NYT article on food shopping at "99 cent" stores

There's an intriguing article in today's New York Times, "How to Survive in New York on 99 cents." The gist of the article is one that has been addressed in a few threads here (such as this one) and I thought it made for very interesting reading. (Registration may be necessary, but it's free). The author (Henry Alford) shopped at 99-cent stores, making his meals for one week "mostly" from what was available there. At the end, he had four friends over, making the meal entirely from items costing 99 cents or less.

Gypsy Boy wrote:There's an intriguing article in today's New York Times, "How to Survive in New York on 99 cents." The gist of the article is one that has been addressed in a few threads here and I thought it made for very interesting reading. (Registration may be necessary, but it's free). The author (Henry Alford) shopped at 99-cent stores, making his meals for one week "mostly" from what was available there. At the end, he had four friends over, making the meal entirely from items costing 99 cents or less.

But his 99 cent store has a gourmet section.

Yes and I agree that's a problem. However, continue on and you'll see that he made his dinner party dinner without going there (literally or metaphorically).

That's a knowledge that I really could have used when I moved to the Big Apple back in my 20s.

Like most folks who go there to live, I had no idea that one had to pay a broker's fee of up to 15% of your annual rental contract in order to get an apartment in NYC. I was young. I was impressionable. (Translated: I was stupid). I was insistent that I was going to live in the big city even though my young rear end couldn't afford to do so.

So, I took my life savings, invested it in this broker's fee, utility deposits, and key money to the building super and signed up for a junior one bedroom on Cornelia Street in the west Village, owner occupied by a Mrs. Sforza who had a penchant for forgetting how to speak English whenever a maintenance issue would arise, almost directly across from Mario Batali's Po. It was a lovely place, worthy of a spread in "Homes and Gardens". It was full of unique housekeeping amenities, such as a commode that sat against a wall, unencumbered by privacy walls, as a demarkation point right between the living room and 3x3 dining nook.

After investing my life savings, I found myself with six dollars and eight subway tokens to my name, no food or beverage, and sitting precariously, with an intense non-desire to pimp my own self for money in that big nasty city, four days away from my first big city paycheck.

With that knowledge, I headed, by foot, down to the Gristedes in Tribeca where I proceeded to blow my four dollars on a pack of bologna and a loaf of bread with the intention of making that food my sole source of sustenance for the next 72 hours.

On the following day, I decided that I would set the tone for my coming days of frugality by only eating once, and that would be upon my return home from work., By 3 pm that afternoon, visions of off-brand bologna and cheap white bread became my sole motivation to exist.

After taking the subway home from midtown, and trying to take controlled steps up the three flights of stairs to my walk up, I could resist no more. I burst through the door of my apartment, and headed for the loaf of bread sitting on the kitchen counter...only to notice a strange trail of crumbs coming from the square end of the loaf.

It quickly became apparent to me that, while I was dreaming of bologna and white bread at my desk facing Fifth Avenue, one of the building rodents was busy making a feast of my precious loaf of bread while borrowing through it and leaving his droppings in the middle of it as a resounding "FU" to me.

My heart sank. I really wanted to cry. But, I was a man living in New York City on his own and that didn't seem like the kind of thing Holden Caulfield would cry over.

So, I ate my losers dinner of bologna on my bare hand and calculated my next move.

In passing by Mr. Batali's first restaurant that morning, on the way to the subway, I had noted curiously that his baker had dropped off a big bag of bread out front that the restaurant would use to fill it's nightly breadbasket offerings. That thought stayed in my mind as I opted to sleep off my hunger with an early bedtime.

I awakened at approximately 4:30 am and sat myself in the living room window facing Cornelia. From there, I had a bird's eye view of Po and it's pending bread delivery. Sure enough, right around 6:15, I spotted a truck slowly making its way up Cornelia stopping frequently for the driver to jump out and leave his delivery in the door of the then closed neighborhood restaurants.

As the driver moved out of sight, I moved quickly down the steps, out the front door and across the street, where, without hesitation, I swiftly removed one long Italian loaf from Po's bag of bread and darted back across the street where I proceeded to eat that loaf with reckless abandon. I repeated my actions on each of the next two mornings, hitting "Home" for a loaf of excellent raisin bread the next day and some sandwich shop I don't remember the name of the day after that for a semolina loaf. Somehow it made me feel better not to steal bread from the same restaurant each day.

On Friday of that week, when I was finally paid and feeling rather flush since I had already paid my rent for the month, I dutifully snuck back to each restaurant and left a five dollar bill in each of their doors as compenastion for my three days of meals.

Oh what I would have given to know about Jack's and it's 99 cent pasta and tomato sauce back in those days!

Great story, Will. And now that you're older and wiser (and perhaps a bit more flush), you can not only move back but do it in style! Entertain friends! Be the envy of your neighbors! All for only 99 cents.

(Hey, who stole my "cent" key? How many decades ago did that disappear from my keyboard without my noticing!)

Gypsy Boy wrote:(Hey, who stole my "cent" key? How many decades ago did that disappear from my keyboard without my noticing!)

¢ = ALT 0162 on your numeric keypad