Cibbuano
charlesEating in NYC for 99 cents
:
We've all seen the proliferation of these '99-cent' stores, popping up all over the place, offering cheap, poor-quality products for exactly as much as you're willing to pay for them: $1.
Here in Australia, I'm ashamed to say that the 99-cent stores often charge a lot more than 99 cents. We don't have the real bottom-of-the-barrel stuff... at least, not near the city. I worry that all the real bargain bin items are making it to the markets out in Western Sydney...
Well, Henry Alford from the NY Times decided to see if he could feed himself just from the 99-cent offerings from a store called Jack's.
And he tried to feed his friends the food as well...
"My first few meals mined the wealth of JackÂs staples. I made rice and beans one night, which we zested up with 99-cent canned jalapeños and sofrito (like enchilada sauce, with a slight burned taste); another night we had penne with cream and some pancetta I found in the gourmet section. Another night, after amassing some brown rice and cans of bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and baby corn at JackÂs, I bought some Chinese broccoli off-site for a big stir-fry."
How about dessert?
"For dessert each night we turned to the slightly wanton charms of the Little Debbie product line, particularly young DebbieÂs Oatmeal Creme Pies, whose velvety filling so perfectly captures an imagined marriage between buttercream frosting and Noxzema."
Yummy.
When Henry cooked a meal for his friends, though, he was full of confidence, after a full week of eating out of Jack's. The trick is to use great serving bowls:
"But the compliments started flying when I served my chilled pear soup  nothing more than a mixture of Goya and KernÂs pear nectars that I served in beautiful Chinese bowls with star anise floating on top."
