Tuesday, May 19, 2020

PANDEMIC COOKING


By Doris Martin
You would think that I have plenty of time to do so much now that I am staying home and staying safe. “Seniors” (I still can’t wrap my head around that term as if it didn’t pertain to me) are supposed to be careful with this monster looming outside our windows. So, I’d better get down to business!

First of all, I now should have time to finish the book I’m writing about my Swedish grandparents. Actually, plenty of time to get it printed for my family by Christmas. I thought the days would go slowly for me but it’s quite the opposite. It seems now that as soon as I finish breakfast, instead of starting to write the 1,000 words a day suggested by many authors, I am thinking about what I can make for lunch and then dinner.

We were used to eating very healthy meals making fresh fish three times a week with chicken or pork tenderloin on the other two nights and “whatever” on the seventh night. Now, since my daughter is busy working from home, she insists on doing two weeks of shopping for us so we don’t have to go out. Therefore, I really have to think ahead of what to prepare for meals. The food in my pantry and refrigerator/freezer has to last so I’m not bothering her. Now, I’m baking cookies and coffee cakes, which we certainly don’t need, and thinking about how I can make leftovers more interesting and different for my hungry husband. How about my own version of tomato sauce with pasta and bits of leftover meatloaf to save time and not repeat the meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy? Will that matter to him? Then, I’ve got that big box of frozen individually wrapped skinless chicken breasts. I really should do something different with them each time I get two out of the box. One night I made “chicken something or other” and added pantry and ‘fridge’ items. “Delicious,” he said. “You’ve got to make this again.” Nice compliment but I have no clue what I threw into this meal!

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a month ago---“Don’t eat anything that had a mother”. WHAT?!! Well, now with 400 workers testing positive for Covid-19 at a meat packing plant, I understand what he was saying. Okay, I have a bigger, time-consuming challenge! That leaves vegetarian dishes. After looking through my numerous cookbooks, I saw that many recipes had different varieties of beans in them. “We can’t eat beans every day to keep us from feeling hungry,” I say to myself. “We’ll have the Sound of Music throughout the house!”

As you can see, my imaginative cooking skills have been tested. Don’t get me wrong, I love to cook and have had no complaints during my 50+ years of marriage. My Swedish grandmother made sure of that. So why has this consumed so much of my day? Probably because I wouldn’t want to hear anything negative from my loving husband about my cooking---even in a Pandemic.

Heavenly Father – Thank you for sunny days and a caring daughter to help me through this trying time. Thank you for keeping my family and friends healthy and the medical professionals in place to help those less fortunate. Thank you for giving me a positive attitude and the patience I need to get me through this pandemic. I do know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and, that light has always been YOU who gives all of us the strength to carry on. Amen.

Photo by Dragne Marius on Unsplash

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