The Art of Eating In - Cathy Erway [164]
Pull the pork shoulder into ½-inch-thick or so shreds. Add the pulled pork to the rest of the chili mixture. Stir until thoroughly distributed. Continue cooking, reducing to a thicker consistency if necessary or seasoning to taste. Add the diced sweet peppers or sprinkle on as garnish.
Epilogue
So, what did I gain from my week of only eating out? Well, to start, I’ll compare my spending for the two back-to-back weeks. During normal week, I went grocery shopping twice and spent a total of $19.54. I also bought snacks during the day, usually at work to stave off hunger (or boredom), which I’ve already added to that total. Then there were items that I consumed that weren’t purchased in that week, like eggs, butter, flour, and a package of dried cranberries I’d polished off one night in front of the TV With these in mind, I think it’s a fair if somewhat generous estimate to put my food spending at $25 for that week.
Over the course of opposite week, I saved receipts whenever I could. So with my brunch at Stone Park Cafe, snacks in Flushing, Queens, kimchee noodles and dinner at Char No. 4 the next day, sushi lunch and Caribbean dinner on Tuesday plus an iced coffee along the way, the Pax Wholesome Foods lunch, bagel breakfast, pea soup lunch, a previously unmentioned snack of watermelon cubes from a deli, Doughnut Plant doughnut, Chinese takeout lunch, and slice of pizza, the grand total of my food spending was $116.51. This total does not reflect the Szechuan dinner in Flushing that my parents paid for. It also doesn’t account for the expensive dinner at Walter Foods that my date paid for, or the Momofuku Noodle Bar dinner that my date, again, paid for. Finally, opposite week was really only six days instead of seven, since I didn’t eat out that whole Saturday of the Chile Pepper Fiesta and Jordan’s party. So the grand total was one day and three restaurant meals short.
I guess it’s not so uncommon to get treated for three meals in a week for those who typically go out to eat. This skewed the final tally for my opposite week significantly, though, and I hadn’t been expecting it. I’m not complaining, however. I imagine that if I had paid for my own meal, I would have spent about $15 for the family meal at the Szechuan restaurant in Flushing. Splitting the check at Walter Foods plus tip would have set me back at least $60, as a lowball estimate. And the food I’d split with Michael at Momofuku Noodle Bar plus tip probably would have cost about $30. So, adding these sums to $116.51, a more accurate estimate of what I would have spent if I’d paid my own way that week would be $221.51.
Now, in contrast, what if I, instead of my friends or parents, had been the one treating for one or two of these occasions? What if I were a guy who took dates out to dinner maybe three times a week, and wanted to foot the bill each time—you can imagine how skewed my total would be then!
I got on the scale again at the end of opposite week, too. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a slight gain. My taste buds at least were unaccustomed to encountering so many rich foods in one week, especially that doughnut. I could imagine that they did their damage on the rest of the body. But God bless the mysteries of metabolism—when I stood on the scale one week of eating out later, not a fraction of a decimal had budged from my beginning weight. The number was the exact same one the dial had read on that street corner in Flushing a week before. I’ll keep that number to myself, though. It’s a sensitive topic that no woman likes to share, her weight. For me, it’s a little awkward because I tend to weigh what a healthy middle schooler might, even though I consume many more calories than I deserve for it. It must be in my genes; my mother’s weight has remained static and she stays slim regardless of her rapacious appetite, and some of her clothes from when she was my age are much too small for me now.
But these facts aside, during