"Hello.  I'm one of the people in the original article.  I am not living large.  I am not living in a castle.  I am struggling like everyone else.  I go hungry some days.  I eat cans of sardines other days.  A can of Alaskan salmon is $2.49 at my local store.  I eat that sometimes.  I eat vegetables and chicken.  Please understand that the original article was written with controversy in mind.  I am just a guy who is having some trouble right now.  I don't take assistance lightly, and if you could only see how I actually eat, you would see that it's really not that extravagant at all.  I'm just trying not to eat processed food.  I pay taxes too, and I just found myself unemployed after 8 years working in the publishing industry.  I'm doing the best I can, just like all of you.

"The reporter contacted me telling me she was writing a story about artists and people who care about food who happen to be on food stamps.  That's me.  I care about food.  I think it's incredibly important, and I love to cook.  I don't have health care, so I think healthy food is paramount. 

"Just because I am going through hard times now (no harder than anyone else's, just hard enough to qualify legally for food stamps), I don't think this precludes me from caring about what I eat and enjoying food.  I cook the best meals I can from limited means.  Even the meal I cooked for the reporter cost me literally $2.  Sarah, the other person mentioned in the article, contributed about $5 worth of ingredients.  Because the ingredients were bought at an "ethnic market" people assume it was fancy. But it's just a small halal market across the street from me.

"I'm really just a guy.  I work (even though I am under-employed and trying to find more work), I pay taxes, and I am using a benefit that I legally qualify for.  I use it smartly as I can, buying the healthiest ingredients at the most reasonable prices.  I cook everything myself.  I never eat out.  I don't buy anything ever.  I pay my own rent.  I don't have a car, I don't have a bike, and I walk everywhere I go. 

"I am not truly poor.  I just have lost work, my parents can't support me, I have no savings, and I'm living as minimally as I can while I search for a job -any job - that will hire me.  Unfortunately, I've worked for 8 years in a dying industry, and I don't even qualify for retail and coffee shop jobs.  I'm really open to anything, but every opening these days is highly competitive, even the seemingly menial jobs."

Sun photo by Amy Davis