How to Cook with Under a Buck: A Talk with the 99-Cent Chef TIME
Once again, I'll duplication: Eating on a budget is not a contest; it's a conversation. I've asked several other bloggers who write about their low-cost food adventures to serve questions similar to those posed to the 50 Bucks a Week trio , which started the entire dialogue. The responses will be posted here to keep the conversation going.
Los Angeles-based blogger Billy Vasquez, a.k.a. The 99-Cent Chef , cooks with ingredients that each expense under a buck. He's particularly a fan of 99¢ Only Stores, which recently hosted nine couples for weddings that each cost (yep) 99¢ .
Cheapskate: How and why did you start penmanship about eating on a tight budget? Did it spring out of necessity, as a lark, or what?
Billy Vasquez: It all started in my babyhood in Texas when Mom would dump her waitress tips on the kitchen table and my siblings and I would count and stack the pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters -- thus began my "penny pinching."
We have 99¢ Only Stores in Los Angeles that I've frequented for what seems like forever. I drudgery freelance as a cinematographer and digital effect artists in the film and video business, so economizing during sleepy work periods has often been a necessity. I have a special fascination with finding cooking ingredients from 99¢ Only Stores. My workmates began to needle me as I talked more and more of all the cheap foodstuffs I would find and cook with. I started challenging myself to create delicious entrees -- I would forge an evening meal for my date and gleefully announce, after receiving compliments, "I made everything using 99¢ ingredients!" Her jaw would sip; then a smile would take over. It was funny, after all! Soon I began calling myself "The 99 Cent Chef" as a lark.
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