I was trying to decide between making a cheesecake or making a pie for Thanksgiving. I ended up making a pie, but knowing that we’ve done store-bought up until this year, looking @the ingredient list for Costco’s pumpkin cheesecake, I’m certainly thankful for baking skills this year!

As an aside, we visit a Costco in Phoenix every year sometime in December. Every year the same woman is handing out cheesecake samples, and singing a song straight out of a David Lynch movie while she hands out chunks. Maybe too much guar gum does that to a person. Sad.

I’ve always wondered what kind of things end up in food donation bins. Four gallons of cake icing? Wow.

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Those wacky Brits. Someone brought this very bacon chocolate bar into the office a few days ago for a taste test. I wouldn’t eat it for breakfast, but the taste wasn’t unpleasant. But I do like sweet and salty things together.

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…as I’ve been in mourning for my investment savings, and therefore a future of retirement meals of cat food and peanut butter, for quite a while now. Each time the market does another dizzying drop, the grieving process starts all over again.

My fiancee and I have become even more frugal (with what’s left going into a safe cash stash), but @the same time as far as food goes we’re not sacrificing quality but buying smaller amounts of the best stuff we can get. For example, no more corn syrup masquerading as maple syrup, we’ve been getting smaller bottles of the real thing @Trader Joe’s for about $8. Since it tastes better, we end up using less on our Sunday French Toasts. Speaking of breakfast items that taste better, free range eggs don’t taste like fish. The farmer’s market eggs are even better. Just because the economy’s in the toilet and will be for a while, it doesn’t mean we all have to eat crap! Since we don’t own a house and can’t afford to travel right now, making food is the one thing we’ve both been enjoying doing together.

We’ve been making our own salad dressings, pickles, and pasta sauces - I made a mean carbonara sauce the other night that made a decent lunch the next day.

This week I found a new blog after my own heart - EconoWhiner - named as a “tribute” to one of the architects of this current mess, Phil Gramm. I’ve been enjoying the cheap wine series of posts in particular. Enjoy!

Great article in today’s SF Chronicle food section - all about squash, including some varieties I’ve never heard of. All the different kinds out there makes squashes really intimidating for me, and I have a hard time doing things to say, Acorn squash that don’t involve maple syrup and butter.

Squash cooks really well in microwaves, btw!

I was struck by the photo of my favorite public TV chef, Jacques Pepin, @Giant. I’m even more impressed that he made a five-course meal for six for $24. And the recipes sound delicious!

Check of the design of these lunch containers - DO want!

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The Keurig Mini B30 is a new, smaller single serve coffee brewer for the home. Available in black, white, or red. I may not need to use my French Press anymore - it can be hard to clean sometimes. Yay.

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I’m all for making your own food, especially lately as I watch my retirement savings go into daily freefall, but once in a while one needs to dine out. We’ve been making an effort in the past few months to only dine out at places that are locally owned - no chains - so our money stays in our community. I’m going to review some places that are in my hometown, Fairfax, VA, but you may be able to find places in your area on Wise Bread’s Google Map (which will also have the following places):

• Woodlands Restaurant, 4078 Jermantown Rd., Fairfax, VA 703-385-1996. South Indian, all vegetarian, lunch and dinner, $10-15. Excellent $10 all-you-can-eat lunch buffet, including on weekends until 3pm. Weekend Indian lunch buffets are rare for the area, all-vegetarian buffets rarer still. Always a good crowd of locals here.
• The Deli, 4078 Jermantown Rd., Fairfax, VA 703-591-8511. Same strip as Woodlands. Great Italian deli with a good selection of Italian groceries if you’re looking for almond paste or anchovies. Lunch $8-10 usually - we get a 12″ sub and split it in half - portions are huge and they are generous with the deli meat. You will never go to Subway again after eating here.
• Otani Japanese Steak and Seafood, 13952 Lee Jackson Memorial Hwy., Chantilly, VA 703-802-3400. Japanese, lunch and dinner (dinner only Sundays), sushi lunch buffet. $12-25 (for sushi). This is mainly a Japanese steakhouse but they have a small sushi bar that is reasonably priced for the area and the quality and service is very good. 

A lot of these design projects have to do with hunger. Think about these the next time you want to spend $5 on a cup of coffee!

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