Recently in budget bon vivant Category
There's a certain satisfied contentment you feel after a great meal, and that's how I felt after eating at a new place called Kong the other day. It's located in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia and the chef is named Michael O'Halloran, but the food is based on the dai pai dong, Hong Kong's traditional open-air food stalls where simple, satisfying, home-style food is served to you by the same people who made it. Halloran says they're an Asian counterpart to the small, family-run bistros and osterias in Europe.
Halloran became familiar with these eateries on visits to Hong Kong to visit his wife's relatives, and decided that other Philadelphians would enjoy the food as much as he did. It's pretty easy to see why: This is affordable comfort food with an Asian flair, oddly familiar yet different enough to be interesting, and deeply satisfying above all.
This came home to me with the first dish: stir-fried eggs, as familiar as Sunday morning brunch in some ways, but laced with sweet lumps of crab meat and garnished with chopped scallions and a spicy sauce. Another comfort-food staple, braised brisket with noodles, was similarly familiar and satisfying, with just enough bok choy to remind us that we weren't in Kansas any more. Then came a bun filled with duck meat—simple, straightforward, and it could have been a vol-au-vent from a French restaurant that emphasized quality ingredients impeccably prepared.
Of course we had lots of traditional Chinese foods: barbequed pork spare ribs, pork dumplings, a sea bass rice bowl, and such. But they were all rich and hearty, and for dessert we had a rice pudding that put the cap on a meal that left us glowing with contentment. We were even happier after a drop of ginger liqueur.
I've never been to Hong Kong and no one has offered to send me any time soon, which is sad. It's even sadder that evidently the dai pai dong stands are becoming rarer there. But it's a great consolation to know that the same food is available 30 miles from my doorstep, whenever I want an Asian meal that will leave me happy and contented. I'd love to go to Hong Kong and visit those stands—but Kong without the Hong is more than half a loaf and much, much better than none.
Halloran became familiar with these eateries on visits to Hong Kong to visit his wife's relatives, and decided that other Philadelphians would enjoy the food as much as he did. It's pretty easy to see why: This is affordable comfort food with an Asian flair, oddly familiar yet different enough to be interesting, and deeply satisfying above all.
This came home to me with the first dish: stir-fried eggs, as familiar as Sunday morning brunch in some ways, but laced with sweet lumps of crab meat and garnished with chopped scallions and a spicy sauce. Another comfort-food staple, braised brisket with noodles, was similarly familiar and satisfying, with just enough bok choy to remind us that we weren't in Kansas any more. Then came a bun filled with duck meat—simple, straightforward, and it could have been a vol-au-vent from a French restaurant that emphasized quality ingredients impeccably prepared.
Of course we had lots of traditional Chinese foods: barbequed pork spare ribs, pork dumplings, a sea bass rice bowl, and such. But they were all rich and hearty, and for dessert we had a rice pudding that put the cap on a meal that left us glowing with contentment. We were even happier after a drop of ginger liqueur.
I've never been to Hong Kong and no one has offered to send me any time soon, which is sad. It's even sadder that evidently the dai pai dong stands are becoming rarer there. But it's a great consolation to know that the same food is available 30 miles from my doorstep, whenever I want an Asian meal that will leave me happy and contented. I'd love to go to Hong Kong and visit those stands—but Kong without the Hong is more than half a loaf and much, much better than none.
I'd gotten a little bored with my own cooking lately. And the food I really longed for was an impossible, utopian combination of desirable qualities, or at least I thought it was. I wanted it all: food that's simultaneously delicious, low in calories, nutritious, quick, and inexpensive. I know this is a lot to ask for. So for a while, I gave up the search, and stewed in discontent.
But yesterday I got to idly wondering about teriyaki sauce. I've known about it since I was nine years old or so, but I'd never made it. I hauled a book on Asian cooking off the shelf, checked it out, and found it was absurdly easy to put together. Usually it's a one-to-one blend of soy sauce and mirin, a sweetened sake, with some sugar added. Ginger is added at times too. I made an ersatz teriyaki sauce out of soy and honey, fired up the grill and cooked some fish—heaven. The solution to my food boredom, the ingredient that would put that Holy Grail of cookery within reach, had been known to me all along.
Mirin isn't that hard to find around here, and you can mix sake and sugar as a mirin substitute, so now I'm going to be much happier grilling fin fish, shrimp, chicken, pork, vegetables, all kinds of stuff. This is the answer I've been looking for. It's the whole package, dinnerwise. I feel like Scarlett O'Hara—as God is my witness, I will never be hungry again if what I want is food that's delicious, low-cal, healthy and nutritious, and cheap, and quick.
But yesterday I got to idly wondering about teriyaki sauce. I've known about it since I was nine years old or so, but I'd never made it. I hauled a book on Asian cooking off the shelf, checked it out, and found it was absurdly easy to put together. Usually it's a one-to-one blend of soy sauce and mirin, a sweetened sake, with some sugar added. Ginger is added at times too. I made an ersatz teriyaki sauce out of soy and honey, fired up the grill and cooked some fish—heaven. The solution to my food boredom, the ingredient that would put that Holy Grail of cookery within reach, had been known to me all along.
Mirin isn't that hard to find around here, and you can mix sake and sugar as a mirin substitute, so now I'm going to be much happier grilling fin fish, shrimp, chicken, pork, vegetables, all kinds of stuff. This is the answer I've been looking for. It's the whole package, dinnerwise. I feel like Scarlett O'Hara—as God is my witness, I will never be hungry again if what I want is food that's delicious, low-cal, healthy and nutritious, and cheap, and quick.
We've all met people who erroneously believe themselves to be special, right? I have an old friend who's an avis more rara: He's an unusual person who believes himself to be ordinary. Smart, funny, sure, but basically a regular guy from one of the large lower-middle- class sections of Philadelphia that are called "neighborhoods." Big football fan, all that. But his stepchildren laugh at him when he suggests he's a regular guy, knowing as they do that real regular guys rarely work as consultants for historical archives or take a year off mid-career to go trekking around the world, hiking in Nepal, visiting ashrams, all that.
But this guy just doubles down and works it harder. We were talking once about the relative manliness of various avocations and he looked at me dismissively and said that my birdwatching "speaks for itself." I don't actually watch birds much—I just know the couple of dozen you see around most of the time, and try to observe enough about the unfamiliar ones to identify them when I get home.
I actually think knowing the commonest birds in your area and taking a good look at the ones you don't know so you can look them up later is a good thing that enriches your life a bit for, like, no money. This morning I was idly perusing the various offerings on the Intertubes, wishing there were something more compelling to look at, and suddenly there was: a goldfinch flitting about the neighbor's yard.
The goldfinch is like a trumpet-blast of blazing yellow, a burning dot of color like a miniature sun, and in their dipping, scalloped flight they're like backyard meteors. So I just watched the goldfinch, perfectly happy and entertained, the Web forgotten for the moment. And after it burned away out of sight, I thought of the passage in Alice Walker's The Color Purple where the character Shug says, "I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it."
I was driving through the country years ago with a woman who was soon going to be a girlfriend, and we saw some goldfinches flitting along. She idly remarked that there must be a God, for there to be goldfinches. I knew what she meant: Their color seemed like an extravagantly generous gift the only purpose of which was to please the recipient. And who is the gift from? That would seem to speak for itself.
At any rate, I actually do notice the irises in the gardens and the phlox in the forests. And I do notice the goldfinches. If there is a Supreme Being, I hope it wants us to notice colors, that this is a kind of eleventh commandment. It would be one of the few I actually keep, and like all of us, I need all the help and good will that I can get from whatever gods there may be.
(P.S. While we're giving thanks to vast overarching entities, I'd like to thank the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for the public-domain image. Most appreciated.)
But this guy just doubles down and works it harder. We were talking once about the relative manliness of various avocations and he looked at me dismissively and said that my birdwatching "speaks for itself." I don't actually watch birds much—I just know the couple of dozen you see around most of the time, and try to observe enough about the unfamiliar ones to identify them when I get home.
I actually think knowing the commonest birds in your area and taking a good look at the ones you don't know so you can look them up later is a good thing that enriches your life a bit for, like, no money. This morning I was idly perusing the various offerings on the Intertubes, wishing there were something more compelling to look at, and suddenly there was: a goldfinch flitting about the neighbor's yard.
The goldfinch is like a trumpet-blast of blazing yellow, a burning dot of color like a miniature sun, and in their dipping, scalloped flight they're like backyard meteors. So I just watched the goldfinch, perfectly happy and entertained, the Web forgotten for the moment. And after it burned away out of sight, I thought of the passage in Alice Walker's The Color Purple where the character Shug says, "I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it."
I was driving through the country years ago with a woman who was soon going to be a girlfriend, and we saw some goldfinches flitting along. She idly remarked that there must be a God, for there to be goldfinches. I knew what she meant: Their color seemed like an extravagantly generous gift the only purpose of which was to please the recipient. And who is the gift from? That would seem to speak for itself.
At any rate, I actually do notice the irises in the gardens and the phlox in the forests. And I do notice the goldfinches. If there is a Supreme Being, I hope it wants us to notice colors, that this is a kind of eleventh commandment. It would be one of the few I actually keep, and like all of us, I need all the help and good will that I can get from whatever gods there may be.
(P.S. While we're giving thanks to vast overarching entities, I'd like to thank the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for the public-domain image. Most appreciated.)
Years ago, under the influence of Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the Car Talk guys, I started holding on to my cars. If the car broke, I would fix it, because Tom and Ray said it's a misconception that car-repair costs go up geometrically as the car ages. In fact, the costs level off, and the plateau is far lower than what you'd spend on new car payments. Over your life, the Magliozzis point out, this can add up to more than $100,000. You can pay for a lot of trips to Hawaii, they said, with a chunk of money like that.
I'd like to propose a corollary to that. I think we should indulge ourselves with small expenses that make life happier and better. I don't have a car payment right now, which saves me whatever it would cost to pay monthly for a new Camry. With a small part of that savings, I get name-brand plastic wrap. Cheap plastic wrap seems to have an affinity for itself: The instant you tear a piece off the roll, it bunches up like a filmy little fist. Then you spend many seconds of the only life you'll have (that we know of) unsticking the damn thing.
Name-brand wrap is either heavier or there's some engineering miracle going on, but at any rate, you tear it and it seems much tamer. It hangs there in your hand, open and flat, ready to start wrapping things right away. If you can avoid frustration and save time by making a small extra expense, you get real improvement in your life. It's difficult to measure with numbers, but it matters. I don't do extra work to pay for a new car every couple of years, and I don't spend extra time unbunching cheap plastic wrap. And as it happens, I just got back from Hawaii. It was nice there. But hey, get a new car if you want—I'm just sayin'. : )
I'd like to propose a corollary to that. I think we should indulge ourselves with small expenses that make life happier and better. I don't have a car payment right now, which saves me whatever it would cost to pay monthly for a new Camry. With a small part of that savings, I get name-brand plastic wrap. Cheap plastic wrap seems to have an affinity for itself: The instant you tear a piece off the roll, it bunches up like a filmy little fist. Then you spend many seconds of the only life you'll have (that we know of) unsticking the damn thing.
Name-brand wrap is either heavier or there's some engineering miracle going on, but at any rate, you tear it and it seems much tamer. It hangs there in your hand, open and flat, ready to start wrapping things right away. If you can avoid frustration and save time by making a small extra expense, you get real improvement in your life. It's difficult to measure with numbers, but it matters. I don't do extra work to pay for a new car every couple of years, and I don't spend extra time unbunching cheap plastic wrap. And as it happens, I just got back from Hawaii. It was nice there. But hey, get a new car if you want—I'm just sayin'. : )
I've been much too lugubrious lately, so today we're going to talk about—the global recession! And how you can have a good life no matter how much money you have, assuming you're at least, like, surviving. This is part of a series I'm dabbling with called "Budget Bon Vivant."
And today we're going to talk about coffee. Everybody likes coffee, and when the good times were rolling they were willing to pay a few bucks for a cup. But you can have excellent coffee every day, made exactly the way you like it, for much, much less. Here's how:
And today we're going to talk about coffee. Everybody likes coffee, and when the good times were rolling they were willing to pay a few bucks for a cup. But you can have excellent coffee every day, made exactly the way you like it, for much, much less. Here's how:
1.) Buy a coffee grinder. A name brand will cost about 20 bucks (American dollars, that is) and last for an equal number of years. This is not a big capital outlay when amortized over the years.
2.) Get a pour-over coffee maker, basically a plastic cone that sits on the cup. It works with filters. They're made by Melitta, and they sell for a few bucks in high-end kitchenware stores or online.
3.) Grind the beans just before you make the coffee. Experiment with the type of beans you buy, the amount of ginding (count the seconds) and amount of coffee to use until you get it the way you like.
4.) Start with cold water of good quality.
5.) Enjoy the coffee. Sit down, have a nice calm moment to start your day, and really enjoy it. It's excellent coffee, and it's made exactly the way you like it, because it was made exactly by you.
Here are some tips, including a recommendation to use a French press as one option. Tips with more background here.
And if you're wondering, this is how I make my own coffee. I have a cup made exactly that way in front of me at this very moment. I've been making it that way for about 20 years, and I have no idea how much money I've saved, but the money I did save is money I didn't have to bother to earn. That means I've had more time to enjoy my life over the years. Time is the stuff of life, and life should be savored like coffee. That's what Budget Bon Vivant is all about, folks. Now I'm going to press "save" and have my first sip.
UPDATE: Looks like Starbucks is freaking out. Whattaya know?
Just discovered this today—a passage from the The Gulistan of Saadi by Sheikh Muslih-uddin Saadi Shirazi. It was written in 1259, by the way:
Personally I have problems and cares aplenty and mortal goods are only part of it, but I'm going on a fishing trip in less than a week to a faraway tropic isle. I don't know if hyacinths grow there, but I suppose they very well might. I'll carry on hoping so, at any rate.
If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store
Two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one and from the dole,
Buy hyacinths to feed the soul.
Personally I have problems and cares aplenty and mortal goods are only part of it, but I'm going on a fishing trip in less than a week to a faraway tropic isle. I don't know if hyacinths grow there, but I suppose they very well might. I'll carry on hoping so, at any rate.
Recession-schmecession, it's always worth while to save a buck and have better food than usual while you're doing it, right? So here's a tip: Take a container of ramen, and slice a half a carrot into the water before you turn it on. (Slice them diagonally for attractive ovals.) Slice up a garlic clove into it too, while you're at it. Some slivers of onion would work, as would a shallot if you wanted to get fancy. Tofu? Sure, why not? Some leftover meat, if you want. A small hunk of broccoli. Sprinkle some cayenne in while it's cooking. (Go easy, it's potent stuff.) Maybe even—I'm going to try this in about a minute—grate in a dash of ginger. Catching on yet? Use your imagination. The bag of ramen costs somewhere from a quarter on down. The other stuff is in your pantry or refrigerator, or should be. If you're eating only processed, packaged food, for God's sake stop! Stop this minute!
Last step: Eat the soup. It's cheap, delicious, and you've put your own stamp on it. It's not nutritious? Well, first of all compared to what? A meatball hoagie? And second of all, you could go on a kind of grail quest for food that's cheap, tasty, and good for you, but you'd descend into madness and get hungry too. I'd love to have food that was cheap, tasty, and good for you, but usually you can have two of those three. Believe me, I've worked on this.
Now I've made myself hungry. Bye!
Last step: Eat the soup. It's cheap, delicious, and you've put your own stamp on it. It's not nutritious? Well, first of all compared to what? A meatball hoagie? And second of all, you could go on a kind of grail quest for food that's cheap, tasty, and good for you, but you'd descend into madness and get hungry too. I'd love to have food that was cheap, tasty, and good for you, but usually you can have two of those three. Believe me, I've worked on this.
Now I've made myself hungry. Bye!
As I mentioned the other day, economic uncertainty is making people review their spending habits. This is nothing new to me—as a lifelong publishing guy, my life has always been economically uncertain—so I've learned a thing or two about amusing myself without yachts and such.
Which brings us to book clubs, book groups, what have you—people who read a book and then sit around and talk about it. The Times had an article today about how dissension arises sometimes—one person tries to take over, or people just want to drink and gab about their kids, or the books aren't your cup of tea. It's not a bad article, I guess, but it's hardly news. People don't just leave book groups, they leave mechanics and spouses and continents. You're dissatisfied, you fold your tents and go. There are other book groups. But they do offer a chance of stimulating conversation about something besides how the boss is a jerk. Just check bookstores and libraries around. Or start one yourself!
If you absolutely require a life free of annoying people, however, maybe a book group isn't quite the thing. I'm trying to think of how you could live without ever being annoyed by people. A Trappist monastery? Your own island? Build a rocket? The choices aren't good. Anyway, if you want intellectual stimulation and an excuse to interact with people, even if they're imperfect, check out the book club idea.
Which brings us to book clubs, book groups, what have you—people who read a book and then sit around and talk about it. The Times had an article today about how dissension arises sometimes—one person tries to take over, or people just want to drink and gab about their kids, or the books aren't your cup of tea. It's not a bad article, I guess, but it's hardly news. People don't just leave book groups, they leave mechanics and spouses and continents. You're dissatisfied, you fold your tents and go. There are other book groups. But they do offer a chance of stimulating conversation about something besides how the boss is a jerk. Just check bookstores and libraries around. Or start one yourself!
If you absolutely require a life free of annoying people, however, maybe a book group isn't quite the thing. I'm trying to think of how you could live without ever being annoyed by people. A Trappist monastery? Your own island? Build a rocket? The choices aren't good. Anyway, if you want intellectual stimulation and an excuse to interact with people, even if they're imperfect, check out the book club idea.
A free tip for you: If you're in North America or Europe the next few nights, look to the southwest at dusk. Venus and Jupiter have been hanging like brilliant garden-party lanterns in the violet sky, and the crescent moon will be joining them, out of jealously that they should be admired so much and she not, I suppose. Technically this is called a conjunction, but either way it's worth a lingering look. And here's an article about it that reminds us, among other things, that this doesn't happen often and is worth stopping for.
BTW, I've introduced a new category called "budget bon vivant." This was inspired by the recent worldwide financial brouhaha, but I've been thinking for most of my life about how to live well on the cheap, and the time seems ripe to share the few nuggets I've gleaned. And this is one—to pay attention to the night sky. You've got the big headliners—comets, meteor showers, eclipses, close approaches of the planets, the Northern Lights—and you've got the moon and stars every night of the year. The stars have marched in stately procession across the night sky for billions of years, and will continue for billions more. If you're willing to hear the message, they can tell you that the universe is really a very big place, and the things that trouble you at the moment rather small, actually, in the scheme of things. There's a certain peace in that, if you pick up the right end of it. We often get the same feelings from mountains, or the ocean, or other big things. But we don't all live next to mountains or the ocean. We do all live under the sky, though. So check it out, if you're inclined. There are some good books on the subject. And enjoy. It won't cost you a cent.
BTW, I've introduced a new category called "budget bon vivant." This was inspired by the recent worldwide financial brouhaha, but I've been thinking for most of my life about how to live well on the cheap, and the time seems ripe to share the few nuggets I've gleaned. And this is one—to pay attention to the night sky. You've got the big headliners—comets, meteor showers, eclipses, close approaches of the planets, the Northern Lights—and you've got the moon and stars every night of the year. The stars have marched in stately procession across the night sky for billions of years, and will continue for billions more. If you're willing to hear the message, they can tell you that the universe is really a very big place, and the things that trouble you at the moment rather small, actually, in the scheme of things. There's a certain peace in that, if you pick up the right end of it. We often get the same feelings from mountains, or the ocean, or other big things. But we don't all live next to mountains or the ocean. We do all live under the sky, though. So check it out, if you're inclined. There are some good books on the subject. And enjoy. It won't cost you a cent.
