Eat It And Weep

You don't have to eat all that, you know.

NYC is food capital of the world. When I first came to New York and bought a sandwich I thought the deli guy was hitting on me, such was the thickness of the filling. ("Trying to get into the Guinness Book of Records? Or my knickers?") If the way to a person's heart is through the stomach, New York has hit the jackpot. You could live for two days on a New York meal: home of the doggy bag. It's like restaurants have too much food and they have to get rid of it all quickly. My first experience in a New York restaurant went exactly like this:

Me: 'What's in season?"
Waitress: "This is America: Everything's in season." (Italics hers.)

And, of course, we are used to this and take this ethos with us to the grocery store: it's called "Whole-paycheck" because we're greedy and can't help ourselves when we're faced with goodness in such abundance. It's a myth that Wholefoods is more expensive. My local supermarket in Fort Greene sells everything that Wholefoods does for at least a dollar more.

Breakfast only needs to be a couple of slices of toast or an apple. Lunch only needs to be a sandwich with one slice of cheese and dinner only needs to be a couple ounces of meat and some broccoli. You don't need muffins, croissants, scones, fried eggs, bacon or mashed potato in bulk with cream, butter, cheese, and hash browns. You just don't need it. The average person only needs 2000 calories a day. So why the doorstop sandwiches?

I recently went through a spate of food frugality and went for a week eating mostly only Amy's TV dinners, which range in price from $3.99 to $6.99. I lost two pounds without even trying.

But joking aside, food is where I bash the bank account with gay abandon. I spend more on food than anything else apart from my mortgage because I want to eat well. You can be frugal with food but it takes real skill and dedication to avoid ruining your colon with dollar meals and endless pasta. In addition to this, I support local organic farmers and food producers which is more expensive than industrial mass-produced food. But I view food as a necessary luxury. This is probably why I don't have any socks.