0.79 / lb, or $1.98 total.
• Baby bok choy - it was on sale and I use it in a lot of ways.  It makes a wonderful side for all kinds of things, and doesn't go bad very quickly.  $0.66 total.  This is a relatively minor expense that will also carry to next week.
• Korean Kimchi - Whoops.  $3.99 total indiscretion, this is why you shouldn't shop when you're hungry....  There went more than 10% of my budget!!  WOW!!

The Evaluation

I needed to spend somewhere in the $31 / week range to meet the challenge.  I over-bought some key items that will carry over week to week (sour cream, yogurt, lemons, limes, fruit).  I also spent $3.99 on kimchi, which was a totally unnecessary purchase given the menu for this week - also given that I have two boxes of kimchi in my fridge.  I just really wanted kimchi to munch on during the only 22-minute drive home because I was starving.

• Budget: $31.00
• Expenses: $34.84
• Total: I'm in the red by at about $4.  That means next week I should look to spend $26 max.

Commentary

Huh.  I went over by $3.84.  Had I skipped the kimchi, sure, that was an impulse purchase out of hunger, and everyone has those, so let's leave that there.  Had I cut back and not saved overall cash by purchasing in smaller numbers (skipped the 3 pounds of strawberries, for example), I could have easily kept it within that range, but I would have missed out on what would be a wise financial decision overall.  It's not easy doing the food stamp budget if you insist on eating a widely varied diet, but it is possible, even in Georgia, especially if you cheat (see above).  I'll keep trying to do it and keep posting!

Just when you think you've got a handle on things...

Past me vs Future me

Past me must really hate future me.  That's the only explanation for why that jerk would sign us up for so many things.  She didn't have time for all this, but she thought I would.  Past me was a jerk.

Digression: Luck

Most of it is actually luck.  I find the harder I work, the more I have of luck, just like the expression so commonly misattributed to Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson.  Occasionally, I'll apply for an opportunity out of a sense of "duty," like "I am supposed to apply for this."  Sometimes it out of solidarity, "My colleague is doing this so I will, too."  Sometimes, especially when the application is out of "duty," I find myself overwhelmingly relieved when we don't "get" it.  Hallelujah, the opportunity that gave us a requirement of a lot of work without any pay didn't get selected!  Sometimes, it's less cut-and-dried.

The Issue

You apply for things, and all are really beneficial to your career and you know you're not going to get any of them but you have to try.  The selection rate on most proposals is about 10%. Usually, you don't get any of them.  However, due to the low sample sizes of your submissions (the best I can do is about 6-12 submissions per year) and award rates (10% of that if randomized), very occasionally you will hit a "boom" year where you get way to many things funded.  Suddenly, you have to hire people, often very quickly, for an award that goes only 1-3 years.

What do you do if it's a bust year?

Well, hopefully you have some fall-back networks in-place.  I can teach, my students can teach (only 5 at a time), and there's a number of ways I can ask for help as an early-career faculty.  The help will only be there for students, and it will cost me immense political overhead, but at least I can get a little help for my people in a crisis.

What do you do if it's a boom year?

Well, hopefully you know some really excellent people about to graduate from somewhere and can get them to write up and move to your university prior to the end of the first fiscal year of the award.  Hopefully they are okay with job security commensurate with the lifetime of the award (1-4 years).  If not, you hire graduate students, which are safer fiscally (they can teach if you run out of funds before they need to leave), but less-safe as an option to meet project goals (grad students have so many requirements on their time that they can't learn enough to be truly productive until the 2nd year or 3rd year, and then they work for a year or so, and then they focus on the thesis).  No matter what you do, unless you had a funded team in-place and a funded project ready to roll the second the other one ran out, you are totally skey-rewed in personnel retention.  I'm currently suffering the pain of my first personnel loss, losing one research scientist in July last year (went to grad school) and looking at losing the engineer by October (that's a funding thing from coming off a boom).

How do you manage the bust-boom cycle?

You don't.
You recognize that job security in industry is at an all-time low, with people mobilizing every 1-5 years anyway.  It's not your fault that your people have this low level of job security, it's the system.
You bring total honesty to all your people.  "I can hire you for X time.  If we do Y, that makes X go to Z because of the spending required for Y."
It's NOT YOUR FAULT if it's a bust for you this year and you have to let people go.  That's academia and soft money.  You were writing proposals that weren't or haven't yet been funded.  You only hired graduate students for projects that needed personnel rather than staff when at all possible.  You started to let your staff go into jobs or further education like graduate student etc..  Maybe you lost a contract.  Next year will be better, so you should place your "permanent" people in good labs that need temporary people so your "permanent people" will be able to come back to you full time when you get funds again.

It's a Game of Chess

It's not easy to orchestrate multiple projects and people.  It's OKAY.  No one expects perfection from you.  They just expect honor and honesty.  Do them justice.

The Current Situation

Funds are about to end for one thing, gotta trim that back.  Got two proposals awarded that require very different personnel, gotta hire that up.  It's okay.  You can do this.  Hang in there.  Be honest with your hires and with yourself.  It's going to be okay, even when it doesn't feel nice.  Eventually something will come in on one side, and eventually you'll get enough personnel on the other.  Just hang in there.

Whole Foods Discriminates Against International Students on Visas?

The Problem

I received this message from a colleague today:

"Whole Foods is discriminating against our international graduate students.  A few graduate students went to Whole Foods this weekend for a raffle for free gift cards, and my Korean graduate student said she felt terrible when she read the fine print on the raffle.  I feel like this deserves a boycott... ...in solidarity of our international students.  Thoughts?"

Here's the link to the raffle website, which has the following text:

Eligibility: Sweepstakes open to all legal US residents, age 18 and older at time of entry

The Response

I may have taken this request as an opportunity to procrastinate... 

The Research

First, I had to research this and see if the fine print holds up at all, as the language seems fishy.  Turns out, there is no legal definition for the phrase “legal US resident.”  There are documented and undocumented resident aliens, there are lawful permanent residents, and there are non-resident aliens.  “Legal US resident” sounds like anyone who currently resides legally in the US.  That would mean any lawful visa holder.  There does not appear to be any legal definition of this term.  In fact, according to tax law, the student could file their taxes either as a US resident alien or as a non-resident alien due to the exemption allowing non-resident status for student visa holders.  I somehow doubt that Whole Foods requested copies of her tax returns to find out which she was claiming to be when making the distinction.

In any case, the distinction is miserable at a fundamental level. Discrimination against persons legally in the US but not green card holders or citizens in internships or employment is an unfortunate natural consequence of government jobs that require US security clearance and access to ITAR controlled content, but even in those positions there are work-arounds (export licensing, etc..) unless the person is actually from a designated country (North Korea, Iran, etc..).  Somehow I doubt that (a) the student is from North Korea (possible, the original message didn't indicate North or South Korea), and (b) that the raffle includes ITAR-controlled content or a US security clearance, which would be the only ways that she wouldn’t be able to, for example, intern at NASA. 

The Conclusion

So…  her resident status is good enough to pay resident taxes and work with ITAR-controlled material (with the special paperwork, of course), but not good enough to enter a raffle at Whole Foods.  That indicates a distinction designed to dis-include a population from a potential reward for reasons that are not well-justified, not obvious in the language of the eligibility, and sounds like the very definition of discrimination.

Digression - yes, "discrimination" also has a definition which means telling two things apart that does not have the negative connotations.  This also meets that definition, so I think we're safe in that statement.

Digression

However, Whole Foods has a whole host of reasons to be boycotted…  My simple search terms of “Whole Foods Scandal” reveals I am a sucker for organic farm-to-table hippy click-bait (thanks Mother Earth News), so I must resort to using the relatively well-researched and referenced Wikipedia section.

Thanks for giving me a new and exciting way to procrastinate grading my stack of “regrade requests” after the last midterm.  Obviously I agree.