Recessiotarian Journal: Day #2

Hey Recessiophiles, I'm back!

So yesterday, Tuesday, was Day 2 of my freeloading food experiment, and thankfully, I had another conference on my schedule, this one sponsored by LEAP and called Answering the Call: Civil Legal Services Respond to the Economic Crisis. It was held at a fancy law firm on 5th Avenue, and in case you're not familiar with the freeloader code, that means not only free food but good free food. Score and double-score.

As you can imagine (mouth watering and wallet throbbing), they had quite a spread for breakfast. Along with two cups of Starbucks coffee I snagged a bagel, three small butter croissants, and a danish. They offered only those tiny dessert plates, and my loot was towering threateningly on the three I'd filled as I covertly walked them over to my table. I threw two of the plates into a ziploc bag I'd brought along for that express purpose (resorting to napkins on Monday taught me to be prepared!)

In the hustle and bustle my sneakiness went mostly unnoticed - until the food attendant walked over to give me the look of death as I tried to approach the table for (yet) another serving. Under his reproachful gaze I carefully retreated back to my seat. Throughout the day they kept us going with coffee (I had two more cups over the course of the day), soda (one diet coke for me - got to keep that caffeine trip going) and bottled water. At lunch there were several kinds of sandwiches available - being a vegeterian as well as a recessiotarian, I took half of a Greek wrap and half of an avocado/sprouts/carrots sandwich (for then) and shoved two more sandwiches into a handy Tupperware container in my bag (for later). Then I grabbed Diet Cokes, an apple and a bag of Doritoes (also the "later" column). The only person who commented on my squirrel-like behavior was my coworker, and I ultimately explained my BkRecessionist challenge to him. Forgive me?

For dinner I had free kosher Chinese food sponsored by AVODAH, the Jewish Service Corps that I'm a part of. There were also TONS of leftovers, which I'm sure you'll hear about later...

By Tuesday night I was already starting to feel sick from the amount of gorging I was doing when food was right in front of me, and also from how much super sweet or super salty food I had been eating (free food is usually not the healthiest!) But, I hadn't even gotten through 48 hours so I swallowed hard and tried to digest.