This Cost Us 95 Cents

Let’s face it, New York’s parks may be riding a wave of Saturday Farm Markets, but an apricot in season is still outfaced by a corn syrup coke, and for a pound of artisanal cheese, Western Beef will proffer steaks enough to make your extended family belch. If you want to balance a healthy diet without having to eviscerate your cat’s insides and sell them to Stradivarius makers, the 29 cents a pound department of your local grocery store may be an option you want to consider.

For fear of mental apoplexy and similar ailments stemming from recurring actions causing irreparable damage to the springy nature of the heart and soul (no mentioning of coffee, cigarettes or hard drugs here), my partner in crime and I are adamant opponents of habits of any kind. However, because only a great orgasm beats a good bargain, we have made an exception: when we cook, we drop by the half-fresh-to-putrefying part of our grocery store.

Upon extensive doodling on a serious subjects, let God’s Growths Gone Bad shine for themselves:

Red, yellow & orange peppers, baby eggplants
He roasted the peppers, sautéd the eggplants in ketchup and hot sauce and blended the lot with a dash of salt and a dollop of olive oil. Voîlà!

Radishes
Slice’em and sprinkle their pink bodies over a couple of torn leaves from a crisp 2$ green-leaf farmer’s market salad (it will last you a week if you put it in a plastic bag in the fridge). Beautiful.

Dented strawberries
Are excellent if you cut away the brown parts, quarter them and let em soak in sugar and lemon an hour. Uuuuah. We had a delicacious desert for 18 cents worth of berries, beat that?

Apricots, who don’t love’em
Are best when soft as granma’s boob. If you’re tired of apricot tart, caramelized apricots, roasted apricots, apricot jam and apricot cake, try this freeze-light delight: mush your boobies, ups, babies up with sugar, a pinch of salt, a generous squirt of vermout and freeze, stirring occasionally. Serve with 9 cents worth of strawberries. Delish!





I want to direct all the people who say poor people eat fast food because it's cheaper than real food to our rough and tumble hood. As long as there's a grocer or supermarket with a bruised and neglected bargain bin for produce, there is no excuse not to eat good. Take that, Big Mac!