0 (Zero)

Week 7. 29 July 2009.

If this project were a swimming pool, and it had walls, and a deep end, it would also have a shallow end. This week our feet touched bottom. And we debated what to do.

I went for the pickup this morning and there was nothing there. More accurately there was nothing there that we could put to use. Boxes of muskmelon and a large bag of granola, some leafy greens. There was no fruit for lunches, no vegetables for salad, no eggs or bread. 

This is a good thing, there is less waste to offset today.
But it left us with a question: we always buy some items, should we buy all items this week and make the lunches from our own pockets.
Was it more important to get the meals to those who need them, or to make the meals from re-purposed ingredients?

We finally decided neither. They are equally important. 

There are many food programs available, but ours is about using food that otherwise would go to waste, not buying fresh food and re-packaging it. True, we often have to supplement, but fundamentally our menu, and our project, relies on “waste” food. 

So this week belongs to those other programs.

EGGS

This week the big addition was eggs. People love hardboiled eggs. 

So everyone got an egg. And a little guaranteed protein.

 

We had apples enough for half the meals. The rest got banana bread since it uses fruit, so it’s sort of like fruit and we haven’t had it in a while.

C picked up the bread on Wednesday night, plenty of long loaves, 2 hoagies and a bag of 12 rolls. We find the PB+J work better on the rolls, less bread = more sense of sticky peanut butter. We left them out to keep them moist, and sliced and bagged last night to keep them fresh for assembly this morning.

And we made “chicken” salad for the sandwiches, with yellow and red peppers, red onion and carrot, also some cucumbers.

Cost: re-ups on PB and J and some pantry supplies, 23.30$

haul it on home on your back

Week 6. 22 July 2009.

Location A.

Despite my love for my hand-truck, this week I decided to take my pack. I just didn’t feel like listening to the rattle of wheels and flagstones all the way home so early in the morning. I also took a garbage bag to line the inside, because: things leak.

Spoils: apples (16), 3 pints of grape tomatoes, yellow peppers, red peppers, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, bananas (6), 2 zucchini, 3-1/2 dozen eggs, cucumber

The eggs will be for hardboiling. The bananas for banana bread. The zucchini for zucchini bread, and the apples for everyone.  I think we’ll make more crumble bars too.

WEEK 5

Week 5. 15 July 2009.

SHORT VERSION

Spoils: 8 pints of blueberries, loaf of challah, eggs, apples (8), plum (1), red peppers, nectarine

Shopping List: butter
Cost: 0.99$

Delivered: 19 “turkey” salad sandwiches, 11 PB+J (4 strawberry, 7 grape) with fruit. 
Blueberry crumb bars in all.

MATH

After the first month: we do some math = we average out at less than 20$ out of pocket per week. That’s about .67 cents per meal, per week. 

Not too bad, but we want it lower. We’ll need it lower.