Frugal Food: What Would an Italian Peasant Do?

Thanks for your patience, Dear Readers. I am not quite "up to snuff," as my beloved dissertation director used to say, but I'll give this a try.

One reason I didn't want to write anything yesterday was because I was saving my strength for the 12 hour day I knew was ahead of me. In addition to my classes, I had to put in appearances at various events with a visiting writer: lectures, lunch, readings, presentations, ending with a pot luck at the home of my Department Head (to be known as DH in future mentions for reasons obvious to anyone who knows him).

As it turned out, the day was a delight. The writer, Richard Ford, was charming, and spent a lot of time with students, gracefully answering questions he must have been asked a million times (Did you feel you had to leave the South? Are your stories based on your life? What are your sources of inspiration?). The reading of the story Optimists was quite moving, and left me teary-eyed.

And, as for the pot luck dinner: we brought braised greens from our garden. Served room temperature with olive oil and lemon. This turned out to be a good choice because no one else brought veggies, aside from a salad left over from the lunch, and one of those vegetable trays with dip that you pick up at the grocery.

Of course, we were also motivated by the fact that we still have tons of greens in the garden and will have to pull them up soon. Plus we wanted to make something ahead that could be transported to school, hang out in the fridge for 12 hours, and be served without any further prep.

We have been eating greens without cease for the last few weeks. Except for one bunch of broccoli that I purchased in a moment of weakness, I have bought no other vegetable. Even with giving away bags of greens and offering some to various dog walkers who stroll by, we may still have to mulch some.

Some people are shocked by the fact that my vegetables have been lacking in variety. Tonight, after a rich dinner last night, we had potatoes with caramelized onions and--yes--greens! I am comforted by a vision from Under the Tuscan Sun. I must say that I absolutely detested that book, which seemed to me more about self-indulgence and shopping than anything else. But I seem to recall an encounter between the author and an old woman picking wild greens on the author's property. The old woman is my role model here. She probably ate greens every day too.

When I was engaged in a previous frugal enterprise that came to naught (reviewing the thrift stores of New Orleans--Katrina put an end to that project), I read a book that my then-partner suggested. It was about dressing from consignment shops. The author warned against the common problem of acquiring too much stuff because it was so cheap. She urged her readers to dress like a French person. The gist was that French women don't try to look different every day, they try to look good every day. Americans, as most of us know, have the opposite philosophy.

So I say, we don't have to eat different vegetables every day. We just have to eat good vegetables every day! Eat like an Italian peasant.

Any thoughts, Dear Readers?

I'm Sick, Dear Readers

No biggie. Just a terrible cold. Be patient. I'll be back.

Remember Me: Not on Frugality

Most days I can't wait to see what frugal thoughts cross my mind. I have so much fun with this blog. But today I want to write on a melancholy topic: grief, memory, mortality. I had intended to write a few posts on my frugal Dad, who died about four months ago. I think I wrote only two.

The other day I recited for my class Emily Dickinson's great poem "After great pain." I had had my students memorize a few lines of poetry, so I did my poem to be fair. I hadn't actually prepared this, I told them; rather, I had read the poem a lot in my college days (more than 30 years ago), probably because of a minor heartbreak. I recited the poem with only a few mistakes. I prefaced the amazing last stanza by saying that Dickinson had an incredible understanding of human suffering. When I had finished (to great acclaim!), several students came up to me to tell me about personal things: one had a baby die at four months, another had a friend die from a heroin overdose, and so on. Usually, teachers extol the virtues of literary study by saying that literature helps us understand the world. But it occurs to me that literary works perhaps simply show us that someone else understands us.

Here is Dickinson's last stanza:

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.


Here are other passages that have flooded my mind of late:

From Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia or Urne Buriall:

Oblivion is not to be hired: The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the Register of God, not in the register of man. Twenty-seven Names make up the first story before the flood, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living Century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the Æquinox? Every hour adds unto that current Arithmetique which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina of life, and even Pagans could doubt, whether thus to live, were to dye. Since our longest sunne sets at right descensions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot belong before we lie down in darknesse, and have our light in ashes.

From Milton's Paradise Lost (note: this is spoken by a devil--Belial--in Hell. He is not a good guy!):


To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated Night,
Devoid of sense and motion?

And, of course, the words of the Ghost of Hamlet's father to Hamlet: "Remember me."

But to all that have made it this far, it is a beautiful day here. Let us listen to Wordsworth:

OH there is blessing in this gentle breeze,
A visitant that while it fans my cheek
Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come
To none more grateful than to me

Too Frugal?: A Journey to the Dark Side

Is it possible to be too frugal? I recently quoted Amy D, or rather paraphrased her, since her books do not have the best indexing system. She opined that asking if one can be too frugal is like asking if one can be too happy.

But a comment from sallymandy, proprietress of one of the most thoughtful and beautifully written blogs out there, presented a somewhat different view:

But I do think one can be "too frugal."

Amy D used to be the heroine of my life, but eventually I felt I was living and looking like a bag lady because everything came from a yard sale.

I think it's all about balancing values. While I certainly value frugality, I also value aesthetics, and some things that money CAN buy.

Because of my personality, "frugality" can easily become a way to beat myself over the head with an attitude of "you don't deserve anything good in your life." I can become a harsh taskmaster.

Lately it's been helpful to "invest" small amounts on beauty to counteract the effect of the recession on our family (my husband's job was dependent on the stock market and is now gone completely). Three dollars on some flowers make me way happier doing the work I have to do for money. Things like that.


So, a journey to the dark side. Indeed, I agree that Amy may have been too frugal, her pathological tendencies exceeding even mine. I once read an article where she explained that $0.25 was her top price for a yard sale shirt. I imagined various scenarios in which Amy encountered a Chanel shirt at a yard sale marked $0.35. NO. Ditto for a beautiful embroidered masterpiece. NO. Amy was a boundary setter and, unlike me, she stayed within her self-prescribed territory. I think that, in addition to being a parent to 6 kids, Amy's mission was to show that extreme frugality was possible: in a sense, she sacrificed herself for the greater good. She was her own artwork. And I am sure she was happy.

But there is a potential for anorexia in this self-denial. I bought the book How to Get Out of Debt, Stay out of Debt, and Live Prosperously at (surprise!) a thrift shop because I thought it would enable me to give even better advice to my many un-frugal friends. Well! Much to my surprise, Miss Know-It-All (me) found herself in the book.

At thirty-five, Peggy wasn't carrying a large debt . . .But she'd been in debt most of her adult life. she was living in a tidy studio apartment. Her possessions were shabby. She bought most of her clothes second-hand. Yet she had a master's degree in English and had taught at a university in her early twenties while she studied for a doctorate. She was an intelligent woman, but she had little belief in herself and no sense of self-worth. She left the university and drifted from job to job in a downward spiral . .


This is what I would have become if I hadn't finished my dissertation, gotten a job, and met and married Mr. FS. Note that only the first one was entirely within my control. So my horror at this picture of my "double" is very like the sentiments voiced above by sallymandy. Check out the blue kimono blog on my list to the right for more of sallymandy's fabulous writing (not all dark!).

OK, time to leave the dark side and return to a cheery, can-do attitude. Dear Readers, how do you keep yourself from succumbing to too-frugal tendencies?

Gratitude: OR I'm Famous

So I noticed a slight uptick in my readership yesterday.

Then, reading Roomfarm, one of my fave blogs, I learned that she had a HUGE uptick owing to a mention in MSN Money! Lo and behold, I was mentioned too! Here.

According to Chance of Roomfarm, her sudden fame was a result of a referral by another fave blogger, Funny About Money:

Upon investigation it turns out that very lovely Funny About Money told Karen Datko about my blog, and she featured it on the MSN Smart Spending blog. Her post was complimentary and made me actually blush, and then I spent the rest of the day being ridiculously pleased and calling everyone I knew to tell them about it. It's still going on - today by 3:30 EST I had 264 visits.

Thanks to Karen Datko of MSN Smart Spending Blog. Could Funny have mentioned me too? Thanks to her, no matter what, because her blog inspired me to start my own. Thanks to Chance, for providing the key to the mystery. Thanks to any new readers for stopping by.

Interestingly, Chance got a lot more readers from the mention than I did, perhaps because her post was on lagniappe, the Louisiana term that means "something extra." I am from Louisiana and I am here to say that the term is used ALL the time around here.

My post was a little whine about thrift store prices. It looks like gratitude outsells whining. That's as it should be.

So I will resist the temptation to make a comment about the AIG whine of the week that was in the New York Times yesterday. Sorry, no links to whining!

So, gratitude that Spring is here, the azaleas look great, we're still eating garden greens, I have lots of reading material in the house, I'm getting through a big pile of papers, Luzianne coffee was on sale allowing me to stock up, a former colleague brought me a dozen yard eggs, soon spring break will be here, soon Jazz Fest will be here,soon summer break will be here. Oh yeah, I thought my classes went well yesterday. I read an undergraduate paper so good my heart almost burst. I recited a poem in class that I memorized more than 30 years ago and, even though I needed a few prompts, my students burst into applause! Finally, since I have to get back to grading, I am grateful that my son made homemade lasagne noodles a few days ago and gave us some of the excess. We will be having lasagne tonight.

Oversaving: Yet another annoying article on how we should spend

The title says it all: another annoying article. This one, from the New York Times, admonishes oversavers: spend a little on indulgences to be "happy." Ants look too much to the future and so oversave. Here's the admonishment.

During the current recession, hyperopic Ants are presumably having a harder time than ever parting with their own cash, no matter how often President Obama and his economists urge them to do some stimulative shopping. But would these Ants — and the economy — be better off if they relaxed a little? (You can provide an answer at TierneyLab, nytimes.com/tierneylab. ) I asked Dr. Kivetz for his advice to shoppers.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he said. “Obviously you need to be responsible and conserve your savings. But it’s been a depressing winter, and there’s nothing wrong with indulging yourself a little. This is a chance to reassess the quality and the balance of your life and to think how you’ll feel in the future. As long as you can afford it, it’s not a bad thing to be enjoying yourself.”

The key word above is "presumably." Much of the essay is filled with "research" from "scientists." But the key assumption is based in the word "presumably." "Presumably" savers are spending even less (or saving more) during the recession.

Hey, no one asked me! I'm a hyperopic ant, I suppose, and, since my job is safe (knock on wood; I have tenure), I'm spending as usual this year. If my job were in danger, you can bet your booty I'd be saving more. But, as it is, we are planning two trips for the family, one to each coast. Mr. FS and I are renewing our just-expired passports in case an irresistible trip to Europe emerges. Frugal Son will likely be spending a semester in France (to the tune of about $10,000).

And, as for material things, there's not too much we want. Last year, we had our roof fixed ($2,000.00), did a wonderful kitchen remodel (only $8,000.00 because of good planning), got new brick steps ($2,500.00). Oh yeah, we needed a new air conditioning system ($6,500.00). The steps and the kitchen are giving me a lot of joy, each and every day. The other stuff had to be done.

This year, I'll be getting new slipcovers for some chairs and maybe Mr. FS will get his fancy bicycle.

There is NOTHING material that I regret not spending on. I do regret forgoing a few trips abroad because Mr. FS and I were very anxious about continuing employment in the dark days of graduate school and just after. But the security of money in the bank made up for those "lost" trips and we're making up for them now that our employment is secure.

Indeed, it was time rather than money that kept us home: we needed to publish so as not to perish. And it was kids too. As soon as our job situations were somewhat secure, we had children--just two, late, and in pretty rapid succession. So it turns out we were making choices, based on our values. What could be more frugal than that?

So, to me, this is another frugal-bashing article. It ends, tongue-in-cheek, with something about regretting the plasma tv on your deathbed. At least I hope it is tongue-in-cheek.

The article is ostensibly all about finding balance, but honestly, frugal people seem more in balance than non-frugal people, who are having to deal with years of deficit spending. Those of my acquaintance are in a constant state of anxiety.

The great Amy Dacyszyn of Tightwad Gazette fame once concluded that to ask if one could be too frugal was like asking if one could be too happy. If frugality is defined as making the best use of resources (time, money, talents, and so on), then Amy is right. Aristotle would agree too.

Enough ranting! Dear readers: Do you have any regrets for the material things that got away? Do you think you are in balance? Share!

Thrift Store Tip: Or How to Find Ray-Bans for $0.75

Yes, a true story. A short post today because, once again, I have accumulated 100+ papers to grade. Anyway, you can read the post on oysters by Frugal Son (posted last night) if you want something with some substance.

For a quick break from my arduous task, I went to Habitat, not my favorite thrift store in terms of what I find, but my favorite thrift store in terms of what they do with their money. I am willing to spend a bit more there because the money goes right into the community--and, believe me, my community, with its old and new money, medium size middle class, and large poor population living in Walker Evans-esque shacks, could use it.

Like most thrift stores, Habitat is patrolled regularly by dealers, who know a lot more than I do about pretty much everything. So I mostly get necessities that no one wants, like linens to be taken to college, and slightly high-browish popular novels.

I also look through the baskets, the tie basket, the scarf basket, etc. You never know what will be in there at $0.75. I have found a few Hermes ties that way.

Today, I looked, in a desultory way, in the basket of sunglasses. There, among the scratched and askew Dollar Store models, was a pair of genuine Ray-Bans! In great condition. An iconic gift for my little girl, who will be having her 18th birthday in a week, and has been craving Ray-Bans.

Happy birthday, Dear Daughter.

Any little thrifting tips you'd like to share? What little treasures have you found of late? do share.