Remember the “Freshmen Fifteen”? Someone once told me that it was a reference to the weight gained by new college students who spent their first year overindulging on dorm food. To me, that seemed like a plausible phenomenon with an implausible explanation: I think it is more likely due to these new co-eds discovering, among other things, the magical combination of pizza and beer. And after enough beer…more pizza. I don’t exactly remember whether I gained much weight during my freshman year, although it seems likely that I did because I remember eating a fair amount of pizza and burritos, although I didn’t drink back then.

The idea of the “Freshman Fifteen” was in the front of my mind when Sarah suggested that I not only try the many lunch specials in Long Island City but to also document them. Since I work from home on Fridays, I’m having lunch at various eateries in Long Island City over the next fifteen weeks of the spring semester. The challenging part of this project comes not from the quality of the food: the places in this neighborhood are actually pretty good, and there are some deals to be had. With some lunch specials starting as early as 11:00 AM and ending as late at 4:00, I will have to resist the temptation to eat at more than one place in a day. Doing so might force me to retitle this project the Friday Forty, after the number of pounds I’d gain.

I begin putting on the “Friday Fifteen” on January 25.