Who is the “ideal” FreshDirect customer? by Kyle Phoenix

 

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I am a Fresh Direct devotee, perhaps their owned whore, in some judgments.

I live in Manhattan, have for over a decade. and I discovered Fresh Direct after seeing their clever little trucks zooming up and down the avenues. And then one of my students mentioned to myself and other students that he worked at the processing plant in Long Island City. In an effort to always understand what my next generation students were talking about, I looked it up—-could this be a good line on jobs for other students? Then I saw what they do, connected to the tiny trucks zooming through the avenues and a connection was born.

I Am A Vampire

What I will tell you about my personal schedule, is that then and now, I am a night owl. I like the daytime——occasionally. But I’m about 4 to 6 hours off of when everyone is up and perky. I read all of the articles and suggestions about getting up early—-4a, 5a,, 6a, that all of the most productive people do.

I generally go to bed between 4–6a. It is more unusual for my to go to sleep early evening—-and I still wake up at 1,2,3,4a. I often go to sleep with the dawn rising. Yes, like a vampire.

But what does this have to do with Fresh Direct? In the past decade or so, teaching, coordinating programs, teaching university classes, I’ve been able to push my schedule to later. The first push was from 9am to 10am. Then from 10am to 2pm through 10pm. Then sometimes later nights so that I can rise and shine like I normally do at between noon to 2pm.

But being 4 to 6 hours off of the world means that I’m off from the world—-and the majority of the world is designing to coincide and support 6am to about 10pm….supermarkets included. There are yes, some supermarkets that stay open 24hours here in NYC—-Pathmark (which no longer exists) and West Side Market and Morton’s. But I would often finish teaching 3 classes for the day by 10pm—-which would put me at home in 15 to 45 minutes from Manhattan or some evenings later from an institute I taught in Brooklyn. There’s a West Side Market on 110th, in the area of Columbia 116th but if I were consulting away from the main campus, I would have to trek back to the market there or to one of their other city locations.

Fresh Direct though delivers as late as midnight. In my neighborhood. And more importantly I can set up an order, have it zapped to them and get home and a few minutes later they buzz and several gentlemen bring up boxes of food—-fresh veggies, mousse cakes, meats, dry goods, sauces, sodas, juices. It was also a boon when I helped a co-worker move, dislocated my knee—-and I was living in a 5th floor walk up (one of the downsides of living in the convenience of NYC—-you might have to settle for a walk up to have a larger apartment.) So they became amazingly helpful to being up groceries, I generally order about 6 weeks supply of, then I can stop at 7–11 or a corner store for minor items.

Is it/delivery more expensive?

Actually, no. Everyone thinks that it is but it isn’t. I rounded between West Side and Whole Foods (both more expensive), D’Agostinos and Gristedes (medium) and C-Town (medium to lower)—-yes, I know, a lot of energy and though goes into this logistically and financially—-but if you obviate walking to the store, standing in line, actual shopping time, and it all being carried up 5 flights and timed to exactly when I get home—-I’d pay a dollar or two more. Mostly the delivery charge is generally about $5. How so cheap? Volume, repeat business, lower overhead costs because they don’t have to maintain a brick and mortar store so the orders go through packers and some form of cashier and delivery workers but I’m willing to bet that the packers say cut up the meat AND put it into my 2lb package—-so a butcher/packer. The cashiers get the food orders and assemble them but don’t have down time dealing with customers directly so their efficiency and speed is probably multiplied 1 to 3x compared to an in-store cashier. And the delivery men, do only that—-deliver.

Plus, one of the soft controls Fresh Direct has over me is that they initially were very specific to zip codes, not delivering to every zip code. Here on the West Side of Manhattan you can walk down some streets and literally see walls, 6 to 8 feet high of Fresh Direct empty boxes out for garbage on garbage days. What this does is control if they’re only delivering to a range of blocks. (They used to exclude parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn—-I was trying to send an ill cousin food while in chemo and learned about the zip code segregation.) I literally was apartment hunting and stayed within the same two zip codes because one of the losses would’ve been no Fresh Direct delivery service—-I kid you not.

That means that a truck can then stop on an avenue and they can wheel out dozens of deliveries so truck/gas costs are lowered or absorbed by say 100 of us on an avenue paying $5 into the kitty—-which means we don’t have to be overcharged.

Is the food more expensive?

No, I’ve found it to be Medium, and as you can see from above, I move through several stores. Also here’s another point that people don’t factor in from the other side. Being single, no kids when I started my Fresh Direct entanglement—-I’m less price conscious. Now, personally, I’m thoughtful—-even having gone on a budget of $25 a week food right before I started at Columbia to make a job payout last for a year. My normal singular budget runs about $100 to $150 per week, which generally fluctuates the more or less cooking I do—-I cook about 95% of my meals—-maybe monthly I buy Chinese or Italian food and average dinners out twice a month and lunch once or twice. So I’m very conscious of food prices and I eat well, I like to cook so I like quality foods. West Side and Whole Foods consistently the best quality in meats, seafood, fruits and vegetables. West Side more expensive particularly by the university because it’s catering to fast go and grab students/faculty and they have about 1/4 of the store hand prepared meals, salads, baked goods, fruits diced, etc.. Whole Foods is similar to West Side but healthier yet again, that hand prepped within hours adding staff and fresh food costs plus the store housing the supermarket.

Fresh Direct is equal to Medium because you can also control the pricing of fruits and vegetables and more importantly meats and seafood. Generally meats are a hodge podge of sizes so you settle to pay more to get the amount you need. West Side is thoughtful in that they know they cater to less large families so they have individual meat pieces for one or two people. Whole Foods you can buy directly from their butcher counter and control the quantity/price—-the same holds for Fresh Direct.

Dry, canned goods and sauces—-I would caveat in here that cooking a lot myself, I don’t buy a lot of processed foods—-on the conveyor belt at stores my purchases are generally 50% fruits, vegetables—-green, 35% meats/seafood and then Pepsi and maybe a bag of low salt chips or a small pie or cake. (Yes, I cart judge.) I notice that people buy lots of processed stuff—-frozen foods, boxed crap, canned crap. I think my Fresh Direct costs are so general for me because I buy pretty much the same things from them as I do in person—-the exceptions being I stock up—-so several jars of say Rao’s 9the best sauces), multiple cans of tuna, condoms (Magnum XLs are $7.99 a dozen!—-double that in CVS, etc.), fresh juices, Pepsi (6 at a time), not much else—-maybe ice cream. Its also good for select/specialty flavors and items because like Walmart their computer system is always updating availability so I’ve never seen anything out of stock, like I have in person at supermarkets. I might also do bags of frozen vegetables but very light on processed foods of any kind—-I generally, while cart judging distinguish it by bright, colorful boxes. I rarely buy anything in bright colorful boxes/containers.

Fresh Direct is good for buying say multiple 10lbs of chicken breast, beef, steaks, pork chops, fish, lobster, shrimp at a time, and then divvying it up into freezer/portion bags. Which is how, as a mass, I use them for a 4–6 week stint to stock up.

Single people/smaller families, like me, are willing to pay for the convenience of time specific arrival, delivery men (whom I tip—-sometimes more than the delivery charge), a whole breadth of choices, online access and cart building, freshness of food, good packaging (I’ve only had one problem—-on the stairs the delivery man slipped and the juice bottle broke and damaged the eggs—-replace or refund—I took the refund) and ability to control quantity to control price. Those controls allowed someone with a slightly tilted schedule like me to get home by 11pm, get food delivery by 1130pm and even go out to a nightclub with a friend by midnight because I had no errands to run (I used to experiment with renting a Zipcar, dropping a friend off in Queens from Manhattan, so I could circle back to a 24 Pathmark in Brooklyn and bring food (that I had to lug upstairs, 10–20 bags, myself.) But eschewing all of that tie and costs I, they simply do the function better and more efficiently.

And their clever trucks, which I have even written about in my fictional novels, I love their trucks. lol

#KylePhoenix

#TheKylePhoenixShow

Who is the “ideal” Fresh Direct customer? by #KylePhoenix

 

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I am a Fresh Direct devotee, perhaps their owned whore, in some judgments.

I live in Manhattan, have for over a decade. and I discovered Fresh Direct after seeing their clever little trucks zooming up and down the avenues. And then one of my students mentioned to myself and other students that he worked at the processing plant in Long Island City. In an effort to always understand what my next generation students were talking about, I looked it up—-could this be a good line on jobs for other students? Then I saw what they do, connected to the tiny trucks zooming through the avenues and a connection was born.

I Am A Vampire

What I will tell you about my personal schedule, is that then and now, I am a night owl. I like the daytime——occasionally. But I’m about 4 to 6 hours off of when everyone is up and perky. I read all of the articles and suggestions about getting up early—-4a, 5a,, 6a, that all of the most productive people do.

I generally go to bed between 4–6a. It is more unusual for my to go to sleep early evening—-and I still wake up at 1,2,3,4a. I often go to sleep with the dawn rising. Yes, like a vampire.

But what does this have to do with Fresh Direct? In the past decade or so, teaching, coordinating programs, teaching university classes, I’ve been able to push my schedule to later. The first push was from 9am to 10am. Then from 10am to 2pm through 10pm. Then sometimes later nights so that I can rise and shine like I normally do at between noon to 2pm.

But being 4 to 6 hours off of the world means that I’m off from the world—-and the majority of the world is designing to coincide and support 6am to about 10pm….supermarkets included. There are yes, some supermarkets that stay open 24hours here in NYC—-Pathmark (which no longer exists) and West Side Market and Morton’s. But I would often finish teaching 3 classes for the day by 10pm—-which would put me at home in 15 to 45 minutes from Manhattan or some evenings later from an institute I taught in Brooklyn. There’s a West Side Market on 110th, in the area of Columbia 116th but if I were consulting away from the main campus, I would have to trek back to the market there or to one of their other city locations.

Fresh Direct though delivers as late as midnight. In my neighborhood. And more importantly I can set up an order, have it zapped to them and get home and a few minutes later they buzz and several gentlemen bring up boxes of food—-fresh veggies, mousse cakes, meats, dry goods, sauces, sodas, juices. It was also a boon when I helped a co-worker move, dislocated my knee—-and I was living in a 5th floor walk up (one of the downsides of living in the convenience of NYC—-you might have to settle for a walk up to have a larger apartment.) So they became amazingly helpful to being up groceries, I generally order about 6 weeks supply of, then I can stop at 7–11 or a corner store for minor items.

Is it/delivery more expensive?

Actually, no. Everyone thinks that it is but it isn’t. I rounded between West Side and Whole Foods (both more expensive), D’Agostinos and Gristedes (medium) and C-Town (medium to lower)—-yes, I know, a lot of energy and though goes into this logistically and financially—-but if you obviate walking to the store, standing in line, actual shopping time, and it all being carried up 5 flights and timed to exactly when I get home—-I’d pay a dollar or two more. Mostly the delivery charge is generally about $5. How so cheap? Volume, repeat business, lower overhead costs because they don’t have to maintain a brick and mortar store so the orders go through packers and some form of cashier and delivery workers but I’m willing to bet that the packers say cut up the meat AND put it into my 2lb package—-so a butcher/packer. The cashiers get the food orders and assemble them but don’t have down time dealing with customers directly so their efficiency and speed is probably multiplied 1 to 3x compared to an in-store cashier. And the delivery men, do only that—-deliver.

Plus, one of the soft controls Fresh Direct has over me is that they initially were very specific to zip codes, not delivering to every zip code. Here on the West Side of Manhattan you can walk down some streets and literally see walls, 6 to 8 feet high of Fresh Direct empty boxes out for garbage on garbage days. What this does is control if they’re only delivering to a range of blocks. (They used to exclude parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn—-I was trying to send an ill cousin food while in chemo and learned about the zip code segregation.) I literally was apartment hunting and stayed within the same two zip codes because one of the losses would’ve been no Fresh Direct delivery service—-I kid you not.

That means that a truck can then stop on an avenue and they can wheel out dozens of deliveries so truck/gas costs are lowered or absorbed by say 100 of us on an avenue paying $5 into the kitty—-which means we don’t have to be overcharged.

Is the food more expensive?

No, I’ve found it to be Medium, and as you can see from above, I move through several stores. Also here’s another point that people don’t factor in from the other side. Being single, no kids when I started my Fresh Direct entanglement—-I’m less price conscious. Now, personally, I’m thoughtful—-even having gone on a budget of $25 a week food right before I started at Columbia to make a job payout last for a year. My normal singular budget runs about $100 to $150 per week, which generally fluctuates the more or less cooking I do—-I cook about 95% of my meals—-maybe monthly I buy Chinese or Italian food and average dinners out twice a month and lunch once or twice. So I’m very conscious of food prices and I eat well, I like to cook so I like quality foods. West Side and Whole Foods consistently the best quality in meats, seafood, fruits and vegetables. West Side more expensive particularly by the university because it’s catering to fast go and grab students/faculty and they have about 1/4 of the store hand prepared meals, salads, baked goods, fruits diced, etc.. Whole Foods is similar to West Side but healthier yet again, that hand prepped within hours adding staff and fresh food costs plus the store housing the supermarket.

Fresh Direct is equal to Medium because you can also control the pricing of fruits and vegetables and more importantly meats and seafood. Generally meats are a hodge podge of sizes so you settle to pay more to get the amount you need. West Side is thoughtful in that they know they cater to less large families so they have individual meat pieces for one or two people. Whole Foods you can buy directly from their butcher counter and control the quantity/price—-the same holds for Fresh Direct.

Dry, canned goods and sauces—-I would caveat in here that cooking a lot myself, I don’t buy a lot of processed foods—-on the conveyor belt at stores my purchases are generally 50% fruits, vegetables—-green, 35% meats/seafood and then Pepsi and maybe a bag of low salt chips or a small pie or cake. (Yes, I cart judge.) I notice that people buy lots of processed stuff—-frozen foods, boxed crap, canned crap. I think my Fresh Direct costs are so general for me because I buy pretty much the same things from them as I do in person—-the exceptions being I stock up—-so several jars of say Rao’s 9the best sauces), multiple cans of tuna, condoms (Magnum XLs are $7.99 a dozen!—-double that in CVS, etc.), fresh juices, Pepsi (6 at a time), not much else—-maybe ice cream. Its also good for select/specialty flavors and items because like Walmart their computer system is always updating availability so I’ve never seen anything out of stock, like I have in person at supermarkets. I might also do bags of frozen vegetables but very light on processed foods of any kind—-I generally, while cart judging distinguish it by bright, colorful boxes. I rarely buy anything in bright colorful boxes/containers.

Fresh Direct is good for buying say multiple 10lbs of chicken breast, beef, steaks, pork chops, fish, lobster, shrimp at a time, and then divvying it up into freezer/portion bags. Which is how, as a mass, I use them for a 4–6 week stint to stock up.

Single people/smaller families, like me, are willing to pay for the convenience of time specific arrival, delivery men (whom I tip—-sometimes more than the delivery charge), a whole breadth of choices, online access and cart building, freshness of food, good packaging (I’ve only had one problem—-on the stairs the delivery man slipped and the juice bottle broke and damaged the eggs—-replace or refund—I took the refund) and ability to control quantity to control price. Those controls allowed someone with a slightly tilted schedule like me to get home by 11pm, get food delivery by 1130pm and even go out to a nightclub with a friend by midnight because I had no errands to run (I used to experiment with renting a Zipcar, dropping a friend off in Queens from Manhattan, so I could circle back to a 24 Pathmark in Brooklyn and bring food (that I had to lug upstairs, 10–20 bags, myself.) But eschewing all of that tie and costs I, they simply do the function better and more efficiently.

And their clever trucks, which I have even written about in my fictional novels, I love their trucks. lol

#KylePhoenix

#TheKylePhoenixShow

Amazon.com: Kyle Phoenix: books, biography, latest update

https://www.amazon.com/Kyle-Phoenix/e/B00E3RK6QO?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1652425609&sr=1-1

What is the poorest dinner meal that you can remember eating during a time of financial hardship? by #KylePhoenix

 

About fifteen years ago, I was laid off from a teaching position. I’d seen the lay offs coming when I went to meet a buddy in HR to take to lunch and she was sitting in her office, sealing hundreds of form letters, and she acted all nervous.

I left but I knew that the cuts were coming.

We got laid off the end of the 1st week of April, which was significant for two reasons: I was intending to quit in June to take another teaching position, and the lay offs came during the beginning of the whole housing crisis so health insurance and unemployment were extended for the laid off, on April 2nd, to 99 weeks each. If they had laid us off 1 week earlier—-they did some in the initial waves—— I would’ve been screwed.

I happily signed the form to get a chunk pay of about 2 months, plus I had savings. I immediately applied for unemployment to not deplete my savings, which I put into the stock market—-I would day trade all day through the summer—-my next teaching position to begin in August.

Turns out from yet almost a decade prior, when I first found out about unemployment and applied for it, while consulting, I had somehow gone over my “allotted” amount. Which meant that instead of getting $25 plus $400 a week, I wasn’t eligible for the $400+ for like 8 to 12 weeks to pay back the shortfall from previous years. But the $25 was for the recession. so I would get that, weekly.

I had paid off my rent and utilities so really the $25 was for food.

At first I was nervous—-could I make it to the end of the summer?

My shopping list was tight!

• One week a 5lb bag of rice
• The next week 4 to 5 boxes of pasta.
• One week a pork roast and bag of chicken—-both about 5 to 10lbs.
• Two 3 liter sodas.
• Cake mix/frosting
• Frozen vegetables.
• Jar of pasta sauce
• Hamburger meat.

Essentially on the $25 a week, I varied through the above, buying one staple, two meats and veggies, a week—-and through thoughtful planning, it would last. What I also did was I would go to sleep through the daytime, I’m a night owl anyway. I would get up by 9am to trade stocks, go back to sleep until 4pm, to see the results. Have a late lunch and then a late dinner. Sleeping at least 12 hours a day. Besides writing and stock trading, I really had nothing to do.

Week 7 or 8 my mother tells me she’s seen all of these programs on TV, go to Social Services—-I’m a displaced worker due to the fact I was laid off from a non-profit—-they have benefits for workers like me. It takes her a week to talk me into it but I go. I walked to save on carfare and it was summer—-60 blocks to and back. With a bottle of ice water. Fill out applications, talk to social worker—-the guy who takes your pic for your EBT card actually hit on me. I didn't understand he was hitting on me, he was asking me so many questions—-and I’d never been in such an office so I thought he was entering information to my account until it got too personal.

He was not attractive enough to reciprocate. Think nerdy guy, badly dressed, who has attained the career status by 30+ of taking pictures for EBT cards at Welfare. No, he doesn’t even create the cards, he just takes the digital picture and matches it to your file in the computer. (Which is why I thought he was also part of the overall interview process—-all the little beige rooms lookalike and I’d never been at Welfare for an EBT card——and he was asking from my personal information.)

The social worker tells me I have to come back in a week. I thought the whole “emergency food stamps” was like-an emergency you’re hungry today? Plus I had to go to another office, downtown—-train rides—-where the cards are actually printed up. Yes, inefficient. This amassed to almost two weeks to apply, walking there once, then to get the card then walking back there again with the card to be activated at the office that I had to walk to. The HEIGHT of inefficiency. It’s like they sort of don’t trust themselves so they’ve compartmentalized each function but they’ve compartmentalized the function-offices—-200 blocks way from one another.

When I get there with the card for activation I’m in line behind the REAL Welfare recipients, including a woman with 4 kids, who was mad because she was only getting $900!!!!! a month in Food Stamps. I’d been living on $25 in cash, I couldn’t believe it—-but then I looked at all her kids.

I get to the counter and they activate/deposit the Food Stamps onto my card—-$400—-because they calculated from my end work date/last check—-like May to this September date—-I remember it was Labor Day weekend. Ironically in the meantime I’d been accepted and had my start date at Columbia University so it would be my first and last time (so I thought). I went to Gristedes and both steaks and lobster and Pepsi and just a swath of missed foods, fresh fruits and vegetables—-just sacks and sacks of food. lol But if you calculated it—-it was about $25 a week. lol

I’ve shared this story in school/classes and online and one of the odd questions is why I bought such high end food.

• One, that’s my personal taste level.
• Two, it was given to me, Kyle, under my name for my food choices—-good, bad, expensive.
• Three, I’ve been working since I was 7; I got a Tax ID # for my birthday at 14 because I was running a small amateur national comic book company so I had to pay business taxes from expenses;
• I worked full time from 14 when I could legally work to not only help support that business but also household expenses—-I was responsible for my personal phone and food for the family/house from my paychecks—-which taxes were deducted from.
• By 18 I was paying half of the mortgage on the condo after I finished high school, several years before my family was balanced, after lay offs that I wasn’t financially needed.
• I worked 5 jobs to put myself through undergraduate and had worked for at least 10 years before the above layoff, with only 1 month off between consulting contracts/companies, etc..

I say the above to say—-I’ve paid taxes for close to 25+ years, since I was a teen, Social Services is a net, to catch citizens from being destitute and having to do something insane like move down South to live with their parents—-as my mother suggested, twice, when I got laid off (and perhaps haring the two of them in their house).

I’ve earned the safety net because I’ve contributed to it for decades.

The second time—-Columbia actually advised us—-because of the contingent way students/adults are paid—-to take advantage during our no-pay times of both Unemployment and Social Services and tell them Columbia sent you—-they’re office is like 3 blocks from campus—-there was literally a desk waiting for thousands of us.

I think they gave me like $200 in Food Stamps then.

Ironically I got seriously ill undergraduate but was able to recover over the summer yet had to move off of campus as a trade off for university non-liability and being a student. The university actually used Social Services to get me an apartment—- 3 times in 20+ years times—-working for all of those 20+ plus years, with the exception of say 3 months in total—-I’ve received about $5000 from Social Services.

• On an average of $50,000 a year in averaged salaries, about $12,000, in taxes, times 20.
• So on about $250,000 INTO the System, I’ve gotten back about $5000 in aid when I needed it.
• Even if you calculate in Unemployment—-another $25,000 sporadically over the years—-I’ve gotten $30,000 or 10% of what I’ve put in in Federal, State, Local taxes and FICA.
• AND on top of that I’ve paid Business Taxes.

I don’t believe in the concept of fair. I tell (myself/my students) that I live on Earth, not the planet Fair. Only children under 10 years old expect fair and we should disabuse ourselves of that entitled expectation by then.

But that $25 a week and my subsequent budgets, when alone—-up to about $150 a week, have taught me how to budget for food, my tastes, my aesthetic, which is a good thing. It’s like a super power—-I know I could go allllllllll the way down to $25 for myself. I think that’s valuable experiential knowledge. Also knowing how to cook—-that really is what builds that budget into a healthy intake of nutrients—-that’s another thing I’ve known how to do well since I was a child.

I know how to live on the cheap or modulate based upon goals, etc..

I think poverty/low resources can be a skillset but not a lifestyle.

#KylePhoenix

#TheKylePhoenixShow

Amazon.com: Kyle Phoenix: books, biography, latest update

https://www.amazon.com/Kyle-Phoenix/e/B00E3RK6QO?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1652425609&sr=1-1

Do you like cooking? by #KylePhoenix

 

I was what is lovingly described as a latchkey kid. For several reasons—-one, I am an only child and two when I was younger, under 7, we moved to Staten Island so my mother and stepfather would journey back and forth to Manhattan to work. My elementary school was like 3 blocks from home so I would stroll back and forth. When I got home, there would be food left or I could make snacks. Slowly I started wanting something more substantive—-this came from the fact that I have only eaten school lunch maybe a handful of times in a decade of school. My stepfather was a chef so my tastes were high end.

I started begging my parents to teach me to cook and after them seeing that in my adult free time I was going to experiment, they started making rules and parameters for my learning. One, I could only prepare what I had been directly taught by them and my grandmother. This came about when I defrosted chicken, put some oil in the pan and proceeded to make non-crispy, greasy chicken. I didn’t understand how one made fried chicken.

Nor did I understand rice—-which I will say is one of the hardest things to learn and then you learn to do it intuitively—-I got into a huge argument with a live in boyfriend because I couldn't’ explain to him at 30 how I’d been cooking it for decades but couldn't explain how I knew how to cook it. Automaticity!

In a few years I was in charge of coming home, getting the grocery money and going to the supermarket and having dinner reasonably ready by the time they got home from work.

Oddly, it was my father, who my mother married after my stepfather (long story), who thought this so odd and turned the supermarket into a family event—-usurping my role. he came into a family that had roles! After my biological parents separated, we got back to our routine and I was given greater and greater cooking responsibilities.

My mother was a member of AA and they would have annual large parties. One Easter she volunteered to take the collected cash and cook for 75 people that coming Sunday, about 2 blocks from our house.

She arrived home, handed me the money, gave me a deadline and told me to make it varied and dynamic.

I was 15 then and squealed in delight. I of course had a relationship with the local butcher by then so we discussed my budget and needed servings and finally he and I decided I would do a trifecta of chicken wings—-friend, barbecued and teriyaki—-three 40 pound boxes of wings.

Then a strong neutral base—-white rice with butter, scallions; then multiple vegetables—-broccoli with butter, tri greens—-I always do collards, turnips and mustards with a mix of spinach, onions, tri-colored peppers for colors, cayenne for kick and in a blonde roux )a recipe from Emeril Legasse) with an eventual split pan of one with ham hocks and the other with turkey wings. bright corn on the cob, sautéed in butter and 20 pounds of baked potatoes with butter—-4 bags, about 10 potatoes per bag. And several cakes baked from scratch.

My mother and aunt, the three of us roommates, had long since abdicated the kitchen to me, were in charge of getting beverages and ice (from the corner store) there and then corralling the carts to wheel huge trays two blocks. Somehow they managed this minor feat.

I had food for 75 to 100 people ready by Sunday morning.

Behind several long tables of food steaming warm over little flames, a hundred folk lined up to oooh and ahhhed, and my mother, sweat less and in a nice Sunday outfit and huge hat, explained how she’d labored for hours. She side eyed me and paid me handsomely to be quiet.

I’d been doing the cooking and shopping for years—-I ad a relationship with the neighborhood butcher! lol—-so I became the go-to for these huge catered affairs. My mother and stepfather had toyed with catering affairs for years.

New York City

Then after undergraduate, I moved into my first HUGE swanky NYC apartment—-with a roommate—-2 bedrooms, huge dining room, working fireplace! it was enormous so we started planning and throwing seasonal dinner parties.

My roommate eventually went transsexual crazy and spent almost two years hiding in his room, debating the vagaries of identity—but I continued to throw the seasonal dinner parties. I had friends traveling from Pennsylvania and Connecticut to my dinner parties—-so I would do them on 2 days—-Saturday and Sunday—-Saturday would be larger—-say 12 people, Sunday an intimate 4–6. This allowed me to only have to cook 1 1/2 times—-one time I experimented with a beef roast on Saturday then used the rest of it, sliced up into chunks in a mushroom gravy for the Sunday dinner.

There was one time when we invited 50 people in total for the year, thinking like always half would show—-all 50 showed.

There was a power outage in Queens so I was stuck in line at Pathmark for 3 hours so I was 3 hours late making roasted chickens, mac and cheeses (I have a DEADLY 8 cheese mac and cheese, that I make sparingly), veggies, dessert. What this taught me was one, to buy groceries progressively leading up to a dinner party—-like every weekend for 6 weeks.

Two, I now cook only half of the meal—-I cater the rest. From favored delis and restaurants I’ll get like several boxes of Popeye’s fried chicken—-drizzle a honey-cayenne sauce on them, put them in the oven for 5 minutes and then out onto a platter and no one is the wiser.

Or a big pasta dish, of say lasagna sliced out onto a nice platter (nice platters make it look like yours) with a drizzle of parsley and shredded cheeses. A huge platter for salad with tongs—-salad bags mixed together, three bowls of side dressings.. Several roasted chickens cut up onto a platter. What this does is allow me to focus on my blonde roux greens or sofrito rice or recaito rice or gumbo or Osso Bucco—-I make mean Osso Bucco because I let it simmer for 12 hours. I also found this incredible African vegetable stir fry recipe and then a delicious white bean, potato bacon soup.

To The Eye

Social class is that poverty is filling, middle class is to be at value but upper class is to beauty to the eye. To zhuzh a meal up I always try to add color—-simple as peppers that are green, red, orange, yellow added to rice or vegetables to additives like garlic or onions to plain spinach or broccoli. Potatoes or yams I slice and do drizzles of herbs and butter and honey. I generally leave the skins on to make it a bit rustic.

I cook my pasta sauces—-tomato form half scratch—-that means I might add several tomatoes or a can of crush tomatoes or diced to my best sauces—-Rao’s (they are incredible and worth the price)—-so I can stretch a sauce—-by adding lots of colorful peppers, well chopped carrots, garlic, bay leaves, herbs, chunky mushrooms, sausage, then ground beef, pork, chicken so that the sauce becomes like a thick stew with or without pasta.

I have a Ninja 10 in 1 superduper oven now so I’m constantly experimenting with it——rolls, air frying, fast spare ribs.

As a Youth Coordinator/Group Facilitator I was responsible for 3 to 4 meals every week for 40 to 80 guys so I did a lot of the above, supplementing the low non-profit purchasing of food with other foods. Then I did Friday meals for another non-profit and I try to repeat what one of my mentors, Carlene hatcher Polite did for her university classes with my own, ordering a full spread of pizzas and wings for the last class. Unfortunately I’m still sampling restaurants nearby, we don’t have a La Novas, the best ever in Buffalo. (I used to order 100 wings for me, the dog and the cat and we’d sit on the porch just chewing away.) lol

I love cooking, trying out recipes, baking cakes and pies—-my mother would make breads and even croissants from scratch 9which is how I knew the difference between her liking my stepfathers and loving my father! lol) I lobsters and mussels and fish and lamb and I’m eyeing goat and oxtails….soon.

I look forward to big cooking as long as I’m in the mood and like most of the people. For a whole semester I was the featured Sunday chef at Swarthmore College. Years later I would manage the overnight shift of a restaurant but though I toyed with the idea, I didn’t like the whole regimentation and condescension and forced hierarchy of restaurant world so I never pursued it professionally.

Yes, baby, I can burn and I love it. My new fantasy is to learn how to hunt so I can hunt food and then get like a garden and a chicken coop and just be out there hunting up dinner and cooking it up.

 

To former “gifted kids”, what’s life like right now?

Kyle Phoenix

Writer and student & Instructor at Columbia UniversityUpdated 9mo

It’s kind of good. I was just laying in bed, cuddled with my wealth of pillows and comforters and thinking on what my next moves were going to be. Two books had arrived from the printer (of course there are minor corrections, but that’s to be expected.)

Rewind.

I was on the #5 bus headed up Broadway to the post office to pick up this box of books. And since it was just a short jaunt of a few blocks, I had my phablet and was listening to music but hadn’t brought along a book. So I was thinking.

I was thinking about a past relationship and as I am inclined to do—-getting a little steamed about the thought, person, argument. Replaying it in my head and looking at it from a new angle—-which was spurred by a spontaneous dinner with a colleague a few weeks ago and she’d asked me about my dating life, as we’d talked about hers. I laughingly told her a comment a guy had made, judgmental but complimentary, yet it had taken me a couple of years past the relationship, to realize he meant that he was intimidated by me. It didn’t help that my bus ride, weeks later, was to pick up a book that had included bits and pieces of that relationship, fictionalized.

This is why said gumball was rolling around at the back of my mind. I get to the post office——frightened there will be a long line in the middle of the afternoon—-no line! I wait maybe 30 seconds and hand my slip to the attendant and a minute later have this huge box in my tote bag. I open it in the park across the street and the books are brand new and sexy and pretty and heavy and smell good and when I page flip, the text is crisp and visible.

I start smiling and beaming, overjoyed.

I realized, running mentally through past classmates and friends and folk who wanted to be writers that I’m standing here with more of my books, adding to the passel selling around the world. I’m not just blooming with gratitude and joy, I’m grateful that I’m not living the tortured life of some other folk.

I made a decision over 10 years ago to step out of the matrix known as Corporate America——having done financial work, securities litigation work, a host of things, a strong resume——for education and then used my time to control my schedule and to simply write.

Write, I do.

When I was young, scoring 6,7,8 grades ahead of my own peers on Standardized tests and imagining what I might be interested in, I was writing. I never took my writing “business” seriously so after undergrad I went into companies because they were “serious business”. You get to go up in the elevator and you have a desk—-that one!—-and it’s yours and you decorate it. Eventually I didn’t decorate as much because I was consulting so there were time limits on how long I would be there. I made it a point to not get comfortable. To not make that part of my identity. For about 10 years or so I didn’t know what the alternative to that corporate identity was….because I liked business, liked the intricacy of it, had owned several businesses as a child/teenager.

I even had friends/schoolmates who sailed into CA, never to be heard from again…..until I saw FB pics or them on the street—-fatter, a lot less hair. I realized they had a desk and probably decorated it, perhaps even the Holy Grail——an office—-a room, a little room in a bigger office, that is yours, but not really yours.

But I get to—-write even this blog post—-write a novel most of my working time, my work now taking up about 5 hours of active working. The other 35 is my writing Kyle stuff. I’ve been offered several promotions, could get all ambitious and hungry, and play dirty games……but I can literally feel the days, the hours, when I write less at work. When work takes up too much of my attention away from my Life’s Purpose.

I’m living and creating my Life’s Purpose. Yes, I know when I die, but I often think about what happens if I die this year? To the books? The TV show? I then think in production plans and product plans, I have to make an Exit Strategy plan for me, in case of death.

I used to think my giftedness meant I could do anything, that I could simply focus and learn and master anything—-which I sort of can. Which for awhile provided a whole range of possibilities.

Then I found this one, good thing to do well, very well, and it all clicked.

I’m walking down Amsterdam, swinging my tote bag full of books I’ve written, good books, and I’m beaming like the sun. I start to think of the ex and friends, near and far, and how they’re going to that desk, maybe in an office, inside of a bigger office, and how I’ve made the conscious choice not to.

It’s not what I expected, but I am happier with myself, little ol’ me.

#KylePhoenix

#TheKylePhoenixShow

Amazon.com: Kyle Phoenix: books, biography, latest update

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