Your Guide to Eating on Nothing

Every once in a while, I go back to the well.  I wrote this the week after the stock market crashed in 2008.  Still true!

The economy has tanked. Yes, tanked. I know that many of you are jobless and starting to wish you'd listened to your grandparents' tales about the Great Depression and surviving it. Well, have no fear. Here are a few handy hints to keep you alive and sort of full over the next months and maybe years of economic turmoil. They are personally tested by yours truly during my years of starving-artistdom, and I assure you they are all effective.


1. Learn to make soup
You'll be surprised how easy this is, and how cheap. Invest in a tub of broth mix- less than ten dollars for a year's supply. Now, all you need to make a hearty and relatively healthy soup is salt, pepper, onions or cabbage, and butter or oil. I prefer butter, and I like adding garlic. You honestly can live off the stuff. If you have a lot of spices, you can even make it feel like different soup every day. Congratulations, you are now eating a fraction of your previous budget.

2. Adjust your free-time habits
Did you read in the good old days? Well good, you can hold on to that one. Get a library card. Did you do ANYTHING ELSE? Stop! You don't have the money! There are some exceptions. Go and get yourself a box of crayons. Not any crayons, but the Prang child-safe soy crayons. Why? They are completely edible. Not necessarily palatable, but edible. This will actually lower your food budget even more, since you won't feel like eating for a few hours at least after each crayon.

3. Sign up for free internet dating services
No, you are not about to actually look for somebody to date. No, you will not be cheating on your significant other. You are doing this for FOOD! Meet up with as many people for as many dates in cheap public places as possible. Let them pick up the check, and take home your leftovers. There! Now you're not just eating soup and crayons! Now you are eating soup, crayons, and whatever your single serving dates buy you. This is even better for you gentlemen, because it guarantees that the you won't be asked for a second date, and the last thing that you need is for another person to think that you're going to feed them, too.

4. Learn some botany
You'd be surprised how many plants out there are edible. Pine, for example. You can make a fairly decent tea out of pine needles. Or Maple- same thing. Take nice long walks and collect plants that you can eat. Dandelion greens are quite delicious, actually. So this will be particularly useful in the summer.

5. Go to lots of art gallery openings
They're free, and they frequently serve cheese and wine. Consider this your big night out each week. You will never have eaten so much cheese in your life. For that matter, head to Whole Foods. You can almost live off of the samples there. So long as you rotate your Whole Foods schedule between all the locations in your area. Also, be sure that you don't mind eating any number of fairly flavorless soy products.

There are other things, of course, that you can do to pull yourself through this awful economic climate, but in the meantime you can rest assured that by following this advice you will always eat.