El Reg assembles mighty Quid-A-Day Nosh Posse

Back in Blighty - with NO BEER?!

Back on this side of The Pond, we have Chris Wilkinson in "Darkest Devon", who sounds pretty chipper at the prospect of five days of belt-tightening.

He told us: "I've decided that if the Posse can forage in sunnier climes, I can 'buy in' my home grown veggies for the actual cost of production, as forage is a bit thin on the ground in suburban Exeter.

"I'll calculate how much each bit of home grown stuff costs me, including the cost of the compost (it’s mostly grown in pots on the patio) but unfortunately the challenge is at the wrong time of the year for me to get a great deal of benefit.

"I intend to go about my weekly activities as normal, which could be a bit of a challenge, as this will mean playing in an Ultimate Frisbee league on Tuesday (with no beer afterwards), going to the war gaming club on Wednesday (with no beer), and feeding my partner on Friday when she gets home from working away (with no beer). Hmmm, I begin to see a depressing theme to the week, I’ll have to see if I can sneak in a bottle of homebrew wine!

"Food-wise I'm pretty sorted, what with being able to pro-rata stuff, and I should be able to manage a reasonably balanced diet, and the local Tesco seems to often have sardines at ridiculously knocked down prices, so I should even manage some meat.

"I'm looking forward to it and interested to see how I cope without coffee for a week (I’ll not be cheating and helping myself to the free coffee at work)."

My own personal experience is that a lack of coffee may prove harder on the nerves than Chris thinks. We shall see...

And finally, please welcome aboard Simon Weston, a "non-IT interloper on El Reg" who works for a "very small company in the building services industry". He began by describing himself as an early-40s "non-smoking, tall, handsome, lovely guy with gsoh" and a penchant for cooking, which he admits has "got a little competitive amongst my family".

He explained: "One brother got into poncy cooking, went to Heston Blumenthal's restaurant, got his books, loves the clever-clever stuff and so started doing things like full-English-breakfast starters, where you confit your bacon rashers for several hours til they're about an inch long, and have them with a poached quail's egg on a toasted blini with a ring of fried black pudding in a pretty tower. Another used chef's rings to make the haggis, neeps and tatties into a pretty multi-coloured circular layered tower for a Burns Night dinner."

Simon admitted this fraternal rivalry "complicates my planning for this challenge" since he's "feeling the temptation to be competitive over it".

He continued: "I don't just want to make a nice stew or curry, and live on it for the week. I want to have a few different things to mix up, and give a bit of variety. So at the moment I'm thinking of some kind of Italian tomato based sauce that will go with pasta. I'm going to make my own bread, so if I can afford a little cheese, I can also have (sort-of) pizza. Some sort of chickpea curry is looking likely, probably with rice. And then I'm trying to think of something cheap that goes with bread.

"I can't realistically afford meat (even cheese is a stretch), but eggs are a good, cheap source of protein, and I like them. So there's plenty to eat there, just a question of picking what I can best spend my fiver on. Soup looks a little harder, as a lot of the cheap stuff is out of season, even though it goes well with bread. So two main meals, that can do lunches in smaller portions with an omelette in mid-week for variety. The sad thing is how much a lot of fresh veg costs, but then that's partly because I like things like peppers, rocket salads and asparagus – there are cheaper ways to get your vitamins."

As you can see, our magnificent Nosh Posse is putting plenty of thought and effort into the challenge, and in case you're wondering what's the point of it all, Simon summarised it nicely thus:

I like the challenge on several levels. There's a lot of simple (and cheap) stuff that can be done to mitigate the harm done by malaria, so it's a great cause to raise funds for. I'm not a fan of "raising awareness". On the other hand, we all need a sense of perspective – and it's amazing to look at the variety and relative cheapness of goods we have available to us. For a few quid a week we can eat so many nice things. I'm not sure who we should be grateful to, but I think there's an argument for remembering to feel lucky/blessed/privileged every so often.

Well said, sir. As I write this, we've already raised a splendid £360 for Malaria No More UK, before the Live Below the Line challenge has even kicked off. This bodes well for our 2015 fundraising total, and we invite readers to chip in a few quid in support of the cause. ®

Bootnote

*Even harder if you live in an area not served by even half-decent food outlets. Richard noted that Gwyneth Paltrow's recent failure to complete the $29 #FoodBankNYCChallenge raised valid comments about her choice of foodstuffs...

...including the observation that "in the poorer neighborhoods there is little or no access to the sort of fresh vegetables that are pictured".

Richard elaborated: "The poorer neighborhoods are often surrounded by a food desert where there are no supermarkets, major banks or other sort of commercial infrastructure that you might find in a middle class neighborhood. Much of Pittsburgh is very walkable so most people can access a supermarket by walking or a short bus ride, but there are large neighborhoods where this is not the case and there are only dollar stores available."