Vanessa Barrington

Happy Glorious Delicious Fall!

Here's how I recovered from the Hunger Challenge. I went to the Berkeley Saturday Farmers' market. Wowie Zowie, so much to buy and cook and eat. I was so happy being there after a three week hiatus caused by various and sundry commitments. Pictured above is my haul. And below, my lunch: roasted River Dog delicata, County Line Farm Wild Arugula, Quetzal Farm Dry Farmed Tomatoes, Morell's Bread, Sierra Nevada Cream Cheese (from the store), and the last of the cheap eggs from the Hunger Challenge. This lunch illustrates how easy it is to eat healthy, high quality, veg-centric, local meals without spending hours and hours in the kitchen.

I also think the amount of food I got for my money was quite amazing. I was more aware than usual of how much money I was spending too and actually, it wasn't that bad. I think about $65. That's a lot of good quality food for $65. Why no eggs? Well, I joined the Soul Food Farm CSA and the first delivery was last night. 2 dozen gorgeous eggs (some of them huge!) and 1 chicken with it's head still wrapped around its body in a restful pose, and feet too! Wanna join? The CSA is still open. I got to meet farmer Alexis too and she's lovely and vivacious and seems to be recovering nicely from the devestating fire last month. Looking to support the farm? There's an event on Sunday the 11th at Pizzaiolo. Admission is $14 and you can support Soul Food Farm by buying raffle tickets. You may even win a fabulous prize!

One more good piece of fall news! We have a book title that everyone is happy with:

DIY Delicious: Recipes and Ideas for Simple Food from Scratch.

Chronicle Books Fall 2010. Galleys arrive next month and the designer is terrific, so it's going to be beautiful!

Hunger Challenge Day Seven

It’s a workday and the last day and the good thing about work days is that it’s much easier to control your situation and eating opportunities. The Hunger Challenge food isn’t that bad so it’s just a matter of not exposing yourself to temptations, which is much easier on a weekday.

Breakfast is egg, toast, melon

Lunch is a small portion of the emergency soup and one tortilla with butter

Dinner brings the last two of what I’ve come to think of as the “Evil Enchiladas”.

I can’t wait to go to bed and get up again to a new day. My clothes are noticeably looser, which isn’t an unwelcome occurrence.

In conclusion, I feel changed by the experience. Never before have I paid so much attention to my emotions around food. Normally I look forward to the adventure of every meal and I love to cook with inspiring ingredients. The challenge put a huge crimp in that. Though I often do eat exactly the kind of food I made for the challenge and I know I can eat healthfully and cheaply, the pure joy of dining was completely gone and there was no room for errors or bad enchilada sauce.

I also have a clear realization of how much planning and preparation goes into eating this way. Not to mention food knowledge, equipment, time, and cooking skills. Eating well on $4 a day requires a predictable, chaos free life, something I don’t think most people have. I also feel that it’s likely that the more you are struggling, the less predictable your life is. Without the time to cook and the joy attached to cooking, I can completely understand why people fall back on the $1 fast food meals. And we’re not even talking about the issue of healthy food access, which is a huge one.

I wish I had the answers that would give people in need the resources they need to cook for themselves. Perhaps it would be community kitchens, similar to the Food Bank’s pantries. Kitchens equipped with stoves and pans and knives where people could come and share resources and work together to cook the food that will feed their families.

For me, I’m glad I can now go back to my self-indulgent ways. I’m eating more slowly, mindfully, and appreciatively than ever before. The Hunger Challenge has made me grateful for every bite and I aim to stay that way.

Here are links to all the other Hunger Challenge Bloggers. Make sure you check out their experiences too!

Agréable Dégustation - New!
Been There Ate That - 2nd year!
Beets and Biscuits - New!
Blog Appetit - 2nd year!
BroadSnark - New!
Budget Bytes - New!
Cooking Rut - New!
Cooking with Amy - 2nd year!
Heat Eat Review - New!
Hoos on First - New!
I Do Not Think That They Will Sing To Me - New!
Indoor Camping - New!
Line Storgaard-Conley - New!
Maria Niles - 2nd year!
Michael Dimock - Roots of Change - New!
Midtown Mark's Hunger Challenge - New!
Muse in Vivo - New!
My Life in Food - New!
Petit Appetit - 2nd year!
Poor Girl Eats Well - New!
Some Dreams Come True - New!
Stellajade by Sarah W - New!
Steve Sando - New!
The Guerilla Gourmet - New!
The Inadvertent Gardener - 2nd year!

Hunger Challenge Day Six

Another weekend day. Uggh. I eat breakfast (oatmeal with half a peach). Then I spend the morning making jam from the figs my friend had brought over the day before.

For lunch I have 1 cabbage roll with a scoop of beans and a 1/2 a pear with peanut butter. I eat with family members, who are all enjoying restaurant leftovers. I feel mad at my food. I’m sick of cabbage rolls.

We decide to head to the MOMA to see the Richard Avedon exhibit. I’m terrified everyone will want to go out to eat afterwards. I don’t want to forgo the exhibit so I put the other half of my lunch pear in a small container with a scoop of peanut butter and I tuck it in my bag. The exhibit is stunning. It marks the first time I don’t think about food for a long stretch of time throughout the Hunger Challenge.

Mercifully, my companions decide that they will go home and cook just to spare me (and save money). I eat the pear and peanut butter on the BART platform on the way home and don’t offer anyone a bite.

For dinner I eat another scoop of beans and a quesadilla made from the leftover chicken, sweet potato and cheese bits (pictured above) from the enchiladas. My companions enjoy oven-fried chicken, arugula-beet salad, and roasted carrots and potatoes. They also have several cookies during the evening. I write Hunger Challenge posts to keep my mind (and hands) off the cookies.

I’m excited for Monday because it’s the last day of the challenge.

Hunger Challenge Day Five

I wake up resigned. It’s Saturday and I feel a little depressed. I start thinking about all my friends the farmers’ market vendors. Will they wonder where I am? I sure miss them. The farmers’ market is my church, my favorite place in the world to be. I don’t know what to do with myself and keep wondering if there are persimmons in the market yet. I convince myself that they are making their debut today and I’m missing it. Then I feel like a baby.

When food is your one luxury, the only thing you spend money on and it’s also your entertainment, what do you have left?  What will I do with myself on Saturday with no shopping and cooking? I don’t feel like myself. I feel like I’m living in a world devoid of color and I start to fantasize about going shoe shopping. I snap myself out of that really quickly and make breakfast.

Breakfast: 1 egg; 1 piece of toast; 1 wedge of melon
I suddenly realize that the bread tastes really sweet. And it’s not even a really cheap brand, but it’s definitely got sugar in it. My taste buds are off or something. In Hunger Challenge land all foodstuffs contain sugar.

I spend the morning cleaning the house and then a friend comes over with some figs from her tree. I give her some cucumbers from my garden and some jam that I’ve made. I eat a couple of figs. It’s crazy to turn down free food. I’m trying to find the line between really challenging myself and being so contrived that it’s ridiculous. I’m feeling apprehensive again because it’s Saturday and there are family activities planned involving children and meals out. I’m really not sure how I will deal with it yet.

Lunch: A bowl of the emergency lentil/rice/bok choy soup and a tortilla with butter. Really good.  A lot better than those enchiladas. I also eat half of a pear with peanut butter.

In the afternoon we go bowling with family. Everybody gets popcorn. It’s easy for me to resist even though I’m hungry. Then, we go to a Mexican restaurant that I really like. Now I’m really hungry. I think about just giving in and then decide that that would definitely be crossing the line I mention above even if others pay for my dinner. I mean this is supposed to be a challenge. So I order water and sit there. And sit there. And sit there. I’m really hungry. After holding out for 30 minutes I eat some of the free chips with salsa. There’s that line again. I mean really. They are free. I’m sitting there. And I’m hungry. The bill comes and I start to automatically reach for my wallet. Then I realize I didn’t eat anything and I feel sort of crazily gleeful.

Dinner: I heat up two enchiladas and a scoop of beans. The beans taste good but I have to choke the enchiladas down. The cilantro doesn’t help. Do I really have to eat these one more time? I am relieved when dinner (and Saturday) is over.

Hunger Challenge Day Four

Woke up headachy and tired. Was told that I flailed in my sleep again. Wow, this is kind of intense. I took the dog for a walk and held off eating breakfast to avoid the mid-morning hunger, which tends to be the worst for me.

Luckily this is a work at home day so I can make my emergency soup and my enchiladas. I won’t have to cook any more meals for the duration of the challenge, which is a bright spot because I’m not enjoying cooking.

Breakfast:
Oatmeal with brown sugar and milk; half of a peach

Lunch:
The rice porridge appears again and I have it with an over easy egg served on top of it. This is delicious. Truly my favorite meal yet. I could eat this every day.

In the afternoon I cooked my emergency soup. I took some of the chicken broth from poaching the chicken and added half of a sliced onion, a tiny handful of rice from my bulk bin purchase and then an even tinier handful of lentils from my cupboard. I decide that my monetary cushion allows this. (I could have easily bought them and why go to the store again?) I also add a cut-up carrot, which my cushion allows or it could have been given to me at a food pantry. Is this cheating? Then I put in the rest of the bok choy. Ahhh Greens! And cook until everything is tender. Add salt and pepper and taste and here’s my missing two meals.

I also make enchiladas. First I peel and cut the sweet potatoes into small dices. I toss them in oil and salt and roast them at 400 degrees until tender. I grate the rest of the cheese (goodbye cheese!) and then I fry the tortillas in oil. To assemble, I roll up a little shredded chicken, cheese, and sweet potatoes in 12 tortillas (3 meals for 2 people). I’m pleased that there is enough chicken, cheese, and sweet potatoes to have a quesadilla as a snack or small meal.

I open the enchilada sauce and the smell assaults me. I have a flashback to barfing in Kindergarten class. Not a good sign. Why didn’t I buy dried chiles and make my own? What was I thinking? It would have been cheaper too. I look at the ingredient list and see that sugar is in the number 2 position. I think, “at least it’s not high fructose corn syrup.”

Meanwhile I’m feeling very apprehensive. It’s Friday night and we’re heading over to a friend’s house to play card games. I know there will be food.

Dinner:
2 enchiladas (they don’t taste as bad as the sauce smelled but they are awfully sweet; pretty gross really) a scoop of beans cooked the day before. Everything was made better by cilantro once again.

So we went to the friend’s house and there was indeed food. Chips and homemade dips made lovingly with care for us. I decided it was too contrived not to eat them and kind of rude too. It wasn’t like a party. It was just four of us. I mean who in their right mind living on food stamps would go to a friend’s house and refuse to eat the free food? So I ate just a few chips and dips.

Hunger Challenge Day Three

I wake up preoccupied and worried about bread. Very worried about bread. You see I’ve been relying on bread for my snacks and then I realize it’s a limited supply.  I count out the pieces I’ve had in my head and the remaining pieces in the loaf and realize that, since I can only eat half the loaf, my remaining allotment is 5 slices. I was going to have a sandwich for lunch and I wonder if that is wise. I’m also told that I was thrashing and hitting in my sleep. Wonder what that’s about.

Breakfast:
1 egg; 1 slice of toast; 1 wedge of melon

I think I’m just fine and then I realize I’m standing over the sink scraping the melon flesh off the rind with my teeth. This is not normal.

I’m hungry at 11:30.

Lunch:
I wait at least an hour after I become hungry to eat. I’m working at home so I make a grilled cheese sandwich (that leaves 2 slices of bread for the next 4 days!) and I enjoy half a pear with it. Gooey cheap cheese tastes good.

Since I’m working at home I am able to cook half a pound of beans to go with my enchiladas and maybe to serve as a stand-alone meal with tortillas. I’m glad I bought the family pack of tortillas.

Dinner:
I’m heading off to a panel discussion for the evening. I know there will be food there and it will be good food. I feel apprehensive about that. I eat two cabbage rolls before heading out.

While I’m waiting for the panel to begin, I start to write out how many portions of the cooked food I have allotted to me vs. how many more meals I will eat. I realize with horror that my batches of food made less than I planned and I would be short two meals (other than breakfasts, which I had covered). I decide that I’ll have to make an emergency soup from the rest of the chicken broth and rice and the other half bunch of $1 bok choy.

I also realize on this day that my Hunger Challenge partner isn’t really doing the challenge. I’d spent the amount of money for a household of two and now I was on my own. I feel badly about that but decide I will just be very careful to eat only half of the food in the house.

After the panel, everyone is eating. There’s cheese and crackers, really nice almonds, lots of fruit. I don’t take anything. Somebody hands me a strawberry. I eat it. I’m not crazy. Nor do I want to be rude. It’s all I can do to not dive on the food table. I make it home.

At home I eat the other half of the pear cut into wedges with peanut butter spread on them. This has now replaced bread as my snack of choice.

Hunger Challenge Day Two

I wake up ready to go. Day one wasn’t so bad. I’m working at home in the morning and going into the office late. I take that time to make Vietnamese rice porridge. This is a brilliant dish involving a very small amount of white, long grain rice, a lot of chicken broth, a few coins of ginger, and two green onions. So few ingredients to make a magical dish that is intensely satisfying. It’s like alchemy with rice. I learned this dish from Andrea Nguyen’s Book, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen.
It’s one of my favorite cookbooks and I’m deeply appreciative that I have the time to make this at home before heading off to work.

Breakfast:
Oatmeal with a little brown sugar and milk; 2 slices of melon

I’m noticing that I’m eating my breakfast with great concentration. Seems I’ve banished mindless eating in one day.

Lunch:
A bowl of the above porridge with a little cilantro and sliced green onion. I also threw in just a bit of the shredded chicken I’d cooked a few days before.

I was really hungry after work so I had a piece of bread with peanut butter and went off to yoga class. I felt a bit weak during the class and came home famished and ready to throw together a quick rice noodle pasta dish.

Dinner: I used half the bok choy that I bought for $1 and some rice noodles from my Food Bank pantry list. In addition, I sauteéd the other half of the onion from the soup broth, a bit of ginger, and a bit of garlic. I also used just a few shreds of chicken and some soy sauce from the pantry. I garnished the pasta with cilantro and green onion (I’m now thinking these two items are some of my smartest purchases).

I notice that I’m taking no pleasure in cooking. I just want to get it done and into my mouth. I usually take my time and listen to music and relax. I just want to eat. I find this interesting. I eat really fast and somewhat resentfully. I realize that I’m only about 80% full. Funny, this is a habit I’d been trying to master and finally I’m doing it. There's a bottle of wine in the house so I decide to have a glass. My cushion right? I'm also drinking one cup of coffee a day. I tell myself my cushion allows that too and it actually does, depending on what else I need the cushion for.

I’m hungry again before bed so I have a piece of toast with butter.

Hunger Challenge Day One

My experience won't reflect everyone's. the reason is because I couldn't do the challenge on the actual days so I did 7 days of challenge before the challenge even started. So my first day, rather than being a Sunday, was a Tuesday. I woke up excited and apprehensive at once. How would I make it all the way until dinner after my Spanish class? Would I be able to ingest enough calories to keep myself going? I normally ride my bike to work which is an 11 mile round trip, and then some to get to BART and then the city for Spanish class. Would I have the energy to do it? I was happy I’d taken the time to cook the day before. With clean up time, I'd spent a good couple of hours. I wondered how a working poor person with children would be able to find that kind of time.

Breakfast:
1 egg; 1 piece of toast; 1/2 of a peach

Pretty satisfying. I ended up driving to work for logistical reasons and I was relieved. I was fine until 11:30 when I got hungry. I drank water and waited until 1pm to eat lunch.

Lunch:
2 cabbage rolls

I was full and satisfied after lunch, but craving a snack a couple hours later, a craving I ignored. At 5:00 I was hungry again. I had a pear and a piece of bread with peanut butter I’d thought to bring. I knew I wasn’t getting dinner until 9pm.

Dinner:
Chicken quesadilla with cilantro and hot sauce from the fridge

Made it through day one!

Cooking for the Hunger Challenge

All culinary traditions have ways to make small amounts of food stretch. I wanted to borrow from a few different traditions just to experience the range of different types of foods that can be made cheaply. And I didn’t want to get bored.  My big plans involve my family’s Serbian stuffed cabbage, some enchiladas, and Vietnamese style rice porridge. Other than those, I plan to improvise over the week.

So the plan is to make the cabbage rolls and cook them the day before the challenge starts. I also decide to poach a whole chicken and then tear the meat off the bones and strain the broth for later use. This was a necessary because I needed to have food ready to go for Day One. It promised to be a busy day—one in which I work away from home, go to Spanish class at night, and don’t get home until 9pm. I had to be ready.

I cooked the rolls as planned basically using this recipe from my family files. But I did a few things differently to streamline. I used less meat and more rice to make it cheaper, and I cooked it on top of the stove instead of in the oven, I used canned tomato sauce, and I omitted the sauerkraut. Here’s the reworked recipe.

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Makes about 12 rolls

1 head of green cabbage

3/4 pounds of ground beef

2/3 cup uncooked, long grain white rice

1/2 cup minced onion

1 egg, beaten

1 1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 14-oz can tomato sauce

Salt

Bring about 3 inches of salted water to boil in a large pot. Core the cabbage and put it in the pot with the lid on. Cook for about 12 minutes, turning once. Remove and drain until cool enough to handle. Reserve the cabbage water.

In a large bowl, mix together the beef, rice, onion, egg, salt, and pepper until just blended.

To stuff the rolls, carefully peel the large leaves from the head of cabbage. With a paring knife, trim the large vein at the back of the leaves to make them more pliable. Lay them out on a flat surface. Spoon out about 3 tablespoons of the beef mixture into each leaf, depending on the size of the leaves. Fold two ends of the leaves inward toward the filling and roll each leaf up like a burrito. Select a lidded, burner-safe casserole dish large enough to accommodate the rolls. Line the bottom of the casserole dish with leftover cabbage leaves. Top with the rolls, layering them. Pour the tomato sauce into a medium bowl or large, glass measuring cup. Using the empty can, measure an equal amount of cabbage water and pour into the sauce. Stir to combine and pour the thinned tomato sauce over the cabbage rolls. Place the casserole, over medium high heat, and bring to a simmer. Lower heat to medium low, cover partially and simmer slowly for 1 1/2 hours.  You’ll want to watch them but the cabbage leaves that line the casserole should keep the rolls from sticking.

A poached whole chicken is the easiest, most rewarding thing in the world. You can leave out the spices, but they do add a lot. I figured my cushion allowed me to use them. The $1 bunch of cilantro I bought served me well, and would continue to throughout the week.

1 whole chicken
2-3 sprigs of cilantro
1/2 of a sliced onion
3 garlic cloves, smashed
A pinch of peppercorns
A pinch of cumin seeds
A few pinches of salt

Put the whole chicken in a big soup pot. Add the remaining ingredients. Add water to cover the chicken by one inch. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Lower heat to a very slow simmer. Cover and cook for 20 minutes. Turn off heat and leave the pot covered and undisturbed for 1 hour. Remove the chicken from the broth. Cool and shred. Strain the broth and refrigerate.

Shopping for the Hunger Challenge

I shopped for the hunger challenge two days before the challenge was to start. The plan is to shop one day and then, on the following day, cook some dishes ahead for the week.

I was allowed to spend $56 for a household of two and, in addition, I can include certain items from one of the San Francisco Food Bank’s pantry distribution centers. A list of typical items was supplied ahead of time so I’d know what I had to work with. I picked those up too and then left them out of my budget.

The photo above is not representative of my list. I shopped at the new Berkeley Bowl in West Berkeley. Thankfully it isn’t as crowded as the original so it was pretty easy to find a spot where I could use my calculator to see where I was budget-wise. The plan is to make big batches of chicken enchiladas using a whole chicken, a soup with the broth I poached the chicken in and my mom’s cabbage rolls. There were also some Chinese noodles on the food bank distribution list. I planned to do something involving those and the bok choy I planned to pick up at the farmers' market. My plan was to alternate those foods for dinners and some lunches. And then fill in other lunches with sandwich type items. Breakfast would be a daily alternating menu of eggs and oatmeal. I assumed I'd have fruit from the San Francisco Food Bank’s pantry distribution list and that would be the only snack available.

I had a shopping list and knew what I needed but I had no idea what to expect. I don’t usually look that closely at what things cost in the grocery store. I tend to buy all my vegetables, meat and eggs at the farmers’ market and only use the grocery store for dairy and bulk. I don’t usually buy snacks or processed food. I had a pretty good idea that I could get by on the budget I had if I made those recipes, but I wasn’t sure.

The weirdest thing about shopping for the hunger challenge was that I was also shopping for a picnic that same day. You know, a picnic…complete with fancy cheeses, pickles, good bread, rosé, that kind of thing. I had two sections in my cart. One for the picnic and one for the Hunger Challenge. It was a funny brain exercise to one moment hope I could afford the cage-free eggs and feel resentful that good quality cooking oil is so expensive and the next to be considering buying a cheese that costs $22 a pound.

I had a very hard time thinking about buying a factory farmed conventional chicken.  After I finished shopping I was well under budget so I actually went back at the end and switched out my large, $4.76 Foster Farms chicken for a small organic chicken that cost nearly $9. I was happy I could afford that, and cheese, and cage-free eggs, and I still had a cushion at the end of the shopping trip. I decided that was a good thing. How do people afford cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and things like that without a cushion?

 Also, I knew the cushion would allow me to use the soy sauce for a noodle dish I had planned and a small amount of brown sugar in my cupboard for my oatmeal without buying new foods I didn’t need. (I do have my real budget to consider!) I also liked the cushion because I thought it would help me if I needed a treat, coffee, wine, or ran out of food.

Random Learnings:
Almost everything cheap has a ton of sugar in it. I was happy to pay ten cents extra for the bread that didn’t have high fructose corn syrup. Thankfully, the Adam’s brand of natural peanut butter was cheaper than the crappy processed kind. Bulk bins are a godsend, as is butter by the stick. I was really happy to include the food bank grocery items in our menu. Fruits and vegetables are expensive, except for sweet potatoes on sale. At .49 cents a pound, you can get a lot of nutritional bang for half a buck. Also, canned enchilada sauce is super expensive. I wavered on that one because I always make my own sauce. It seemed better to use the canned in this case as I didn’t want to assume that people had much time to cook when developing recipes, nor did I want to assume they had a blender. I was hoping it wouldn't taste too bad.

Here's my shopping list:

Berkeley Bowl

One Stick Butter  .88
Cooking Oil $2.59
1- Quart Milk $1.39
1 Organic Chicken  $8.85
Peanut Butter $2.99
Long Grain Rice from Bulk .75
1/2 pound Pinto Beans from Bulk .55
3/4 pound Ground Beef $2.47
Dz Cage Free Eggs $2.85
1 Loaf Wheat Bread $2.49
Oatmeal from Bulk Bin $1.08
Corn Tortillas $2.39
Canned Tomato Sauce .79
Canned Enchilada Sauce $3.89
Monterey Jack Cheese $3.09
1 pound Sweet Potatoes $.54
1 piece fresh ginger .49

Farmers Market

1 bunch cilantro $1
1 bunch green onions $1
1 bunch bok choy $1

Budget for Two: $56
Total Spent: $41.08

Cushion: $14.92

Assumed From Food Bank
Chinese Pasta
3 onions
4 garlic
2 melons
1 cabbage
5 pears
4 peaches