Last week, we went to my parents’ house for supper. As I was putting my contribution to the meal — a container of La Buena ice cream (plus cones!) — in their big chest freezer, I paused for a second to admire the frozen bounty.
My mother’s freezer is always a thing of beauty: plump bags of berries, gallon jars of granola, stacks of perfectly portioned green beans and corn and collards, loaves of bread, tins of cookies, thick wedges of cake — everything meticulously wrapped and labeled.
How in the world do you eat it all? I asked my mother. You have so much ready-made food and it’s just the two of you! Why do you even bother to go shopping anymore?
***
People always warned me about the culinary befuddlements that arise when one’s family size shrinks back down to Just Two. After bulk batching everything, it’s hard to recalibrate, they said.
Which is true, yes, but I’m also learning that quantity control is just one aspect of the problem — and a superficial one, at that.
The deeper issue is an overarching question: if I don’t need to cook, why bother?
***
Cooking from scratch was one of the key pillars of how I chose to raise my children. (If you’re curious, some of the other pillars — that I’m making up right now but are not not true — included “lots o’ chores,” “books-n-boredom,” “school-free ferality,” and “screenlessness.”)
With the children around, cooking was necessity, creativity, frugality, lifestyle choice, community, education, adventure, and joy all wrapped into one. Kitchen tasks paired well with constant interruptions so they were the backdrop to our days. For two decades, the kitchen was the engine of our home, and food made our family go round (haha).
So what do you do when the one thing that was once so meaningful is no longer necessary?
***
I’m in a constant state of disbelief about how little time I need to spend on food prep. I can make meal after meal, sometimes for days on end, from what feels like thin air. Just a quick root-around in the fridge and — zippy-zam-BAM — we’re feasting on tomato sandwiches, smoothies, spaghetti carbonara, a big green salad, eggs and toast, peanut butter apples, whatever.
And still, much of what we eat is somehow still homemade and homegrown: milk, beef, pork, cheese, ice cream, butter.
It’s rather astounding.
***
It’s not all bad, this new stage of not cooking, but there’s definitely A Tilty Feeling that comes with it.
What I long considered The Way To Live no longer is, so where does that leave me now? I’m not sure, but I keep having itty-bitty paradigm shifts.
For example…
Example 1
It occurred to me that I no longer need to stock brown rice. Even though everyone always preferred white, I used to alternate between white and brown because: variety is good and we don’t always get to eat our favorites. But now that it’s just two of us, I have nobody to raise and nothing to prove. My husband prefers white (and I love it), so that’s what I stock. If I want brown, and I can buy a small bag whenever the hell I want, imagine that.
Example 2
I rarely bake bread anymore because a) I get the stale stuff from the bakery, b) the kids drop off dumpster stuff from town, or c) it just materializes somehow, like the slider buns left over from a party Eucefe had a few months back upon which I’ve been building this week’s lunch sandwiches.
Example 3
I’m even rethinking the classic family staple: granola. (I KNOW.) These days, I’ve been making pan-toasted raw oats with all the fixings for our breakfasts, or cooked oatmeal with berries and bananas. So if we don’t eat it, why make it?
***
So what’s for supper tonight? you ask.
Oh, right. Supper. Hm, I’m not exactly sure but . . . maybe burgers?
Here, lemme break down what a burger supper looks like in a “I don’t really cook anymore” household:
- Bread: frozen Costco buns
- Meat: frozen dumpster patties
- Cheese: take your pick! we’ve got smoked gouda, brick, Lady Zella, Colby, cheddar, all homemade
- Bacon: I unearthed a little container of frozen bacon crumbles this morning, whoop!
- Heirloom tomatoes: my younger daughter gave us a bunch from the garden where she works
- Condiments: sweet pickles, kimchi, plus the classics.
Maybe I’ll make carrot sticks?
Oh, and there’s a little bit of La Buena leftover from that dinner at my mom and dad’s, so maybe we’ll have ice cream cones, too.
This same time, years previous: hormone replacement therapy: Carrie, help! my blender broke!, cuajada, black pepper tofu and eggplant, in the kitchen, the quotidian (8.6.18), pile it on, cheesy herb pizza, corn crepecakes, the quotidian (8.6.12), elf biscuits.
