Old wine, too many onions

Ever had an open bottle of wine that's just a couple days past its prime?  It makes pleasant yumminess in pasta sauce or soup.  I found a masive sack of onions in the trash after I purchased some stuff at Gristedes today, so I decided to make French onion soup. I sauteed a whole pile of sliced onions in olive oil and butter for 20 min, deglazed the pan with a little vermouth, cooked 5 min more, added the rest of the bottle of wine along with some parmesan rind my friend had saved for such an occasion, simmered 15 min more, added 8 cups water and some bouillon, then salt, pepper, and rosemary, and simmered another 10 min or so.

Hospitality Club

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/4107887] I'd like to introduce to you what was probably my best mid-study internet procrastination discovery of 2005.  It is called Hospitality Club (there is also a similar organization called Couchsurfing).  It's an online network for travelers who want free accomodation (and great experiences) while traveling, and when not abroad, want to offer free accomodation (and great experiences) to travelers.  You just sign up for free and make a profile sprinkled with all of your most intriguing hobbies, languages proficiency, location, and whether or not you're willing or able to provide accommodation, meet up for coffee, answer questions, or show people around.   Once you've been approved as a member, you can browse the other members from whichever country you plan to travel to.  It's a really great way to save money, meet people, and engage in cultural exchange.  Hosting is a great way to pay it forward for your future travels.  It's mostly young backpackers on round-the-world tickets or finishing study abroad, but one time I had an entire family from Poland stay with me.  They wanted their children to see the world, and that was the way they could afford to do it.  One guy even traveled for an entire year straight, couchsurfing every night.  Being a guest has the obvious financial incentive of not having to pay for a hotel (in addition to a bed you often also get internet, access to a kitchen, sometimes laundry, and so on), but it also offers a way to get to know expats who know the lay of the land or locals who wold otherwise be more difficult to meet if you're staying in a hotel.  My most remarkable traveling moments have arisen from simple circumstances turned extradinary through human interaction in magical and mysterious new settings, not from touring musems or landmarks.  Join!

More yum

Dumpster treasure from last night: 2 gallons of milk, a container of trail mix, almonds, kale, 13 apples, 11 tomotoes, 2 packages of tofu, and 3 green peppers.  Again, this was from 3 trash bags outside of one Gristedes.  The milk doesn't expire until April 21, but the neck of the bottle had been slightly bent so it was thrown out.  I made the milk and tomatoes into tomato bisque.  I also used the milk along with freegan bread that I had frozen a few months ago and eggs and cheese to make my delicious Easter egg puff.  Then I made an applie pie out of the apples.

Lab Rat

I do love an odd job, and there is nothing more odd than being paid to participate in medical experiments.  Any university runs research studies like this and they're always looking of participants.  Simple questionairre or computer based tests pay about $10/hr.  In college I tried to do it just enough to cover the lunches that I didnt use dining dollars for, that way I never dipped into other monies while on campus.  Or if I planned to go to the cinema one night, I would try to pop into the psychology building during a break and catch an experiment.  It isn't a terrible sum, but if you're already on a university campus, it's a very simple ways to make some quick cash.  The big money though is in more elaborate tests like fMRIs or my gig in the ophthalmology department.  There the doctors study balance in old folks and use me as a control sample.  They sit me in a padded chair, strap my appendages tight, stick a mouth guard between my teeth, clamp my head down and my jaw up, and insert into my eyes thick hard plastic contact lenses with electrodes attached.  Then they turn out the lights, point a mechanical red laser towards my eyes, and flip on the switch to the hydraulic pumps fixed underneath the chair.  My body hurls around as I desperately track the laser with my eyeballs. I pretend I'm on some crazy mission in outer space.  It becomes a game and I actually get really into winning it.  Plus, the better I do my job, the better the control, and the more beneficial the study to the affected population.   Also, if you do a good job, they'll come looking for you again.  After a job well done at the ophthalmology lab one summer in LA, I found myself fielding calls as every vacation period approached, in the hope that I wold be returning home.  After the fMRIs you can ask for printouts of your brain, and the ophthalmology gig provides me with feedback about my eyesight and tracking ability--I might never have known I had 16/20 vision.  In addition, you gain valuable information about yourself like how tolerant you are of extraordinarily annoying beeps or how well you can block out dribble on your cheek when you can't wipe it away.  It's the little things in life that prepare you.

Magazine File

I was in need of something to hold my magazines, so before heading to the store I poked around the house a bit looking for ideas.  I found cereal boxes in the recycling bin and paired them with the leftover suede contact paper in the craft drawer.  Got out the scissors, cut the boxes on an angle, used the refuse to make a band to go around the boxes, covered it all in contact paper.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.  Not the coolest thing I've ever made, but it has great function.

Library Sales

I love the smell of libraries, the hush of its patrons; I love perusing libraries, reading in them.  The only problem I run into is that I like to write in my books and keep them on my bookshelves, both to look smart, and so I can go back to my notes and sound smart also.  That's how my memory works--it needs its madeleines.  So the library shelves are not ideal for me, but library sales: oh what a place for books! 25 cents!  That even puts Strand's dollar racks to shame, and the selection is often really great.  My dad (from whom I inherited this frugan gene) has even found scads of classic first-editions ($!).  Most public libraries have sales, usually every month or two.  You can find sales here.  In addition to expanding your knowledge whilst saving money, you're also supporting the library, saving trees, shunning land fills, and all the rest of it.

Family Gatherings

After a weekend of chip dipping, cheek squeezing, potato peeling, and picture taking in a place where no one in your party lives (say, this rented house in Napa), a lot of food will have been devoured.  In expectation of gluttony, the organizers that be are likely to have over-purchased, and in a hurry to vacate much of that surplus will be tossed.  Don't let it happen!  Fill ziplocs with ice (yet another gift as long as you reuse the bags) and pack it all up for safe transport.

Freegan Dinner

I picked up this produce from the trash bags outside Gristedes.  During a friend's dinner party, I popped down to the store around 9:30pm and picked up the veggies shown above, in addition to a bag of potatoes, another zucchini, more sweet potatoes, a spaghetti squash, apples, carrots, and of course the requisite bagels and bread.  It took about 5 minutes and I only looked through 2 bags, and even left much of what was in those bags behind because I couldn't carry it all.  Multiply that by every other bag there, and then by every supermarket in the city, and then by every day of the year, and you're talking about a ton of food going to waste.

For the top dish, my friend and I mixed in some coconut milk, shellfish sauce that I had frozen from Momofuku leftovers, spices, and made some rice.  We mixed the beets with crumbled feta and leftover salad.  Note: I dove for these vegetables and then threw them in the crisper.  These pictures were taken 10 days later when I got around to cooking them.  So not only is the produce from the trash good enough to eat that day, it's still in fine form long after.

Freegan Books

A great source for books are the trash receptacles surrounding college dormitories at the end of the year.  In fact, this is a good place to find pretty much anything that you might ever need, or even lots of stuff you don't.  I found this book in the trash room of my dorm senior year.  It's an especially remarkable treasure because it's an advanced manuscript signed by the author, wowza!

Dinner party freecycle

If you have stuff to get rid of, why not have a "who wants this junk that I'm getting rid of?" segment during your next dinner party?  Everybody loves a party favor.

Craft Service

I helped out on a friend's film shoot and kindly volunteered to make the leftovers disappear after we wrapped.  I tossed the pizza and bagels in the freezer, put the coffee in a container in the fridge for ice coffee tomorrow, stored the chips for the next time I need some crunch, and threw the sugar packets and cups into the drawer I keep for picnic and party supplies.  Inside of five minutes, this craft service was stowed away for the next time I need to service a craft.

Shelving

I got these wooden planks from the lumber yard (but preferably would have picked them up off the street or purchased them from a salvage yard), cheap L brackets from the corner hardware store, and plaster screws.  Then I stained the wood with stain leftover from the previous tenants.  I painted the shorter wood pieces with zero VOC paint leftover from painting our walls and put them up with the same screws and the smaller size of the same L brackets.  I found the medicine cabinet mirror on the street.  After a quick sponge bath it was ready to throw on the wall and has proven very useful.  The project took me the better part of a day, but I learned a lot, it felt good, and cost about $15.

Catering

After catering an event, a friend of mine was saddened to see tray after tray of untouched food tossed out, so she brought me approximately 79 pounds of pesto pasta.  I froze it in baggies, and have enjoyed a plate of it weekly for going on three months.

Whisky

Get out of the city!  The bottle on the right is 1L and was purchased for $41.95 at a well-priced store in the East Village.  The bottle on the left is 1.75L and was purchased for $45.99 in the boondocks far outside New York City.  That's 37% cheaper!  In addition, by pooling the purchase with my friend's liquor, we received an extra $25 off the total order.  At the time, I had no dire need for whisky, as the bottle on the right was still quite full.  But a frugan must always think ahead, and purchase for the future when the pricetag calls for it.

Coffee

For coffee as a regular fix, don't waste your money at the coffee shop, make it at home.  But if you are in the mood for a special treat, or otherwise find yourself whiling away the hours in a coffee shop, refrain from the needless expense  of a latte or even a cafe au lait.  Instead, order black coffee and pour the milk in yourself.  Sure the temperture will drop a couple degrees, but your wallet will remain robust.  As an added bonus, fill the mug up with milk once the coffee is gone (or low, then at least it maintains a hint of coffee color, if like me you are concerned about sporting at least a veil of decorum).

Home.

I got an early start on this frugan thing.

En route

Switching hotels in Paris? Don't waste money on a taxi when it could be spent on steak frites!  Instead, throw your suitcase, instrument, and rose onto your rented bicycle and wobble on down the street.

Swim

During blistering summer days, swim in public pools like here at Hamilton Fish.  Although, there are no fishies.

Stationery Stockpile

This is a good example of stockpiling refuse for future re-purposing.  This yellow note came from a CocaCola tin that I acquired some 10 years ago.  When at the last minute I was asked to put together a slideshow, I was trying to come up with a quick tactile way to present my contact info (phone number scribbled to acquiesce to mom's fears of identity theft).  As ever, I went to my  hold-for-later drawer (admittedly easier to have in Los Angeles abodes than in New York shoeboxes), and found these silly yellow paper slips. Pile that on a sheet of paper with my custom name stamp from 1991 and presto!

Dress Up

Look at how much fun a girl can have trying on frugan clothing.  These items are from Grandma Eileen's closet.