Posted on 11/11/2012 5:42:54 PM PST by huac
"...Gerry Mak and Sarah Magida sauntered through a small ethnic market stocked with Japanese eggplant, mint chutney and fresh turmeric...Magida, a 30-year-old art school graduate...she’s used her $150 in monthly benefits for things like fresh produce, raw honey and fresh-squeezed juices from markets near her house in the neighborhood of Hampden, and soy meat alternatives and gourmet ice cream from a Whole Foods a few miles away..."
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Exactly, thank you. I never asked the federal government to stick their hand in my earnings in the first place.
I think you meant to reply to someone else.
“Have you ever seen an EBT user also using coupons?”
Once and once only. It was an older woman with young kids with her (I am guessing her grandkids). She did have coupons and bought stuff food that was on sale. I am guessing she had custody of her grandkids.
I bet you wished that you hadn’t been out of lime washed Masa Harina, so that you could have made some tortillas when you were craving them for that month of the snowstorm.
Didn’t you say ‘f I were on assistance I’d be living on lentils and rice....”
But all i had was a rough grind of yellow corn.
At times it is a challenge being single and living alone.
Yes. I have a huge bag of rice I bought a long time ago and I keep it in the freezer. I dip into it regularly. I bought more lentils and beans just today. They are more expensive than they used to be but they are still cheaper than what’s being described in the original post. My point is, this fellow’s attitude of “Oh, I’m not going to cut back on my usual lifestyle in any way” bothers me. It displays a complete lack of concern about the state of our country, the future, the increasing burden on the tax-payer, the possibility that this money will not be flowing into his pockets forever... there’s no indication that he understands that this is indeed the time to cut back, to be frugal, to live simply and make this money last. He seems to feel that this is not something to worry about. That’s what’s garnering the reactions you’re seeing on this thread.
Yes. I have a huge bag of rice I bought a long time ago and I keep it in the freezer. I dip into it regularly. I bought more lentils and beans just today. They are more expensive than they used to be but they are still cheaper than what’s being described in the original post. My point is, this fellow’s attitude of “Oh, I’m not going to cut back on my usual lifestyle in any way” bothers me. It displays a complete lack of concern about the state of our country, the future, the increasing burden on the tax-payer, the possibility that this money will not be flowing into his pockets forever... there’s no indication that he understands that this is indeed the time to cut back, to be frugal, to live simply and make this money last. He seems to feel that this is not something to worry about. That’s what’s garnering the reactions you’re seeing on this thread.
So tell us, how do you make a tortilla out of Masa Harina? I love tortillas and I’d love to have some “makings” in my emergency supplies. Thanks.
I don’t know why that double-posted.
Thanks. ...I was ok until I hit this thread. Now my blood
pressure is back up.
Sounds like someone who appreciated the value of the food stamps they received. TOo many are using the EBT as a supplement that allows them another “luxury”. In the instance noted in this article, it was to afford higher food quality/costs. For some, it allows them to buy smokes/alcohol. For others, it might supplement having a better phone, etc. You get the drift.
If EBT users are not using coupons, shopping sales, etc, they are wasting taxpayers’ money.
“...Mak, 31, grew up in Westchester, graduated from the University of Chicago and toiled in publishing in New York during his 20s before moving to Baltimore last year with a meager part-time blogging job and prospects for little else. About half of his friends in Baltimore have been getting food stamps since the economy toppled, so he decided to give it a try; to his delight, he qualified for $200 a month.”
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Couple of years ago, I went to Chicago for a trade show and
stayed waaaay out south in a suburb and rode the METRA train
in every morning to McCormick place. It stopped at the U. Of
Chicago on every trip. After seeing the people who got on at
that stop, this story does not surprise me a bit. They were
liberal trasho’s and trashista’s 100 percent.
The directions are on the package, basically it is just a five pound bag of Masa, just like a five pound bag of four is, and you take some of the Masa, and mix it with water, flatten it, and heat it on a skillet, flipping it back and fourth to get those little brown spots.
The pre-mixed Masa Harina in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, is supposed to be a little better.
EBT can’t be used for hot food. There is a small cash amount on the card, like a debit card. I can’t believe anyone would spend those few dollars on pizza instead of toilet paper or soap or any of the many things that food stamps don’t cover.
Let's see....Minnesota....isn't that the onle state that did not vote foe Reagan.....Isn't that the state that voted into office, by hook and crook, that idiot "commedian"...is it possible that this is the state that voted a (religion of peace) Moslem into office.....and you can seriously say that you can be insulted?????????
“It’s not a thing people feel ashamed of, at least not around here,” said Mak. “It feels like a necessity right now.”
Savory aromas wafted through the kitchen as a table was set with a heaping plate of Thai yellow curry with coconut milk and lemongrass, Chinese gourd sautéed in hot chile sauce and sweet clementine juice, all of it courtesy of government assistance.
Meanwhile, back at the local Stop & Shop I'm wondering if I should splurge on the 80% hamburger meat. I think it's 80% meat and 20% fat, but perhaps it's just 80% meat.
It just warms my heart to know somewhere someone is enjoying Chinese gourd sautéed in hot chile sauce and sweet clementine juice on my dime. Sheesh!
$200 bucks can buy a ton of great food for a month.
I’ve made my own tortillas for years using Maseca brand Masa. I just more or less follow directions; I generally use 4 cups masa, a couple of pinches of salt, and warm water to make a soft but not sticky dough, sort of knead in a good size stainless steel bowl until it’s a nice ball, and then make balls first, not small ones. Big tortillas means less time cooking.
I have a tortilla press - tinned iron; I’ve seen different kinds. You have to put plastic on it or the dough sticks. I just slice a plastic produce bag so it’s an rectangle, and put part of it on the lower and part on the upper part of the tortilla press.
Press em, and cook on an ungreased cast iron frying pan I use for that purpose, I turn them once or twice, and put in a bun/tortilla warmer (a round flattish thing with a lid) lined with a clean dish towel. I butter them one by one, we used to eat them a lot until I found that Maseca probably uses GMO corn.
Now I have at least 2 buckets of masa and need to figure out if it really is GMO corn or not.
And besides, cleaning a fresh kill is gross .... And disgusting.
If you can afford “gourmet ice cream” then you don’t need foodstamps. What are the “Opportunity Costs” associated with providing these two this money? The Johnson family,with both parents working, had to pay $350 in taxes to this couple. Their child could not afford college and spent his life flipping hamburgers. The Smith family also had to pay $350 a month in taxes to a similar couple. Their child borrowed $70,000 to attend college. She feels that she will be in debt until she dies. The Dillon family also had to pay $350 a month in taxes toprovide escargot to a hipster couple. They could not afford a new car. Mr. Dillon was killed when the jack slipped while he was fixing the exhaust on his 15 year old car. There’s always an opportunity cost.
I didn’t read the story. How did the hipster couple vote in this last election? The Democrats are using taxpayer money to buy votes. Want a better life, hipsters? Start making better life choices. That’s what the rest of us do.
I have a very heavy press, the tinned iron one I guess, and an aluminum one.
People that want to play around with this should know that they can buy the Masa for very cheap, and just use the bottom of pie pans or something to make a few tortillas to see if they like doing it, before they buy the (about $12.00?) press.
Besides, even if the hipsters DID shoot the rabbit, they certainly wouldn’t know to check the body for signs of tularemia. . .
Thanks for the tortilla recipe help. I’ll buy the flour tomorrow and try it (and think kind thoughts of you!)
I am not now, nor I ever been on Food Stamps or EBT Cards. We have, however been on the brink financially and we learned how to eat well, live well by being frugal. No, we did not do it by clipping coupons, except on rare occasions for a few ‘high end’ treats.
We bought sale items. We shopped fresh produce at farmers stands. We bought really good naturally raised eggs in Amish Country at a very reasonable price. And we found several ‘Bent n’ Dent’ stores that have various grocery items at very good prices. Often we find high end stuff at 10 cents on the dollar prices. And we grow our own tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans, lettuce, asparagus, beets etc in a small but very productive garden plot. And we have a peach tree that was prolific...we now have canned peaches to last well into the next season.
One of the stores where we shop, we found pure maple syrup $5 a quart, and pure maple sugar $5 a pound. No, those are not regular items, there are no regular items. Makes it fun to shop there...we never know what really special deal we might find.
That being said, we now are not in such a tight financial fix as we were when we learned to live frugally. But we have not changed our buying ‘habits’. We are not intent on doing that even as our financial position continues to improve. We are retired. We like to help others, and we do. We can because we have learned to be ‘frugal’.
We still enjoy a good steak, and when we watch sales and exercise our frugal spending bent, we can buy a whole beef filet for less than $7 a pound. Or a whole strip loin for less than $5 a pound. So yes, we also eat well.
I dare say we eat better than the EBT people, and we spend a whole lot less, equivalent dollar-wise. It might be we eat better that the majority of the upper middle class.
Am I bragging? No. We have learned how to make the few dollars we have to spend for food, buy a lot more food than just ordinary shopping, even with coupons, would buy. It also enables us to buy and store extra for that next disaster. And even more important, it enables us to help others who might be in a particular financial strait.
It is time to starve the Takers. Solution is to reduce your income profile as much as you can/want to, to reduce the amount confiscated from you to be given to these freeloaders, and at the same time, qualify for as many free money programs as possible to overload them and thus, take them down faster, and also get a lot of your confiscated money back.
Tortilla presses make the job really easier and if a person likes tortillas, they are well worth the money. Mexican stores catering to Mexicans have the cheapest ones, or places where lots of Mexicans shop.
When you start making them, holyscroller, just keep at it until you get the hang of it. The dough can’t be too dry; shouldn’t crack. Sometimes in the summer when it’s hot and dry I’ll sprinkle water on the plate that has all the balls waiting to get cooked, so they don’t dry out. I also use a very thin and flexible stainless steel spatula to pry them off the frying pan.
Another thing I make with masa is atole, a hot drink made with masa. I learned about it in Mx decades ago. Very good quick breakfast drink or something to warm the innards when it’s cold out. I don’t have a recipe per se, I heat a pot of water (half full), and meanwhile mix masa and water in a bowl with a whisk. When the water in the pot is hot, I whisk in the masa/water slurry along with a pinch of salt and cook on medium high, careful not to burn or stick (must stir constantly) and add some milk. Let it bubble a bit (I cannot emphasize how important it is to stir, I use a flat bamboo spoon) and then it’s done.
How long you cook it depends on how much you’re making, when it’s been simmering a few mintues and gets thickish, it’s done. Add vanilla.
Or you can make it chocolate, have to add cocoa powder along with the masa slurry (mix together).
It’s sort of like a drinkable tortilla flavored thin pudding. I love it.
How much of that would you have been able to do if you lived in an apartment -- no garden -- and couldn't afford a car to get around and find bargains?
'nuff said. . .
“Unfortunately, the response from our society is to re-elect Obama, who supports this behavior”
I suspect Obama was not re-elected, but that a massive multi-state voter fraud has been accomplished.
The evidence of it is everywhere.
Besides, he's probably morally against killing a rabbit when you can just get one at the store, thereby not killing one. /s.
If I am ever forced to, I can say without equivocation that I expect just a subsistence level of existence, and would never deem to whine or utter a complaint, or judge any offered job as "demeaning," so long as I am physically able to perform it.
That, in a nutshell is what the present national scam is not.
The “apparently intractable unemployment problem” is partially caused by the huge sums of money being sucked out of the economy to pay for entitlements. Ironically, the EBT cards you champion may actually be viewed as a cause of unemployment.
Mak needs to sign up at Free Republic and use it to pimp his blog. /s
Garbanzo beans are readily available here you might try looking for chick peas which is another name for the same thing. If all else fails you can order them from Walmart.com shipped for free to a store near you. Until the price of them went up we used them as ammo for the cub scouts wrist rockets now we use cheap dog chow.
No matter what the federal benefit, be it these guys on food stamps, a SS recipient, a federal retiree/eployee, a disability check recipient, their sense of entitlement is exactly the same and elicits the same response. “I paid in”, “I deserve it”, “they spend money on ‘x’ so don’t complain about my check”, “we had a contract” etc. ad nauseum.
We don’t have the money for this stuff - no matter what the excuse for it.
ANYONE who gets federal support from any source needs to consider this simple principle - when we don’t have the money, we don’t have the money.
Nope ~ not in a nation of 320 million ~ 47 million on food stamps (at all sorts of levels) is really not a primary driver of the economy.
The beans are available but not at Aldi’s. That was the issue ~ we’d like them at Aldi’s so we can avoid one more trip to the Wal-Mart.
So, how about us seizing your stuff first and selling it to raise some cash?
Idea! most of us are still employed and have been for years, why dont we encourage all of our college children in and out since they cant find a job to apply for every public assistance offered and more from the federal government. Alynski tactics used against them. overwhelm the system
“hmm, the federal employees actually pay their own retirement ~ surprising to find you think you can just confiscate it.”
So you feel entitled, no matter how much it costs taxpayers, which was exactly my point. You don’t care how much it costs taxpayers because you actually think that “federal employees pay their own retirement”. It may even be partially true.
But when the money runs out, it’s gone. Even the money for the sainted federal retirees such as yourself.
“So, how about us seizing your stuff first and selling it to raise some cash?”
You don’t think they WON’T do this in the final throes of financial collapse?
We do not have the money. It cuts through all the whining from ex-feds like you. Whether you are entitled or not, we don’t have the money.
Do you get it yet? We do not have the money.
Oh, did I mention that we do not have the money?
I wonder who the “us” is that’s going to seize your stuff and sell it.
It certainly won’t be the cowards proposing such an idea showing up on your doorstep demanding their “share”.
Let me put it this way, the people you elected to Congress borrowed the money ~ but nobody authorized them to just steal it.
There's this other little problem ~ the federal government owns 30% of the landmass and another area of economic zone that's just as big. The USA has assets that can be used to shore up whatever cash shortages you might imagine exist. Those assets are immense.
i see no reason for the federal government to build a highway through your town and fail to collect tolls they can use to repay me for the money i entrusted to them.
The entire interstate system is a serious asset ~ put it to work!
Same with our carrier fleet ~ ancient empires used Tribute ~ so can we.
Don't you?
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