Totally redeemed myself for disaster breakfast. All in a day's work.

I don't know why poor people go vegetarian or eat such crap food.

Dinner tonight for 2 people:  $4.35

$3.00 = Delicious, tender, fall-of-the-bone pork ribs for 2 people ($9/3 since we only ate a third of it; also used slow cooker on high for 5 hours because they were still kind of frozen)

$0.50 = Half a bottle of Kraft Chick'n Rib BBQ sauce used to marinate ribs

$0.10 = Russet potatoes with butter ($0.88/20)

$0.75 = half broccoli bunch

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I say suck it, Swiss Chalet, because that same meal would have cost me something like $15 + tax + tip.

I get really annoyed when "baked potato" is a side option at restaurants.  I'll take the fries because at least I know more labour went into making that than wrapping the potato in foil and flinging it the oven, only for me to dress it up by myself.  I also get annoyed with restaurants that serve ordinary, every day pasta.  It's like art: if I can do it myself, I'm not impressed.  

 

I was going to put a list of really cheap foods that fill you up here, but really, it only boiled down to how I get SUPER ANNOYED at seeing TV shows about obese people in trailer parks.  I just don't understand it.  If you're that big, and eating that much food, then I think you've got way too much disposable income to live in a trailer.  

If you don't have a job, first thing you cut is car and TV cable. So you should spent a lot of time outdoors and walking to wherever you want to go. 

If there's very little space in the trailer, you'd probably have to do a daily grocery run to replenish your supplies.  Even if you drove there, you'd have to at least walk in the grocery store!

You'd probably also want to make your clothing last longer, so if you knew that you could fit two of you into a shirt and make that shirt into two, or use that obese shirt as a towel, that's sort of motivation to lose weight there.

And if you don't have a job, and have bills to pay, then you're probably pretty stressed out, and then the combination of drinking, nervous fidgeting, chain smoking and stress would make you lose weight.  Right?

Yeah ... I just don't get it.  Maybe obese people are just shipped in for those particular episodes.  Unless you say, "You've literally eaten us out of house and home."  Hmm ...

I get all this because I watched one episode of Wife Swap. It just happened to be on ABC when I'd finished watching something on the PVR, and it was like a mesmerizing train wreck.  I couldn't look away.  This obese woman lived with her family in a trailer park with her husband and two sons.  She swapped with this perky family of entrepreneurs where the mom was really into self-affirmations and positive thinking.  The whole family was into salads and exercise, and lived in quite a large house.  So in one challenge, the moms had to prepare the other mom's recipe for a typical dinner.  Obese Mom had a recipe using a whole stick of butter and some pretty super fatty stuff.  And for that segment, I just thought, "Hunh.  Butter's kind of expensive when you use that kind of quantity all the time."

OH ... I almost forgot to tell you that Butternut Squash Latkes Attempt #3 went alright.  Made smaller patties, squashed them down in a smaller frying pan, and letting them set in the fridge helps to maintain the shape until cooking.

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In case you're reading this as a separate page and got separated from the post two minutes afterwards:

I should clarify here that when you read the previous post, it is NOT that I have a dislike of big/overweight people in general. 

But food-related obesity in people other than chefs FREAKS ME OUT.  

With chefs, you can't always trust a skinny one.  With medically-related obesity, patients can't help that.  With food-related obesity, I just want to tell people to walk the fucking 10 minutes to work instead of driving for 1 minute.  Seen it, true story.


(I actually am trying to prevent obesity in this household.  My workout today was substituted with cleaning.  It made me sweat, and I called it a day.)