Since college, my lunch has been mostly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (my boss thinks this is hilarious). This is largely a result of a year-and-a-half of non-food stamp AmeriCorps, where every penny was to be pinched. Although there are occasionally cheap lunches to be found ($4 quesadillas from the taco truck in Washington Heights and random $4 schwarmas on Court Street - both of which are notably more expensive than sandwiches), I'll stick with the good old pb&j. I believe it allows me to pay for random travel expenses and weekend fun, though I have yet to actually calculate whether that actually works out.

There are exceptions, though. I spent 3 years y un poco màs in Ecuador eating soup and their "plato tìpico" - meat and rice. After watching our Fellows eat turkey sandwiches every day during training, I caved and ate coldcuts for a week. And this week, in an ongoing effort to in-kind food for our in-person interviews next year, I'm eating out. We've tried a couple big corporate chains, but they seem to be mostly tapped out of donations. So I'm trying a couple of local restaurants, including Court Order and Lemongrass Thai. After all, I don't want to be That Guy who just goes in and asks for free food. Isn't it better to be a customer and community member who just happens to be asking if the restaurant helps out local nonprofits? That's how I justify it to myself anyway...and what do you know, one of the restaurants told me that, today, their manager was out, and that I should come back tomorrow (well...technically today). Too bad, I'll have to save the pb&j for next week and go back to check it out tomorrow.

Oh, and y'all should check out Garrick Aden-Buie, one of my old compañeros from Peace Corps. Good live music, especially if you happen to be in Chicago