#AdaTIFFmems - the wonder food of frugal film goers everywhere

After more than a decade and a half, you develop some preparatory rituals for every festival.  I'm not talking about sacrificing Coppola family members (tho god knows there enough of them), more like things you do to get ready for TIFF.

For me it's getting all my laundry done, stocking the fridge with grab 'n go items, making a giant pot of soup or something that will get me through the first few days before I have to succumb to take-out dinners.  There are some more specific things, like I'll start noting who has the best price for Cold FX, or comparing with my friends which supermarket has the best Red Bull sale.

The food is really the biggest piece.  While I love take out and not having to cook for myself, sometimes the things you're forced to grab when you're in a hurry is nothing short of disappointing (or worse, disgusting!).  Not to mention it gets costly very quickly.

I will pre-bag veggies, fruits, trail mix, etc to put in my fridge, and have single portion smoothies and vitamin water ready as well.  Some people actually know me for my individually packaged fridge.  Not everyone suffers from OCD to that level tho, and even for myself, those lovely fresh veggies only last for about 4 or 5 days at most.

That's when all the frugal, hurried, filmgoers turn to one miracle food that will sustain you throughout the entire festival:  the cereal bar!  (This can include nutrition bars, granola bars, power bars, etc.)  I swear they invited these things just for us.

The first time you come running into a darkened theatre to catch your 4th film of the day and reach into your bag for one of these individually wrapped delights, you are pleased as punch with yourself that you had the foresight to pack these babies.  The foil wrappers on them surprisingly don't make too much noise, they are packed with nutrients (and sugar, but you'll need that to run from film 4 to film 5 later), and in the event they get flattened at the bottom of your bag, they remain every bit as edible.

That said, every TIFF also reaches a turning point, when you're relied too heavily on those miracle bars... that just seeing one of those smashed nutri-grain packages at the bottom of your backpack will make your stomach turn.  That's around the time street meat starts sounding ok...