Originally posted April 2, 2020 in the Archive A little over a year ago, I wrote an article about how the labor of cooking is an act of love when faced with the passing of my husband’s grandfather. Today, I was informed that I have been furloughed from my job indefinitely in the face of COVID-19. I got off the phone with my boss, I cried, and then I looked to the rest of the world for positivity. It’s incredible how much light is still out there in the restaurants of our communities. Big name Chefs all over the country are going out of their way to turn their kitchens into relief sites for their own employees and others impacted by the crisis currently facing our country. Edward Lee, a chef whose cookbook we reviewed here, Smoke and Pickles, with the help of Maker’s Mark turned every restaurant he owns into relief kitchens for his employees. While he could no longer pay them, he could certainly feed them, and his example is one of many that led to the movement currently sweeping the country. Nancy Silverton of Osteria Mozza fame followed in his wake and began the same process in Los Angeles. We have all seen the efforts of Jose Andres in his major kitchens addressing the needs of his communities. Marcus Samuelson of Red Rooster has turned his locations into relief sites as well, and these people are not thinking about their bottom line. They are thinking about the people.
It may be big names that are plastered all over national media, but let us not forget the little guys who are going above and beyond to support the people in their communities either. I remain a dedicated follower of social media within a town close to my heart, Burlington, Iowa, and I am as moved by their community leaders as I am by the big names we already discussed. I am moved by the generosity of the community donating more than a thousand dollars to Chase Gibb’s restaurant coalition of Coal Haus 337, The Buffalo Tavern, and Buffalo 61 to support them while they provide meals to the service organizations in southeastern Iowa. People that are putting their lives on the line for their community are being given a spot of joy in their difficult fight by the donations of their community and the efforts of Chase's staff. Knowing that even the little guys can make such a profound impact on their communities is perhaps the most valuable lesson of these hard times. I am moved by the man’s motivation to turn a terrible thing into hope, even employing his mobile pizza oven to help other businesses in need. There is no competition anymore. There is only a fight for survival, and it is through generosity that we can all survive. In my last location of Delaware, the absolute gentleman-- The Rehoboth Foodie-- is doing his best to highlight businesses that are still accepting carryout and delivery orders in the face of this current crisis. It was only because of him that I know about Difibos restaurant in Bethany Beach packing grocery cases for their employees that they have had to let go as well. All over the country, people are donating to businesses that are trying to keep themselves afloat by providing for the people on our frontlines against an invisible enemy. Sometimes, its a twenty dollar gift card so that a few nurses can get a cup of coffee on their way to work without having to worry about it. Sometimes it's a fifteen hundred dollar donation to feed an entire city’s first responders. And sometimes, it's a take out order of a burger when you’re working from home. We all have a part to play for the people that are being hurt the most by this crisis. Generosity in the face of adversity is the only thing some of us have left, to give or to receive. We only have so much that we as individuals can do, but we must do it all. Restaurateurs can use their supplies and reach to do innumerable amounts of good for their communities, and we are seeing it everywhere. People can use their limited resources to help those people continue their mission. Watch the Facebook pages of your local favorites for any kind of charity activity being undertaken and give what you can. Buy that delivery burger if you want it. Donate gift cards to your favorite locations to feed the people protecting us from our invisible enemy. Food is love. To give it, to receive it, or make it yourself matters little. It is a language we all understand.
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Originally Posted May 11, 2020 in the Archive
Some of us have been stuck in our homes for upwards of two to three months. Food has become something much different than what we knew even in January of this year. Four months ago, I threw away packages of eggs when I reached their final date on the box. I didn’t worry about using milk before it went bad. I could just toss it in the garbage. The root ends of my scallions were garbage bound. I never bothered to portion out my meats. If I forgot some in the fridge, it could be thrown away. Not anymore. I consider myself fortunate to be furloughed from my full time job in order to learn and adopt better habits for my time in the kitchen. These positive adjustments that I’ve gained in the kitchen are things I try to practice gratitude for when my brain goes to dark places in quarantine. Food has much more value now, both monetarily and figuratively. There are several adjustments I’ve made that have taught me to value what I have in my kitchen in new ways. Scallions, for example, have been a staple of my veggie drawer for years now. I use them to top nacho snacks, drop into stir frys, bake into savory goodies. Early into quarantine, I discovered that regrowing scallions in the kitchen is not such a hard task. Many chefs I follow on instagram began placing their root ends of their scallions into cups of water to get at least a second use out of them, and in that I followed. This little thing has given one of my favorite produce purchases a second life. This isn’t something i’ll ever give up, I think. Eggs are a staple in most households. We use them for breakfasts and baked goods, but they can go forgotten on the top shelf of the fridge for days at a time when the mornings start to get away from us. As I mentioned, I never worried in the past if the carton went past its prime. This week, I found myself genuinely worried about it for the first time in my entire life. I spent the day freezing gnocchi to make sure that I used my eggs. I made Brasovence from our Cookbook of the Month, Carpathia, to get the rest of the eggs out of my fridge. The whole day was an exercise in using what I have, and it felt good. It’s amazing what you can make when you look for the things that are on their way out. Dairy products make up the vast majority of what I keep in my fridge. Mayo, sour cream, cheese, and milk are important building blocks to all three meals of the day in the Eating Normal Kitchen. Prior to the lockdown, I had very set uses for all of these items, and if they happened to expire, it wasn’t a big deal. Like all of those things above, that changed when I found myself needing to make use of everything. Milk has gone toward sauces and baking projects to get the most use out of it before the expiration comes along. I make milk bread almost every single weekend. Cheese sauces and alfredos and more goodies can come from a carton of milk that I have otherwise neglected. It’s been a delicious blessing. Mayo and sour cream have gone toward sauces as well, though mostly chip dips. I am a firm believer in spinach and artichoke dip for daily consumption during quarantine, and now that I’ve realized I can make it myself in ten minutes with an old Alton Brown recipe, there probably won’t be any going back now. Meat is becoming a more and more precious thing the longer quarantine goes on. I was a notorious waster of an extra chicken thigh or two. I threw out the carcass of roast chickens without a second thought. Now, I spend extra time after every grocery pick up separating a package of meat into meal portions for my husband and I. I save the bones from everything, raw or cooked, for stock later down the line. Meat off a roast chicken is a meal for at least three days. I even saved the wing tips off of chicken wings to go toward a stock that wound up being one of the most gelatinous, fatty stocks I’ve ever made in my life-- and it was delicious. Since portioning off each big container of meat for more than one meal, I haven’t let a single slice of meat expire in my fridge. I was notorious about that for pretty much my entire life, and I didn’t feel an ounce of regret. We had a culture of waste. Fruits have also taken on a higher importance in my kitchen. Generally, I did not buy them in the pre-quarantine times. Last week, I decided to try and make healthier choices in my eating during the pandemic which has landed some strawberries and citrus in my kitchen for the first time all year. While I don’t normally eat berries, I’ve started adding them to my water to give it a little flavor. Most of my lemons and limes have applications in the kitchen beyond these jugs of water, but they certainly help there too. Fresh produce has been easier to get than a lot of the frozen versions, and with meat shortages on the horizon, we have to use what we can get our hands on. The way we cook in America will likely be changed forever because of this moment in history, and the way we all make use of what we have will be a major tenant of that change. Our culture of waste cannot survive the current environment. Adjustments begin in the home kitchen. How are you changing the way you cook during stay at home orders? Good suggestions from readers will be tested in my own kitchen and their results shared later in the month. Originally Posted May 18, 2020 in the Archive
We’ve reached a period in this pandemic where the belt has tightened here at the Eating Normal kitchen. I did not qualify for state unemployment, and now I must wait an extra thirty days for additional pandemic unemployment relief. It’s game over for bigger grocery orders. There’s no stocking up anymore. It’s time to learn how to use coupons and cook with what can be bought cheaply. And I know I’m reaching this point later than a lot of people in the United States. I’ve been lucky to mostly enjoy the first month of my furlough, but that’s over. The struggle bus has come to town. We won’t even be doing a new cookbook next month. We’ll be engaging in a redemption tour of previous cookbooks to reduce the amount I’m spending on this hobby. That will continue until I start working at my furloughed job, or find a new job. Whatever has to come first. It’s just my husband and I, so in some ways we are still fortunate to not have dependents counting on us for everything in their lives. Whatever I spend money on for groceries is for two people only, and in that way, spending 100 bucks a week on groceries can sound a bit extravagant still. That’s being generous. My aim is to spend LESS, but the max I am setting for myself is 100 a week. How am I, a bougie foodie who usually spends upwards of 150 a week to get fancy shit for my meals going to manage that? Coupons, baby. Coupons. The grocery store closest to us has online ordering where the specials of the week are available for viewing and use, so this makes it a lot easier for me to achieve. I spent literally thirty minutes today min-maxing my grocery order based upon what meats, dairies, and frozen items were on sale. I got myself down to under 90. Whats on the list? Two packages of chicken thighs on sale for 1.49 a pound, 2 packages of Italian sausage, a 10 pound bag of flour… You know, the important things. What I’m not buying is a BUNCH of anything at one given time. I’m avoiding the brands I normally gravitate toward in order to capitalize on a sale instead. Some of it is painful since I got used to that good brand name life, but my poor person instincts kicked in pretty hard this week. I almost bought off brand soda. I don’t think my husband would forgive me for it. So, what this means for Eating Normal is the following:
We’ll get through this together, and hopefully the pivot I have to make in regards to this project will be useful for a wider audience. Thanks for sticking with me. Let’s get to cooking. |
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