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the start. My purpose in not eating out was much more lighthearted, for fun and to save up my money. But had I not gone on with it, I might have never been turned on to wild foraging, or discovered the incredible waste situation in this country. In small ways, my quest became somewhat political. Had I not become so familiar with food over those years, I probably wouldn’t be as attuned to where it was coming from, and how it was grown. I’ve become more mindful of what I’m eating as a result of the mission, whether it is responsibly or humanely grown, healthy, and local.

Seeing the rise in home and urban gardening in the past year or so, I know I missed a great opportunity in this book and project by not covering this very positive trend. In 2009, I briefly met Joan Gussow, who was presenting at a panel discussion after a screening of the documentary film Fresh. Joan is the pioneer of New York’s urban gardening and farming movement, who in the 1950s transformed her backyard into an organic vegetable patch that she produced almost all of her food from—and was seen as completely crazy for at the time. Today, thanks in part to President Obama and the First Lady’s organic vegetable garden, so many new people are growing plants that in 2009 there was a national seed shortage. It goes on; I have several friends now who raise chickens in their backyards, or keep bees. It’s not for hobby or experimentation, either—it’s utilitarian; they’re eating what they grow. And they’re saving lots of money and keeping healthy and environmentally aware in the process. I had at first written off the idea of doing any extensive gardening on my own during my not-eating-out years because I had no outdoor space (going to farmers’ markets, joining a CSA, or foraging instead). Now there are more community gardens in New York City than ever. Why it did not occur to me to join one, or simply explore people who did live off food they had grown or raised in the city and elsewhere before September 2008, when this book ends chronologically, I am not sure. But ever since then, urban gardening, farming, and agriculture in general have certainly become a food obsession for me. And there are many more writers avidly covering these topics, too.

Any other loose ends I may have lying around here? I had fun on my dinner date with the winner of the Chile Pepper Fiesta shortly after “opposite week,” but we found we didn’t have much in common (besides competing in chili cook-offs) and fell out of touch soon afterward. Afer that dim sum lunch, I would hang out with Keith many more times and still do—but just as friends. I still have yet to invite someone over for dinner as a first date (which I didn’t think would be too nerve-wracking until a friend brought up the point that it eliminates the question “Your place or mine?”). There hasn’t been another enactment of the SOS supper club to date, even though I and most of its founding members are still very much single. I still haven’t launched that food newsletter start-up with Saha, but in the planning process we created a mini-supper-club series with homemade vegetarian food and about eight carefully invited guests at a time.

In the winter of 2008 and 2009, Michael Cirino and the A Razor, A Shiny Knife supper-club crew executed a nine-part dinner series spanning three cities inspired by the notorious $1,500 a plate, twenty-four-course menu created by chefs Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz that same winter (our version cost only $300 a plate, however). I joined the team in New York and San Francisco to help pull off the feat. There are at least five new supper clubs that I’ve visited, met the members of, or cooked with since the writing of this book. Overwhelming numbers of amateur cook-offs have been held in front of shoulder-to-shoulder crowds in bars in New York City since, too, inspiring The New York Times to publish a story on the trend in its dining section in the summer of 2009, for which I was interviewed.

In the spring of 2009, Karol and I hosted our second annual Risotto Challenge. We made it a fund-raiser