All Financial Matters: How Cheaply Can You Brown Bag Your Lunch?One Wall Street Journal columnist is paying almost $5 for his bagged lunches ($0.38 for a slice of tomato?), but still posts a 50% savings over a $10 sandwich from the local deli. (Thanks to The Simple Dollar for the link.)
Being Frugal: My Square Foot Garden Overfloweth
Summer’s here, and Lynnae finally reaped what she sowed back in late Spring. It’s a lot. It’s giving me serious garden envy.
Best Week Ever: The Top 10 Most Tasteless Cakes
Nice roundup of the worst of the Cake Wrecks blog, with #4 being particularly hideous. Why … would … anyone … eat … GAH.
Consumerist: Get Ready for More Supermarket Price Hikes
According to the Chicago Sun-Times (home of Ebert), “grocery prices are expected to rise 5 percent to 6 percent this year.” Yikes riding bikes. I wonder if costs will keep climbing at that rate. They’re already outpacing salary earnings.
Get Rich Slowly: Hidden Price Increases at the Grocery Store
JD weighs in on ever-shrinking packages of processed foods.
Jezebel: Cultural Understanding Goes Down Better With French Fries, Chicken NuggetsYay! Fantastic clip from Tony Bourdain’s No Reservations trip to Saudi Arabia (yes, I call him Tony), in which native Danya Alhamrani guides him through the country’s most prominent fast food selections. The city of Jeddah isn’t exactly representative of the rest of SA, but what an interesting cultural view nonetheless. A must-see.
Jezebel: Telling A Friend She's Fat: Do You Even Go There?
Last I checked, this post had 511 comments. Join in on the fun/rage.
The Kitchn: Tip – Drying Fruits and Vegetables in the Car
This is the most fantastically frugal thing in recorded history. Has anyone out there ever tried it? I would give it a shot, but it might not work as well in the subway.
Money Saving Mom: Lower your grocery bill without clipping coupons
So, you don’t want to blow your Sundays whittling away at newspaper inserts. I understand. So does Crystal. Here, she lists eight effective ways to save cash while avoiding coupons. Plus, billions of commenters sound off with their own valuable suggestions. Super-worthwhile reading from folks in the grocery shopping trenches.
New York Times: A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss
It’s like a CSA Santa Claus! “For a fee, Mr. Paque, who lives in San Francisco, will build an organic garden in your backyard, weed it weekly and even harvest the bounty, gently placing a box of vegetables on the back porch when he leaves.” I hope I’m on the Nice list.
New York Times: Food Makers Report Profits as Eating in Gains Favor
There’s hope!
Reader’s Digest: Eat Smart When Dining Out: 20 Tips In spite of the following Retuers article, diners are increasingly looking for easy ways to health-up their restaurant foods. Here, RD has some suggestions. (Thanks to Consumerist for the link.)
Reuters: U.S. food portions - Monuments of decadence?
We’re Americans! We eat giant food! As we used to say in third grade, “Doy.” (Thanks to Eater for the link.)
Serious Eats: Nintendo DS Cooking Guide Will Help You Make Dinner
Somewhere, The Boyfriend just drooled.
Serious Eats: Out-of-Context Eating
All you need is the first line of the first comment: “I once saw someone open a microwave popcorn bag for their child during Mass,” and you will be totally sucked in. (My sweet Catholic Ma might have killed the popcorn person, sixth commandment or no.)
Serious Eats: What to Eat on a First Date
I realize I might have successfully made myself sound like a lush the last few weeks, but I’d like to add something to this post: beware of overdrinking. Once, on what could have been a fun first date, I downed two too many glasses of champagne. Nothing got sloppy, bad, or out of hand EXCEPT MY BRAIN, which was unable to form halfway interesting thoughts for most of the night. Fortunately, the failed date led me to The Boyfriend, so I guess it wasn’t all bad.
Slate: The Pasta Salad Manifesto
Pair this with Casual Kitchen’s How to Create Your Own Original Pasta Salad for the ultimate in side dish tutorials.
(Photos courtesy of Flickr members Biggie*, Khaled A.K, and UHLMAN.)
