I am in Foodie Hell!

If my palete could talk it would say “Why Steve, why did you mess up such a wonderful arrangement? How do you expect me to thrive when our dining options are the campus meal plan, pizza, or wings? We’ve dined at Schwa for petesake!” Let’s rewind a bit.

A little over a year ago, I had a good paying job and I lived in New York City. I had cash to burn and a city to explore. I’m not a big fan of museums, I’m too socially awkward to enjoy live concerts, and my self-diagnosed ADHD makes it hard for me to sit through performances. If you consider just those things I sound profoundly lame. My one redeeming quality is that I will go to great lengths for a meal. My job gave me the means to take advantage of New York’s food scene. From eight-course chef tasting menus to bahn mi in Brooklyn's Chinatown, I spent two years in foodie heaven.

Then one night, I got a visit from the ghost of Oberlin College Past. He warned that I was too special to be wasting my youth working for The Man. I decided career-wise, I needed to be doing something I loved. That is why I am back in school, working unpaid internships and far too often, sleeping on an air mattresses.

My food problem is not a money problem. I have mastered the art of living beyond my means. The town I am in simply hates good food. I am sure of it. My choices are college town bar fare or poorly executed, locally-sourced new American. I’m all for supporting sustainable, local agriculture, but if you overcook a medium rare rib-eye and charge me $28, I don’t care if the cow was grass-fed in my backyard, massaged, and went to a Montessori preschool, your amateurism is going to make me vomit.

So, to satisfy my palete’s craving for delicious, well-executed food, I am going back to my collegiate Bohemian roots. Rather than drive great distances and spend tons of money I am going to make the shit myself and I am inviting you to come along.

I’ll do my best to share some of the things I have picked up working and eating in restaurants and being raised in an ethnic household. Hopefully, you'll learn to cook which will lead to eating better and saving some money.

Let's explore the saving money concept a bit. When I was in New York, one of my favorite lunches was chicken pad thai. $8.95 + tax and tip for rice noodles, carrots, scallions, scrambled eggs, peanuts, and 4 oz of chicken. A standard restaurant practice is to price menu items at two to three times food cost. If I made my own lunch, I would save $6/day, $42/week, and $2,184/year*. And that's just on lunch!

NEXT TIME Steve goes to the Asian Supermarket, and the Rice Noodle Aisle Overwhelms

*I made some serious oversights with this estimate, ordering lunch 7x per week, opportunity costs like time spent cooking, and increased energy costs linked to and electricity and gas. As long as you don't chop your finger off due to inferior knife skills you'll save money. If you're incapable of making that inference, give me a break, I sleep on an air mattress.