Amy McCoy - Poor Girl Gourmet: Eat in Style on a Bare Bones Budget

Well, the gourmetor lover of good foodpart came pretty easily. My mother was a scratch-baker, homemade-meals kind of womanin fact, we still laugh about how my three siblings and I banded together to demand a never-before-experienced-in-our-household meal of TV dinners around the time I was twelve or thirteen. my first taste of junky baked goods came in second grade. I didnt even know what those yellow, frosting-filled cakes were before grade school. My mother saw to it that my childhood was full of wholesome foodand inexpensive food at that, for we were not wealthy by any stretch and there were many mouths to feed.

My mother was influenced, of course, by her mother. My grandmother was a fabulous cook, and owned an Italian restaurant for which she created all of the recipes. That my grandmother, who was not trained as a chef, had an Italian restaurant was a source of great, sometimes gloating, pride for me as a child. Id like to think it was because I was duly impressed by her determination as a woman in the late 1960s opening a restaurant without any training, but something tells me it might have been more about free spaghetti and meatballs at that time. Now, its most definitely about her being a home cook who followed her dream at a time when that wasnt the easiest path for her to take. Those early dining experiences at her restaurant impressed upon me the joy that sharing food with family and loved ones brings, as our entire family would often gather there on Sunday for a six- or seven-course dinner.

By the time I was an adult with a proper professional careerfor thirteen years I produced promotional campaigns and graphic packages for television clients such as A&E, The CBS Evening News, Discovery Channel, History, and ESPNmy love of food was well established. Fortunate, then, that my income allowed me to travel and learn more about foodat home and abroad. My husband, JR, and I fell in love with Italynot terribly surprising, given my Italian Nanas influence, of courseand it was there that I learned more and more about fresh, local foods, as each region of Italy has its own cuisine. Wild game and earthy truffles inland, the freshest of seafood at the coast, and cheeses unique to their own locale throughout the countryside. With good food comes good wine, and I do love me some wine. JR and I have been lucky enough to visit wineries in Italy and Franceyou should know that this is something that anyone can do: you simply need to contact the winery in advance and ask for a visit; many are happy to complyand over the years, I have read up on wine when I very likely should have been reading up on television industry news. I dont consider myself an expert; Im just a dedicated, and possibly too enthusiastic, fan.

As you might imagine, advertising spending directly impacts the television industry, so when the economy began to sour for everyone else, its toll had already been felt in my world of television promotion. I had been a freelancer for most of those thirteen years, which meant that despite having no work, I could not collect unemployment benefits and so JR and I needed to plan out our spending carefully, includingand probably most importantlyfood spending. While I was trucking along, making a good living in television, I routinely spent between $160 and $200 per week on groceries. For two people. I shopped at Whole Foods. I bought fancy cheeses, imported prosciutto, and generally anything that struck my fancy while I was in the store. I did not shop sales, and I often bought food that we did not need (I admit this in the event that the mere mention of fancy cheeses didnt expose me). I thought nothing of cooking up a standing rib roast on any given Sunday in the cooler weatherhey, rib roast goes well with football, you knowand lamb chops, osso buco, and Delmonico steaks made regular appearances on our menu. I have an image of mepurely imaginarywith a loaded grocery cart, and I am grabbing just about any food I see, while dancing and singing, oblivious to the obscenity of my spending ways.

However, even in those heady days of willy-nilly food spending, I did embrace much of the food known as cucina povera, literally, the poor kitchen. Cucina povera arose from peasant cooking in Italy, though every culture has some version of this style of cooking, as it was historically a necessity for the majority of people. It also happened that the food I most enjoyed while traveling in Italy was the simple country cooking, and so I incorporated some of those dishes into my repertoire as well.

Thus, it was a short jump from luxury-food girl to this new food-shopping paradigm. I already had the tools for cooking good food on a budget, I simply hadnt employed themnor had it been required of meuntil my television work evaporated. Needing a creative outletsitting on my hands is just not my wayI took the sudden and mammoth gap in my work schedule as an opportunity to start a food blogPoor Girl Gourmetbased on the way JR and I had started eating.

Over the years spent as this dancing, singing, cart-filling fool, I had developed a shopping routine, one that included shopping at Whole Foods, my local farm stand, and also at a favorite Italian specialty market. I didnt want to change this routine. It was important to me that food not become a source of stress, and that shopping not become depressing. I didnt want to chide myself as I walked those formerly gilded aisles. Food shopping still had to have some magic, because there is nothing more magical than taking raw ingredients and creating something that gives yourself and others pleasure. I also developed relationships with the people who work at those stores and stands. I love chatting with my favorite butchers at Whole Foods, or my artist and writer friend at the farm stand, or the folks at each department of the Italian specialty shop who all are so sweet and helpful.