“Homeless people are not bad people…”

A simple sentiment, handwritten on a sheet of college-ruled binder paper, part of an article/testimonial by M, one of the residents of Nickelsville. “I just want people to know that we’re not that different from them,” she would explain to me over breakfast…

Oh right… breakfast. Last Saturday, a group of us had the opportunity to provide a meal for the folks living at Nickelsville, an organized, self-regulated encampment currently located at the Byrn Mawr United Methodist Church in South Seattle. Nickelsville came about as as a response to Seattle’s programs which were failing to meet the needs of the homeless.  Instead of transitional and temporary shelters, Nickelsville provides a sense of stability… a safe place with rules against alcohol and drugs, with 24-hour security, with people committed to the vision of the community.  For more information on Nickelsville, see this article on CNN.com.

The idea for the breakfast was born of an annual project by our church to think of ways to be a “good neighbor.” This year, a small group of us decided to reach out to the Nickelsville community and see if we could provide them with a warm pancake breakfast. They graciously accepted, and our planning began.

But how do you make a pancake breakfast for 75 people, without cooking facilities on-site? All of the cooking would have to be done beforehand, and hopefully kept warm in serving tins. We split up into teams, and somehow managed to cook 300 pancakes, 320 strips of bacon and 240 links of turkey sausage, and meet up at the site at 8:30 a.m. with two huge tubs of hot coffee (thanks to a little Seattle boutique coffee maker) and some fresh fruit.

The bacon and sausage disappeared with impressive speed, hot coffee (some sipped, some quaffed) bringing warmth on a lightly chilly morning. Even more striking, though, was the warmth with which the Nickelodeons (as they call themselves) opened their community to us, welcomed us to be among them, and engaged us with real, human interaction. Collectively, we heard dozens of stories of struggle and hardship… but even stronger was the sense of pride, hope and dignity running through the community. This is a group of people with purpose and intention.

On one level, I absolutely agree with M—the folks at Nickelsville aren’t that different at all. These were folks I could talk to and joke around with, whose weathered hands I could shake, whose smiles warmed my soul… individuals who have hit upon hard times, some the victims of circumstances wholly out of their control… circumstances that would have crushed my spirit. And then I realize that maybe we’re not that similar… that, in fact, these folks have been through far more than I could ever bear—hard core drug addiction, unresolvable medical situations, violence, loneliness—and somehow come through those challenges with a positive glow of hope and satisfaction in each day’s triumphs. We came to try and give them some food and encouragement; I left feeling like the one who was fed and encouraged.

“Would you pull M (her husband) aside and pray for him?” she asked me gently, squinting as the sun began to pierce though the clouds. “He’s doing well, but you know, it’s tough…”

It would be my pleasure, absolutely.

For another perspective on the morning, read this excellent post by KS.

So today wraps up the final day of meals for the Hunger Action Week challenge. I’ve just gotten home from a marathon session of hanging out with the guys and making insane amounts of bacon for tomorrow’s pancake breakfast for the homeless at the Nickelsville community. Making bacon for 75-100 people is a much larger endeavor than it appears at first glance… but it’s a lot easier when it’s done with 9 of your friends over grilled brats, beer and poker.

I’m a bit tired at the moment because it’s pretty late, but today’s budget looks great–in large part because of the leftover curry which I had for lunch.

I’ll blog about the breakfast at Nickelsville after we’ve had a chance to serve the meal and get to know the people living there a bit better. For now, I need to get to bed… pancake-making commences in 4 1/2 hours…

Breakfast
Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds – $0.50
milk – $0.50

Lunch
leftover Japanese curry and rice – $0.00(!!)

Dinner
1.5 bratwursts – $1.19
1 bun – $0.31
chips – $0.50
1 beer – $1.25

(I’m not going to include the scotch we had because dinner was officially over, and it was really part of the poker game… I hope that isn’t cheating…)

Hunger Action Week is almost over–what a short week it has been, despite my constantly growling stomach in the first couple of days. The days when I’ve had the time to really think about and plan my meals, I’ve been able to eat nutritious and satisfying food while staying under the budget for the day; but when I haven’t had time for planning, it’s gotten pretty random (e.g., cereal for lunch).

Tonight’s dinner is an old, reliable standby that reminds me of dinners from my childhood: japanese style curry over steamed rice. The curry packets are relatively inexpensive (for the volume of curry you can produce), and the curry lasts for 1-2 days, getting tastier each day. Better still, you can add lots of fresh vegetables to the curry and make a substantial meal without too much work or expense.  And there’s enough left over for lunch tomorrow…

An open challenge to give
While I don’t typically spend extravagant amounts of money on our weekly food budget (particularly in this economy), I certainly spend more than $7/day, especially when factoring meals in restaurants during the average week. This challenge is leaving me with a decent amount of leftover money that would normally have been budgeted for food. For those of you who are doing this challenge, I expect you’re noticing the same thing.

So I offer up a new, open challenge:  If you’ve been participating in the Hunger Action Week, getting by on $7/day or less, and you’ve realized some savings in your weekly budget as a result, won’t you consider donating that difference directly to the United Way of King County and their efforts to address hunger issues in this region? You can give by clicking here. I’ll be putting in my contribution on Saturday morning, after I’ve tallied my week’s totals.

Breakfast
Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds (I am going to need a break from this cereal next week!)- $0.50
milk – $0.50

Lunch
two slices of bread from home – $0.20
chicken, spinach, tomato and cheese – $1.73

Dinner
1 small russet potato – $0.34
2 carrots – $0.32
1 medium yellow onion – $0.27
1/2 bell pepper – $0.69
1 chicken thigh – $0.73
1 cup white rice – $0.18
1/2 packet of japanese curry paste – $1.29
2 tablespoons vegetable oil – $0.24

Getting by on $7/day is definitely doable, and you can eat quite nicely if you are thoughtful about your food choices, like in this post by one of my favorite Seattle bloggers.

The thing that surprises me the most about this challenge, however, has been how this simple limitation has really brought into focus the luxury of being able to make food choices without having to worry about cost. That luxury is something that I enjoy every day, but probably take for granted most of the time. I sense it now in the cravings I have… like a perfectly buttery and flaky almond croissant from Besalu for breakfast, a steaming bowl of pho for lunch, pristine sushi from Miyabi for dinner… or how about just a glass of syrah from aMaurice. But then I think about how meaningless those choices are compared to the situation of a person or family who might not know where their next meal will be coming from…

So with that in mind, I dug into my reliably tasty but simple breakfast of Honey Bunches of Oats (with almonds of course). Hunger pangs came early again, so I headed to the cafeteria and put together a small plate of chicken, tomato, spinach and shredded cheese from the salad bar. That with two slices of bread I brought from home and I had a nifty little makeshift sandwich (I still haven’t had time to hit the grocery store for lunch supplies).

I knew exactly what I wanted for dinner.  Pasta.  As in, spaghetti and clams… made without boiling any water… my current favorite method for cooking dry pasta.  Since I’ve got some budget constraints, some limitations applied.  Fewer clams, no wine to deglaze the pan, no Parmigiano-Reggiano… but in the end, still a substantial, satisfying dinner.

Now, I just need to figure out how to incorporate some beverages other than water into this week.

Last quick note: As a result of some fortuitous timing, some friends and I will be providing a pancake breakfast for the homeless residents of Nickelsville this Saturday… a cool way to end this Hunger Action Week. It’s going to be a pretty big endeavor… the plan is to make 300 pancakes, 300 strips of bacon and 200 links of sausage. We had a great planning meeting last night, and most of the supplies were picked up this afternoon… hopefully, everything will turn out great!

Breakfast
Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds – $0.50
milk – $0.50

Lunch
two slices of bread from home – $0.20
chicken, spinach, tomato and cheese – $1.79

Dinner
dried spaghetti – $0.30
4 live manilla clams – $1.44
1 garlic clove – $0.10
1/2 shallot – $0.25
1 roma tomato – $0.47
2 tablespoons of frozen peas – $0.12
pinch of red pepper flakes – $0.03
2 tablespoons olive oil – $0.54

Today was a little more difficult than yesterday to adhere to the $7/day challenge because I felt like I was constantly hungry. Maybe it was because I had a little jog this morning, but 30 minutes after breakfast, I was already thinking about lunch. After lunch, I was looking for snacks… I’m beginning to realize how much unnecessary food I eat during the day while I’m at work. Candy, chocolate, anything… and now that I’m refraining from snacking, I’m really noticing it.

Luckily, for dinner I still had the leftovers of the hearty soup Lav made for me yesterday. We added some pasta shells today to add a bit more substance… even tastier than yesterday. Soup is a fantastic option for a cost effective, nutritious meal.  But I have to admit:  as I type this, I’m already hungry again! Maybe I’ll down a tall glass of water…

Breakfast
Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds – $0.50
Milk – $0.50

Lunch
Grilled Cajun Chicken Sandwich – $3.40

Dinner
Yesterday’s swiss chard and zucchini soup with beans and pasta shells – $1.90
Marzipan snack treat – $0.50

Eating for less than $7 a day is a challenge for sure.  Most of the time, we have the luxury of buying our groceries from our favorite stores or farmers markets without a serious concern about cost, strolling through the rows of bountiful west coast products and picking out the most appealing items… appealing in terms of both health and a flavor. We pay that extra bit for the “organic,” the “free range,” and the “local.” But how often do we really stop to think about the privilege of even having those kinds of choices to make?

When trying to live on a limited budget, the first thing to go out the window is choice. For some, instead of choosing between Safeway and the Ballard Farmers’ Market, its a much tougher choice of spending one’s limited resources on either meals or medicine, bread or baby formula, nourishing food or rent.

Today’s meals had to be extremely simple, since we just got back into town and haven’t had a chance to plan any of this out. My main hope is to try and meet the $7/day challenge with food choices that are both economical and healthy… but I’ll admit that today was a bit of a cop out, since I ended up having cereal for two meals. Chalk it up to jet lag and not being able to wake up early enough to pack myself a lunch.

Breakfast
Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds – $0.50
Milk – $0.50

Lunch
Chex – $0.50
Milk – $0.50

Dinner
Swiss chard and zucchini soup, with corn, onions, and just a bit of italian sausage – $1.60 (kindly prepared by my wife while I was on my way home from work… I’m calculating it cost $4.00 for the ingredients, and I ate about 40% of the pot).

All in all, not too bad for the first day–coming in at $3.60. Most of that, however, comes from the fact that I ate cereal for lunch. And I was grateful for every single bite, because my stomach was growling all day long. But it’s good to be reminded of hunger, and to realize how much more I usually eat than I actually need.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings… hopefully a picture or two! In the meantime, check out what others have been doing for this challenge on the United Way’s Hunger Challenge Blog.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email invitation from the United Way of King County, inviting me to participate in their Hunger Action Week, which starts today and runs through Friday, April 24th.

The idea behind the action week is to raise awareness for hunger issues in our local community, and the challenge is to see if you can feed yourself for only $7 a day, the maximum food stamp benefit for an individual in Washington.

I really like how they explain it on their website:

“This challenge is really an exercise of empathy—to live in someone else’s shoes for one week and learn how you can help fight hunger in our community.”

Here are the rules for the Hunger Challenge:

• Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner spending only $7 per day.
• Salt and pepper don’t count but all other seasonings, cooking oils, condiments, snacks, drinks, and everything else do.
• Don’t use food you already own.
• Don’t accept food from family, friends, coworkers and others. Not even the free samples from Costco!
• Try to include fresh produce and healthy protein each day.
• Keep track of expenses, food choices, etc. and share your experiences (which you can do on United Way of King County’s blog).

So please join up yourself, if you can, and consider the following:

• Can you feed yourself for only $7 a day?
• If you had to make a choice between buying groceries and paying your rent, how would you choose?
• What compromises will you need to make?
• Will you be able to provide much variety or will you need to eat the same thing all week?
• If you don’t know how to cook, does this make the challenge more difficult?

I’ll be blogging about our meals at the end of each day this week.  For more information on the Hunger Action Week itself, check out their blog.

A few weeks ago, I received an email from my friend Joe, who attended the second fishes+loaves dinner back in November. He told me something I’d been hoping to hear… that he had shared the blog with his friend Dave, and they both wanted to throw their own version of a fishes+loaves meal.

Part of the original idea for this blog was the hope that the information we provide about our meals would help spur others to try hosting their own meals for charity. So I was absolutely psyched that we’d be able to take part in the first off-shoot of a fishes+loaves meal, this time as a diner!

On the evening of January 28th, Joe played the role of host and sous-chef while Dave (a law student by day, cooking enthusiast in his free time) took care of most of the cooking duties. Here was their terrific four-course menu and some pictures of the food that evening:

beef tartare crostini
organic basil, heirloom tomato, garlic, parma prosciutto, asiago, parmesan reggiano and pecorino cheese

arugula and blanched endive salad with white wine vinaigrette
arugula, endive, walnuts, pear, miyatake mushrooms, white wine vinaigrette

seared salmon and scallop roulade with roasted garlic mash
wild alaskan sockeye, fresh sea scallops, garlic, potatoes

pomegranate cranberry granita
cranberry, grey goose vodka, mint

white citrus sangria
blood orange, pomegranate, lemon zest

Dave’s family used to own a restaurant, so he’s no stranger to cooking and food preparation. The food was delicious, accompanied by terrific company and conversation of the other diners, many of whom were meeting for the first time. Most importantly, the dinner generated a collective contribution of $330 for Northwest Harvest.

Cheers to a wonderful dinner for an important cause! I hope to have an opportunity to follow up with these guys and get some of their thoughts about creating the meal.

Our next fishes+loaves meal will be this Saturday… Valentine’s Day. There won’t be any heart-themed dishes, but we do have a full group for the meal, the proceeds of which will go to benefit the Central Asia Institute, a nonprofit organization providing community-based education and literacy programs. Check back for the full write up!

It feels like 2009 jumped out of nowhere, emerging from the deep snows of the end of 2008. January is the “month of frugality” in our household—sort of a way to purge from the decadence of the holidays—during which we try to eschew the tenacious grip of consumerism and retreat to the pleasures of simplicity and necessity. Oh, and I give up alcohol for a month too… in keeping with the theme of purging. So far, so good, although I was craving a cold beer at the end of last week…

With the new year well underway, I’ve been experimenting with some things that are outside of my comfort zone—namely, baking. I’m not a patient man by nature, making me a pretty poor candidate for a baker, but I’ve been getting some nice results with some recent efforts on bread and cookies… some of which may be incorporated into our next dinner.

Speaking of which, it’s time for another fishes+loaves dinner. We’re aiming for the end of this month: Saturday, January 31. More details to come.

In related news, a friend who attended our last dinner in November is planning to host a fishes+loaves dinner with a friend at the end of January as well. I’ve had some great conversations with friends who’ve been interested in throwing similar meals, and I’m absolutely thrilled that one will be happening so soon. We’ll be sharing about that meal as well on this blog, so check back soon. It looks like January’s going to be an interesting month…

Hey, we got our first press for fishes+loaves this week!  More on that in a minute.

Back during our days of living in sunny Oakland, CA, my regular commute routine on Wednesday mornings invovled walking 3 blocks to the BART station, picking up a copy of the East Bay Express from a stand by the entrance, and enjoying Jonathan Kauffman’s weekly restaurant review.

In the food-obsessed media buzz of the Bay Area, Kauffman’s writing rose above the white noise. He always seemed to find the great, lesser known neighborhood restaurants, was a master of taco trucks and good holes-in-the-wall, and helped me imagine what iguana really tastes like:

Then there was consomme de garrobo, identified as iguana soup by a tiny photo of a lizard floating over the bowl. Did you know that iguana really does taste just like chicken? No joke: I kept trying to come up with descriptive words for the chunks of pale-pink meat at the bottom of my bowl. And though the long-stewed garrobo was slightly richer than thigh meat and slightly tougher, too, I couldn’t identify a strong scent or taste.

Thanks to his articles, Lav and I tried a bunch of places that ended up becoming favorites—like Dopo, Tamarindo, and Luka’s—places that made living in the East Bay so fantastic.

Then suddenly, in 2006, he disappeared. My interest in the East Bay Express waned. I might have even started reading glossy magazines on the BART instead…

About a year later, I moved up to Seattle. I picked up a copy of the Seattle Weekly (I think the free weekly is one of the best ways to get to know a new city), turned immediately to the food section, and there he was, giving Qube a gigantic body slam… like an old friend welcoming me to my new home.

I respect Jonathan a lot—his writing is honest and informative, and heck, he’s a James Beard Award winner.  So it was a real treat when I had a brief opportunity to tell him a bit about what we’re trying to do with fishes+loaves… which he kindly turned into a post on Voracious, the Seattle Weekly’s food blog.  Check it out (“Fishes+Loaves Wants You to Eat for the Greater Good“)… I never realized how much I speak in run-on sentences(!!).  And subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed… there’s always something interesting going on.

Maybe one of these days, I’ll convince Jonathan to join us for a  fishes+loaves dinner… I know he’s a fan of slow-cooked pork…

Lastly, there won’t be a fishes+loaves meal this month; things are just too busy since we’ll be out of town for Christmas and New Year’s. But I’m coming up with plans for January… and I’ve gotten some more confirmation that a couple of fishes+loaves meals may be happening in the near future in California, hosted by some good friends.

So stay tuned… subscribe to the RSS feed if you want to stay up to date, and if you want to be notified of upcoming meals, send a quick email to us at fishesloaves@yahoo.com.