(written for my children when in college and young professionals)
My favorite beer? Free. Second favorite? Free and cold. Favorite meals are those I don't have to prepare. I don't even mind paying for them, so long as I don't have to prepare them. I grew up on Stouffer's™ lasagna and Banquet™ fried chicken. My mom is a great cook. However, when you are a working mom like my mom was, a lot of time those types of alternatives, (frozen food aisle, meals in a box), are the menu during the week. As I moved past college into my adult life, I realized that I needed alternative sources for food. As I moved into adulthood, I didn't have enough cash or time for 3 meals a day. No one was worried about my food for me but me. It was an ice-cold shower of transition. Sure, I could learn how to cook. Some parents are so pleased that their children, the ones who can cook, will be Ok on their own. The other parents make statements like, "I guess he/she will just have to figure it out." There is a small smug look on those parents' face, instead of the look that should be there; "Shttttt, I left the gas oven on and we better get it shut off before the house blows up!" Boxed macaroni and cheese, cold cereal and PBJ sandwiches, although staples of a person's diet, do not qualify as cooking. The Food Network™ provides a near infinite number of programs to learn how to cook. If you are aspiring to a career, relationship, social life or the next level on a video game, you do not have time for this effort. This leaves what I consider a more viable approach- food thief. The word "thief" has negative connotations. In this chapter, I am limiting the term just to the idea of the limited idea of you getting fed with almost no effort or expense on your part. Many of these ideas are not original, however, even experts are always looking for ways to sharpen their skills and remind them of methods that have gotten rusty. With those caveats provided, let me offer the following: 1. Leftovers - If you share a living space with anyone, there are leftovers in the fridge, on the counter, on a shelf or somewhere else. This is not about the obvious theft of just eating the food. That theft leaves annoyance and mistrust with others. Bad form on your part. Besides, thieves are careful about finger prints. You have to have viable reasons that you handled the leftovers that seem as if they were in the benefit of the other person. Let me provide several suggestions:
▪ "It was going bad" - "I thought it looked like it was 'turning bad' so, I got rid of it." This is a perfectly good answer as to why a leftover is missing. You were doing a favor. Not only that, you saved the space from an unpleasant smell. Whether it was 'turning' is a matter of judgement, and in this case that judgement was yours, right? ▪ "It was dried out" - Similar to "It was going bad," however, it transfers responsibility to the other person for doing a better job of wrapping food up so that it is air tight in the future. ▪ "I broke it down into smaller servings" - This means a little more work, but a good food return. Your responsibility is to create smaller containers of food because the large dishes', (provided there is a larger dish, maybe leftover from a holiday gathering), food fits in the fridge. You eat a meal from some of the food. The smaller containers do not reveal the amount you ate. ▪ Share first - Tell the person you share space with that they can help him/herself to your leftovers anytime. This will prompt them to invite the same back. Your leftovers will probably be carryout pizza and theirs will be interesting. Ka-ching! 2. Over-ordering - There are occasions - office meals, time with parents, Chinese or Italian restaurants or other opportunities, during which you can order a meal that you know will have more than you can eat, or the people with you will order more than they can eat. Box, wrap, bag and go. This means, yours plus theirs and don't forget the bread. The answer is always simple; "Mom said we shouldn't waste food because of the poor people in China,” (you have to replace China with another third world nation because China is doing so well, but you can pick a favorite), and take the bag home. 3. Combining the unclean plates - This technique requires you to be invited to enough meals to use it. If you help clean up, a loud declaration of "This is too good to go to waste! Can I take this home with me?" will get you not only large pieces of what was left on the plates, (probably, the host/hostess won't let you take that), but getting leftovers from the preparation dishes and their left overs.
4. Getting invited for meals - You should have been taught at an early age the art of the thank you note. You don't write them. You send an email, text or forget altogether. You may inaccurately believe that your thank you on the way out the door is enough. You want to get asked for more meals because you want more meals. Of course, friendship, conversation and relationships are very important, but this chapter is not about that. A thank you note gets you invited for more free meals. A bottle of wine or a bouquet of $3.99 flowers gets you another meal.
5. Diligent digital-offer spotting - It is spending, I know. I'm ashamed when I admit it. In my defense, I will say this much, if you play the game well you get a lot more for a lot less. Fiercely watch the online coupons from your favorite restaurants, from carryout to white napkin and wine glass places. Each of these runs highly discounted opportunities. These are usually set for increasing attendance or sales during low traffic periods of time. If you get good at this game, you pay a lot less for the same meal someone else paid a lot more.
6. Holiday containers- I learned this one at a family holiday meal. There are always a LOT of leftovers after a big Christmas meal. It has happened for so many events that it has become a bit of a family joke. However, this last Christmas meal, one of the families brought their own disposable plastic containers for leftovers. They descended like buzzards, picking every bit of the favorites down to the glass dishes and dropping them into the little containers, snapping them shut and tossing them into the bags they had brought. Hugs and kisses and out the door they went. Preparation has its privileges. They were the only ones really ready- just this once. My extended family are fast learners. There will be a Brinks™ truck of plastic containers and armed security for the leftover retrieval at the next holiday event. My advice for the thieves is to be subtle. Bring a couple of plastic containers that are separated into meal sections. Then it is clear you are trying to get a couple of meals, not fighting for the armoire at the reading of grandma's will. By the way, in my family, the family who got all of the leftovers at the last Christmas received no anger for their actions, just points for a game well played. That's the kind of family I grew up in.
7. The neighbors "pitch or give" - There is no shame in becoming known as the neighbor that will eat anything, that will take the big leftovers that your neighbors are going to throw away. Your neighbors may be getting ready to travel, have a freezer go out, find themselves with too many leftovers or whatever. You want to be the shameless person who they think of as the person they will, "Let's just give it to xxxxx instead of throwing it out…". You are always gracious, you always take it. You don't have to eat it. You can always throw it out later when they are not watching. The point is being the person they bring food too. You are the Goodwill™ of food. It is a great reputation to have.
8. Less than five ingredients, less than 30 minutes - <SIGH> You have to prepare yourself a meal that you cannot steal. Even thieves have to spend their own money sometimes and food thieves have to get their own food. a. Breakfast - Greek yogurt, (single serving), fist full of raw almonds, chunk of fruit, (whatever was cheap - I know blueberries are the superfood of the day, but they are not cheap), protein powder and granola, (real stuff like what you get at Trader Joe's™). Mix it together. Ok - I said 5 ingredients - but if you have milk that hasn't gone bad, throw some of that in it. Of course, you maybe lactose intolerant, gluten-free, vegetarian and all of those things. With all candor, you are going to be a crappy food thief anyway. Just go work harder and hope you can afford all of your high-priced foods. Namaste. b. Lunch - Sandwich - You can get it cheaper than you can make it. c. Dinner - Huge fan of noodles. Throw jarred sauce and a protein in it, (proteins are dead animals - pork, chicken, beef). Spice with whatever you have. Bag of salad and a baguette from a grocery store on the way home and you are a bloody chef. My hunch is that you can do better than all of this. You can do tastier cooking. You are a more clever thief. It's like a lot of things when you break them down; arithmetic works against you. There are 1,092 meals in a year. You can cook some, buy some and steal some. Regardless, your tool belt has to be full of all of the necessary skills and techniques to eat that many meals. I'm just adding another set of tools to the belt. Use them when necessary.