West Virginia Sucks

[Elok]

What is the point of this post?

Do you deny that you can make yourself some good eats with a few bucks a day?

Or do you think you're not living unless you're like Oerdin and Marie Antoinette?

I'm saying that, if you're constrained by what's on sale at the grocery, you're dealing with a reduced quality of life. I can't speak for your chicken recipe, not having tried it--you didn't mention herbs or spices for either recipe, or vinegar or any other embellishments, and that strikes me as ominous, but whatever--but good food is a real pleasure. For example, consider cassoulet. It's French, but not snooty. A peasant dish. White beans, lamb, bacon, sausage, some duck if you like, stewed together with rosemary before being baked with bread crumbs on top. Done right, it must be tasted to be believed. It's heaven on a cold winter day. And all that meat doesn't come cheap. There are good cheap foods too, especially if you like foreign groceries, but the selection is smaller.

You don't have to eat pricey every day, or to eat out, or to enjoy a nice bottle of scotch or good wine or beer that doesn't look and taste like watered-down pee, but if you never eat anything really good, you've given something up, and you're not factoring that into your equation here. Along with vacations, and living in a nice place, and fresh air, and cozy furniture that a cat hasn't died on at some point, and all the small treats you buy when you've saved up extra cash. So many things are missing from that cramped little life on welfare. In return, you've got idleness and XBox. Blecch.

[The Mad Monk]

Dammit, now I want to go to Grunauer again. Their Hungarian Beef Gulasch is magnificent.

[DaShi]

Paprika...

I lace everything with paprika. Even my cocaine. Especially my cocaine.

[Dinner]

And no one gives a **** what you spend on food, Marie Antoinette!

Wow, so now having a job and working for a living makes me an elitist? You really should just join your food stamp conniving friends, Al.

[Dinner]

I love how Al thinks there is a huge difference between $147 per month and $200 per month.

[Elok]

I don't think Marie Antoinette had strong feelings about "the best hot dogs." IIRC she was nowhere near as snobby or callous as she's remembered, either, but that's neither here nor there.

Forget about steak, for the moment. Just look at bread. Cheap bread is CRAP. Utter crap. Wonder bread is half air, and you can mush it around like silly putty. Even if, for some reason, you actually prefer such rubbish to good bread, food-stamp-man doesn't have a choice. He's eating the unnatural rubbish, or some equally insubstantial "whole-wheat" equivalent if you prefer, regardless of his preference. Diminished choice. Even more so with meat and seafood. And cheese. Do you like aged cheddar or American oil-based cheeselike product? Either way, you're getting the latter. If you're able to appreciate brie or bleu, ha, you can just forget it. Even milk will cut into your budget on $5.something a day.

[The Mad Monk]

I suppose it depends on how you define good bread. I'm very frugal about food I prepare myself (my rice cooker sees a lot of use), but a couple extra bucks for a tasty multigrain is always worthwhile. I think you're overestimating the cost.

[Dinner]

"Let them eat steak"

I'm comparing good food to survival food. Al seems to think survival food is high on the hog where as if someone actually gets to spend $1.11 more per meal is something I would think is good. He, on the other hand, thinks it's excessive and should be cut.

[Dinner]

Frugal living

My mother used to have these guides that were for mothers to squeeze every penny out of their activities. I read them as a younging and learned the value of frugality. Saturday used to be coupon day for my mother. She'd collect as many circulars as she could and go through them, circling the best coupons and I had to go and cut them all out and she would catalog them in her coupon box thing. From kindergarten age, I learned the importance of saving.

It served you well... Being almost 30 with no job and no apparent desire to find a job. Well, a realistic desire, I have to add in the realistic part because you seem to still believe the Marine Corp will change their mind and suddenly want you.

[The Mad Monk]

Around here you can get 5 pounds of chicken thighs for $5, not even on sale.

I love chicken thighs.

[Al B. Sure!]

I love how Al thinks there is a huge difference between $147 per month and $200 per month.

Dude, you were wrong! You also mistook the income deductions for the actual benefits. A family of four takes in a few hundred a month in stamps but you claimed it was like $150 because you're always wrong.

[Al B. Sure!]

Even milk will cut into your budget on $5.something a day.

Huh? Milk is $3.99 a gallon. Are you drinking a gallon and a quart a day or something?

I did the GOMAD (gallon of milk a day) thing before but I would never act like that's not an expensive nutrition program.

[Al B. Sure!]

Around here you can get 5 pounds of chicken thighs for $5, not even on sale.

I love chicken thighs.

The local supermarket here sells 10lbs of chicken leg quarters for $5.99

I just don't understand where Oerdin and Elok are coming from. Food is plentiful and cheap in America.

[Dinner]

I can find dog **** in every park. It's plentiful and cheap but that doesn't mean I want to eat it.

[gribbler]

I can find dog **** in every park. It's plentiful and cheap but that doesn't mean I want to eat it.

Al does if it means he can afford to sit around all day smoking weed and playing Xbox, apparently.

[Jon Miller]

Depends on how you eat in the US, you can eat very cheaply or much more expensively.

I generally ate (even not eating out) for 10-20 a day.

It is possible, if you are careful, cook, and often cook the same (simple thing), to spend ~2 a day.

If you don't really cook, or don't want to cook simple things (beans/rice/etc), and and want to live on less than 5$ a day, then you are going to eat garbage.

I didn't know you could eat so cheaply until I tried this year (in Brussels, but if anything the US is cheaper for everything but bread.)

JM

[The Mad Monk]

yogurt chicken

5 lbs chicken thighs ($5)

6 cloves (or to taste) garlic, finely chopped ($1)

1 onion, quartered and sliced ($1)

1 TBSP each whole cumin and coriander ($.25) -- crack these between spoons or your palms just before use
--
1 tsp each crushed red pepper, ground ginger (can also be grated fresh, costs a little more), and ground paprika ($.25)

1/2 tsp each ground cinnamon, ground turmeric, and ground black pepper ($.15)

enough oil

2 cups plain yogurt ($1)

1 cup broth or water.

Add oil to pan, heat until spatter hot

Add cumin and coriander, stir briskly until toasted, about ten - fifteen seconds. This will be very aromatic

Add other spices, stir briskly five seconds

Add garlic, stir briskly thirty seconds. Garlic burns easily, if you see any brown go straight to the onion.

Add onion, saute until carmelized. Keep the heat up and the spoon moving, you want this fried, not steamed! You're looking for brown and translucent, not white and translucent.

Add chicken and brown the pieces. Reduce heat.

Add yogurt and liquid. Stir, being sure to coat all the pieces.

Cover and simmer on low until chicken is done.

Serve over rice. Or not.

This particular dog **** will fill your kitchen with a parade of delicious odors while cooking, and fill your mouth with a symphony of flavor when done.

About $9, but serves 5-10.

[Al B. Sure!]

TMM, you're making too much sense.

To satisfy their rich elitist appetites, you need to eat like Marie Antoinette. Anything less is unacceptable for anything but dogs.

[Elok]

You're persistently missing the point, Al. If you cannot eat the more expensive food items, that is a lost opportunity you're refusing to factor in here. It's actually a rather minor point compared to the problem that your food stamp "hustle" forces you to live in a miserable cockroach-infested HUD project of some sort, but a lower food budget means fewer options. There's such a thing as good, cheap food, but at the very least your diet will have much less variety and some things will be right off the list. For example, while I don't eat seafood in general, I'd be very suspicious of any non-canned fish I could get really cheap...

And that's leaving off: nice clothes (if you go in for that), vacations, good furniture, most hobbies, dinner out, entertainment out, diminished romantic prospects, a decent car, presents and other special-occasion expenses, and above all NOT LIVING IN A SHITHOLE.

[The Mad Monk]

I think we all agree that Al needs to be someplace better, but equating frugality with putting up with crap is really counterproductive.

[Elok]

I guess tastes are subjective...but dang.

[The Mad Monk]

Let's put it this way: you need money to go places. Getting a job is one part of the equation, but saving money is the other. You sacrifice in some areas to get ahead in others. If he's screwing up other aspects, go after him on that, but don't dump on him for what he's doing right.

[Elok]

? I think you missed the beginning of this argument, TMM. It started with him sorta-praising shysters who live off foodstamps and handouts, describing it as an admirable "hustle." To which I (along with Dinner) said that on $200 per person per month you're not going to be eating the best food. If Al's eating cheap to save cash, I'm fine with that. But if he were to switch over to permanent gov't. teat-suckling and laugh at us "suckers" making actual money and having a more substantial food budget (not that I think he ever would)...well, I'd laugh right back at him. Actually, since he's describing people who actually SELL some of their foodstamps at a tremendously discounted rate like 30 cents for a dollar, you're talking less than $200/month. That's crummy eating. Anyway, I'm not trying to rag on his present habits or anything.

[Al B. Sure!]

I'm making the point that people on public assistance are not hurting, as much as rich Democrats want us to believe.

[Elok]

Well, provided their hurting is voluntary and self-inflicted, my main concern is that they might have kids and give them similarly idiotic ideas about living lives of parasitic mediocrity.

[Felch]

Al does if it means he can afford to sit around all day smoking weed and playing Xbox, apparently.

I think you're mixing Al up with me again.

[Al B. Sure!]

Got boneless chicken breasts for $1.99/lb. Marinaded with a mesquite with lime marinade. Going to dice some green pepper and tomato and make mesquite chicken wraps. I could put some rice in the wraps to make it last.

Bargain eating is delicious. I pity Oerdin for thinking he needs to spend $20 on a good meal.

[Dinner]

yogurt chicken

5 lbs chicken thighs ($5)

6 cloves (or to taste) garlic, finely chopped ($1)

1 onion, quartered and sliced ($1)

1 TBSP each whole cumin and coriander ($.25) -- crack these between spoons or your palms just before use
--
1 tsp each crushed red pepper, ground ginger (can also be grated fresh, costs a little more), and ground paprika ($.25)

1/2 tsp each ground cinnamon, ground turmeric, and ground black pepper ($.15)

enough oil

2 cups plain yogurt ($1)

1 cup broth or water.

Add oil to pan, heat until spatter hot

Add cumin and coriander, stir briskly until toasted, about ten - fifteen seconds. This will be very aromatic

Add other spices, stir briskly five seconds

Add garlic, stir briskly thirty seconds. Garlic burns easily, if you see any brown go straight to the onion.

Add onion, saute until carmelized. Keep the heat up and the spoon moving, you want this fried, not steamed! You're looking for brown and translucent, not white and translucent.

Add chicken and brown the pieces. Reduce heat.

Add yogurt and liquid. Stir, being sure to coat all the pieces.

Cover and simmer on low until chicken is done.

Serve over rice. Or not.

This particular dog **** will fill your kitchen with a parade of delicious odors while cooking, and fill your mouth with a symphony of flavor when done.

About $9, but serves 5-10.

That sounds good though if the chicken is bone in it will really have to be at least 1lb of chicken per person as ~1/3 to 1/2 that weight will be bone. I agree that you can eat good food for not a lot of money (I believe I once started a thread about this subject) but it becomes hartd to do it all the time without resorting to eating a lot of the same stuff over and over (beans & rice with every meal). MY girlfriend and I both like to cook but I've found the older I get the less I want to bother with the cheap but boring stuff and the more I want to try fancier but more expensive stuff at least sometimes. Al's welfare scam lifestyle choice would mean they never get anything but the basics.

I can agree that the programs should have more over sight to prevent the abuse AL claims is rampant in his little ghetto but I still don't think it's a good idea to slash or eliminate these programs as there really are some people who would die without them. There is going to be some fraud in every system so we should work to minimize the fraud instead of just saying (as conservatives often do) "here's one bad case of fraud so let's use it to kill the whole social safety net".

[Braindead]

I see your chicken recipe and raise you a properly-grilled porterhouse steak, which is like eating an orgasm and which none of your government teat-sucklers will likely ever eat. Not even on special occasions. Forget about going out to a nice place, forget about good booze, forget about all the more exotic foods unless they happen to be very skilled cooks who know all the local specialty stores. Which I doubt, because becoming a good cook takes commitment and dedication and all that stuff they've demonstrated they don't have.

Round steak is cheaper than Porterhouse. Tastes just as good (IMHO), just as healthy, costs less dollars. *

* Costs less where I live. Prices relativities may be different where you live nevertheless it does illustrate the point that shopping around and substitution can go a long way.

My conclusion: Albie does have a point. (BTW Elok has a point too).

[Braindead]

What an exciting diet, Al.

Looks OK to me.