Sunday, April 4, 2010

It Begins

I started my “no eating-out” week today, with a little help from yesterday.

Last night, my girlfriend and I stayed in and fixed dinner: breaded chicken breasts, mac&cheese, and broccoli. Today, I had the leftovers for lunch. My customary apples&cinnamon oatmeal for breakfast. So far, so good.

Tonight, I have to go grocery shopping for the week. When I do cook, most meals are MEAT plus VEGETABLE, and if I feel daring, a second side(maybe rice and beans). Breaded chicken and okra, steak and broccoli, barbecued chicken and rice&beans, a different type of steak and (the same type of)broccoli; so goes my pattern.

And, I don’t think this is the week to break it up. Though I do want to learn to cook with more variety, this isn’t the time for that; this is the time to lean on my...leanings, and do what I know. The point is to save money. Expanding my cooking will come later(I’m looking into cooking classes1).

This will be true for lunch as well. There will be a lot of PB&J, a lot of leftovers, and a lot of fighting the urge to walk over to Chipotle for a burrito bowl. It’s only a week, it’s only a week.

The problem with leftovers is they have to be microwaved. And the problem with that is I can’t take my heated lunch to my favorite place to read, write, and relax during my lunch break: a Starbucks a block from my office. They have a huge upstairs area. I’m writing this from it, taking a brief break from work. Ideally, I’d have a bag lunch I could bring here2.

Tonight, I was thinking about just fixing canned chili and letting my chicken and steak marinate overnight(the one slightly “cookish” thing I do), but I ended up having toasted PB&J, the greatest meal in the history of mankind(when I haven’t had it for a while).

Tomorrow, steak and broccoli.

1I was going to say “at the moment” or “right now”, but I think that’s pretty fucking obvious.
2No matter what lunch I bring, there is another ethical dilemma: do I have to buy something to use the upstairs area @ said sbux? The answer is obviously yes and obviously no. Yes, because the unspoken agreement is to use their facilities I should be consuming Starbuck’s product. No, because this particular Starbucks does not have the resources to police their tabled area. Now, I usually buy a bottle of water, but I have - I confess3 - eaten my lunch without buying anything. My logic is that, as a regular, I’ve earned this right, especially since I’m going to buy a drink on the way out anyway.
3Addendum to this confession: I have, on occasion, come back with my empty morning cup, as to avoid suspicion and public ire.

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