OK, I know that I’ve skipped “real” Cheap Eats posts the past couple times. But I’ve had a rough past week (grandmother’s funeral, having to return a new iMac to the Apple Store) so I’m going to beg off this time again.

But I did want to mention that, somehow or another, the Cheap Eats blog was picked for the top 100 Blogs for Foodies by the Culinary School Guide.

I dunno what this means, but it’s kinda cool. I’ve always stayed purposely under the radar here, so it was neat to appear in the list next to all sorts of important foodie blogs. I’m not worthy, a la Wayne’s World.

Granted, it’s just another top 100 blog post and just the opinion of the site’s editor. Also, we appear in the category “Foodies on a Budget” - but I guess that’s pretty much correct.

Still, I feel kinda good about it. And now, I better go and get my suit cleaned for the award ceremonies. Party time. Excellent.

OK, OK yes it is time for a new poll. In my blog drafts, I have one labeled “DO A NEW DANG POLL ALREADY!” so I wouldn’t forget. It just keeps slipping my mind.

So here are the results for the “Coupon Clipping” poll. I just want to say that it’s gratifying to see major news outlets posting more about coupon clipping. I had our poll running way before the current economic downturn.

I think the results were pretty much in line with what I expected. A gradual increase between “Always” to “Frequently” to “Sometimes” as far as how often most people use food coupons. I think it just takes a certain type of person to do it always - I guess it helps if you’re the “shopper” in the family, and you cook quite a bit.

I guess I fall into the category of folks who won this particular poll. I occasionally clip coupons out of the mailers that come in - but I don’t keep a book of coupons like some folks. I do use a “grocery card” when possible.

However, I guess I was a little surprised at how many people NEVER clip coupons. I thought especially with the current economic climate that there wouldn’t be as many. I think perhaps if I had started the poll now, maybe the results might be a little different…

Anyhow, there is a new poll up. This one, I have actually been thinking of writing about for three years. I originally thought it was maybe too “controversial”. First off, I need to stay that I personally DO NOT condone any stealing of any kind. I don’t want people to get the wrong idea.

The poll question is: Have you ever stolen food? I have actually received from 5-6 emails from folks over the past 4 years, about them having to resort to stealing food in order to survive. I’ve never re-printed the emails - I just didn’t want to get involved with talking about the issue. I have to say that I felt really bad about what these people were forced to do. And it sort of shocked me that these were all people living in the U.S.

I think there are a lot of “gray” areas when it comes to that. I mean, if you walk in to an El Pollo Loco and go up to the salsa bar, fill up several containers, and leave - I guess that seems like stealing to me. However, if you buy a 99 cent side salad and then fill up 25 containers of salsa - is that technically “stealing”? If I jump into the dumpster at the Big Lots and pick out packaged food items past the date they’ve thrown away, is that technically “stealing”? I have heard (ex) friends justify stealing candy from the 7-11 saying that it’s not hurting anyone except the greedy corporations. I respectfully disagreed with them and tried not to hang out with them any more…

I dunno - I’m sort of conflicted about this whole thing. There have actually been featured stories lately about people from the Depression who had to steal chickens in order to survive (the articles are somewhat romanticized if you ask me). I hesitated to post about the topic because I know there are going to be some pretty strong opinions out there. After all, didn’t they used to cut off your hand in certain countries if you were caught stealing?

In any case, I decided to make a poll of it first - just to see what people’s experience with it was. I realize that the poll doesn’t really address the question of “what exactly is stealing?” and skirts the whole moral issue of stealing in order to survive. But I can’t really do a complicated poll, so this will have to do for now.

Hye there Cheap Eaters.

I’ve sort of hinted at this new project of mine over the past couple of weeks. It’s still “in the works”, but I figured I should probably officially announce it right now.

The website is called Cheaplander and this will be similar to Cheap Eats in that we’ll focus on reviews of cheap, inexpensive products. But the difference is we’ll be talking about EVERYTHING cheap, not just food.

I’m also going to be putting up some articles and other content (hopefully not boring your socks off) as time permits. I haven’t really told anyone about the site yet, so I figured since this blog was the inspiration for it, I should let the readers know about it.

First, I need to get something out of the way: Cheap Eats itself will NOT be discontinued. In fact, if anything, I’m going to ramp up posting here in order to try get eyes over there. I’m going to have SOME food reviews over on Cheaplander, but the majority of them will still land here.

The thing is: I’m not a very good promoter. I’m a halfway decent blogger I guess. But the blogging world has completely changed - there are just TOO many good blogs out there. So, the only way I could think of right now to try and get people interested was to spam you cross-promote it here.

Sorry if that sounds a little lame. Nevertheless - I’ve been writing on Cheap Eats for almost 4 years now. I haven’t asked readers for anything in all that time. But I guess I’m asking now - if you enjoy Cheap Eats and you have the time, would you please check out the new blog? And, if you would like to, please leave a comment. Also, if you’re into the whole RSS feed thingy, I’m using Feedburner for that - I’d be ever so grateful if you could add the feed to your reader.

Now - about Cheaplander. While it seems awfully opportunistic with the crazeee market bailout bababooey going on right now, I’ve been planning that website for about 2 years now. I enjoy writing, and to some extent, I enjoy helping people out. When I started Cheap Eats, I never thought it’d be possible to create a blog that would be entertaining, yet helpful. But I went ahead anyway - I figured at some point the blog would gravitate toward one side or the other. I’ve been told by many that eventually you have to “choose” between them.

(This sounds very Jedi-master-ish, I know. Or perhaps Pepsi-Coke-ish.)

I’ve been extremely surprised that to this day, some people enjoy the writing purely as entertainment, while others come here to actually get help. I get tons of mail about both sides, and it’s pretty gratifying.

I like writing about food and have made a lot of great contacts that way. But, I always felt that there was a whole spectrum of content that was being missed. That was the beginning of my plans for Cheaplander. Along the way, I realized that the gist of the content could focus around the idea of living within your means, since I’ve been sort of practicing this since I was a kid (haha, well more like brainwashed into it by the folks. Must say, I owe all my “success” to them, however.). Indeed, Cheap Eats itself came about because I needed to live within a budget.

As you can imagine, I couldn’t have predicted how timely that phrase would be. Just look at the state of the markets today.

Ok, I’m not going to go on and on - you can read more about it on the About page for Cheaplander.

But one last thing - whereas on Cheap Eats I’ve always been a bit hesitant to get involved with the “community”, I’m going to make more of an effort to include fellow Cheaplanders in the new site. I’ll probably be making a few more posts about it over the next couple of months - but, I’m looking for contributors to make a few posts once in awhile.

Up front: I can’t pay you. However, if exposure is what you’re looking for, then that’ll be taken care of in a byline on your post and inclusion on the “contributor’s page”. Also, I tend to get occasional free stuff from companies. I’d be willing to ship some of that out to people who might review it. I’m still trying to figure it out, but let me know if you’re interested.

Thanks for reading this non-Cheap Eats post. Full “coverage” will resume in a few days.

Bryan

p.s. I apologize in advance if certain things on the new site don’t function yet and if the look is still rather bare. I’m still in the midst of changing things day-to-day.

Ugh… I’m back a little early. But no worse for wear in general. The painful finger issue seems to have gone away - somewhat of a mystery.

Anyhow, I wasn’t going to post until next week but I felt absolutely compelled to get the word out about the FREE IKEA BREAKFAST that is going to be happening this weekend Sept 19-21, 2008. Seize the day, indeed. O captain, my captain!

I actually like the food in general at IKEA and have been meaning to make a post about it since it’s fairly cheap. But this is for free breakfast, no strings attached. You don’t have to buy anything - but of course, how could you not go to IKEA and NOT buy anything, LOL. That’s what they’re counting on, of course.

There’s more info on the Ikea site (I didn’t link directly to the coupon page because they’ll probably take it down later.) Note, the free breakfast does not apply in several cities (also, I didn’t check whether it applies in other countries), so you should probably check or call before heading down there. I wouldn’t want you to get breakfast-blocked after driving all the way there.

The offer is one per customer and only good until 10:30am. You get a free small breakfast and one cup of coffee - total value is $2. But hey, every little bit counts - have you felt the wobbling crazy insane eeekconomy lately? I have… and speaking of which - I’m still working on that related side project which was part of the reason for the extended break / vacation. I was going to “announce” it next week on the blog. But you can probably find it earlier if you’re interested.

Hello, hello Cheap Eaters! I have made a it a bad habit of injuring various body parts over the past couple years. First it was the shoulder and back. (Actually, those are still ongoing issues, that are tolerable.) But the latest and greatest is some sort of injury to a joint on my left ring finger. No idea what happened but I’ve had to tape it up which has made it absolutely JOYFUL to type. The previous entry was done mostly with one hand and 2 fingers.

Thusly - I really need to take a R&R break. And because I also happen to be working on an upcoming project related to Cheap Eats, I thought I might as well take the opportunity for a longer vacay. Not that long, mind you. I’ll likely return with posts some time in late September.

By the way, thanks to everyone who has posted wonderful comments and written in with words of encouragement over the years. I really appreciate it!

Bryan

NOTE: Due to rocking and rolling and other earthquakedness, our regular Cheap Eats coverage will be postponed until such a time as the ground stops shaking. For now, please gaze fondly at this older photo of an enormous shrimp dumpling from the now defunct Won Ton Time on Garfield in Monterey Park.

Regular coverage will resume in a few days, or next week depending on schedule and Laziness Quotient™. Thank you.

Rice is Nice! Yes, I know I haven’t changed out the Cheap Eats food poll in nearly a year. I just kept putting it off in favor of reviewing things like cans of vienna sausage. You know how it goes.

I guess I wasn’t too surprised that Rice came in first place in our poll on food staples. A full third of respondents (759 voters) picked rice as their favorite food staple. It’s definitely one of the most versatile dry goods to have stocked in the cupboard. We have at least 3 different kinds at all times - it’s usually sticky rice, plain white rice, and then jasmine or some other sort of mix.

What’s sort of funny is all the hub-bub that’s been going on fairly recently (probably before I even put the poll up) with the price on bags of rice skyrocketing. I know at certain stores (Sam’s Club, etc) they were limiting the number of bags per customer for awhile. I never would’ve thought that could happen. When NPR started to devote coverage to the price of rice not being nice (haha), I certainly started to pay attention.

As for the other staples, I was surprised at how high Potatoes came in. I personally love potatoes, but I thought they would come in last. 660 respondents (about 29%) cast their vote for the humble potato. Bread came in third with 470 votes (about 21%) and Beans brought up the rear (hmm.. beans DO tend to make curtain call appearances near my rear) with 374 votes (about 16%).

All of these staples are great for Cheap Eaters. I tend to have nearly all of them around at all times - with the exception of bread because it doesn’t last as long as the others do, especially with how humid it is in the summertime. For beans, I have both canned and dry. Potatoes I nearly always have as fresh - I try to store them in a cool dark place to extend the shelflife.

OK - the new poll is up to the right. This one has to do with clipping those pesky, time-expiring but essential supermarket coupons. To Coupon or not to Coupon - that is the poll question…