The events of recent weeks have forced us to face many hard choices we've never really had to confront before. To be sure, there are the critical inflection points, the ones that define how we live today. Stay in/stay out, visit/don't' visit your parents, shut down/reopen businesses: these are the dualities with which we've all been grappling.
However, added to those weighty decisions are much more mundane, but nonetheless real-world conundrums that come with sheltering in place with restricted access to the outside world and limited resources. How much toilet paper is too much? How many days can you wear sweatpants before realizing your jeans no longer fit? Does letting kids watch 6 hours of TV a day constitute bad parenting or is it therapeutic? Is walking to the mailbox considered exercise? And maybe most vexing, is salsa a condiment or a meal?
This last point speaks to that great journey of discovery, the contents of your pantry. Usually you just think of it as the place that has that extra bottle of mayonnaise or box of pasta or jar of strawberry jam. Up until a month ago, when you returned from a trip to the store, you just shoved whatever you bought into the front and used that first. It's only now that your trips the grocery are fewer and farther between that you are reaching farther and farther back, not sure if you will grab something you haven't seen in a while, or something will reach out and grab you.
You might stumble across a can of some processed food that was a staple for your kids way back when, but which they wouldn't go near now. It might be a can of Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli, maybe Franco-American SpaghettiOs with Franks. No haute cuisine to be sure, but something a 6-year old picky eater would at least sit at the dinner table and eat with you while you had salmon and broccoli. Then almost overnight they discovered tacos and sushi, and never looked back. And that can of Beefaroni has just been waiting for a moment like this.
Or maybe you are a steady and reliable consumer of chickpeas or artichoke hearts or kidney beans. Every week or so when you went to the store you grabbed another can or two and used them in your favorite salad or chili. All good. But when it came time to cook you likely just grabbed whatever was closest at hand, which was the stuff you bought last week. That spare can from the week before or the week before that got pushed further and further back. Until now that is. And while the freshness date indicates those garbanzos were at their peak flavor during the Clinton administration, there's nothing inherently wrong with them, as long as you can deal with the label touting a promotion where you could win a brand new 2001 Taurus.
And if you keep looking, in the deepest darkest reaches of your cabinets are foodtsuffs that at one single moment in time seemed absolutely essential to your menu plans. Perhaps you came back from a dinner party, maybe it was a trip overseas, or a weekend away in the country at a little bed and breakfast. In each case you had something you have never had before, or something old in a new way, and you just had to try and reproduce it at home. That meant a search online or in some local gourmet shop for a spice or sauce that wasn't usually carried in Stop and Shop. You tried making the dish once, and it didn't taste as good as it did in Paris or the Berkshires or at Belinda's, and so you put the jar away.
But there it is, stuffed into a back corner of your spice shelf or wedged behind the raisins. And now it's a true culinary challenge: what can I make with 3 jars of hot mango chutney, allspice and a can of organic young jackfruit? Well, wonder no more. Believe it or not, “The Vegan Larder” has a recipe for Jamaican Jerk Jackfruit with Rice and Peas that uses all three. And now that I know what we'll be having for dinner Tuesday night, can I save you a portion?
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford is trying to use what we have on hand. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
However, added to those weighty decisions are much more mundane, but nonetheless real-world conundrums that come with sheltering in place with restricted access to the outside world and limited resources. How much toilet paper is too much? How many days can you wear sweatpants before realizing your jeans no longer fit? Does letting kids watch 6 hours of TV a day constitute bad parenting or is it therapeutic? Is walking to the mailbox considered exercise? And maybe most vexing, is salsa a condiment or a meal?
This last point speaks to that great journey of discovery, the contents of your pantry. Usually you just think of it as the place that has that extra bottle of mayonnaise or box of pasta or jar of strawberry jam. Up until a month ago, when you returned from a trip to the store, you just shoved whatever you bought into the front and used that first. It's only now that your trips the grocery are fewer and farther between that you are reaching farther and farther back, not sure if you will grab something you haven't seen in a while, or something will reach out and grab you.
You might stumble across a can of some processed food that was a staple for your kids way back when, but which they wouldn't go near now. It might be a can of Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli, maybe Franco-American SpaghettiOs with Franks. No haute cuisine to be sure, but something a 6-year old picky eater would at least sit at the dinner table and eat with you while you had salmon and broccoli. Then almost overnight they discovered tacos and sushi, and never looked back. And that can of Beefaroni has just been waiting for a moment like this.
Or maybe you are a steady and reliable consumer of chickpeas or artichoke hearts or kidney beans. Every week or so when you went to the store you grabbed another can or two and used them in your favorite salad or chili. All good. But when it came time to cook you likely just grabbed whatever was closest at hand, which was the stuff you bought last week. That spare can from the week before or the week before that got pushed further and further back. Until now that is. And while the freshness date indicates those garbanzos were at their peak flavor during the Clinton administration, there's nothing inherently wrong with them, as long as you can deal with the label touting a promotion where you could win a brand new 2001 Taurus.
And if you keep looking, in the deepest darkest reaches of your cabinets are foodtsuffs that at one single moment in time seemed absolutely essential to your menu plans. Perhaps you came back from a dinner party, maybe it was a trip overseas, or a weekend away in the country at a little bed and breakfast. In each case you had something you have never had before, or something old in a new way, and you just had to try and reproduce it at home. That meant a search online or in some local gourmet shop for a spice or sauce that wasn't usually carried in Stop and Shop. You tried making the dish once, and it didn't taste as good as it did in Paris or the Berkshires or at Belinda's, and so you put the jar away.
But there it is, stuffed into a back corner of your spice shelf or wedged behind the raisins. And now it's a true culinary challenge: what can I make with 3 jars of hot mango chutney, allspice and a can of organic young jackfruit? Well, wonder no more. Believe it or not, “The Vegan Larder” has a recipe for Jamaican Jerk Jackfruit with Rice and Peas that uses all three. And now that I know what we'll be having for dinner Tuesday night, can I save you a portion?
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford is trying to use what we have on hand. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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