It's finally up

So this blog has been a long time coming. I had the idea for this website when I was still working and would sneak into meetings just to hit the sandwich tray to taste the forbidden nectar of found food. It's now been around 7 months since I've stopped working and discovered the wonders of urban foraging. Urban foraging can take several forms. You can have a garden in your yard or you can chop down the ornamental cabbage plants outside the Peninsula Hotel. The best part about the latter is that you don't have to wait for them to slowly grow back in season. They'll be replanted, whole, almost immediately.

Look at all the heirloom tomatoes
 harvested from our yard garden.

Mmmm delicious ornamental kale is delicious

However, the easiest and most plentiful way of urban foraging is dumpster diving. Also often referred to as food liberation. There are a lot of great online resources on the net to help people get started with their quest to liberate unloved and unwanted groceries. One of the best is on the NYC freegan website. They have a lot of great all around tips for dumpstering and an amazing dumpster directory if you live in any of the five boroughs of NYC. If you don't, check MeetUp to see if anyone has dumpster tours in your area. You could also just ask around to see if you have any friends who go diving. It is a great social activity and a whole lot more fun to do with a friend.

Bike scum in his natural habitat 

Trader Joes is a really great spot if you can find ones that don't lock their dumpsters. All their stuff is prepackaged so it remains relatively clean and they carry great stuff in general. Whoever knew what an inside out carrot cake was and how fucking amazing it is before TJ started selling it. On good nights the hauls can also be quite staggering. To the point where you might want to consider a chest freezer.

Bell peppers and tomatoes for days

Dumpster meat is the most sustainable meat

Premade food is great for those days when you don't feel like cooking

You'll soon notice that a regular divers fridge looks quite peculiar. It's kind of like feast or famine. You'll have 10lbs of bell peppers, but not a single onion. That, however, is one of the fun things about urban foraging, especially if you're unemployed and have a lot of free time on your hands. It really causes you to get creative and make dishes you'd never thought of. Ever tried ground turkey stuft bell peppers marinated in pumpkin oil. Yeah I hadn't either, but let me tell you what, shit was dank. Just the other day I came across over 30lbs of apples. I hauled the bag over my shoulder like a Chinese laundry worker through the East Village on a Saturday night. I got it to a juicer where after 4 hours and 3 over heatings, I was able to extract 3 gallons of juice to make hard cider.

Gonna party like it's 1799

Not to say that everything has to be experimental. For breakfast I made the quintessentially American meal of meat and potatoes with a cup of coffee. It just happened that the meat was a black angus filet mignon and the potatoes were russet, sweet and taro potato all mixed in with onions, peppers and snow pea sprouts.  The coffee was a single origin, organic, shade grown, fair trade Ethiopian coffee that promised me a floral aroma.  It may have been cage free too.

I like my coffee like I like my women, lukewarm and bitter

So in the end, I don't really know what the point of this blog is. There are a million food blogs out there written by people who are much better writers than I am. I'll try to document some more interesting aspects of urban foraging and share some recipe ideas so next time you have 15lbs of smoked gouda you'll have an idea what to do with it.

-Randall