The Joy of Cooking Vegetables in Quarantine
I have a weird, or at least atypical, diet for an American. I’m a pescatarian who loves the hell out of bread and pasta, but I do not possess a sweet tooth. I over salt things on purpose. I have an aversion to condiments in general and white condiments (and sauces) specifically. I’ve never been into sandwiches and your typical Midwestern picnic fare (e.g. egg salad) grosses me out.
Instead, I just eat a lot of vegetables and bread and cheese. Aside from not eating land animals, I don’t have a “diet” like Keto or Paleo or any of that. I make loads of veggie soups, tomato salad with some bread and cheese or kale sauteed with cannellini beans on toast are go-tos, occasionally sardines on toast. That’s what I like.
A few months back, around the time when toilet paper and flour disappeared from store shelves, I freaked out and decided that a grocery store was the place with the highest risk for me to contract the coronavirus and therefore, should be avoided as much as possible.
I used to go multiple times a week, but only wanted to go once every 2–3 weeks. With vegetables that backbone of most meals, that plan could only work because of a CSA box. There’s a couple businesses around Chicago that deliver produce, but I didn’t know that signing up for a weekly delivery of whatever random fruit and veg they happened to have that week (I could not choose or substitute anything) would change my approach to food.
I used to shop, as I suspect many of us planner-types did, by recipe, plotted out a week in advance. I knew I wanted to make a certain soup or I wanted to try this new recipe from Bon Appetite so I would go to Whole Foods on Sunday and diligently buy the onions and garlic and spinach and diced tomatoes and vegetable broth or whatever. And then once Wednesday rolled around, I would grab the spinach and get to work. I might swing by the store one or two more times during the week to pick up fresh fish or a baguette.
Creating shopping lists that way are pointless now. I have no idea what produce, the stars of my meals, I’m going to get until the weekly email — if I even catch it. Besides, I go to the grocery store to get the pasta and rice and whatever else goes into dinner once every 2+ weeks and trying to plan that many meals in advance makes my brain hurt. My one-week plan nowadays is half-assed. So instead, grocery store trips are all about restocking the essentials (pasta, olive oil, eggs, Parmesan cheese, chocolate, coffee, etc) so I can cobble together a meal without much planning.
This only works though, because of my weekly produce delivery. And I love it. Opening a box of fresh produce gives me such childlike glee.
“Look at all these green beans!”
“More lemons, yes!”
“Oh my god we got an EGGPLANT!!”
Instead of planning by recipe, I plan around when the food is going to rot. My grocery store avoidance has turned out to be stellar motivation for using up all the vegetables. The eggplant was already really ripe when it fell into my eager hands so I knew to figure out a recipe for it first (grill it!). That tomato getting a little moldy? Cut off the moldy bit and the rest is still good! (And it really was!).
I’m also experimenting with bizarre recipes or just doing things I wouldn’t have normally done. I’ve blistered cucumbers and served them with peaches and nectarines. I hard-boiled eggs, and I loathe hard boiled eggs. Their sulfur smell is one of the most disgusting things ever to waft up my nostrils. I’d rather inhale farts. And they feel like eyeballs once they’ve been peeled. But still, I made a version of a potato salad that required hard boiled eggs mashed into little pieces, and damn those little pieces were good when tossed with roasted potatoes, celery, and onions, and topped with the celery salt I made myself.
I’ve also shaken some routines like the quick scrambled eggs in favor of pancakes or French toast for breakfast. And I’ve found the (energy? mental space?) to make focaccia which is crazy simple but requires dough to rest for long intervals. Not something I was gonna try to plan out back in January! And I completed some firsts: I made homemade sweet potato fries and learned to steam an artichoke.
This approach has been working for me, I think, because I’d been prepared without realizing it. I already owned a few cookbooks devoted to produce, if not vegetables specifically. I’d had a Bon Appetite subscription and am just generally the kind of person that loves to eat and think about food.
I’m OK with preparing most food at home. Needing to figure out what to make quickly for lunch during the work week is not my favorite (cheese and an apple!) but I’m not yet sick of all this cooking. Maybe it’s because I always enjoyed cooking and now there’s space and time to do it more, and to challenge myself with new ingredients. I’m also highly motivated by a desire to minimize risk and contact with the outside world. What I eat is something I can control and feel safe doing. Outside my apartment, that’s not the case.
If feels weird to say given the pandemic and unemployment rate jumping, but I’ve never eaten better, both in terms of health and in terms of limiting food waste. Certain aspects of food prep still suck. I do not like peeling sweet potatoes and carrots! And washing lettuce is a pain. But on the other side of all this work is a good meal. I always enjoyed that but nowadays I think I need it more than ever.
Cook your veggies!
Abra Berens’ cookbook Ruffage has been my source for the weirdest things (blistered cucumbers!).
Pasta with fresh tomatoes, either with shrimp or without. Steamed artichokes with a garlic lemon butter dipping sauce. Picked onions. Grilled eggplant. Cauliflower steaks. Sweet potato fries.
And because you spent so many loving hours in the kitchen, treat yourself to a lemon margarita. Drink it outside if you can, with a bowl of tortilla chips and salsa.
Originally published in Humdrum, my newsletter about everyday things, like going to the gynecologist or staying in an Airbnb. Subscribe here.
