FOOD

What’s for Dinner When the Economy Is Going to Hell in a Hand Basket?

Here’s how to prepare for what’s coming

Photo by Tara Clark on Unsplash

Right now, I feel exactly the way I felt in February 2020.

In late January and early February of that year, I started stocking up on things like black beans, brown rice, canned tomato products, pasta, lentils, brown rice and frozen vegetables in preparation for a new disease that seemed to be hitting people hard in China.

From what I had read in an inside page of the New York Times, it sounded like the trouble was going to hit the U.S. at any time, and I wanted to be ready.

But all around me, people were going about their regular shopping like nothing was wrong.

“Do you not understand what’s coming?” I wanted to ask everyone.

Remember this? I took this Soviet-Russia-looking picture on March 14, 2020. I had prepared well and already had everything I needed at that point, but I had to hit the store for an ill family member. Almost nothing on her list was available that day. (Photo by Michelle Teheux)

By the time Covid-19 had become a household name, my pantry was already nicely filled with non-perishables. No, I didn’t hoard anything. I just bought extra foods that we already ate routinely. This meant we didn’t have to enter the grocery store during the worst period of the pandemic.