$3 a day

Yesterday was Fasnacht Day. I have many fond memories of coming home from school to donuts coming out of the fryer from when I was growing up. I didn’t have time to make donuts this year since I was busy studying for a test.

Today marks the beginning of Lent. Last year I ate one meal a day of plain rice to try to identify with Cambodians around me who had little other food available to them. This year I will be spending $3 a day for food during Lent. As an MCCer, my food budget was $3 a day; in Prey Veng $3 bought lots and lots of vegetables. I love vegetables so I was quite happy. However, in America vegetables are expensive, and since it’s the middle of winter, there’s not an abundance of fresh food. Lately I’ve been noticing what people eat…and it’s not real food. It’s fake packages of crap, but this is what is affordable for low income families. So, for Lent I will be living off $3 a day to try to identify with a part of my society and to learn first-hand how to eat on a very limited budget. MCC has a flat allowance of $3 a day for food no matter which country you are a service worker in; I often wondered if this was possible to do in the States without being a farmer.

Here’s the guidelines I set up for myself.
- $3 a day ($21 a week) for all food and beverages eaten at home and out
- Any food that is in my cupboard at the house is fair game (I haven’t gone grocery shopping in the past 2 weeks so it’s starting to get bare. Also, the small stash of home canned food from my grandparents’ garden is fair game)
- I will continue to eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day
- I cannot go dumpster diving or mooch food off others
- I must purchase my food within the Philadelphia City limits (no running off to the country to buy cheap eggs)
- I must maintain my current weight

So here’s to the next 40 days of eating well in Philadelphia on $3 a day!

snow day

Drexel closed today due to "severe winter conditions." As I look out my window and see white flakes continuing to fall, I belive they made the right decision. My other two classes this week were cancelled as well so I have the whole week off. This morning, after pancakes and black raspberry topping with the housemates, I've had some time to catch up on some 'online reading' for lack of a better phrase. It also helps that our internet was fixed yesterday! Here's several I found interesting or caused me to laugh...

young adults and church

an ode to valentine's day

cholera in pv

the onion

And since a snowy day required something yummy simmering, this soup is pretty tasty. I added pasta instead of barley.

The city is so quiet when it snows...it's like it transforms into a different world, almost like an urban Narnia. It's breathtaking...

best class ever!

I'm currently taking World Nutrition, and I've decided it's the best class ever. During the week we watch online presentations about different regions of the world then have discussions via blackboard. Every Thursday evening when the class meets, we cook food from the corresponding countries. What could be better than learning about new cultures, cooking food from them and getting graduate credit for it? Each student is assigned a country and leads class once during the term. I got Cambodia :) Trish got Vietnam and the Phillipines so we worked together.

This week has been crazy. I had a macronutrients midterm Tuesday, a huge stats project due Wednesday (TA labs went late) and Southeast Asia was the topic for world nutrition Thursday. The midterm was rough, the assignment tedious, but WN went so smoothly. Many of my classmates asked good questions, and I was thankful for a space to talk about Cambodia with them.

We started the class with a brief introduction about dress (I wore my ao-dai and Trish wore a sombot), meal etiquette (spitting out bones), common foods (prahok anyone?) and nutritional counseling for a diabetic patient (less rice and added sugars).

We were required to make 6 dishes: fresh spring rolls with dipping sauce, Vietnamese sour soup, stir fried pumpkin and chicken, stir fried vegetables with tofu, jasmine rice and iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk. We bought fresh fruit for dessert: mangoes, guava, pineapple and durian. Yes, we paid $9 for a durian at an amazing Vietnamese grocery store in south Philly. Trish was fascinated by the spiky fruit and we had money in our budget for it. Best of all, my classmates tried it and some even said it wasn't that bad. It was a pretty good durian too; I was concerned because Charles always said durians in the States were bad. Apparently we got a good one. Aside from the durian, all of the food was highly complemented. The iced coffee and pumpkin were definite favorites.

It has been a crazy week, but last night was worth it.