Bored, Anxious, and Broke in the Time of Corona Part 1: How Do We Cope and What Do We Cook?
It has been an awful long time since I have finished even a small piece of writing but I find myself suddenly drowning in time as I believe many of us now are. There have been many pleas from friends and family for a revival of these posts and I find myself unable to disagree. It was just today that I applied for unemployment for the first time and found out I will be receiving only a quarter of my monthly income for the foreseeable future. I received a confirmation email from the unemployment office moments after submitting my application that begun with the sentence “You are responsible for understanding this information.” Somebody has to be. The other eye catching piece of information on the unemployment website is the very ironic “help wanted” sign on every page, letting us know that the unemployment office is currently short-staffed.
As a person with fairly intense anxiety and OCD, many people have been asking me how I am coping with the current situation. Up until about two weeks ago I remained almost eerily calm, finding a great joy in the fact that for once in my life everyone else was freaking out and I was not. I had faith in the system. I remembered Ebola, Avian flu, and SARS. None of those touched us here in the U.S.. I felt comforted by my American privilege as a person who has never seen a war at home, never been denied access to the best healthcare, never lived in destitute poverty. This virus, I told myself, would be like those things-harrowing to those who live in developing countries, to those who lack the access and privilege that I have been afforded-but that it wouldn’t necessarily affect me. It has become more and more apparent that even our profound privilege cannot guarantee us luck. Disease is an equalizer, it doesn’t discriminate between rich and poor, those who have and those who have not, it reminds us that we are all ultimately mortal.
So I took it upon myself to panic. “This,” I told myself “is the moment you have been preparing for.” Having spent the better part of my life as an obsessive hand washer, I am suddenly finding myself really quite in the know. “Did you count to 30?!” I scream at my boyfriend, Luke, when he is done washing his hands. “Did you touch the door handle? Now you have to wash your hands again! Fool!” At work I got my boss to print out a hand-washing guide accompanied by some sort of meditation mantra and taped it next to the sink. The mantra turned out to be from some dorky book but it doesn’t matter as long as you haven’t read the book. “I don’t need to get it to think it’s funny” I told my coworker. Hand-washing humor is my kind of humor.
The second phase of panicking was what I call “panic shopping”. And shopping for the apocalypse is no simple feat. I wouldn’t say I’m exactly hoarding supplies- I can’t afford to do that, but I did spend several hundred dollars on groceries last week and I do have seven cans of tomatoes which I would argue isn’t insane. The shopping experiences have been fairly brutal and expose the very ugliest sides of american culture and maybe the ugliest side me. It reminds me of the time a local grocery store was closing down, it was sometime before Christmas and everything in the store was fifty percent off. The store was packed and people had filled their carts with boxes of La Croix and a decade’s supply of tinfoil. I was running around the store shouting instructions at Luke “Almond flour! We need almond flour! Get two!” as I turned around and pulled an armful of baker’s chocolate into our shopping cart. “To the olive oil!” I shouted. I was easily the most alarmed person at the store, but hey, I love a good sale, and I’m much better under real pressure. I promise.
These shopping experiences have been much more real deal. I have finally perfected the safest method of shopping with gloves on. Gloves can easily become irrelevant if used improperly so after some trial and error I have devised the perfect routine. First, in the car, I put my cell phone in my purse and zip it up. Second, I exit the vehicle, lock it, and place the key in my pocket- where my gloves are. I then put on the gloves and proceed to the cart/hand sanitizer area, use my gloves to wipe hand sanitizer on the handle of the shopping cart and place my shopping list in the place where a baby normally goes. It will have to be burned after. I then go about my shopping as normal, leaning away from other customers who are not observing the six foot rule and holding my breath. When I finally get to check out I place all my items on the conveyor belt and then and only then, can I remove one glove. I then hold said glove in my other hand- which is still gloved. Then, with my ungloved hand, I pull out my credit card or phone (if I’m paying with my phone) and ID because we are all most likely buying alcohol at this time. I then pay and return those crucial items back to my purse and zip it closed, all with my bare hand. With my single gloved hand, still holding the discarded glove, I push the shopping cart back to the other carts where I carefully dispose of both gloves and my shopping list. I may then finally take my bags to the car. Everything will have to be sanitized at home of course, preferably on the front porch, preceded and followed by a vigorous hand-washing.
It may sound exhausting. But l assure you- it must be worth it.
So in light of all that, I have decided to share with you my pantry and freezer inventory in hopes that it may inspire you, or disgust you, or distract you from the woes of your own mortality. I will also share several meals that can be made out of these items and based on feedback from my faithful readers I will write up more detailed recipes and post them in the coming days. Please leave comments, email me, or connect with me in any way you like about recipes that you would like to see!
(It took me a very long time to make this JPEG of a chart I made )
In My Pantry:
Possible meals based on these items:
Pasta with tuna and capers
Pasta with tuna, tomatoes, and olives
Pasta with ragú bolognese
Pasta alla Amatriciana (tomato sauce with pancetta or bacon)
Pasta Carbonara
Pasta with cream, bacon, and peas
Easy beef Bourguignon with polenta
Sausage, polenta, and egg (ideally with a vegetable side)
Chicken Teriyaki
Moroccan chicken tagine with olives and preserved lemon, served with rice
Chicken Adobo
Chicken Marbella (chicken with prunes and olives)
Moroccan style lentils with rice
Chickpea coconut stew
Cannellini beans in parmesan broth
These are all meals I plan on making during this time. I am also ordering groceries weekly so we have a supply of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and dairy to work with. Hopefully this will remain possible. I am replenishing this pantry supply as we eat through it, something I feel intense anxiety about. “We are eating the supply!” I keep thinking. It’s hard to remember that this is only a soft apocalypse, so at least for now, let’s try to keep it all in perspective.
Credits:
A big thank you to Eli Lu for the beautiful photo that made this post happen.
