Keeping the “K”uarantine in Kitchen

Quarantine has taught us how to eat more leftovers, and because of that, quarantine has taught us to plan better menus so that we don’t mind eating the leftovers that we make ourselves eat. Curries and salsas help spice up the second time around. One-course meals have become the new normal, and so has having a fresh-baked sweet bread or iced cake in the house. Why not?! On certain mornings, kitchen time has joined me to my grandmothers in scents of nutmeg and cinnamon. New discoveries like Minimalist Baker have jazzed up my gluten-free, dairy-free lifestyle. Turmeric and basil brighten bowls into art.

Will the time come again that I will travel to the grocery store more than once a week? I hope not. I’d much rather be at home. Sure, I’ll break the shopping rule, but only for the best reasons — running out of vegan butter or almond flour. Having cabinets supplied with multiple staples, the freezer full of potential, and the vegetable bin stuffed with crisp cabbage, carrots, and cilantro gives me the confidence of knowing that hunkering down is possible, that more than a week’s worth of meals is waiting for my ingenuity. (And, yes, for that I am privileged. Healthy foods, tragically, are still not freely available to all. Not yet. Read more at Feeding America.)

I wonder if a vaccine will inoculate me against the sanity that I’ve found in putting food in its place. I hope not. Taking time to fashion meals from a pre-planned weekly menu with ingredients we already have on hand has given me the same sense of freedom that putting my shirts and sweaters in color order in my closet has. Today’s a blue day. Blue jeans, blue pullover, blue flannel shirt. In my blues, I traveled to the grocery store this morning for a lighter than usual shopping day, one that filled in a few blanks to feed our daily habit for creamer and carbs. I like the early morning, weekly shopping habit I’ve adopted, and after months and months of menu-making, we have collected a dozens of ways to enjoy everything from rices and beans to potatoes and cabbage. In fact, we have enough meal ideas to get us through another pandemic, just in case.