Cheap Dates For Starving Artists

Dating can be expensive, but romance can be enlivening.

What a shame to miss out on heart fluttering, loin burning moments because you're worried about money!  On the other hand, how awful to have a dreamy encounter undercut by your terror of spending money you don't have. 

This topic is "artistic practice adjacent" but useful nonetheless.  So often we're told, you can have love or you can have your art. Not both.

Today, I want to challenge that notion by addressing it in a practical, nuts and bolts, way.
 

You can have your art and your romance. 
 

My Top 6 Cheap Date Recommendations for Starving Artists:

1. Gallery Openings 
I love the website Art Rabbit. Put in your city and it tells you about all the visual art you can see, and when the opening receptions are. Opening receptions are almost always free and include free food and booze.

2.  Thermos & Walk 
In summertime, you can do grocery store and picnic. But in this cooler weather, fill a thermos with a warm drink. Try chai tea, hot chocolate (with whiskey), coffee (with bailey's), hot apple cider (with spiced rum), hot toddy or mulled wine. Meet your boo at a local park and wander.

3. Cemetery Tour 
For someone who likes something a little eerie or for those history buffs, grab your warm drink and wander your city's big, old cemeteries. 

4. Improv Show 
Go laugh. You can get two tix to your first Free Association show for FREE.  Here's the link! They have shows most nights of the week, featuring pro actors and comedians being hilarious (including me).

5. Free Museum 
Depending what city you live in, some museums and large galleries are free to the public (we're very spoiled in London), others will have free entry on particular nights of the week. Do your research and make a date.

6. Brunch at Your Place + My Dad's Pancakes  
I love hosting and I love pancakes. Brunch at home is great because it's cheap. Enjoy my Dad Ted's pancake recipe (filled with gluten and dairy) with some coffee, fresh fruit, streaky bacon, yogurt and maple syrup. Recipe below. For GF/DF I highly recommend any of these.

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My Dad, Ted McGee's Sunday Morning Pancakes
 adapted from 'The Joy of Cooking'

Ingredients
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
1.75 tsp baking powder
1 lid or so of pure vanilla extract
2 eggs
3 tbsp butter
1-1.25 cups milk

* He says: The quantities may have to be increased a bit, but what's there is what I normally did. I then use butter in the pan when I fry them.

Directions
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in another bowl and whisk. Add the wet to the dry stirring slowly with a wooden spoon. Don't over stir. Let batter sit for a couple minutes.

Heat butter in a frying pan over medium to medium-high heat. Scoop batter into pan (about .25 cup per pancake). Flip when pancake is covered in little bubbles.

Keep warm in the oven till ready to serve.

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