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 11 - Sick Day 2: Bread

Money spent: $31.23

Total in food eaten: $4.08

I woke up feeling awful again, so I took the day off.  We've run out of edible-on-their-own groceries, so I dragged my sick ass to the grocery store (Food Emporium) when I finally stumbled out of bed.  I got a nice amount of organic groceries and saved $4.60 in coupons, but I didn't do nearly as well as last week.   The cashier was a little huffy about the coupons and kind of rude, which I found a little weird (especially in my icky state), and Food Emporium's prices are pretty high for organic foods.  I think I'll avoid them when I can, but I was in a pinch.

Organic Milk* - 3.79

Almond Milk - 3.99

Blueberry yogurt* (3) - 4.27

Cereal* - 3.99

Amy's Mac and Cheese* - 2.99

Chickpeas* - 1.94

Apples (2) - 2.14

Burrito - 3.99

Tomato soup* - 2.69

Chocolate milk - 1.69

Total: $31.23

When I got home, I had some yogurt and passed out for a while.  When I got up, I was feeling like I had a bit of energy, so I mixed up some oatmeal bread dough (Click here for recipe) and let it rise while I napped some more.

 dough after 1 hour of rising

YUM

I also made some easy chickpea snacks.   Just rinse and dry chickpeas and lay out on cookie sheet.  Then heat 1-2 tbsp olive oil, garlic powder, rosemary, fresh garlic (diced), and salt in a small pot and heat until it smells amazing.  Pour the mixture over the chickpeas, coat well, and bake on 400 for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so. ($2.09, though you can make this cheaper if you use cheaper chickpeas... I wasn't happy with the price of mine)

Any spices you like will taste great!  Get creative.

Uncooked chickpeas, covered in seasoning

Crunchy and zesty - such an amazing snack!

I took it easy for a while, and was starting to feel better. I made Amy's mac and cheese for lunch ($2.99) They sent me a bunch of coupons, so it was nice to have a cheaper frozen meal around.  I can definitely make mac and cheese myself for significantly less, but not when I'm feeling icky.

I wanted to get outside for a little while because it's been a BEAUTIFUL day, so I escorted Mike to Fordham, where his friend Katy came to play him piano for his birthday.  I'd arranged the whole thing, so it was nice to be able to go (I didn't think I'd make it in the morning).  When I got there, my friend Derrick wanted to go check out some Freegan dumpster dive sites we'd found online.  While Katy played for Mike, Derrick and I took a walk to find the dumpster's we'll eventually go on freegan dives to.  Nothing was out yet, but we got a good idea of where to look.

When we got back to Fordham, we got wind of a benefit where there would be food.  Donations were optional, but since it was for Haiti we each gave a few bucks.  Though my Hatian dinner wasn't organic, it was free!  

Rice, beans, potatoes, plantains, pasta, cookies, and some Coke

We even got to stay for a few of my friends' performances, which was awesome!

 Owen and Nadia

 

 Mike Fabano's fabulous guitar

 I'm glad to be feeling better, and I feel like I had a pretty good day for my mission.  Even though the grocery shopping wasn't the thriftiest, I do feel like I've learned where NOT to shop.  I also think I got a few things I didn't need because I had coupons - it's all stuff I'll use and enjoy, but I'm not sure it was necessary.  We'll see how long I can stretch it :)  I do still need to get some veggies, so I'll see if there's any good deals at WF tomorrow.

It'll be a busy day at work since I missed today.  Glad I have oatmeal bread to start my day!