My Morning Chocolate

Russell was an enthusiastic Wildness Explorer in the movie Up. You can apply this same sense of adventure to food, even if you're on a budget. Image courtesy of screenrant.com

This year, I would love to eat out at a different restaurant every week, attend a cooking class on a whim because my evening is free, and travel to Japan to eat noodles and sushi. But because I’m a student and I’m building my freelance writing business, my food budget will take a big blow to the chest this year.

Maybe you are in a similar situation. You might have bought a house or had a baby, and paying for those are your priorities.

But even with less funds, we can still cultivate our interest in food – we just have to get more creative. Try one, or several of these cost-cutting food adventures:

1) Create A Cooking School: Do you have a friend who makes pad thai that is perfectly salty, sour, hot, and sweet? Maybe your mother or grandfather makes the most amazing fresh pasta you’ve tasted, or your sister makes mashed potatoes as smooth as creamy peanut butter. Ask them to show you their secrets. Not only will you learn a new recipe without the expense of a cooking school, you’ll spend a fun evening cooking with a loved one.

2) Buy One Unfamiliar Ingredient and Experiment: If you’re a food adventurer, there are probably many ingredients on your I-can’t-wait-to-try-this list. Pick one or two and use the hell out of them. Add them to soups or stir-frys; try them in desserts. The first two ingredients on my list? Kelp and bonito flakes.

3) Exercise Your Creative Control and Tweak Recipes: Recipes should be the Pogo ball in your kitchen – use them as the vehicle to jump somewhere else. If you don’t have the green pepper to make the holy trinity but you have carrots, use those.  You’ll lose some of the cultural authenticity, but you’ll be using your creativity…a lot more fun than following a recipe from start to finish, in my opinion. Be flexible though – you may end up with an undesirable result (see my experiment making mole here).

4) Attend Free Events: Get a copy of your local magazine or newspaper and find out what food events are happening in your area. If you live in Baltimore, check out Urbanite, a free magazine dedicated to our city’s urban life.  The magazine has great content throughout.  But it also has a section called “The Feed,” a round-up of food events. Pick up your copy of the magazine on the first of the month.

5) Get a Library Card and Read the Work of Great Food Writers: On Top Chef, Tom Colicchio told Season 5’s Ariane that, as chefs, they don’t learn about food by reading books. They learn about food by tasting it. For those of us on a budget, that might not be an option. Enter the food writer – a good one can make you taste lasagna and gelato, or beef and potatoes simply through the strength of their powerful sentences. Take a look at Chowhound’s forum on great food writers and get to the library.

6) Start a Food Blog: I know, there are a googolplex of food blogs out there.  So why start another one?  Because when you have to think of multiple food topics to write about each week, you don’t feel so bad for buying a couple of bags of food from the grocery store or that new cookbook you’ve been excited to read.  These things are research expenses.  You’ll also get to share your love of food with the masses, even if that only includes mom, dad, and your husband in the beginning.