cheap date

Music: James: Laid (1992)

Around these here academic-ish parts, most folks are holding their breath until the first paycheck around October 1. Which means everyone is pretty much broke. Since circumstance and other calamities require me to freeze credit cards in a huge chunk of ice, budgeting tightly is now the order of the day. Saturday night was no exception. Problem was, I had a date and I had to treat my honored guest well. What do to?

You cook an inexpensive meal on your car, that's what you do! Since I was in high school I have cultivated a rare talent: cooking food in tinfoil on your car engine. I was a Boy Scout for many years, so I was already familiar with expert tin-foil cuisine ("Hobo Dinner," anyone?). Then I discovered the amazing cookbook Manifold Destiny and got creative. I used to cook wieners for tailgating at concerts at Lakewood Arena in Atlanta (now it's Verizon stadium or something), and chicken parmesan for dates. I can recall doing the car cuisine date three times; twice it went very well, but I remember one lady from my teen years who was simply grossed out (obviously, it wasn't meant to be).

(Here's a picture of my current VW Golf stove) The problem with car cooking is that, as vehicles have become smaller and more efficient, so too have engines become cooler; some car engines---especially small compacts---are little more than rolling bun warmers. Old American brand trucks work best, but I always had Volkswagens. They did the trick until I got a Toyota Supra at 18, which ran too cool. Then, I had to "pre-cook" my food until about 10 minutes away from being done, and then transfer to the car. Typically, recipes for car-cooking are calculated by the mile and distance to drive. A turkey, for example, would take all day.

So how did the date go? Well: I prepared some eggplant parmesan, broccoli, and garlic bread and, when all but the bread (which I finished) were about 10 minutes away from being "done" in a normal oven, I placed them on my car engine. I picked up my hot date (shown left) around 5:30, and we commenced driving. Alas, it started to rain . . . HARD! I handed Brooke the directions to the "restaurant" and said she'd need to help me navigate. "I hope this place is not outside," she said. "Umm," I said, hoping the rain would stop. I said something about how Murphy of Murphy's Law and me were pretty tight.

We were headed to a little known "public park" on the top of a water reservoir, strangely located in a residential area. The "park" gives a breathtaking view of the 360 bridge in West Austin. The only un-pretty thing about the park is the barbed wire fence that surrounds it, although when the coyotes started howling I was glad they were there. Anyhoo, as we were getting close to the park I said I had a menu she could look at in the glove box. It was a menu of "Café de Juice—on Wheelz!" that featured "Manifold Destiny Eggplant Parmesan," etc. She laughed. Just as we pulled up the rain stopped (yay!)

After I harvested the food, we slogged through the soppy green and finally plopped on a spot. I prepared us plates and we commenced to eat our food and drink some wine; it was a little windy and chilly, but gradually the weather turned very comfortable. No bugs. The sun set slowly. Just as we were finishing up our meal, three teens chatting very loudly on their cell phone abruptly interrupted our romantic solitude with "Oh . . my . . . god" style young people shouting. They were so busy talking on the cell phone I have no idea how they were enjoying the view.

Thankfully, the cell-phone spoilers left (and not ironically, just as things started to get good). The sun started setting, and I suspect because of the recent storm, the colors were quite stark. Photographs cannot really capture the site, which was slowly and increasingly intense. We were joined at first by a very quiet neighborhood woman. Later, a man on a bike showed up and wanted to chat with us about the coyotes howling at sunset. We smiled but acted disinterested, so he left us alone to watch the sun settle.

As the sun got lower, the clouds slowly swirled into reds, pinks, and blues in an amazing display. "My god," I said, "this is fucking disgusting." What I meant was, it was pretty amazing and I am too cynical to say it; but it was literally a breath-taking sunset. I mean, wow. American sublime and all that jazz. I turned around and looked behind us, and the little park had started to fill with joggers, people with their dogs, middle-aged sunset addicts and the like

Right before dark there was wisps of color. I worried Robin Williams would show up with some tired monologue about spirituality (like in the worst film ever, What Dreams May Come). Thankfully, nothing maudlin. One gazer caught us as we were leaving. "Quite a light show tonight," she said. "Gee, it was ridiculously pretty," I said (or something like that). "Are the sunsets always this pretty?" The woman replied "no," that it was the recent storm that helped with the color. We said good evening, then made our way to Lala's, a bar where it's "Christmas All Year Round" and had a round and talked about the sun and the history of the bar.

Some people really need fancy clothes, fancy food, and candlelit dinners in a highly visible/trendy spot to "feel the romance." We call them shallow yuppies. For a complete gallery of the deep gruftie hippies on a shoestring budget date, you can click here.