Friday, July 6, 2018

I'll never eat chili again

Credit: Wikimedia
A recent conversation with a friend was about food in graduate school. They were pretty glad to be done with eating ramen and other various inexpensive meals.

What was your go-to meal? Mine was chili. I was a big fan of making a huge pot and freezing it and eating chili for two weeks or so. (Did I mention that I lived alone in graduate school?) 

12 comments:

  1. Grad school: Chili, spaghetti, turkey keema, caprese sandwiches and tots, salt and pepper fish/tofu, gandule rice and tostones, and a lot of rice and eggs.
    Post-doc: Whatever showed up in the CSA box ($25/week), grilled cheese, bean and cheese tacos.
    Asst. Professor: Whatever I can get in my mouth before my toddler starts flinging his dinner on the floor while staring directly at me.

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  2. Still remember in grad school buying generic boxes of mac & cheese for 19 cents a piece. They had a peculiar orange color.

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  3. I must have ate like a king. Since I was a powerlifter, I "had" to eat the following every week: 20lbs of chicken breast, a 3-4 dozen eggs a week, rice, oatmeal, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, and virtually every other cruciferous vegetable, and cans of tuna and triscuits with the occasional block of aldi's "artisanal" cheese. The above cost maybe $50 to $75 per week and rent and utilities were about $400 to $450 per month so I could manage a $12k used car loan and the occasional vacation.

    I still pretty much eat this today except I cannot stomach any oatmeal whatsoever, and of course, I've scaled back on the chicken breast, but still kill eggs multiple times a day.

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    1. Yeah similar here. I ate a bodybuilding diet with pretty much exactly those things on repeat.

      Its amazing how little healthy food costs if you avoid the expensive processed shit

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  4. It's ironic that you complain about being broke but you show a picture of chili in an All Clad stockpot.

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  5. Grad school - lived in dorms, ate lots of vegetarian food from MIT's awesome and fairly cheap (at the time) food trucks. It wasn't too bad but it took me a while to realize that I had gotten anemic and needed a roast beef sub every week or so.
    Post-doc - had car, kitchen, more money, but lots of overnight NMR runs and an unsuccessful faculty job search so I didn't cook much. Ate lots of frozen ravioli and hot pockets. I can't really stomach those any more.

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  6. I shamefully ate out most of the time. My go-to place was either Subway or Willy's in Atlanta.

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  7. We had what I thought was a really good cafeteria at Mississippi State back in the early 70's. Mt favorite meal was country fried steak with cream gravy and butter beans.

    I still fix it at home from time to time. :-)

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  8. Digiorno frozen pizza. Stocked up the freezer whenever they went on sale. I could eat all week for about $25. Cold pizza in the morning, hot pizza at night, usually skipped lunch. Sometimes I'd even buy a head of lettuce so I could have a side salad! And of course whatever I could scavenge from various department function leftovers.

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  9. Current grad student who leans toward pescatarianism. Get comfortable with "ethnic" food. Shan spice packets are a wonder. Channa masala and daal are a step up from Ramen (especially in terms of storability/reheatability). More fun too. Substitute brown rice for white rice and you won't be malnourished. Ramen is cool if you let yourself have fun with it: throw away the spice packet and see what else you can do! Learn to cook bread: it's not hard. Buy whatever fish is on sale, or at least less than $10 (typically tilapia, barramundi, mahi, or shrimp). Oats are great: lots of room for experimentation in both the sweet and savory realms. Buy whatever fruit is on sale, and don't even feel guilty about spending money on it. Unless your body disagrees with it.

    Shakshouka is awesome. Wake up 30 minutes earlier and eat that instead of your usual sad eggs in the morning.

    I eat out more than I'm proud to admit. The faculty dining hall at my school is pretty good. The restaurants in town are pretty good too. When I didn't have a kitchen, I ate out every day. Now the local turks give me complementary tea with my meals.

    But I spend far too much money on tea anyway. My vice. Everyone needs a vice.

    And alcohol. My other vice.

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    1. Almost forgot. For those times when you're shamelessly craving grease: Lahori fish, latkes, and fried plantains are a match made in heaven. Cultural boundaries be damned.

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    2. Shakshouka is one of my favorites. To my surprise, Hoof Hearted Brewing in Columbus, OH (the pub, not the tiny location in Marengo) offers this on their menu for brunch, if you ever find yourself in Cbus.

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