We are back!!
along with our fiery and impassioned opinions on groceries, routine, and twenties domesticity
I have a beloved co-worker with a somewhat unorthodox strategy for meal prep. She almost never goes to the grocery store. Instead, she’ll order a couple entrees from a restaurant and portion that out for lunch and dinner over a few days. She swears that it actually saves money. I have seen this in action when we’ve had lunch together: me, huddled over my sad Tupperware of chickpeas and soggy arugula, her with her rationed Lasagna from the Italian place on Franklin. I have to admit, there’s something fun, irresponsible, vaguely eating-disordered, and scurvy-inducing that I envy about this strategy. It smacks of Sandra Bullock in TWO WEEKS NOTICE in which Sandra’s local Chinese takeout place knows her order by heart (Two Weeks Notice--very under the radar, Sandra Bullock / Hugh Grant movie!!! She is a frazzled, bleeding heart environmental lawyer trying to save a beloved community center in her Coney Island neighborhood and he is a sexily callous real estate developer who wants to demo the center and build a condo on its grave—tale as old as time).
There’s something very cool / slightly chaotic / too busy juicing every kernel out of life about forgoing a grocery shop. But the thought of having nothing in the fridge except pasta with vongole clams and a chipotle burrito bowl that’s seen better days makes me feel itchy.
Yet I’m always shocked to learn this practice is more common than I think. When I asked my parents what they ate in the pre-children, Brooklyn Heights days, they said they couldn’t be bothered to cook. My dad would get take-out burritos, my mom would put a scoop of salad dressing on a Dr. Praeger's veggie burger. Still, the act of planning out my dinners, shopping for my essentials (yogurt, chocolate), and just opening the fridge door and staring at my food in the celestial fridge glow makes me feel like I have a handle on things.
When I was staying at my parents’ place for a chunk this summer (displaced by flood, iykyk), my routine was thrown out of whack. Out of a fuck-it/defeated mindeset, I’d buy lunch out whenever I’d go to the office. At first, this was so exciting. In my depressive state I was going to let myself live deliciously by whatever means I could!! And the means were Dos Toros. Sweetgreen. The really overpriced fast casual Greek place. At first, I loved it. What a joy to show up to the office, unencumbered by tupperware, not having to worry about salad dressing drips and strange smells following me (read: the time I brought the leftovers of my baked salad with anchovy dressing.)
I was having a love affair with buying lunch. It was easy, casual, and impulse-fueled. But after a while, this started to feel wrong. Each meal was disposable. There was no love in it, no connection to the food I was eating. I was caught in an endless motion of tapping my card, scarfing it down, and throwing the bowl away. I hated not being able to prepare something just as I liked. I longed for my reliable, faithful tupperware of salad and apple slices like never before.
Still, even if I like the security of groceries, and the prudent feeling of just frying an egg once in a while, I stand by that one of the great joys in this life is the romance of a restaurant.
This past week it was almost 6 o'clock and I had been sitting at my desk all day. I didn’t want to work out or get groceries. I didn’t have any plans with friends. Henri was working late. I felt restless. I decided now was my chance to fulfill one of my longstanding dreams: to sit alone at a restaurant with a paperback in hand. I’ve always had this fantasy. (It feels so cinematic! and so New York) but I’ve always felt a little too shy, too scared that I’d run into someone I know. But after a Wednesday alone in the apartment, I needed a small thrill. I went to a southern comfort food joint on Tompkins. I sat outside, next to a couple with their baby and ordered a fried chicken sandwich and read my book: a speculative novel that toggles between the perspectives of a deep sea diver and her spouse on land. The sandwich was good, not great – a little bit gamey in parts. What was better was the shiver of independence I felt, this rush of doing something I’d only had visions of.
—Liv
There are moments when I realize my co-author and I are cut from the same cloth. Something about our Bank Street education or dips in Spectacle Pond must have inspired a love for grocery shopping and preparing food for ourselves.
In early September, I learned I had the beginning of a stress fracture in my tibia. I was assigned two weeks on crutches followed by four weeks in a walking boot. After a summer of (too much) running and walking, I was now supposed to limit my movement to a maximum of five city blocks.
I moved in with my parents and began a stint on crutches which meant no food-related-labor whatsoever. I know for many this would be a dream scenario but I struggled. I watched my mom dice onions and asked if I could have a cutting board at the table so I could chop too. But when the kitchen fan started blowing garlic peels all over the kitchen, I was gently told to chill. At dinner, I became jealous when my parents served themselves spaghetti and meatballs — what a privilege it is to be able to choose one’s exact ratio of sauce to meat! I wrote up a notecard for my mom enumerating the (many) steps that go into preparing my oatmeal each morning but ended up throwing it out because it was too insane.
Then I graduated to the walking boot. After crutches, the boot was delightfully freeing. I could carry a glass of water from the kitchen to my room! I could chop to my heart’s content and spend 30 minutes preparing oatmeal if I pleased! But grocery shopping (basically a workout) was still off-limits.
Of course, there is no need for me to grocery shop. My angel, hero parents have been excited to get any groceries I request and many more that I would never think of. But when I fantasize about the days when (hopefully) my leg heals, I’m not thinking about the walks I might take around Brooklyn but through the aisles of Trader Joes where sunbutter cups and new seasonal products beckon.
I haven’t been on a full hiatus from cooking– my parents were out of town for most weekends in September giving me an opportunity to fend for myself. In the name of helping, I’ve made it my mission to use all the rejected proteins from the freezer. So for one meal, I chose a filet of frozen Whole Foods salmon. My mom warned me that she had tried a piece and found it grossly fishy and urged me to get takeout. But I swore that I wasn’t picky and was excited about the omega-3s. This was still in my crutching days so I hopped around the kitchen to create a NYT classic: Citrusy Roasted Salmon and Potatoes. It looked pretty good but I took a bite and found it inedible– it was seriously SO fishy. Plus my leg ached from accidental direct impact. I sang the “mom was right song” and ate a selection of foraged items from the fridge (a “girl dinner” if you will). And my dad, the true anti-food-waste king, ate the leftover salmon for lunch (he said it was delicious).
My next attempt at freezer-reject-cooking was more successful. My friend Katherine and I used some NON-ORGANIC Whole Foods chicken breasts to make chicken piccata. Though things became dicey when we realized that the recipe called for 1/8th of a cup of butter and I had no dairy free substitute in mind (if you are new here I have some allergies), we improvised with water, wine and olive oil and the end result was so fancy and delicious that my mom even asked if she could eat some of the leftovers.
Now it’s October and I am back in Cambridge for a week for Nate’s birthday and a visit from his parents. On Saturday, I convinced Nate to drive me to both Whole Foods and Trader Joes where I crutched around the store, happily pointing at all the things I wanted. We made steak, a birthday-ragu and carrot cake. But the glamor of food acquisition and prep is starting to wear off. The groceries were shockingly expensive. And somehow after a weekend full of cooking and shopping, we still don’t have anything to eat for dinner tonight.
- Abby
Thank goodness you’re back! This is so much better than a Dr. Praeger’s veggie burger with Paul Newman’s vinaigrette as sauce. More, please!