I am sure I am not alone in examining all parts of my budget during this time of economic strife. (In fact, this post was late because I am in the midst of epic research on how to cut down my phone bill.)

Since I believe so strongly in buying good, sustainably raised food from local purveyors, it can sometimes be a challenge to reign in spending. On the Eat Local Challenge website, we have talked a lot about eating within a budget and have proven that it's possible -- it just takes a little more planning than average, a little more cooking than average, and a little more preserving of food than average.

So how does one go about eating sustainably on a budget? I have a few ideas, but would love to hear what tricks you are employing to keep your family's budget down.

Eat fruits and vegetables that are in season.

When fruits and vegetables are in abundance in the farmers market, the prices go down. There may be sales, and you are getting the vegetables at their peak of flavor. When you just have to have a bunch of asparagus out of season in August, you're going to be paying top dollar for it. Right now, in the middle of asparagus season, you may find a deal.

Put foods up when you find a bargain.

Start working on canning, drying, preserving, and freezing your food as you find it on sale. There is nothing that's better for the budget and the tastebuds than pulling a bag of peas that were frozen in their peak out of your own freezer, or using your own jarred tomatoes that were purchased in September and canned. Learning to can is a bit of a process, but the resurgence in interest means that there are a lot of resources available. Start with the Ball website for step-by-step instructions.

Menu plan.

You may remember that in January I mentioned that I would be menu planning in order to cut down on food waste as part of my 2009 resolutions. It's been going quite well, and has in fact given way to a new project with a friend where we menu plan for the week and cook together. You can read the first part of the series on Serious Eats. I know that this is the key to keeping my budget in check, but I have to admit that it's been quite a switch for me to menu plan and to eat at home as much as I have been.

Look for unpopular cuts of meat.

Meat definitely takes up a large percentage of my budget. I've taken to combing through a meat vendor's selection for cuts that are less expensive -- oxtails, tougher cuts of meat that need to be slow cooked, or different meats like goat -- in order to find a bargain. It seems to be working out somewhat, and I am also cutting down on my meat consumption.

I'd like to ask you, readers: What have you been doing to cut down on food costs?

Though I'm making great strides in this arena, I feel like there are other things I can be doing to cut down on costs.

Related posts:
Inexpensive Family Meals

For a high-profile chef from New York City, it takes a certain amount of moxie to stand up at the recent Ecological Farming Conference at Asilomar and admit how much you love foie gras. It's especially provocative if you’re Dan Barber, buddy of Michael Pollan, chef of the acclaimed Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns restaurants, and very vocal advocate of local, seasonal, and sustainable cooking.

Sitting in the main reception room, a few minutes before the afternoon plenary session was to begin, I overheard Barber catching up with a farmer colleague. It seemed he’d just found out that he was expected to lecture, not just answer questions, on the panel alongside Annie Somerville of Greens and Judy Wicks of Philadelphia’s White Dog Cafe. "I'm just going to tell the foie gras story," he said, sounding exhausted, and I thought, “Foie gras? At Eco-Farm? Does this man know where he is?” After all, this is a confab of organic farmers and food-justice activists. Sure, there’s a passion for deliciousness, but in general, the talk is kale, not champagne.

Onstage, Barber was unapologetic: for all his dirt-first politics, he’s a chef in love with flavor and texture, and to him, foie gras was the epitome: sweet, fatty, unctuous, able to make anything paired with it taste fantastic.

Why? Because it is, essentially, a small amount of liver flavoring a whole lot of fat. It gets that way due to gavage, a controversial practice of force-feeding ducks and geese until their livers swell to several times their normal size. Chicago recently repealed a two-year ban on serving it in the city’s restaurants; Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill outlawing the making and selling of force-fed foie gras in California by 2012.

Barber, however, had a mission. He followed his declaration with a detailed story of going to Spain to seek out Eduardo Sousa, a man who’d recently won France’s highest gastronomic award for foie gras. “When I arrived,” Barber related, “He was lying in the grass taking cell-phone pictures of his geese.” Sousa’s geese were pasture-raised, and his fences were only electrified on the outside against predators. Electrifying the inside would be insulting to the geese, Sousa insisted; they would feel themselves prisoners. Instead, as a third-generation goose steward, his job was to give his geese everything they needed to be happy (short of dying of old age), so they’d have no need to leave.

Sousa didn’t practice gavage; instead, he followed the geese’s natural inclination to stuff themselves before winter. Come fall, as the days shortened and the temperatures dropped, he increased the amount of food available to his geese. They gobbled, and then, fat and happy, they met their end. Living on an herb-rich pasture as well as grains, their meat was layered with flavor, pre-seasoned from the inside out. “Who was the chef,” Barber found himself asking as he ate with Sousa, “And who was the farmer?”

Back home in New York City, Barber did his research: Sousa’s method, he claimed, was the origin of foie gras. As Barber told it, Jewish communities in Egypt enjoyed foie gras as a natural by-product of winter-slaughtered geese. Upon tasting it, the pharoh demanded a year-round supply of the delicacy for the court, and so gavage was invented, to mimic the natural autumn voracity of the birds.

Earlier in the panel, restauranteur Judy Wicks had described her mission as “using good food to lure innocent customers into social activism.” Barber ended his talk by insisting, “The best decisions are almost always the most delicious.” Personally, I don’t eat foie gras, having no stomach for either the taste or the method. But for those who do, could pleasure reward compassion, making humanely-produced foie gras into a seasonal, winter-only delicacy offered by local poultry producers? It’s already a luxury item; why not make it a humane one, too?

Dan Barber, making a similar case for humane foie gras at the Taste3 Conference in Napa.

Today, I will be ushering in the inauguration at the Civic Center with throngs of San Franciscans who want to watch history together, in a collective group.

The sustainable food community has high hopes for an Obama administration. Food security, organic farming, dialing back of subsidies, and support of small farmers are all on the collective wish list for discussion. In October, Michael Pollan wrote an 8000-word letter to the incoming President-Elect outlining the policies that he hoped the new President would take into consideration.

One of the ideas put forward in this article, and bandied about by others in the food community, is to dedicate part of the White House lawn for a victory garden. As you probably know, during World War II, victory gardens were grown all over the country. Twenty million families grew edible gardens and provided 40% of the domestic food supply. At the time, Eleanor Roosevelt planted a garden at the White House. It not only provided food for the White House, but symbolically supported the idea that food is a critical part of this nation's agenda.

Many don't know that the White House already has a rooftop garden. According to Walter Schieb, executive chef under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, there is a small vegetable garden which is used for White House cooking. That's a great start, but food activists are hoping for a symbolic, and larger garden which would be visible by the millions of visitors to the White House.

There are large, over-arching issues in today's food system. And asking the Obamas to consider a 5-acre organic fruit and vegetable garden seems almost petty in comparison to hunger, obesity, and poor diets. But the message that planting a garden would send is important, and should be considered.

Will today's inauguration speech have a sentence added in for this promise? I can only hope.

For more information about the push for a White House garden, check out the following resources:

Farmer in Chief, Michael Pollan, New York Times
Eat the View
Veggie Gardens and Other Ideas for the Obamas, Anne Marie Chaker, Wall Street Journal

Along with 4 million other people in Washington, I'm trying to figure out how to keep warm and dry while waiting (and waiting…) to witness history in the making. Fuzzy boots and mittens with hand warmers and puffy rain pants are my own fashion statement for this inaugural ceremony. And while the 44th POTUS settles into his luncheon, enjoying "A Brace of American Birds" beneath a painting of Yosemite Valley, I'll be making my way very very very slowly back up to Tenleytown...to a crock pot full of warming chili.

No, I'm not following Obama's recipe. Our very own North Coast Journal up in Humboldt County got a hold of that one back while he was still campaigning. Truth be told, it's a bit bland for me (thank goodness kitchen skills have nothing to do with diplomacy and fiscal policy), but since his presidency promises change and diversity, it seems fitting that his chili recipe calls for beans and tomatoes and green pepper, an unholy trinity for any Texan devotee of chile con carne. The 44th POTUS even serves it on a bed of rice. If you've spent any time in the Lone Star State, then you know that all of those are verboten.

His predecessor's recipe is still secret, though like other Red-State, Tex-Mex lovers, Dubya swears by Gebhardt's chile powder, conveniently available in 3-ounce or 5-gallon containers. Serious chili cooks will, of course, make their own from dried chiles, toasted cumin seeds, Mexican oregano and garlic powder.

Here in California, at the more lucrative end of the wagon train routes, we became known for carne con chile, not chile con carne. Ana Begue de Packman, a descendant of the state's first colonists and author of Early California Hospitality: The Cookery Customs of Spanish California (Arthur Clark Company, 1938) included a recipe for carne con chile with the note that "it is insisted by the Californians that the meat be given the place of honor." Her version, while avoiding tomatoes and beans, included breadcrumbs for thickening and a handful of the local black olives.

Modern experts, such as Hal John Wimberly, the editor of the Goat Gap Gazette, a monthly that covers all things BBQ and chile, is astounded by West Coast cooks. "Californians put funny things into their chili. Green peppers. Celery. All kinds of garbage." Don't even get him started on the tofu or dried mushrooms.

The Mexicans have disowned the dish entirely. The 1959 edition of the Diccionario de Mejicanismos defines chili con carne as "detestable food passing itself off as Mexican, sold in the United States from Texas to New York." Since cows arrived in Mexico with the conquistadors, we can safely assume that beef was not in the original recipe south of the border. Cornmeal and beans, however, are components of nourishing stews prepared by the original Americans. That some chili recipes include these ingredients, along with the ever-present chiles, seems only natural in a place where borders were frequently shifting.

Chili stand in Haymarket Plaza, San Antonio, c. 1902. (From the Institute of Texan Cultures, UTSA)

Fortunately for my taste buds, purism has no place in my kitchen. I'm not averse to using ground meat instead of cubed, or -- double sin! -- shredding tofu skins to mimic ground meat. I've also been known to tilt a can or two of tomatoes and beans into my pot. And despite admonitions against overpowering the meat, I love doubling garlic and chiles, if not cumin and oregano. One of these days, I'll brave a plate of five-way Cincinnati chili, with its layering of spaghetti noodles and oyster crackers. I'm one of those well meaning, curious cooks despised by Texans. If expanding flavor beyond the confines of a county jail counts as sacrilege, then, well, I always was comfortable with being a heathen.

Since the twisting paths of history are more interesting to me than any straight-laced doctrine, I'd like to point you to two recipes from the past. One comes from San Antonio, which has a good claim as the place of birth of chile con carne. The second recipe emerged from the kitchen of an early Californian.

In the 1800s, Mexican women set up chili stands at night in the main plazas of San Antonio, Texas. They become known and loved as the Chili Queens. The city's commissioner, Frank Bushick, wrote in 1927 that the" chili stand and chili queens are peculiarities, or unique institutions, of the Alamo City. They started away back there when the Spanish army camped on the plaza. They were started to feed the soldiers. Every class of people in every station of life patronized them in the old days. Some were attracted by the novelty of it, some by the cheapness. A big plate of chili and beans, with a tortilla on the side, cost a dime. A Mexican bootblack and a silk-hatted tourist would line up and eat side by side, [each] unconscious or oblivious of the other."

Mrs. Luce M. Trevino, 89, holds a 125-year old pot that she donated to the scrap metal pile during World War II. The pot was used by her mother for simmering chili in the first Mexican restaurant in San Antonio. (From the Institute of Texan Cultures, UTSA)

Original San Antonio Chili

This recipe comes from the Institute of Texan Cultures at the University of Texas San Antonio, where beans are barred from the chili pot.

2 pounds beef shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 pound pork shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes
¼ cup suet
¼ cup pork fat
3 medium-sized onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 quart water
4 ancho chiles
1 serrano chile
6 dried red chiles
1 tablespoon cumin seeds, freshly ground
2 tablespoons Mexican oregano
Salt to taste

Place lightly floured beef and pork cubes in with suet and pork fat in heavy chili pot and cook quickly, stirring often. Add onions and garlic and cook until they are tender and limp. Add water to mixture and simmer slowly while preparing chiles. Remove stems and seeds from chiles and chop very finely. Grind chiles in molcajete and add oregano with salt to mixture. Simmer another 2 hours. Remove suet casing and skim off some fat. Never cook frijoles with chiles and meat. Serve as separate dish.

Carne con Chile Sepulveda

This recipe comes from Ana Begue de Packman's historic cookbook, Early California Hospitality: The Cookery Customs of Spanish California. She offers a good tip for cooking with beef fat, essential for achieving the unctuous texture and rich flavor of the old versions of chili. As the name of the dish says, it's about the meat. There's no distraction of cumin or oregano even. If you side with Obama on the olive oil question, then be prepared for a thinner texture or else add a more breadcrumbs or dredge your meat in flour. And if you side with me on the point of tenderness, keep simmering the meat gently for a couple of hours. (Adapted by Mark Preston in California Mission Cookery.)

2 pounds beef chuck
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons fat from the chuck

Sauce:
4 ounces dry red chiles
2 tablespoons fat from the chuck
2 tablespoons breadcrumbs, toasted
1 clove garlic, mashed in salt
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 cup black olives

Cut the meat in chunks, removing as much fat and gristle as possible. Brown a little of the fat to render it, to grease the skillet. Use no fat if the meat is fatty already. Add the chunks of beef and season with the salt and pepper. Brown it well and set aside.

Stem and seed the chilies. Wipe them clean. Put them in a stew kettle and pour boiling water over them. Cook until the skin easily separates from the chile meat. Rub the chile-meat through a sieve. This should make about 1 1/2 pints of red chile puree.

Heat enough of the fat to render 2 tablespoons in an iron skillet. Add the toasted breadcrumbs and the garlic, mashed in salt. Stir constantly until a light golden color. Pour in the chile puree, garlic and vinegar. Simmer 15 minutes. Add the meat. Cook 10 minutes longer. Serve, garnishing with ripe olives.

So, I'm not a Washingtonian. I was born there and lived there for three short years before we took off for points middle-west, but I'm clearly no Beltway insider. Naturally, I didn't know what a "half-smoke" was until I saw the discussion surrounding it and Obama's trip to Ben's Chili Bowl on Meet the Press with video reposted at Serious Eats.

Wasn't I just talking about how obsessed we all are with every little move Obama makes, including where and what he eats?

After David Gregory played the clip of Obama in Ben's asking, "What's a half-smoke?" Cosby reacted to this question with a humorously exaggerated eye-roll, just as though Theo had asked if he could borrow the family car to take Charmaine on a date while wearing a crazy yellow shirt that Denise made for him just before Rudy ran down the stairs and lip-synced to a comically low-pitched song.

This is the thing -- I like that Obama asked that question. I like that he's come to D.C. and, with that question, pretty much said, "Hey, I know I'm not from around here. I'm from the lands of Portuguese sausage and of Polish sausage. I'm not going to jam a Yankees cap on my head and pretend as if I've always lived among you, I'm asking you to teach me your ways and your customs."

It's humble, it's curious. It's Obama.

So, what IS a half-smoke? As I understand it from Wikipedia, a half-smoke is "similar to a regular hot dog, but slightly larger, spicier and with more coarsely ground meat; it is usually grilled but can be found steamed." It's usually made from a combo of beef and pork and there's some question about what "half" or "smoke" even means in the name. Quite frankly, it sounds like pot jargon to me.

There's a repulsive little photo accompanying the entry, but from the sound of it's I'm guessing it has to taste way better than it photographs.

The half-smoke revelation sort of begs the question: does every metropolis have their own hot dog? Here's a very loose analysis of my answer to that question: D.C. has the half-smoke, Chicago has Polish sausage, Hawaii has Portuguese sausage, Boston has hot dogs in those split rolls that do double-duty for lobster rolls, Philly has...cheese steaks (it's not a dog, per se, but it's still meat in a long bun), New York has Nathan's Famous Franks at Coney Island and maybe Grey's Papaya, and New Jersey has whatever New York has.

So, what sort of dog does San Francisco have? The easy and dated joke would zing "tofu dog," but really, we can do better than that, can't we? We've definitely got Rosamunde's, but maybe the quintessential San Francisco hot dog would be made from half Marin Sun Farms beef and half Fatted Calf pork on a sourdough and black olive bun, topped with diced Happy Girl Dilly Beans and Spicy Carrots.

Yeah, um, I'd really appreciate it if someone would go invent that right now.

I'm going to try not to sound like a grandma-in-a-rocking-chair here, but indulge me for a moment: I joined the food blog community in its infancy. When I started my blog over five years ago, there were just a handful of us around. I don't think that any of us imagined what this blog community was going to become, or predicted the explosion of food bloggers worldwide.

So, what's bringing on all this nostalgia? It's the announcement of the 5th Annual Menu for Hope -- a worldwide fundraising effort by food bloggers for a designated charity. This is an event that really highlights the magnitude of the food blogger community and its impact around the world.

This year the charity of choice is the United Nations World Food Programme, with the funds specifically going to an important school lunch program in Lesotho.

Menu for Hope is hosted by Pim of Chez Pim, and is the annual major fundraising event for food bloggers. Last year, the event raised over $90,000 for the Lesotho program.

The event is a raffle, with each ticket costing $10. Everyone can participate. There are dozens of prizes this year, broken into areas of the world:

West Coast
Wine
East Coast
Canada
Asia

Each year, the prizes get more exciting and more innovative. There are many ways to strategize your prize choices -- some choose to find the prizes with a low number of bids to increase their chances of winning. At first glance, here is my wish list for prizes I'd love to win:

Dinner for 6 at Contigo, with sommelier service by Alder of Vinography. (In Praise of Sardines, prize code UW14). Brett Emerson of In Praise of Sardines is opening his restaurant in Noe Valley within weeks. This prize will allow you and five friends to have dinner at this Catalan-inspired restaurant.

Knife of your Choice (Steamy Kitchen, prize code UE01). Win a chef's knif of your choice from New West Knifeworks.

Two boxes of Macarons from Petites Bouchees (Veronica's Test Kitchen, prize code UE04). I am a sucker for well-made macarons, and the prize of 48 macarons is too tempting to pass up.

Bo Ssam dinner for 8 at Ssam Bar (Momofuku - UE15). There are a couple of prizes that I would be willing to travel for, and if I won this dinner from Momofuku, I would be on a plane to New York City in a split second.

Lowel Ego Two Light Set (Kalyn's Kitchen - UW10). This is a great prize for all the food photographers out there. I'd love to have this prize for my indoor food photography.

Dinner with Eric Asimov (The Pour / NY Times - WB02). I get sweaty palms even imagining having dinner with Eric Asimov, but what a fun dinner it would be!

A case of small production wines from Raymond. (Raymond Vineyards - WB22). This is a carefully selected case of wine from Raymond Vineyards.

There are dozens more prizes to choose from, so please take a look for yourself and decide what to bid on! You can find out more details about Menu for Hope on Pim's site.

To donate to Menu for Hope:
1) Choose your prizes and note the prize codes.
2) Go the the First Giving site for Menu for Hope
3) Specify which prize you'd like in the "Personal Message" section according to the rules on the First Giving site.
4) If your company matches charity donations, check the appropriate box.
5) Check the box allowing the page owner to see your email address for the purposes of contacting the winners.
6) Check back on Chez Pim on January 12 to see who won!

What are you doing this coming Thursday? Nothing? In that case, make reservations for dinner out. In one fell swoop you can help both local restaurants and the hungry in our own community.

A maverick is someone who exhibits great independence in thought and action. True to the name, local Maverick restaurateur Scott Youkilis and wine director Michael Pierce created Dine Out Against Hunger, and organized some of the city's top venues to donate up to 10% of Thursday December 18th dinner sales to the San Francisco Food Bank, which supplies over 600 food programs throughout the city.

Maverick will also take 10% off the tab for any customers making an additional donation to the Food Bank. Perhaps you'd like to make the donation in the name of a friend or a family member? Cross another person off your holiday gift list!

What: Dine Out Against Hunger

When: Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Where: Dinners to take place at the following restaurants: Participating restaurants are: Maverick, A16, Americano, Caffe Sociale, Delfina, Foreign Cinema, Incanto, Kuleto's, Magnolia, Range, Serpentine, Slow Club, and SPQR.

How: Make reservations.

Why: If you're wondering whether hunger is a problem in our fair city, it's estimated that 150,000 San Franciscans are at risk of going hungry this holiday season. For every $1 raised during this effort, the Food Bank can distribute $9 worth of food into the community, thanks to its relationships with retailers, growers and distributors. San Francisco Food Bank’s goal is to distribute 66,000 holiday meals this season. Help make the holidays a little brighter for everyone.

If you haven't eaten at A16 in a while, the A16 cookbook should whet your appetite. Here is a scrumptious recipe from A16 Food + Wine. The recommended wine to pair with this seasonal salad is Asprinio di Aversa from Campania.

Roasted Beet Salad with Fennel, Black Olives, and Pecorino

Serves: 4 to 6

Ingredients:

2 bunches medium-sized red beets (about 8 total)
Kosher salt
1⁄3 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for
roasting the beets
1 1⁄2 fennel bulbs
2⁄3 cup black olives, pitted
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice,
or as needed
Block of aged pecorino for shaving

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Trim off the greens and the “tail” from each beet. (You can reserve the greens if they are in good condition and use them in the braised greens recipes on pages 230 and 232.) Place the beets in a roasting pan in which they fit snugly, and season with about 1 tablespoon salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Cover the pan and roast for 1 hour, or until the beets are tender when pierced with a wooden skewer or the tip of a paring knife. Remove the beets from the oven, let them cool just until they can be handled, and then rub off the skins with your fingers or peel them with a paring knife. Slice the beets into 1⁄3-inch-wide wedges. Cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, if still intact, cut off the stalks and feathery tops (reserve for another use) from the fennel bulbs. Cut the bulbs in half lengthwise, then cut away the core. Cut the halves lengthwise into 1⁄4-inch-thick slices. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Add the fennel slices and blanch for about 2 minutes, or until they lose their raw bite. Drain, shock in ice water to halt the cooking, drain again, and set aside.

To make the vinaigrette, pulse the olives in a food processor until they form a chunky paste. Drizzle in the 1⁄4 cup olive oil and the vinegar and pulse briefly to combine. Taste for seasoning and add more vinegar if needed.

In a bowl, toss together the fennel and the 1⁄4 cup olive oil, coating the fennel evenly. Mix in the lemon juice and a pinch of salt, taste for seasoning, and adjust with more salt and⁄or lemon juice if needed. In a separate bowl, combine the beets and olive vinaigrette and toss until the beets are thoroughly coated with the vinaigrette.

To serve, place the beets in a salad bowl or on a platter and top with the fennel. Using a vegetable peeler, shave curls of pecorino over the salad. Serve immediately.

Recipe reprinted from A16 Food + Wine, copyright ©2008 by D.O.C. Restaurant Group, LLC, courtesy of Tenspeed Press.

Tue, November 25, 2008
The California Report
Host: Rachael Myrow

Mobile Food Bank
Food banks across the state are struggling with longer lines and fewer donations this holiday season. But one Central Valley food bank will soon have a unique way to deliver fresh produce to rural communities.

Reporter:
• Sasha Khokha

Listen to the program

KQED Radio News: Mon, Nov 24, 2008 -- 5:30 PM

The Holidays and Food Bank Demands
This is the official start of our end-of-the-year holidays and is always the busiest time of year for food banks and soup kitchens. In the midst of a dire economic crisis, local food banks say they're seeing unprecedented demand for hot meals and groceries.

Host: Kelly Wilkinson

Guest:
Lynn Crocker, Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties

Listen to the program

Well, now I've seen everything. As it was pointed out to me recently, voting Californians care more for the rights of chickens than they do for those of gay men and women. In my bio-degradable peanut-wrapped little world of well-educated, thoughtful, and admittedly left-leaning friends and co-workers, I had previously thought this was all but impossible.

I believed I didn't know a single person-- especially anyone close to me-- who would, by touching a button or drawing a little black line to connect an arrow in a voting booth, actively raise a finger to institutionalize discrimination against me, or my sister, or my brother who, in a very real sense, died from internalizing all the hate and ignorance, both spoken and unspoken, that surrounds gay men and women and tells us we are not as deserving of happiness as everyone else. The electorate has demanded that a chicken be allowed the freedom to fully spread its wings and, in the same breath, has seen to it that I am not allowed to fully stretch mine.

It's nothing personal against chickens. Honest.

I have been chafing at the logic that homosexuals should somehow be satisfied with domestic partnerships and not get hung up on the word "marriage." And my blood is boiling over the 1,400,000 million-vote difference between those who voted for Barak Obama and those who voted No on Proposition 8. The stench of this hypocritical difference has settled in my nostrils and killed my appetite for the past couple of days. And that's saying something.

Does anyone remember a quaint little Supreme Court decision handed down in 1896? No? Well, I've got three words for you. Since those words are unprintable, I shall give you another three:

Plessy versus Ferguson.

Oh, and here are three more words that came out of that historically painful and embarrassing decision:

Separate but equal.

Image courtesy of Jay Floyd

Yes we can? Not in California, we didn't. Not so much.

Well, I'm getting hungry again. And I need a little bit of comforting. It does help that all my straight friends have been actively giving their support, but I need a little more. I need to fill my belly with something other than burning bile. I will resist the urge to drink the blood of all the innocent children I had planned to corrupt by getting married and go for something a little more low key to satisfy my hunger. Something fried. Something bad for my arteries, but tonic for my soul.

I want Chicken-fried steak.

It strikes me as odd that I should crave something that is the unofficial dish of Texas. Or that, given the chicken's newly-found superior status over me, that I would crave something so transparently pro-poultry-life. It's not as though I'd ever encountered it in my childhood. Of course, that may very well be what makes it such a comfort. It is a dish I discovered in college-- a time when I was busy forging my own identity as an adult.

I first encountered Chicken-fried steak at (foodies, look away) Denny's. A photograph of the dish caught my attention, popping off the image-bloated and ketchup-sticky pages of the menu more dramatically than the competing Moons over My Hammy. It was too late to be up, I'd most likely been out either drinking or dancing or depressed over my not-quite-out-of-the-closet status or some combination of all three, and my body called out for something fried to soak up both my sorrow and my alcohol intake.

I sat there, staring at the menu, trying to make sense of the dish. Chicken-fried Steak. On the one hand, I immediately got it-- pounded beef, served up as one would serve fried chicken. Basically, it's a more aged version of Wienerschnitzel, but served up with biscuits and anemic-looking gravy. On the other, I was caught up in the phrasing. Chicken-fried. The immediate mental image was that of a cartoonish hen, complete with pearls and frilly apron, frying up a piece of beaten-to-death cow. The evil, self-satisfied smile on her face convinced me that this dish was somehow subversive-- that there was some clever, morbid joke behind the creation of this dish. So I ordered it, naturally.

And, oddly, I felt much better for it. And it continues to have this mystifying effect on me. It may be its ability to fill my stomach, thereby draining as much blood as possible from my over-worked brain to aid digestion. It could be the fat and cholesterol that coats and calms me into some false sense of protection. I really don't know. All I know is that, for whatever reason, it works for me and I refuse to give into too much analysis. That would ruin everything.

Chicken-fried steak has lifted me up in some of my lowest of moments. It has comforted me on my journeys home from bank-breaking college trips to Las Vegas when the only money I had left in the world was spent on gas and this menu item. It has been consumed through endless, supportive conversations with friends in times of disease and unavoidable death, and recently it has been there to help salve a mopey, broken heart.

And now, I am calling on it to fortify me through this mess.

I never intend to make it myself. I don't even want to know exactly how it is made, so I will not give a recipe, let alone look at one. It is a dish best served to me, rather than by me. Preferably by a waitress whose shoulders have been slightly hunched by the weight of trouble and too many years of taking the brutal insensitivity and orders of strangers. I need this not to feel superior to someone else in my moment of gloom. I need it because I want to look her straight in the eye as if to say, "Girl, I know exactly how you feel." But I won't say it. She may not want that kind of empathy. Or me calling her "Girl". So instead, I'll just give her everything I have in my wallet and go home, bloated and tired, but somehow fortified enough to carry on.

Until the next time.

I am a true election geek. While most of you have probably been feeling election fatigue, I am sprinting toward the finish line. My interest and excitement has increased as the days go on. Most days, you'll find me with my iPod on, listening to podcast after podcast of election analysis. I can't get enough of On the Media, or Fresh Air's campaign interviews, or the Slate Gabfest. Yesterday, my fun activity for the day was to analyze 85,000 campaign contributors to see what corporations were donating to a cause that upsets me greatly. As someone who has spent a lot of my life thinking about politics, election day is the culmination of watching and participating in months and months of policy discussion, campaign strategy, and grassroots activism.

"What do you actually do on election day?" a friend recently asked in an email. I was balking at the idea of planning something on Tuesday. For me, election day is a ritual of being by myself, watching election returns, and waiting for results.

I answered her, "I sit at home, watch tv, click between my gazillion secretary of state / CNN / returns sites / blogs. I was invited to election parties, but I don't do that. I'd rather stay home and not talk to anyone ... It's better than Disneyland."

While there is a part of me that desperately wants certain candidates to win, and certain propositions to lose, and certain cynicisms that I have about the electorate to be put to bed, much of my election day fun is academic. How are the vote turnouts? How did the campaigns get out the vote? What new ingenious campaign methods are taking place? What's the mood like in the country? I click through photo montages and tear up at overview videos. I make spreadsheets, and I watch electoral maps.

Since I'll be at home alone, I'm not planning on a cute election day spread. No Palin Syrah, no red state velvet cake, no "right wings", no arugula (these ideas and more via Serious Eats).

My goal is going to be great sustenance with a minimum of fuss, and a minimum of time spent in the kitchen. Yesterday, I made Suzanne Goin's spiced pork stew, which is a recipe from Sunday Suppers at Lucques. Don't have this fabulous book? Alice Q Foodie published an adaptation of this recipe last year. It's going to be good today as I reheat it between returns.

Even election geeks need to get some fresh air, so before the 3:00 pm poll closings in Indiana and Kentucky, I'll be venturing out to Mission Pie to pick up my new addiction -- their delicious walnut pie. I have a feeling I'll be staying up late to wait for California proposition results, and my late night plan is popcorn or cereal. If things go really badly, I may be turning to my most basic comfort food: corn tortillas with melted cheddar and tomatoes.

If you're more social than I am on election day, you might want to wear your "I voted" sticker all day and take advantage of the numerous opportunities for free food around the Bay Area. You can get free sangria, free coffee, free ice cream, free doughnuts, free cookies, a free drink, and a free chicken sandwich.

Whatever tonight may bring, the drink of choice at this house will be sparkling wine -- probably something from my favorite Anderson Valley winery. It's a day to celebrate the end of this astounding election.