7 Benefits of Finally Learning to Cook for Myself (at 31)

My life has reached a tipping point.

I officially like the food I cook more than I like eating out, almost anywhere.

Today, in about 15 minutes, my girlfriend and I whipped up some rice bowls. We added lentils, sauteed veggies, crunched up tortilla chips, and some homemade habanero sauce. To not make it too healthy, we piled lots of cheddar cheese on top. 

Delicious. Cheap. Healthy. 

I like my food in that order. Delicious. Cheap. Healthy.

I don't want to get too preachy about food. I'm not a vegetarian, and though I dabbled in the Portland foodie scene a little, the Junior Bacon Cheeseburger from Wendy's remains my favorite meal of all time. I'm just happy I can cook edible food. It wasn't that long ago that all I really knew how to do was make spaghetti or overcook a steak. 

So what are the benefits of finally being to cook well? They are many:

1. I'm eating better tasting food.
   I'm kicking myself for all the times I've paid $8 for some reheated chicken wings, or a quesadilla. Even at the fancier places I'm not blown away. It's rare I don't walk away thinking, "I could have done better."
   We pay a lot of money for inferior, reheated, really-not-that-good food. I guess they do our dishes too, so that's nice. But you can do better. Just saute some peppers and onions and through them on anything, rice, a burger... you name it. And it will be better than what you get at 90% of restaurants.
2. I'm saving a ton of money.
   Here in Panama, if we sit down, its going to cost my girlfriend and I at least $30. Then I feel stupid because that bowl I mentioned above probably cost $2.00 total (veggies in particular are very cheap here), and tastes 10x better. We are saving hundreds a month by eating out less.
3. I'm eating way healthier.
   More cooking means less fast food. On top of that, I find I'm eating less meat and way more veggies not because of some diet, but because I like the taste.
4. I have way more energy. 
   Since I started cooking more, I find I'm drinking way less coffee. Even on days I don't get a lot of rest or don't exercise in the morning, my usual energizers, I'm not dragging. I guess what we put in our bodies really does matter.
5. It's a great way to score boyfriend points. 
   Nothing earns more me love and respect from my girlfriend than cooking for her, unless I do the dishes too.
6. I learned that yogurt is everything.
   Seriously. Yogurt. Did you know that natural yogurt is pretty much sour cream? I love sour cream. Want to make an awesome sauce? Take "x" ingredient, and blend it with yogurt. Bam. Now you are winning Chopped.
7. I watch a lot of the Food Network.
   Guy Feiri haunts my dreams. I love Chopped in particular though, what those people whip up in 30 minutes blows my mind. Some day. 

Those dishes are the downside, especially since we don't have a dishwasher here. But that's it. It took me 31 years, but I finally learned how to cook! 

Eating Local in Panama

Panama has enormous crabs.

Eating local has always been something I've aspired too. The connection between people and the earth is ancient, delicious, and increasingly disappearing. Globalization has brought Idahoan dried potatoes and Rogue Brewery beer all the way to Panama. In supermarkets here you're more likely to find foreign produce than local.

Still, Rebekka and I have found two places that are as local as it gets. The first is the Mercado de Mariscos, or simply, the "Fish Market." A nondescript building holds about 40 stalls selling the day's catch. It smells like hell, and couldn't be fresher.

Most everything you can imagine is here. Squid, little octopus, clams and all kinds of fish. Our first visit we played it safe and snagged some blue fin tuna. You pay by the pound and they'll fillet it for you right then and there. It cost $16 and we ended up with enough tuna for eight meals.

Ebenezer proudly posed for our pictures.

The crab stall.

Our next visit we opted for red snapper and the most enormous crab I've ever seen. This crab proved to be a mistake, shelling these guys is nothing like shelling a Dungeness from Oregon. He was armored like a tank, and it took me about an hour to get all the meat out.

Rebekka leading the crab in some stretches.

Last weekend we also visited the local farmers market, known as the Mercado de Abastos. It's located in a weird warehouse in the middle of the city. And it smells like death. A giant garbage dump filled with rotting vegetables and who-knows-what else greeted us at the entrance.

The place is huge. People drive through, stopping at stalls that interest them. Most of the vendors are there to sell to restaurants or even grocery stories. Enormous bundles of bannanas, pallets of pineapple and cartons of coconuts are for sale, cheap. But you can purchase in smaller quantities. We bought:

• One pineapple for 75 cents
• Four potatoes for 60 cents
• A bundle of celery for $2.00
• Four coconuts for $2.00
• Two mangoes for $1.00
• A pound of tamarillos for 85 cents
• 15 mamon chinos (lychees) for 50 cents

A bundle of produce for $7.70. And I'm pretty sure we overpaid for all of it.

You would never guess there is something delicious hiding in here.

It's all been delicious, healthy, and as about as cheap as you can get in this relatively cheap country. 

Local Bounty and Local Spending

Living in the Willamette Valley and teaching at a rural school have provided me access to a number of delicious goods. Why pay Safeway $4 for a dozen eggs trucked up from California, labelled and branded "organic," when I can spend $2.50 to get eggs (some laid that morning!) from a student.

But summer is the best. A student of mine has a very small organic blueberry plot. Last year I bought $100 worth. I forget how many pounds that was, but it lasted me literally until a week ago. Today I just picked up 15 pounds more. 

Driving in the countryside this time of year is like some modern Eden. Fields of wheat, perfectly arrayed vines, hops growing tall. During summer I almost cut grocery stores out entirely. There is local everything. And it is all cheaper than the imported stuff.

I'm a huge supporter of voting with my dollars. In fact, there are few things we do in our lives that cause a bigger impact than where we spend our money. Leaving all the politics aside, my choice is to put my money into the pockets of my students and local farmers over some big agri-business. I don't want Oregon to be like Nebraska or Iowa with endless fields of corn or soy.

What we pay for, we endorse.

If I want people around here to grow a variety of crops for local consumption, there needs to be some local consumers. 

If I want to save small farmers, I'd better buy from them. 

Fast Food Vices: Everybody Has One

I am health conscious and take pride in being fit and active.  I love to eat healthy and feel tangibly better when I do. I know fast food is bad for me.

Yet Wendy's has an irresistible hold over me.  Wendy's is my fast food vice.  The one place I can't drive by without stopping.  For my mom, it's Burgerville (an infinitely more sustainable choice).  If you are an American, you probably have one too.  If you are not, read on as you will better understand my people.

Wendy's got me young.  It was one of the few fast food options in the town where I grew up.  And before the bacon craze got big, Wendy's had the Junior Bacon Cheeseburger for only 99 cents.  Let me be clear:  this burger is insanely good.  The lettuce, the tomato, the mayonnaise all work perfectly.  And their bacon has improved considerably from the flimsy translucent slices of my youth.

My addiction.  Yours is probably worse!

I will go to great lengths to eat this burger.  I once stopped a dead sprint to make kick-off at an Oregon Ducks game because I ran past a Wendy's advertising new applewood smoked bacon.  I still don't even know exactly what that means, but I had eat one.  My buddy was not so pleased.

Fortunately for my waistline, I don't live near a Wendy's.  I pass one roughly every two weeks.  It's not even a question now if I stop or not.  I order:

1 Junior Bacon Cheese Burger $1.59
1 Value Frosty $.99
1 4 Piece Chicken Nugget with Honey Mustard Sauce $.99

$3.57 later, I'm in heaven.  A little slice of my childhood.  What's your Fast Food Vice?

Saturdays

Saturdays.  Easily one of my top ten favorite things in life.

My Saturday mornings follow a wonderful routine.

First, I go to garage sales.  Today's haul:

• A vase for $5.  Before you judge me, understand that his vase is awesome.  And very possibly manly.    Earthhued and etched with grapes, it resembles something a Roman farmer would have stored wine in the ancient days of the Roman Republic. I put an iris in it.  Epic.  Manly.  Vase. 
• A pair of white shorts for $1.  I needed a pair.  I paid $30 for my last pair.  I saved $29!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  ARE YOU NOT AMAZED?!
• A ball of twine for 25 cents.  This was a mistake I regretted immediately.  My friend asked me if I used twine for my garden (I do).  But this twine is much too delicate for my garden.

Next, Farmer's Market.  This time of year you find lots of greens, potatoes, and beets.  I buy kale because I heard it's good for me.  I have not yet independently verified this, but still I buy it every week.  Blindly.  For some odd reason, Kale seems to be water resistant.  Serious.  Water beads up on it and runs off.  Try it out for yourself and see.  You can wear kale in a windstorm.

I then blend it, with an apple, some yogurt, blueberries, and this week, strawberries.  The resulting drink is very green and somewhat chunky.  It makes my teeth look like I just made out with the Seaweed Monster, but I feel my life expectancy growing as I drink it.

This week I also splurged.  Artisan bread from the local baker for $6.  3.5 lbs of free range chicken for $14.   The bread is spendy.  The chicken competitive with what you can find in the grocery stores.  

An added bonus, the money I spend each Saturday--about $30-$50 a week--goes out of my pocket and right into my neighbors.  I'd rather them have it than anyone else.  No big box or grocery store middleman.

Garage sales and farmers market.  All very fun.  All very social in my small town.  I save a ridiculous amount at garage sales.  I spend just a little more than I would at the grocery market, often less for some items, and good food that I know is quality, local and fresh.  Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

 Picture Above: Manly Vase

Life's Simple Pleasures: Gardening

 Gardening.  Growing your own food and then eating it.  One of the top 10 best things in life.   Why?

1.)  Gardening is something man was meant to do.  We owe all of modern civilization to gardening.  Without it, you'd be out in the woods, half naked, chasing your next meal.  

2.)  It connects you to where you live.  You only eat what your climate and soil can grow. You gain a new appreciation for your local climate, customs and cuisine. 

3.)  It connects you to your food.  Home grown food tastes so much better.  You'll never look at the grocery store the same way again.  All that stuff came from somewhere, and some of it really isn't food any more.

4.)   It's great practice for when I have to feed myself after society's collapse.  

5.)   Gardening replaced 64 square feet of stupid, unproductive, water-hungry grass in my lawn with raised garden beds.  

Below:  Stupid grass. 

Why don't you do something with your life!

While I haven't eaten anything from my garden yet, watching it grow is it's own reward.  

Occasionally I wonder if this is what it's like being a parent.  Ignore the seed planting metaphor (please).  The immense joy at seeing the little guy sprout out of the ground is undeniable.  Based on everything 10th grade health class taught me about childbirth, it's in fact WAY better than seeing the birth of a real baby.  Plus, I've experienced it hundreds of times already this spring.  Which you wouldn't get to do with real babies unless you were Genghis Khan.

It goes on.  Like a parent, I nourish the little sprout.  Water it.  Remove the bad influences around it the best I can.  Make sure it receives the best sunlight.  And now, once a little seed, a tomato I planted looks like this:  

I brought you into the world.  I can take you out of it.                                   

Very rewarding.  Probably how I'd feel if my kid brought home straight A's.  

I got my start gardening as a kid with my dad.  We had a giant dirt field where we'd plant row up on row of potatoes, peas, broccoli and more.  We ate all the produce we could handle and sold the rest at the local Saturday Market.  I hated the weeding.  But nothing was better than as a fourth grader making between $50-$100 on a Saturday morning.  That started my lifetime interest in personal finance.

Gardening does have it's dark sides.  Chemicals (no thanks).  Bugs.  Slugs.  Weird little grubs I find deep in the ground.  But the worst is something you'd least expect.

"Mwahaha"

That's right.  Bambi.  Capable of destroying months of care and nourishment with one night of munching.  Indiscriminate.  Heartless.  And cute as buttons.  On top of everything else, gardening has taught me to hate deer.  Give it a shot.

Food.

Breakfast: Blueberry shake, peppermint tea, power bar.
Lunch: Avocado salad.
Dinner: Two bowls of fruity pebbles and the last hunk of my Tillamook cheddar cheese.

As the state of Oregon would ask my students on their standardized tests, which of these is out of place?