Savvy Saving Bytes

Who knew there was such a rich variety of free summer entertainment and goodies offered in the parks, on the streets, shores, and great plazas of New York City? I sure didn’t and thanks to my recent research, next month I’ll be hightailing it over to the Hudson River to take advantage of free Hatha Yoga “in a beautiful sunset setting.”

And what else is going on this summer that costs zippo? Plenty. How about free kayaking or salsa and bachata lessons? Or picnicking in the park with the Philharmonic or Metropolitan Opera, or catching a concert of Chilean/French hip hop or electronic rock from Mexico. Or maybe attending a pirate party or puppet pageant or a “Mamapalooza Extravaganza.” Or enjoying a premier movie under the stars. And where else could you groove to so many internationally inspired performers — the sounds and colors of Turkey or a Slavic soul party or a Chinese lion dance. And all free. So dust off your dancing shoes and let the New York summertime party begin.

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It recently occurred to me that without doing anything, I have always kept a fairly green kitchen. All because I’ve been Miss Frugal (the unenlightened might call it Miss Chintzy) from way back when. I have never used a single watt of electricity on an electric coffee maker, an electric food mixer, a food processor, a microwave oven, a toaster oven, an electric frying pan, a waffle maker, an electric grill or an electric can opener, the last of which I’ve always considered a particularly frivolous item. I ask you, how hard is it to give a hand can opener a few twists with two fingers to pop open the lid of a can?

Admittedly, I have a doll-size kitchen, so buying and squeezing all these appliances into it would have been a superman size challenge. But even in large kitchens, I’ve never liked the look of appliances parked all over counters, especially when decked out in plastic shawls. The top reason I’ve never sprung for these items, however, is that I never felt the need to have them in the first place. This is in tune with the big frugalmeister himself, Thoreau, who said, “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify…A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”

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So what was my big splurge? A spiffy new car? A costly hunk of Jewelry? A pricey pair of designer sunglasses? Get real! You’re talking to one of the last of the small spenders here. Splurging is relative and right now, with my current computer on life support and a streamlined new Mac waiting to punch a major hole in my bank balance, I consider every dime I spend on non-necessities to be a big deal — a splurge. Which is why this morning at the farmer’s market I almost hesitated before breaking out my wallet and forking over the extravagant sum of $6.00 for three tomatoes and four ears of corn. Translated, that’s $3.00 a pound for tomatoes or $1.333 per smallish tomato and $.50 for each ear of corn.

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What’s not to love in a meal that combines grilling over an open fire, wholesome (and budget friendly) cooking-from-scratch ingredients, easy no fuss meal preparation, relaxation out in the fresh air and the tantalizing aroma of sizzling foods dripping with juices?

When I was growing up, cooking out in our well-shaded back yard was always a treat. It was the only time my father ever had anything to do with food except eating it and carving roasts. Yet like most men since good old cave-man days, he was a natural at the fire. Give a man some hot dogs and hamburgers, toss in some charcoal and he was somehow able to grill them to perfection.

In the northeast, this is now the primo time of summer when local tomatoes and corn are about to make their star appearances in food markets.  Add them to these grilling recipes selected from five super sources and you’re in for some delicious barbecue bashes.

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I hate to break it to those with golden tans colored by man-made potions and methods, but the final verdict is still out on some tanning practices and one sunless tanner has been labeled flat out “unsafe.”

Tanning pills, which usually contain an item called canthaxaxthin, have been called unsafe by the esteemed Mayo Clinic. Taken in large amounts, these pills can turn your skin orange and bring on hives. Even more worrisome, they can also cause crystals to form in the retina of the eye and lead to liver damage.

Tanning beds also come with negatives. According to a study by the American Association for Cancer Research, the frequent use of indoor tanning beds increases the risk of Melanoma up to four times, regardless of people’s ages when they first started using tanning beds. On a global note, The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified these devices as “carcinogenic.” The FDA has chimed in by recommending that kids under 18 be barred from tanning beds unless they have a consent form signed by a parent. Interviewing tanning salon staffs in 2005, Consumer Reports found that 30% of those questioned denied that tanning beds could prematurely age skin or cause skin cancer. Which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in their knowledge or credibility.

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The first time I saw an image of the weird looking Chinese bus — a gigantic articulated vehicle transporting 1,200 riders in the upper level while passenger cars swooped through the open lower level as the bus traveled along the highway — I thought, what the heck IS this thing? The closer I looked though and the more I read about it on China Hush, the more off-the-wall brilliant the idea seemed.

Designed to ease China’s traffic congestion and travel OVER the traffic, the bus would be powered by solar energy and electricity that recharges as it moves along the highway. Riding on existing roads, the buses would cost much less to construct than underground subways or overhead rail lines.

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All comfy and relaxed, I was watching a movie way past bedtime when a mouse streaked into my living room and disappeared under the couch. I have lived in my apartment a zillion years with not a mouse in sight, so this critter brought me to my feet FAST.  As I leaped up, he dashed from the cover of one piece of furniture to another, zoomed around the room and vanished back in the kitchen.  After a tense apartment search brought up zero, I was sitting there debating what to do next when ANOTHER mouse — a BIGGER one shot around my feet and commenced another circle run  — but at a less frenetic pace, vanishing behind furniture for unnerving long minutes.

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During the night at the end of a brutally hot July, the sizzling summer of hell finally took a powder. When I left my apartment the next morning I walked straight into a deliciously cool breeze. It had been so long since I had hit the street and not been assaulted by a blinding wall of sun and humidity, I stopped short to drink in the stunning coolness. Returning home and walking toward me, my third floor neighbor, who also always leaves early to buy his newspaper, smiled. Yes, we beamed. Wasn’t it a gorgeous morning.

At last New Yorkers could turn off their air conditioners, could walk in comfort on the streets again, amble anywhere, do anything outdoors we wanted. A celebration was in order. Maybe dinner at a restaurant with outside seating. Even better, a picnic in Central Park, the first of the Summer.

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Confession time. Am about to do an about-face* on CVS’s self-service, checkout stations. When I first wrote about their sudden appearance in CVS stores in October, I was not thrilled about taking on the role of cashier and working for free. Nor was I enthusiastic about dealing with cobbled together self-checkout stations that always seemed to be breaking down. Lastly, I’m big on simplicity and the whole self-checkout process felt like just another unnecessary annoyance.

So I continued to stand in the lone human cashier checkout line while other customers steadily gravitated to the self-checkout stations. Then one day the line waiting for our Homo sapien cashier appeared to snake half way to the Bronx, while the adjoining self-checkout stations were wide open and free. So boom — I waltzed over and began my relationship with the one-note, female robot voice who guides customers through the check out process.

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In China that’s what authorities told their people when photos surfaced showing Chinese pork glowing a spooky, iridescent blue after kitchen lights were switched off. No problem said the authorities. Just a little contamination by phosphorescent bacteria. Just make sure the pork is well cooked and it’s perfectly safe to eat.

Think we’re safe and immune here in the U.S. from tidbits like that and all the other tainted food scandals popping up around China lately? Starting in 2008 when 6 babies died and 300,000 were sickened by milk contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, these scandals have included arsenic-laced soy sauce, plaster tofu, mushrooms treated with fluorescent bleach; bean sprouts tainted with sodium nitrite, urea, animal antibiotics and a plant hormone called 6-benzyladenine, fake wine, phony eggs and imitation fish. Recent tests of food made from rice flour showed one third of the samples contained levels of aluminum above national standards. And let us not forget last week’s killer  photos of “sewer oil” that cooks retrieved from drains beneath restaurants for the purpose of recycling — cooking food over and over — YIKES — AGAIN.

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