I've been limiting myself in this experiment so far with a hard constraint of only shopping in a convenience store and a soft constraint of generally sticking to a budget of around $8/day.
I'm writing this on Day 27 because yesterday (Day 26) I decided to throw the second constraint - the dollar amount - out the window. I invited myself over to the house of my friends Lisa and Mike to cook us dinner. My goal: the nicest dinner I could make in the Food Desert.
So Day 26 started out like many other days in the Desert - PB&B with coffee:
I made a quick lunch of grilled cheese and coffee:
I didn't tell Lisa and Mike what I had in mind - only that it would come from the Desert.
I acquired my ingredients over the course of several days of scouting and buying. Something here, something there.
The big prep at home was to make gnocchi - a pasta made from potato and wheat flour. I made the gnocchi using potato flakes. I've done this before - I call it "cheating gnocchi".
1.5 C flour
1 C potato flakes
1 egg
1 C warm water
mix together. add flour if the dough is sticky. roll out to about 3/8 inch thickness. slice into finger tip size pillows. roll the pillows off the end of a fork to give shape. that's it.
I also baked brownies from a package, and completely forgot to photograph them. But everyone knows what brownies look like.
On the way over to Lisa and Mike's I stopped to pick up the lobster - yes, lobster! at the Citgo station on Rte 1 going in to Portsmouth. I know - you don't see live lobster in every gas station convenience store, and you don't see them much around here - but there they were.
First course was a salad I picked up atthe Dover Citgo, enhanced with some additional cucumber and green pepper from Tedeschi. And Italian dressing I bought for the occasion.
Second course was the gnocchi with white wine cream sauce. No problems finding white wine in convenience stores.
Then the main course - lobster with melted butter.
Desert was brownie sundays - brownies with Haagan Dazs vanilla ice cream and hot fudge.
I had a couple of beers while we were cooking, and a couple of glasses of wine with dinner. After dinner we drank coffee.
Oh, and I had a bag of honey roasted peanuts ($0.50; 230 cal) for a snack.
So that was the day. No exercise, but I still managed to burn some calories because of all the cooking.
I pulled out all the stops for one meal. It's easy to blow through a lot of money. But it was back to business on Day 27.
The point of pulling out all the stops was to have a bit of fun after a long spell of dullness, but also to show what I could have been doing if I chose not to be both money and health conscious, and not break down and eat just the junk food. There is a surprising variety of things available in the Food Desert if one looks. But it takes effort. This meal would have been a snap to put together if I had had access to a regular grocery store, but it took visits to multiple stores and planning over days to make it happen. A real cost of living in a Food Desert.
Day totals:
Cost: $35.57
Calories: 3,739
Exercise: 173 from 9,582 steps - not bad for not actively exercising
Weight: 165.8
I'm writing this on Day 27 because yesterday (Day 26) I decided to throw the second constraint - the dollar amount - out the window. I invited myself over to the house of my friends Lisa and Mike to cook us dinner. My goal: the nicest dinner I could make in the Food Desert.
So Day 26 started out like many other days in the Desert - PB&B with coffee:
| Breakfast | Quantity | Cost | Calories |
| banana | 1.00 | $0.19 | 90 |
| bread | 2.00 | $0.26 | 133 |
| peanut butter | 1.00 | $0.27 | 180 |
| coffee | 3.00 | $0.28 | 7 |
| $1.00 | 410 |
I made a quick lunch of grilled cheese and coffee:
| Lunch | Quantity | Cost | Calories |
| bread, wheat | 4.00 | $0.52 | 266 |
| cheddar cheese | 2.00 | $0.80 | 220 |
| I can't believe | 10.00 | $0.13 | 40 |
| coffee | 3.00 | $0.28 | 7 |
| $1.73 | 533 |
I didn't tell Lisa and Mike what I had in mind - only that it would come from the Desert.
I acquired my ingredients over the course of several days of scouting and buying. Something here, something there.
The big prep at home was to make gnocchi - a pasta made from potato and wheat flour. I made the gnocchi using potato flakes. I've done this before - I call it "cheating gnocchi".
1.5 C flour
1 C potato flakes
1 egg
1 C warm water
mix together. add flour if the dough is sticky. roll out to about 3/8 inch thickness. slice into finger tip size pillows. roll the pillows off the end of a fork to give shape. that's it.
I also baked brownies from a package, and completely forgot to photograph them. But everyone knows what brownies look like.
On the way over to Lisa and Mike's I stopped to pick up the lobster - yes, lobster! at the Citgo station on Rte 1 going in to Portsmouth. I know - you don't see live lobster in every gas station convenience store, and you don't see them much around here - but there they were.
First course was a salad I picked up atthe Dover Citgo, enhanced with some additional cucumber and green pepper from Tedeschi. And Italian dressing I bought for the occasion.
Second course was the gnocchi with white wine cream sauce. No problems finding white wine in convenience stores.
Then the main course - lobster with melted butter.
Desert was brownie sundays - brownies with Haagan Dazs vanilla ice cream and hot fudge.
I had a couple of beers while we were cooking, and a couple of glasses of wine with dinner. After dinner we drank coffee.
| Dinner | Quantity | Cost | Calories |
| garden salad | 1.00 | $1.82 | 15 |
| Italian dressing | 1.00 | $0.35 | 100 |
| Gnocchi | 1/3 | $0.40 | 278 |
| White wine cream sauce | 1/3 | $2.65 | 462 |
| lobster | 1.00 | $12.71 | 175 |
| butter | 1.00 | $0.18 | 102 |
| brownie | 1/8 | $0.65 | 428 |
| Haagan-Daas Vanilla Ice Cream | 1.00 | $1.66 | 333 |
| hot fudge sauce | 1.00 | $0.48 | 65 |
| beer | 2.00 | $2.66 | 300 |
| white wine | 2.00 | $8.50 | 300 |
| coffee | 3.00 | $0.28 | 7 |
| $32.34 | 2,566 |
Oh, and I had a bag of honey roasted peanuts ($0.50; 230 cal) for a snack.
So that was the day. No exercise, but I still managed to burn some calories because of all the cooking.
I pulled out all the stops for one meal. It's easy to blow through a lot of money. But it was back to business on Day 27.
The point of pulling out all the stops was to have a bit of fun after a long spell of dullness, but also to show what I could have been doing if I chose not to be both money and health conscious, and not break down and eat just the junk food. There is a surprising variety of things available in the Food Desert if one looks. But it takes effort. This meal would have been a snap to put together if I had had access to a regular grocery store, but it took visits to multiple stores and planning over days to make it happen. A real cost of living in a Food Desert.
Day totals:
Cost: $35.57
Calories: 3,739
Exercise: 173 from 9,582 steps - not bad for not actively exercising
Weight: 165.8
