On Bachelor Survival.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, so you’re a scruffy old man and no one loves you. You can still eat well, and on a budget.

It’s all about bachelor survival, which was a bird course a lot of young men took back in about grade nine, in high school, in the rather forlorn hope that it might look cool to the chicks. (It didn’t. – ed.)

On the plate are three slices of baby turnip. Back in the day, my old man would buy the ‘cannon-ball’ sized turnips, which were not only much more strongly-flavoured, but waxed. They were as hard as a rock and you needed a good sharp knife to peel them.

I always cut flat spots on both ends and then push down and away with the knife…the voice of experience as it were.

It's not that hard.

These almost don’t need peeling, and the flavour is quite subtle. It does leave a distinctive spicy after-taste, not unpleasant in itself. Quite frankly, you know you’ve really eaten something.

Anyone can peel and slice up a carrot, put that in cold water in the fridge and you can have carrot sticks for a few days. After maybe three days, I change the water with cold water running in the tub, ah, from the kitchen tap.

The tin of Heinz deep-browned beans also came from Walmart, $0.97, and the leftovers go in a plastic tub in the fridge…I always find the maple syrup beans a bit sticky in the throat.

We actually used only about 100 grams of the Lou’s pre-cooked roast beef, au jus, (my doctor is concerned about me but I sure as hell ain't gonna starve over it), and so we might get lucky and get a couple more snacks out of that. We got two roasts, one beef and one turkey breast, (that’s in a nice, savory gravy as well), for $13.00. We don’t have to make gravy, we don’t have to buy tins of gravy.

I usually microwave them for about three minutes and then make sure the other stuff is cooked. 

Then it's another three minutes and voila.

We’re not related, incidentally. It’s just some guy named Lou, as for myself I prefer Louis.

As a convenience food, it probably suffers from the addition of salt, MSG and sugar. It is also true that if we tried to make a roast, or even to roast a turkey, we’re probably going to spend a lot more than $6.50 per meaty item.

The creamy coleslaw also comes from Walmart, at a price of $2.97. Once again, that product will last a few days and duff out a few meals with something a bit tangy, and it just adds colour and flavour to the plate.

That is one happy little turnip.

Oh, we have three slices of turnip in a (you guessed it), a small plastic tub, which we get three for a buck and a quarter or so from Dollarama.

Then there is the #beer.

You can dread your next meal or you can look forward to it. The choice is yours.

 

END