1. Things are super weird at the stores in corona times. For a while there was no meat, no chicken, no soup. Chicken returned, rice disappeared. Sometimes there’s onions, sometimes not. Things that disappear sometimes show up again, or not, all of it out of my control. So flexibility is the name of the game.
2. This didn’t used to be my strong suit. I planned a menu, wrote the ingredients on my shopping list, and then by God those were the things I’d hunt down. If that meant hitting two or three stores then so be it.
3. Since May my most frequent grocery store Google search has been “substitute for ___”. You just gotta make it work, man.
4. I learned how to debone a chicken thigh. Not well, mind you, but close enough. God bless the magic of YouTube.
5. I was in the grocery store looking for two packages of chicken thighs. It was one of those weird weeks, though, and apparently the stars didn’t align for thighs already prepped. Who knew they sold those things with the skin on and bone still in.
6. Other corona times lessons abound. Like how to disinfect a house with ammonia, bleach, and alcohol.
7. How to make homemade butter in our blender. (That one’s just for fun, though.)
8. How to check our blood pressure and oxygen levels at home. Now there’s a skill set I never knew I’d need.
9. How to make parmesan garlic knots, homemade fries, shrimp and grits, fresh fruit margaritas, and air fryer Southern fried chicken that’s out of this world.
10. Last but not least (and far from last overall, I’m sure), how to watch Hulu.com with my earbuds so I don’t distract the kids during remote classes. Thank heavens for technology.
Great list. I live in a care facility which gets groceries delivered, so I don’t know when something’s out of stock most times. We get our meals delivered too, not by the supermarket, and those did get a little weird. Not sure that’s corona-related though.
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The odds are good that it is. I’m pretty sure these breaks in the supply chain are messing with everything including meal services. I guess everybody’s winging it right now.
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Missing stuff makes us smarter and making stuff up. Fun post, Laura.
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Thanks, John. And you’re right — that saying necessity is the mother of invention never rang more true.
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I think we are back to shortages like in WWII. Have to make due.
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Sometimes being forced to get creative is a good thing. However, short periods of that are best.
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I agree. Too long and it feels like you can’t count on anything as simple as knowing there’ll be onions at the store and that makes for iffy moods.
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I love your list. I am single and live by myself, so my shopping challenges are a whole lot simpler. I play games with myself to see how long I can go between grocery trips–it is amazing how much stuff used to simply sit in the pantry that I now have started to use. Google is fun if you are looking for substitutes, but it is equally fun to mix together ingredients that don’t seem to go together. Who knew that putting black bean in spaghetti sauce would taste so good over pasta? I am also working on a personal record for the length of a Zoom meeting. The longest for me so far has been a virtual church retreat that lasted five and a half hours.
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Oh no way, I’d never make it in a five hour zoom anything! That takes serious focus and commitment right there. Covid’s made me much more efficient at home, too — I’ve got notes in my phone so I can track food in my fridge and freezer and use it before it goes bad. I should probably dig into our pantry, though. It’s been a while since I’ve sorted things in there!
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In the case of that five hour zoom call, it was a virtual church retreat, with folks from all over the northern half of Virginia. They kept it lively and we did have a couple of short breaks built into the schedule.
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I think we’ve all learned a lot during these months. Remember when we had been talking about weeks?
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Ah, yes, the good old days when “responsible” people were saying well, if we just shut it all down for a few months then we’ll have a summer. No matter how hard I try to reframe this for them the kids can’t seem to grasp how long this situation could last.
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I started cleaning surfaces with lemon when the supermarket replaced 15 apples with 15 lemons. No idea if it works but had to use those lemons up. x
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So odd! Don’t know if that works either but I bet your house smelled terrific.
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These are strange times. We can find most everything on any given day at the grocery store except antibacterial wipes. I have learned I can live without them.
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Oh yes, there’s no antibacterial wipes to be found here. Hand sanitizer finally made a reappearance, just in time for school supply shopping (thank heavens). I’ve found the ability to find certain ingredients at the store is directly proportional to the meal plan I have set for the week. 😆
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9 and 10 sound like positives.
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They sure are!!
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😍
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