Every so often, I find something interesting in a “listicle,” a published article consisting of a list of things. Personal faves are articles that have collected a bunch of random tweets from average, normal people on a specific topic. In this case, it was a series of different takes on what people were eating when they hit pandemic “rock bottom” and no longer felt like cooking.

Many references to cheese, simple sandwiches, beer/wine, V-8, whole pints of ice cream and things heated in the microwave. But the most important part of the list was the dates stamped on the tweets, many of which were from March, 2020! April and May also represented. People were having existential struggles feeding themselves after less than 1 week of the pandemic!

This fact has me feeling all sorts of ways. First, it makes me feel sad for humanity that so many people are so out of touch with what it takes to nourish themselves and keep themselves alive. No shame projected toward them at all, but it definitely makes me grateful that I had a family where we all had to learn to cook from recipes, shop for ourselves and that that knowledge has sustained me. I have had my days/weeks during the pandemic time where my husband has had to bail us out by making a big batch of chili (his specialty) at the last minute or we just had grilled cheese sandwiches for three days in a row.

Food and nourishment is so important and it is one of the things I have been trying to share more with others over the last year. Working in the kitchen has also been therapeutic for me, so I have made extra of many things so that I could drop extras off with friends and neighbors. And then there was the cheesecake experiment. It has not lasted due to my lack of consistent time and commitment, but I still occasionally throw one together and regularly keep the ingredients in the cupboard.

Anyway, I guess I feel proud and resilient that we have survived this long without relying on Uber Eats or other such services. Who wants an overpriced, cold burger delivered by a severely underpaid person? Don’t get me started on that system! I wouldn’t dare participate in that one. And those who do could do better by starting with Hello Fresh or some YouTube cooking videos. They are definitely out there.