Wednesday, February 10, 2010 by Hodding.

I forgot to sign out of my website yesterday afternoon and lo-and-behold, I was still active this morning!  Wonder what that will do?  Make my site appear more popular? Cost me more money?  Nothing?

I bring that up because I was just laughing with Lisa (see past posts; she’s my wife–the sane one in the family) about how a year ago, several readers asked me if they could follow me on Facebook and what my twitter account was.  “Uh, well, I guess you could be one of my friends,” I stumbled.  And then I mumbled that I was about to become a twitter member too–even though I had no earthly idea what twitter was. Or better yet, that you didn’t become a twitter member–or do you?  I’m still going to do that one of these days–that is, when I know I’ll be able t0 come up with something pithy and pertinent about being frugal every single day.

Ok, I’m writing in a panic today (I tend to do that) but I wanted to relate a shopping experience I had last year that could prove helpful for all of us.  I wrote about it in the “Comments” section of my column for gourmet.com: a post-Saint-Patrick’s-Day potatoes, carrots and corned-beef sale. That day I was rifling through the reduced-for-quick-sale rack at the end of our grocery store’s produce section when I spied a coupon for a great deal: a few days before St. Patrick’s Day, the store was selling 5 pounds of potatoes, 1 pound of carrots and 2.5 pounds of corned beef for $7.99.  Since corned-beef often costs that much all on its own, I was elated.  Until I remembered it was the day after St. Patrick’s.  Bummer.

Later, as I morosely worked my way through the rest of the store, I came upon the meat section.  Thank God. Yes, the sale was over but to my and my family’s stomachs’ delight, it’d been replaced by something better.  A half-off sale.  Since the heady rush of celebrating this dubious Irish holiday had already passed, the store had a lot of salty meat to unload.

We could get all three items for $3.99.

As far as I am concerned, the grocery-shopping Golden Produce Rule–numero uno, in other words–is to shop based on coupons and what’s on sale, not what you think you need.  That said, remembering the yearly potatoes, carrots and corned-beef sale that I happened upon last March has got me wondering:  Can the Golden Produce Rule be universally applied the day after every holiday?  Are there similar sales after every holiday that we can draw each other’s attention toward? Most importantly–and finally to the point–is there a post-Valentine’s-Day sale that is about to be dropped in our laps this coming Monday (and I’m talking about something beyond half-price for a 5-pound box of heart-shaped chocolates that are filled with some unnatural cream or jell that invariably end up back in the box, half-eaten because of their in-edibility factor)?

Well, is there?  Please write in.  If there is, I want to make the appropriate shopping plan.

For instance, having learned from last year’s St. Patrick’s surprise, I already have this year’s March 18th shopping plans in place. Since the half-price deal is only 1 per customer, our entire family will shop that day and each family member will buy his/her own St.-P-Day combo. Pretty good, huh? The only difficulty I foresee is coming up with enough different recipes using those same 3 ingredients. So far, I’ve only come up with a pie and a stew.  Pretty dull.

Maybe there’s some kind of dessert?

PS–I think I have a photo of the corned beef, carrots and potatoes around here somewhere that I took in the store, I was so excited.  I’ll post it if/when I find it.

Posted in frugal tips, Frugal Grocery Shopping, Frugal Cooking, Frugal dish, Frugal Meals | 12 Comments »

Friday, January 29, 2010 by Hodding.

I finally got that damned pot clean–well, almost.  There’s still some rough, tenacious residue but considering the enamel on those much-vaunted Le Creuset pots and pans isn’t as durable as their price warrants, I’ve given up.   In other words, about a decade ago, I ruined one of those $200 pots by believing the hype.  It’d been a wedding present from my first, failed marriage so in a way, it was only fitting that it failed so miserably.

I’ve decided to start posting again for three reasons: 1)I missed it and more importantly, I missed the connection to my readers.  You guys were so supportive and involved and helpful.Of course, I’ve probably lost all of you during the hiatus but at least for a while I’ll be able to pretend you’re still out there. 2) Taking a break from blogging did NOT get me farther along with my book.  In fact, I sort of went backwards, deleting much of what I’d already written and replacing it with 20,000 words that I then deleted yesterday. 3) It turns out this blog was keeping me honest–providing a center from which I had the confidence and drive to keep on frugalin’.  Yes, since I no longer had the pressure to come up with yet another creative way to save money, I lost my way: Counting restaurant and store-made pizza, we’ve eaten out SEVEN times since my last post.  We’ve gone to the movies three times–and even bought popcorn and candy at the theater!  And we’ve used credit cards to buy groceries and presents.

I failed you all.

However, if America is the land of one thing above all others–above the land of freedom, the home of democracy, capitalist aggression, and even the American Dream–it is the land of second chances (Admittedly, I’m not the first to recognize this trait.  In his 2004 State of the Union Address, President L.G. (Little George) Bush told us that this is the “land of the second chance.”  While I don’t often find myself seeing eye-to-eye with the former president, he’s the perfect living testament to this statement’s veracity.) Not only does our society provide ample opportunities for second chances, but this provision, this empowering kick-in-the-pants, is the essence of all the good that we offer ourselves and the world.  At least, that’s the way George and I see things.

So, I’ve done it before and I see no reason to do otherwise now; I am going to take her up on the offer and begin again.

We will eat out no more forever.*

To be perfectly honest, though, that’s not entirely true, having learned a thing or two from recent experiences.  It’s time to strike a balance between some of our more extreme behavior of the past 16 months and our old spendthrift, unsustainable ways.   We will eat out again but infrequently–and only if we pay in cash and stay within our monthly budget.  Before we made an about-face in life and slashed our spending to next to nothing, dining out had become a humdrum, every-other-day affair (on average, Americans eat out roughly 4 times a week, when you include outings like grabbing a slice of pizza or a coffee/muffin combo ), not surprising considering it was more knee-jerk fallback than a planned, special event.

The inescapable feelings of delight and excitement we experienced during those first two meals in a restaurant were a wonderful surprise.  The kids behaved beyond our wildest dreams, every bite was divine (even the chewy calamari–inexcusable since any good cook should know that as long as you keep the cooking time under three minutes or over twenty, you’ll always have tender squid), and we held actual conversations: If there were a Star Wars VII, would Princess Lea learn to use the Force and would she and Hans Solo get married?  And, if Luke had kids, would one fall to the Dark Side and the other the Good?  By restaurant excursion number-seven, however, all had reverted to experiences similar to when our Dark Side reigned: the food was boring, the girls picked on each other while Angus cried and refused to eat, Lisa left the table (and the restaurant) to take care of some work, and VISA wouldn’t accept the charges (I still cringe when I picture Anabel’s face turning red with shame; luckily I had a check).

I’m not surprised that we so easily slipped into our former behavior.  Christmas has always been our weak point and using the eating-out as an excuse to cut loose, Lisa and I gladly overdid things.   Then, shopping over the last few weeks for both Anabel and Eliza’s 14th birthday and Angus’s 7th, which fall at the end of January, we felt we had to match the fervor of Christmas.  Right?

Like I said, though: no more.  Herewith, we return to the ranks of the Frugalista Revolution.  Long live Penny Pinching!

The astute reader, I hope, will at this point ask the obvious question: why?  It’s not because we’re broke.  That’s old hat and something we’ve grown accustomed to.  And it’s not because we overcharged on that credit card I mentioned earlier.  Being such reliable, long-term borrowers, we have credit cards coming out our behinds.

The reasons, actually, are quite simple.  We felt better about ourselves, and what we were teaching our children, when we spent only within our budget.  We missed the purpose that living so carefully brought to our every-day-lives.  Although we’re used to being broke, we do need to keep chipping away at our debt or we’ll lose our home.  And, mainly–the real reason, in fact–is because our Generation iApple-Everything offspring wanted us to.

PS–Some of you didn’t realize that I intentionally misspelled a number of words in my last post in a lame attempt to poke fun at both myself and my cyberspace editors.   Therefore, I spell-checked today’s offering.

*What famous Native American warrior am I borrowing from?

Posted in Frugal Dining, George Bush, Second Chances, Frugal writing, Extreme Frugality | 23 Comments »

Wednesday, December 9, 2009 by Hodding.

I wrote the following before I wrote yesterday’s short update:

I apologize–again, I think.  No, not for the typo’s.  I sort fo like those (yes, that was intentional but not so witty).  No, I’m apologizing again for not writing.  Truthfully, I can’t write every week–duh!–and don’t want any of you to think I’ll be doing so.  I’m trying to get a book finished (it’s due in January–did I already use this excuse?) and feel guilty even when using the bathroom, let alone writing something that is NOT my contracted book.  The book, however, is about being frugal, specifically my family’s fledgling attempts at being more like the Waltons and less like the Jetsons, and will be filled with recipes, anecdotes, facts, excitement, love, sadness and more.  It’ll be better than a blog.  Promise!  So, this will probably be my last posting for a while.

Let me rephrase that, more firmly: I WILL NOT BLOG AGAIN UNTIL MY BOOK IS DONE–but please come back at the beginning of February, ok?

Meanwhile, here’s a tip:

Don’t ever, ever leave a pot of apple chunks on a lit stove unattended for hours at a time when attempting to make applesauce, even if you have it set on medium.  Or even 1 hour at a time.  Or maybe even 30 minutes.  I’m not sure.  All I do know is that I presently have not 1, not 2 but 3 (THREE) of our largest pots sitting around useless with a few inches of old soaking water in them–hoping that by some miracle the scorched, blackened apple-residue will miraculously disappear.  You’d think I would’ve learned from the first pot, right?  Well, I filled the second with about 50 or so apples, just like I’d done with the first, and then put in twice as much water as the first time, 2-3 cups this time, roughly. It still didn’t do the trick and to this very morning I’m trying to get the pot clean.  The same thing happened the third time but at least all three failures are ample evidence that I’ve been working hard on my manuscript.  You know, I was madly typing away between applesauce stirrings and all that.

Except I wasn’t.  Each time, I was doing one of those projects that always beckons to me at inappropriate times, like when I should be watching my pot of soon-to-be applesauce or typing away at my computer keyboard.  The first time I was cleaning out the muck in the hen house.  Yes, it’s supposed to be the kids’ job, but it was the day before Thanksgiving and friends were coming over, not for dinner but to take care of our “farm” while we were away.  I couldn’t very well let them see how we really keep things, could I?  The second time I was out getting the previously mentioned black gold.   I still can’t get over that stuff, by the way, and there’s plenty more.   And the third time I ruined a pot (one of those fancy French enameled things, even) I have no earthly idea what I was doing–maybe marveling at our winter-mix lettuce.

Yes, you read correctly and that’s no tyop–for once.  We have mesclun, baby romaine and other edible greens, and it’s December in Maine. The salvaged French doors did the trick.  It really was the coolest thing yesterday morning when I had to brush the snow off the glass and then open the hinged door and then pluck enough salad for our entire family.  Yes, I really did scream out loud.  Danced a little jig. Etc.  It’s so great when these thrifty things pay off–even when we’re not being as perfectly miserly as before.

I’m admitting to some unfrugal Christmas shopping.  We made all kinds of low-cost presents for friends and family-that-are-not-our-kids.  HodsMead Batch #3, spruced up with many apples tossed in when boiling the must, is superb, if I say so myself.  Lisa jarred about a dozen crab-apple jellies and just as many crab-apple butters.  Between those two items and others that are not coming to mind, we’ve got more gifts to give away than many of our non-frugal years combined.  I’ve also vowed only to buy Lisa 1 present (it’ll be cheap, promise)–the rest of her gifts are homemade.  When it came to the kids, however, we got them a few things we couldn’t even think about buying the last 18 months or so.  We didn’t go Paris-Hilton wild but we did spend a bit more than planned (we’ll make up for it in January).  And, of course, there’s no telling what Santa might do.

There are so many things that we’ve been doing this past month I wish I had time to write about.  My favorite was collecting apples with our Reverse Johnny Appleseed friends.  They’re sort of reverse because instead of going around planting apple seeds, they knock on neighbors’, strangers’ and friends’ doors asking if they can pick their unharvested apples.  I do this on occasion myself but never to the extent that these two do it.  The day I spent picking with them we filled (literally) the entire back 2/3 of their 1990’s wagon.  A few days later, Lisa and the kids helped wash, cut and press these apple and more into cider.  They gave away dozens of gallons and our family still came home with 25 for ourselves.  Luckily we have a huge frezer.  I was off at an all-day meeting but everyone had a blast.  We’re trying only to drink a gallon every other week.  So far, we’ve failed miserably and are averaging a gallon every 10 days.  Even so, at that rate we’ll be drinking pure, unadulterated cider well into the spring.  For Free–except for the cost of running the freezer!

That’s it for now.  Sorry it wasn’t much of an entry.

I will return.

Posted in Frugal writing, Homemade cider, Frugal presents | 9 Comments »

Tuesday, December 8, 2009 by Hodding.

I’m posting my last post later tonight.  Tonight’s post will explain why I can’t post anymore for a while but I wanted to post this post so none of you gave up on ever seeing a new post from me again–although tonight’s post, as I just mentioned, will be my last post–until I get my book completed, that is.  That was supposed to happen this month.  It didn’t.  So now it has to happen next month.  Anyway, enough about what I’m going to post.  I’ll post this and then post my last post (again, for a while, that is, not “forever”) when I get back from coaching swimming.  Post-haste, I hope.

Meanwhile know this: Chicken Marbella (yes, the Chicken Marbella recipe found on page 85 from those wonderfully unfrugal Silver-Palate ladies) is NOT a good recipe for 8-month-old free-range roosters.  I’ve proven to my satisfaction that dishes like Coq au Vin really were developed for those tough, strong young birds.

Now we know.

Posted in Extreme Frugality | No Comments »

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Hodding.

Thanks for the comments, my steadfast readers.  My site host has a program that shows me how many unique visits I get.  Surprisingly, even though I hadn’t written in 3 weeks (was it really that long?), nearly 500 people were checking in every day.  It says that those roughly 500 are different web-surfers than the 500 who checked in the day before.  I find that both flattering and difficult to believe.  I’m sure I’m reading the analysis incorrectly because it also appears to be saying that in the first week or so, nearly 8,000 different, “unique” visitors stopped by.  I MUST be misunderstanding the information.  If that many people were following along as my family groped its way toward financial maturity on the Gourmet website, I’m sure Conde Nast would have paid me much, much more for my weekly column.  Otherwise, it would seem they were taking advantage of my desperate situation, right?  (Ok, I’m only having fun at the media giant’s expense.  It compensated me just fine considering how little we were, and are, trying to live on–although I wouldn’t mind being able to pay off larger chunks of our debt.)

Thank you for not giving up on us.  I will continue to blog.  We–Lisa, the kids and I–will continue to mess up.  We will try to entertain you with our constant attempts to improve the way we live.  And we will not give up–so please don’t give up on this lazy but humble chronicler.  Ok?

To those who care, Kirsten was right.  I did write yesterday morning’s update rather quickly.  In less than 5 minutes, to be precise.  I just wasn’t expecting to write and then it suddenly came gushing out, uncontrollably.  I guess my subconscious had gotten used to those weekly therapy/blog sessions (and yes,  I do feel better today as a result: lighter). Of course, it’s debatable whether or not that slap-dash blog is any good, or any of my writing, for that matter.  Certainly some of you out there don’t think so.  In fact, I googled myself late last night and found a bathroom-stall scrawler, er, I mean blogger who lives out west who absolutely abhors me.  She, and most of the others who express hatred for me (yes, they actually use words like “hate” and then, when refering to me, “ninny” and “poser” and “idiot” and “liar”), seem to hate the idea of me (well, maybe not me me but instead the “me” who I’ve allowed various publicists to create and put words in that me’s mouth) as well as how Gourmet and my publisher, Algonquin, promoted me.  I sort of get the latter–who wants to hear from yet one more writer who is Living a Year without _________? You can fill in the blank with whatever you want, and the funny, or annoying, depending on your outlook, thing is, it’s probably been done in the past few years–except maybe “A Year without Showers.”  I haven’t read about anyone who’s gone an entire year without washing and written about it–unless what’s his name didn’t shower when he was living biblically.  Now that I think about it, if he did shower then he cheated, right (Just joking–I hear it’s a great book.)?  But I’d buy a book by somebody who gave up on personal hygiene for a year, as long as he/she did things to get themselves good and stinky and then went out in public repeatedly.  I’d also like to see a chapter on deodorants and anti-perspirants.  Who sold us on all that useless cover-up crap?  Who decided regular body odors needed masking?  I’m guessing Americans didn’t start rubbing these ridiculous things under our arms until after the early 1940s (turns out I was right, at least when it comes to antiperspirants: a clever little aluminum-based b.o.-killer called Stopette was awarded a patent in 1941; you can buy a $238 book on the subject by Karl Laden or check out this Wikipedia entry, knowing the facts aren’t verified: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deodorant.).  Before that, lo and behold, people went to the workplace and their co-workers somehow “endured” their odor–for centuries and more.  Once again, much like the necessity of using credit cards, we were sold a concept–the odorless human–and then we readily bought into it.  I hope most of you reading this realized long ago that you can live happy, productive, and worthwhile lives even without sprucing up with a stroke of Old Spice, or Secret, every morning–and that you can even be attractive to someone else when you smell like yourself.  What a concept, huh?

Anyway, back to my original subject: It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve tried to set the record straight this past 15 months–the misinformation is caught in cyberspace and haters seem to stumble upon it no matter what.  But, again, just for the hell of it, I’ll repeat: we’re living this way–scaled back, credit-cardless, bartering, improvising, manure-shoveling, egg-producing, etc.–not for a book but because we finally faced reality.  And we’re going to continue living this way, continually tweaking the parameters and methods, forever, for one simple reason: It’s a better life.

And yes, Bev, it is Eliot Coleman.  I wrote “Evan,” right?  Sorry Mr. Coleman, if you ever see this.  Your books are great and your methods ground-breaking, and I made a misidentified you only because I was in a mad rush to get back out to the most glorious pile of composted manure that has ever existed.

Well, I’ve written this just as quickly–not counting the nodding off–as yesterday’s offering, and it’s still not the blog I want to write–that one is all about making cider from free apples and then there’s another one that is about my most recent batch of MEAD!  I’ll write those, and soon, but I also want to get my book finished for Algonquin so I can figure out exactly what we’re doing.  See, I really only understand myself, those around me, and what I’m doing, when I write.  In fact, that is why I write.

Posted in writing, history of deodorants, Perfect manure, Life, Gardening | 15 Comments »

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 by Hodding.

I promise I am posting an entry later today… well, tonight most likely.  I have no excuses beyond the fact that swim season has begun.  I’m the head coach and now have 80 swimmers.  We only had 40 when I began coaching two years ago.

I’ve also been overwhelmed with fall-type mini-farm chores.  It’s amazing how long it takes to distribute 3 (8 X 5 X 3) trailer-loads of composted horse manure.  Yes, you read it correctly.  Lisa and I did strike the motherlode of perfect, ready-for-planting horse poop!  A few weeks ago I casually mentioned (be careful what you casually mention, considering my very tired back) to our family doctor that I was looking for a greenhouse.  I’m not sure why I told him.  he live sin town and certainly doesn’t have the time for hobby-planting.  Well, his eyes lit up, his face said, “Ah, a sucker at last!” and he gushed, “Yes, Hodding, I do.  We have a greenhouse!”

He quickly got  controlled himself, though, and continued in a carefully controlled manner: “Uh-hhhmmmm. My wife and I just might have what you are looking for.  I’ll have to check with her to make sure she really doesn’t want it anymore.  I’ll call you later in the week.”

Ok, ok.  He didn’t really get a hold of himself.  Instead, he made it very clear that he would do just about anything if I were to take it off his hands and even admitted that it was a bit beat up.  I told him I didn’t care.  It’d be a starter greenhouse and how could I be choosy?  He was giving it to us.

Sensing this was “my moment” I went fro broke and asked him for the other item we’re desperate for: “You don’t happen to know anyone who has some extra horse manure, do you?”

And that’s when he almost fainted.

“Well, let me see how I should put this, Jesus, my savior (ok, he didn’t say that but I could tell he was thinking it).  I should contain my utter glee at the thought that somebody wants to come over and remove even a smidgen of this accumulated waste but I can’t.  So, in short, yes, Hodding, I do have manure.  Way too much manure and you can take as much as you’d like.”

It turned out that the greenhouse has seen better days but I think I can get it up and nurturing again.  If not, I can use the metal pipes to make a roof for our various broken-down very small boats so they can be safely stored for the winter.  Thank Man for global warming! Tt’s been the warmest November in Maine that I’ve ever experienced and I’ve had extra weeks to winterize everything.

Back to my story: The greenhouse may or may not get us growing things this February but teh manure.  I’ve never seen such perfect, aged manure my entire life.  Admittedly, I’ve never been on the lookout for quality, aged manure until now but even so, even subconsciously, I’ve never seen such perfect, fluffy aerated garden-candy (should I trademark nickname?  Lisa?).  As I waded past the mounds of fresh, greenish briquets of horse manure to stab what looked like a mound of topsoil, I furtively glanced around to make sure nobody else was witness to my discovery.  When my shovel entered the mound like it was stabbing a hill of popcorn I actually squealed with delight.  This was it!  The gift from heaven that I’d been hoping for.  With this mother-nature-processed poop, our gardens are going to make leaps and bounds into a totally different, higher class of gardens.  I wanted to shout for joy–and did, of course–but then I got back to loading up the trailer.  Boy, if there’s one thing a lifetime of writing has prepared me for it’s shoveling shit.  I scooped the poop for two hours straight (and am going back for more as soon as I’m done writing this.  I don’t think I could ever get tired of doing it.).

With this poop, Lisa and I will enter the realm of–dare, I say it? yes, yes, I do.  this manure is simply too superior not to crow a bit.  With this poop, Lisa and I will rival Evan Coleman, the current reigning king of all that human’s grow.

Yeah, okay.  I just went too far but I’m so excited.  I can’t wait to post pictures of what we grow next spring and summer with this stuff.

Now if I could only get that greenhouse back together…

Postscript:  Like I said at the top, I promise I’ll make an entry later tonight.

Posted in Frugal winterizing, Perfect manure, Extreme Frugality, Gardening, Hens | 9 Comments »

Thursday, October 22, 2009 by Hodding.

I don’t know about the rest of you but I just realized we already have a hefty amount of free advice and wonderful stories at this site–and not from me.  You are leaving such thoughtful and helpful comments.  A friend–OK, it was Mike Ross, the guy who helped shape my site this past few weeks, commented that there’s so much good stuff here.  I said, yeah, yeah, just thinking he was being a surfing-for-frugality neophyte BUT THEN I  READ ALL OF YOUR COMMENTS!  I hope the rest of you take the time to read them too.  I like so many of these helpful tidbits but am especially psyched about clf’s advice and information on canning without all the extra boiling.   And then there was the post correcting me about fougasse and explaining how to make it properly (still haven’t broken out the cracklings but looking forward to it).

All I’m trying to say here is: let’s keep the information and ideas flowing.  This is a good thing.  A great thing, even.  Thank you.

It turns out there are thousands of you checking in on a regular basis so my guess is there’s still a great need to share stories about coping with less.  Equally pertinent, despite the fabulous, newfound wealth of the very banks that helped get many of us into our current mess, we’re still in a recession.  Friends and neighbors are losing jobs.   Most of our elected officials are not getting the big picture: We need to change.  Live more consciously.  We need to make sure this past year’s flirtation with frugality wasn’t merely a fad.  It’s time to refocus our energy–spend less time reaching for the Almighty Plastic and more time reaching for tiny, long-forgotten crab apples so we can make our own food.  So we can spend more time with our families.  So we can feel good.  Whole.

Well, I’m not too sure what just got into me but I do want to brag in closing.  My Uncle Philip just had his 70th birthday and we decided to give him a few of the things we’d been making at home.  These are items and foods that we worked long and hard to produce but had so much fun in the doing–way more fun than I’ve ever had buying something.  The picture accompanying this entry is of his birthday basket which is holding homemade jelly, applesauce, mead, bread, leeks, eggs, turnips, squash and sweat.

Posted in fougasse, Frugal presents, Making jelly, Hens | 16 Comments »

Sunday, October 18, 2009 by Hodding.

 I wasn’t really feeling like I had anything to write about until a friend of mine (Peter Nichols, in town promoting his new book, Final Voyage: A Story of Arctic Disaster and One Fateful Whaling Season, an engaging history of our original oil business–whale oil, that is–and the storm that killed it) grabbed the last cheese stick I’d made our kids yesterday morning, explaining between bites:  “You made these?  I eat them every day for lunch in Paris along with a bit of cheese.  They cost me one Euro!  Mmmm.”

Yes, I wanted to kill him for dropping the “P” word and especially for acting as if living there is a hardship.  He’s teaching two weekly writing classes, one for screenplays and the other for fiction.  It sounds so 1920’s–except for the screenplay stuff.  At least he’s only making enough to cover his rent.  He’ll be starving in no time, I hope.

But back to those “cheese sticks.”  I think they might be called fougasse* in French but maybe fougasse are crisp and more like a crunchy Italian breadstick?  Either way, his eating more than his share while not-so-subtly bragging about Paris made me realize I definitely wanted to toss out this idea and recipe (hope I didn’t do so while writing for Gourmet?).

It’s nothing tricky and in fact, that’s why I make them–a last minute, “oh, chicken poop (yes, I step in it every day and use the word poop along with an occasional shit even though Lisa says my saying poop sounds childish)” I’ve-got-to-fill-the-kids-up-with-something fallback.

So, pretend like it’s Friday morning.  The alarm has failed to wake me at 5:30 am and it’s now 6:15.  I clean yesterday’s coffee filter which has been used only six times, turn the over to 375, make the coffee and then throw together our version of the internet-sensation, no-knead bread dough (3 1/2 cups bread flour, 1 1/2 cups water from our well (no chemicals!), 2 1/2 teaspoons salt, and since it’s last minute stuff, 2 teaspoons yeast.

It’s now 6:30 and while it’s being stirred together in the mixer, I grate whatever cheese we have handy but preferably some low-rent parmesan or asiago.  When the dough is ready, I grab a sticky handful and somehow get it to roll into a log shape by doing this on top of a 2-3 tablespoons of the grated cheese.  The cheese covers the stickiness making the dough pliable–or at least able to be shaped into the foot-long pieces we like.  One no-knead recipe makes about a dozen of these cheese breadsticks.

The oven is usually ready by this point (6:40 to 6:50, depending on whether or not the coffee has taken effect and how many arguments Lisa and I have had with the kids and each other–the latter almost always occurring only because of the former) and then they bake until 7:00-7:10, about 20 minutes.

After taking them out of the oven in a mad rush, I toss them at the girls (Angus gets to eat his at the table since his bus comes later) as we’re pushing these surly she-devils that used to be our little angels out the house.

So, if you too have a house full of fledgling teens, give these cheese sticks a try. They don’t always make the kids nicer but they do taste good.

*Postscript: A wonderful person (see first comment under this posting) just wrote in explaining what a real fougasse is.  So, clearly, what I’m making is not fougasse but I hope some of you will try anyway.  Her fougasse sounds divine, however.  She had me at  “anchovies, pork/duck cracklings” by the way.  We’ll just stick to calling the things we make cheese sticks.

Posted in breadsticks, Frugal dish, Peter Nichols, fougasse, Frugal Meals, cheese sticks, Outwitting Children | 13 Comments »

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Hodding.

I’m afraid this is going to be a bit rambling.  I started out last week all excited.  Lisa and I madly created this site and I wrote my first blog until 1 am Tuesday–putting aside everything else on hearing of Gourmet’s demise.  I was swept up in the euphoria one gets from doing something new, but as the week progressed I grew ever more morose and decidedly less euphoric:  I was out of a job.  In fact, I was out of the only real job I’d had all year.  Writing about being frugal–and getting paid for it–had been a lifeline and a focal point.  No more.  (Making matters worse was the fact that two software/website-designing friends, Mike Ross and Carl Trapani, took hours out of their non-spare time to help make the site look better.  Mike, in fact, loaded all my old columns/blogs from the old Gourmet site, even.)

Yes, we were being frugal because we had to be.  And I was writing about being frugal because I often/almost always write about the big undertakings in my life.  And, deciding to stop eating out and doing things like reusing a coffee filter 42 (43?) times and eating roadkill and raising chickens and going twenty-something days without spending any money (beyond paying old bills) is definitely a big undertaking.  But now what?  If I’m not getting paid for this and don’t feel right about trying to turn this into a commercial blog/website because I’d rather contribute to your frugality then what am I left with?

Being frugal.

That’s why I found myself bending 18-foot tall crab apple trees to eye-level so Lisa could snatch off as many crab apples as possible in the limited amount of time I could hold the trees down.  No, we’re not so desperate that we’re feeding the kids  crab apples but instead, we’re making jelly and canning it for our own consumption and to give away as presents.  Bending the trees down, therefore, was filling two needs at once: being frugal and keeping physically toned.  In fact, given how hard it was to hold them down after a minute or so, I’d recommend the exercise to anyone whose triceps need a little firming up.

It’s amazing how good crab apple jelly is.  I hadn’t bothered tasting it since I was a kid because I’d always been more than happy to shell out for store-made or farm-made jam, jelly and preserves.  There’d been no need.  What a shame.  It’s so good even my non-preserve-eating teenage girls like it.

Lisa found about six, conflicting recipes from various sources, including, among other places, the back of the box the jars came in, online, and the old Joy of Cooking (we couldn’t find canning in the new one but I bet if they were to release an all new version now like they did in 1997 [yes, it’s been that long] they’d include it; our local hardware store said they’d hadn’t sold anywhere near this year’s amount of canning supplies in many, many years).  Some recipes said you didn’t need to sterilize the jars, others suggested 20 minutes and yet others demanded 15 minutes before filling and 10 more after to seal them properly.  So, after trial and error and doing enough research to understand what each step was for, she went with sterilizing the jars for 10 minutes, washing the lids and not dipping them in the boiling water so as not to harm the rubbery seal, and then finishing them off in a boiling water bath for 10 more minutes–or long enough to have a vacuum seal.  You can tell if they’re properly sealed, we now understand, by pushing on the lid with your finger.  If you can’t depress it, then it’s probably properly sealed.  That’s just for making jelly.  It’s different for jams and preserves.  Of course.

Making the jelly was the easy part.  She boiled the crab apples (8 cups with enough water to cover the apples), for 10 minutes and then strained the juice through cheesecloth, being careful not to mush it or it will be cloudy.  Next, she brought this juice, about 4 cups, to a boil, added 3 cups sugar and reheated it to between 222 and 225 degrees over a medium high heat.  You can just stop at this point, like we did, but then you’ll have some jelled jelly and some liquid jelly, which, I guess, isn’t really jelly.  If you simmer it at this heat for a while longer, say 5-10 minutes for 4 cups of crab apple pre-jelly liquid, then nearly all of it ends up being jelly when cooled.  It also gets darker and tastier the longer you’re willing to cook it.  The cool/frugal thing about making crab apple jelly is that you don’t need to add pectin to thicken it.  In fact, some people make their own pectin from crab apples to use in other preserves.

I still can’t get over how tasty it is.  Here… smell.  Taste.  Good, huh?  And Lisa’s jelly looks so wonderful because she simmered it much longer than she had to, making it darker red and stronger tasting than it might otherwise have been.

Of course, it’d be a whole lot better if other members of our family besides Angus and me used jelly, jam, etc.,  but it’ll make beautiful presents in the short, wide jars Lisa recently found on sale.  Which brings me to the point of this blog (finally, some might say): one of the great things about being frugal is all the wonderful, low-cost, hand-crafted presents you come up with.

And here’s a boast for the ages:

Frugal people make great lovers (if you define a lover as someone who gives thoughtful, homemade presents to his/her friends, that is).

Posted in Frugal presents, Making jelly | 18 Comments »

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 by Hodding.

I can’t post the blog I wrote this morning because I want to load a photo with it and I can’t take the photo until my rechargeable batteries are ready.  Sorry.  But, I can take this moment to thank all of you for checking in and seeing what we have to offer this past week.  I also appreciate all the comments–encouraging and critical alike.

Anyway, the batteries should be ready in a couple of hours and I’ll upload everything then.  But don’t get your hopes up–although we did make something really cheap and yummy.

Posted in Extreme Frugality | 6 Comments »