Day 25: America's Got Talent. Well, sort of.

Money spent: $20

Amount in food eaten: $.15

Breakfast: English muffin with peanut butter ($0 - free from work)

Lunch: Cheese wrap ($0 - free from work)

Dinner: Tuna on crackers ($.15)

After work, I met up with Mike and my friend Julie to go to a taping of America's Got Talent.  I described the experience after we left (5 acts in) as "grape gum".  It was fun and artificial and sugary sweet, but ultimately it lost it's flavor and I realized it was probably going to someday cause some sort of cancer...  It was awesome to see Julie, and the tickets were free!

After the taping, we ate some of Mike's famous tuna and headed across the street to our friend Lindsey's birthday party.  I was proud of myself for all the money saving I've been doing, so I had a few beers and racked up a tab of $20.  It was worth it.  I had a great time.  I talked about my freegan dive with a bunch of people - not sure if they thought I was insane or not, but everyone was really interested.

Day 24: Final Cut Pro

Money Spent: $0

Amount in food eaten: $0

Breakfast: Yogurt, English muffin with peanut butter and jam, and COFFEE ($0)

Lunch: nada

Dinner: Egg sandwich on English muffin and rice pudding ($0)

Work was a little nutso today.  I started it off well, though, by making a really nice breakfast when I arrived (it only took about 5 minutes to prepare and kept me going until 6:00).  I even brewed some coffee that I found in the cupboard from months ago.  It was still totally good, but would have otherwise just been chucked.  

It's crazy how much food I've wasted, thinking back... 

Anyway, my day at work was incredibly busy for various reasons, so by the time 4:30 rolled around and I had to get going, I realized I hadn't eaten lunch (and was still fine)...

I went to Queens to work for David again.  When I arrived, I made a nice organic egg sandwich with cheese on a whole wheat English muffin (which was free to me, of course :) ).  I did some data entry stuff for David, and then he finally pulled out the big guns.  He decided now is the time for teaching me Final Cut Pro (finally).  David and I have worked together on a slew of movies and film jobs through his production company, Match Productions.  We've always said that I should be learning to edit through FCP, and now's the time.

I had a tutorial and then sat for about 45 minutes and went through some very funny footage from a cooking show they have been filming.  I'm psyched about finally learning this - definitely something I can use in future jobs.  I walked away with a hunk of cash and a dark chocolate Easter bunny.  Not exactly organic, but totally FREE.

When I left, I found an e-mail from a college student in Florida asking to interview me about my Freegan Dive.  How cool!  We had a phone interview and I'm looking forward to reading her paper :)

Mike and I are about to tuck into The Devil and Daniel Johnson which just got Netflix'd to us. 

Day 23: First Freegan Dinner

Money spent: $0

Amount in food eaten: $.20

Breakfast: Bagel ($0)

Lunch: Cheese burrito ($0)

Dinner: Quinoa w/ white beans, roasted parsnips, and roasted kale ($.20)

That's right, folks.  The only thing I ate today that came out of my pocket was the quinoa, which was fluffy, delicious, and only $.20.  

My morning bagel, scavenged from last night's freegan dive was only a tiny bit less than perfect - just a day-old bagel.  I put a little jam from Mike's fridge on it and was good to go.

For lunch, I used the work groceries to make a yummy cheese wrap - I put a burrito wrap on the skillet and covered it in some shredded cheese, and added half an organic tomato, chopped.  I topped it with a little hot sauce and cooked it up for a few minutes.  Sorry I didn't take a picture - it was great, though!

After work, I headed to Queens to work for a few hours for my friends David and Michael.  I hadn't seen either in a while, so it was great to catch up.  Michael joined me when I left and hung for the rest of the night.

We were hungry, so we munched on freegan grapes (I had SO many).  Mike had the brilliant idea to cover them in water and put a few drops of citrus essential oils on them.  The oils made their flavor pop like no grapes I've ever eaten.  Whoa.

For dinner, I made Mike, Michael, and myself a whole meal from my freegan dive!  I'd NEVER made parsnips before (I had to look them up by searching "white carrot" to even know they WERE parsnips).  I chopped them into fry shapes and arranged them with the kale on a baking pan (yep, I confirmed it to be kale... this is the problem with shopping out of a dumpster.  If you're not educated on your greens, you could wind up with a mouthful of dandelion leaves...). 

I drizzled them with olive oil and garlic Season-All, and then put a little ume plum vinegar on the kale.  I baked them for about 15 minutes while I cooked quinoa and beans on the stove (the beans were something I scavenged from my apartment's "not gonna eat this" section).

Parsnip fries, kale, and beans on quinoa

The kale was tasty, but I don't think I cooked it quite right - the tips were delicious and crunchy, but the middle was kind of tough.  I'll have to look it up.  Anyone have any good recipes?

The parsnips were SO good - definitely something to pursue.

We had a great night hanging, and Mike's friends Bradley and Matt stopped by later.  We all took a nice stroll around Times Square and laughed our asses off pretty much the entire time.  It was so great to reconnect with Michael (it's been a long time since we've hung out).  

Great, great, great day.

Day 22, (con't) - Freegan Dive!

Update!  

Derrick and I just returned from our first successful freegan dive! (What is Freeganism?)

Brother Derrick von Derrick, with a tray of carrot sushi

We walked around Hells Kitchen for about 15 minutes scoping out places we figured we might find some dumpsters.  Food Emporium and The Little Pie Company didn't have anything on the curb, so we spun around and headed uptown to another Food Emporium on 48th.  We'd seen dumpsters there when we were scoping out sites last week, and a lot of the freegan blogs say it's a great site.

We got there to find another person foraging, who, upon realizing we were fellow foragers, pointed to the last dumpster and told us "there are some good grapes over there."  There was a huge bag filled with all kinds of fruit.  I grabbed two bags of grapes, a slightly bruised organic apple, a perfectly good non-organic apple, and a bruised orange.  Down the line, there was a closed bag full of nothing but pastries and breads - sealed.  We got a bunch of bagels, a jelly danish, and some bread.  It was all perfectly good - only one or two of them were a little stale; the rest were perfect.  

Along the line, another sealed bag was full of veggies.  I got 2 parsnips (which are looking pretty droopy, but I'm looking forward to finding some parsnip recipes) and a really fresh, nice piece of kale or something.  There were a TON of leafy green veggies in the bag, but some of it looked a little slimey so I didn't really want to dig too far.  There are lines to draw... The piece I got is beautiful, though, and I'm hoping to cook it in some olive oil and garlic, etc tomorrow.

There was also a whole box of sushi trays with a "Made on" date of today.  Derrick found an all-veggie one and ate it as we walked home.  It was sealed in it's box and it's very cool tonight, so it was still totally fresh.  Amazing.  And way less gross than I expected.  In fact, not gross at all... (see picture above)

The bounty

It's so cool to know that these stores throw their garbage out this way - all the yucky garbage was at the bottom of the three dumpsters. Then the store places the food they can't sell in sorted, clear bags on top of the real garbage.  This way, people can easily access them and "shop" for what they want, as it were.  I read about this on the blogs, but didn't think it'd actually be like that very often. It's obviously a little haphazard, but there is definitely a method to that garbage's madness.

The other cool thing was that the dumpsters are on a pretty non-busy, dark corner away from passers-by.  It doesn't feel awkward - and this could definitely be a little awkward.  

We headed back to Mike's.  Derrick hung for a little while.  I washed and sorted the bounty - froze some grapes and put the rest in appropriate containers.  Then I cut up an apple (chopped the bruise out to find an otherwise delicious organic apple).  We ate it while we hung out, and DvD made himself a bagel with some jelly.

Derrick suggested we do this every night.  Alright.  Let's see what happens.

 

What's better than CheaplyGreen? FreelyGreen.  Which kinda sounds like Freegan. 

Awww yeah.

The apple surgery was a complete success

P.S. Be on the lookout for Brother Derrick von Derrick's live shows all around NYC.  He's an amazing solo performance artist with some serious stuff to say. 

Day 22: A Little Extra

Money Spent: $8.75

Total in food eaten: ~$6.50

Breakfast: Yogurt, 1/2 a Luna bar ($0)

Lunch: Bagel with strawberry cream cheese and organic soda ($4.75)

Dinner: Spaghetti and salad ($4)

So obviously, I spent a little more today than usual.  This was for a few reasons - first, I spent a total of $5.75 on food eaten last week.  That's $.75/DAY.  Second, I worked my first of many Monday's at the office, and I spent the evening babysitting, so I made a little extra money.  Lastly, my friend Derrick (or Brother Derrick von Derrick, his stage name) and I are going on a dumpster dive this evening.  Let's hope this time is more successful than the last.

I got my breakfast food for free because it was leftovers from the gig this past weekend, and I needed to kill some time on my way to babysitting so I stopped at Lenny's bagels on 98th and Broadway (they have AMAZING bagels and are NOT part of the chain).   For dinner, Sam and I (the girl I was 'sitting for) ordered some spaghetti and salad from the pizzeria around the corner. 

Today, I set up my payment plan with the IRS (45 minutes on hold...).  My bank account is looking a little better these days, and I'm slowly paying off my credit card debt.

I'm running out of groceries, but I have a lot of food at work and I think I can get through this week with little to no shopping, especially if this dive goes well.  Fingers crossed.

Happy 4/20 Eve!  Hows about we stop this ridiculous drug war, eh?

Day 21: Hiatus

 Money Spent: $0

Amount in food eaten: $.35

CG Tip of the day: Make ice cream in a bag in 5 minutes!  Simply put 1/2 cup milk, 1 tbsp sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla in a small ziplock bag.  Then put a tray of ice cubes and 6 tbsp salt in a larger ziplock.  Place the small bag in the larger one (be sure it's completely sealed), and shake for 5-10 minutes.  Rinse salt off the inner bag and serve!  You'll be amazed.

Breakfast: Cereal ($.25)

Lunch: Dough pockets ($.10)

Dinner: Organic chicken fingers at work ($0)

Phew!  Sorry about the 3 day hiatus... I had a gig yesterday and the prep for it wiped me out, so I've been a little MIA.  I'll hopefully not go missing like that too often.  A brief overview of the last few days:

Thursday - ($0) We received our grocery delivery in the morning at work (see Wednesday's post).  I had some yogurt and a banana, which was free to me since we got the groceries with the reimbursement from the gas shut-off.  Around 2, I got a call from Mike saying to meet me downstairs.  He showed up with the news that he'd received a great tax refund and he was treating me to lunch and dinner.  I got Whole Foods sushi for lunch and we went to my favorite restaurant for dinner.  Awesome!!

Friday - ($.60) I brought dough pockets to work for lunch.  I made myself a smoothie for breakfast at work with with a banana, vanilla soy milk, a vanilla yogurt, ice, and peanut butter.  It was delicious and very filling  After work, Mike and I went to a small concert Mike was doing down the street.  We had the last of the pasta salad for dinner, and went to bed at 8:30 because we both had to be up at 4:45am the next day for our respective concerts (ahhh, early morning children's shows.  Just nothing like 'em)

Saturday - ($0) I worked from 5:45am-9:00pm doing a show in Princeton, NJ.  All my food was free and organic (the gigs are catered), and I snagged as much food as I could at the end of the day.  Some highlights: organic ketchup (I'm making yam fries this week finally), organic mayo, organic dressing (2 kinds), bagels, lemons, and lots of drinks.  During the gig, I got a call from Chris asking for me to babysit again, as well as a call from another mom to inquire about my 'sitting services.  Linin' up the jobs... woot.  Mike and I had a nice evening watching Weeds and hanging out.

Oh, and found the most amazing video/story I've ever seen: Watch It

Today! - I babysat for the kids I used to nanny for again in the afternoon.  The kids' mom, Wendy, made me organic chicken fingers (I'll have to post the recipe soon - it's chicken coated in crunched up cornflakes... so good) 

I got home around 7:30, at which point my friend Julie called me to invite me to a taping of America's Got Talent this Thursday.  She got free tickets from work.  Ask for free entertainment, and you shall receive.  I'm pretty excited - I've NEVER, in all my time living in NYC, been to a taping of anything.  I still have a decent amount of groceries from last week to make meals with this week.  I'm also so happy that we got all this lunch food at work - not having to shop for lunch is like a miracle.  Things are lookin' up!