Sweet baby Jesus. We just got the below email from one of our DC DABA ladies. King Size Kit Kats? CODE RED!! Our suggestion, get a Kirkwood juicer. Liquefy everything. Seriously, you can put anything in juicer, lettuce, carrots, kale, beets, vodka, gin…
Dear DABA Girls,
I am a 24 year-old DABA girl living in our nation’s capital, and I’ve found such solace reading your blog. My FBF and I have been dating for about a year and a half. I’ve never felt our complications were quite on the level of you NYC gals, because FBF doesn’t work on Wall Street - he does fig M&A for a small boutique firm here in DC. But he’s made millions for his company, and he is incredibly smart, motivated, and amazing in bed. I love him dearly.
As I’ve watched the economy unravel and the recession take over, I’ve definitely identified with some of the stories on your blog. I’ve experienced the “we need to spend less money” talk; the “you need to go on a budget” talk; the “we’re not going on any trips for a while” talk. Our relationship was burgeoning amidst what now seems like a time of economic prosperity and frivolity (November 2007); we took lavish trips and went shopping for sport. There were outings to Neiman’s, Tiffany’s, and many a five star hotel. Nowadays, we only travel when we’ve got a free place to stay (timeshares, other people’s vacation homes), and FBF discourages me from spending at CVS, let alone Neiman’s Last Call. These are desperate times, but I’ve sacked up, so to speak, and happily gone along with our plan to live “on the cheap,” whatever that means.
However, as bad as things got, I never thought it would preclude the two of us from going out for a decent meal every now and then. But that’s what it’s come to, and it’s not just barring all four star restos either, with which DC is now replete due to a growing celeb chef trend. Even cheap Chinese seems like a luxury now, because FBF got it in his mind that it was time for us to become familiar with…the C-WORD.
It’s not what you’re thinking (besides, I said we have a hot sex life). I’m talking about COSTCO. Yes, Costco, that bastion of all that is cheap and super-sized. As if I wasn’t slumming it enough already by downgrading from Whole Foods to Safeway, two weeks ago I was subjected to trying to grocery shop at a bulk food warehouse. If you thought shopping the District sample sale was a challenge, try sticking to a low-carb, low-cal diet when all you have to work with is 10 pound boxes of Kashi cereal and chicken breasts that only come in packs of 24. It might sound great at first - you think, all I’m going to eat for the next 4 weeks is protein and lettuce. But then you realize halfway into that, everything you bought will be spoiled. A 5 pound box of grapes, a 50 ounce box of spring greens, a literal bushel of apples - all of these were piled high in my cart with FBF dutifully navigating our way through the crowded aisles - and they now sit rotting in my trash can in the alley. The only things that actually keep are frozen foods and preservative, chemical-packed non-perishable goods - every kind of candy bar, sugary cereal, and calorie-laden cookies imaginable - all packaged in ungodly, unthinkable volumes.
It feels like only yesterday we were saddling up to the Dean and Deluca cashier with Foie Gras and an $80 bottle of pinot in our basket, but there we were, opening a joint membership at a discount food club and boxing our own groceries. Forget eating out - those days are over (again, double entendre not intended, at least not for now). With no real signs of respite in sight and a filibuster-proof Senate on the horizon, looks like I’ll have to forget about spicy tuna rolls and lobster burgers from Central Michel Richard!
XOXO,
DC DABA girl
