One Month of #MyLittleQuarantineKitchen

As someone who works mainly from home and makes a living as a freelancer, shelter-in-place has been an interesting experience. I’m no stranger to Zoom meetings, FaceTime conference calls and remote projects. I’m skilled at managing an ever-changing calendar and have built a routine that feels like one for a 9-5 office employee who, in reality, sometimes doesn’t leave the house all day.

We’ve all found ways of dealing with the uncertainty that stay-at-home orders and forced non-essential business closures has brought. For some, it’s daily walks, which I love, but have had to put on hold due to being immunocompromised. For others, its puzzles - please tell me how you do it…I do not have the patience. For me, it’s been cooking.

Enter #MyLittleQuarantineKitchen. Inspired by the amount of enjoyment I’ve gotten from being able to look back on the process of cozying up #MyLittleHouseOnCedar and taking #MyLittleGardenOnCedar from a concrete patio covered in dirt to what I now lovingly refer to as my backyard oasis, I decided to document what I cook (and share with friends and neighbors) throughout this pandemic and call for social distancing.

I won’t say I’ve conquered the process of procuring fresh groceries and pantry staples, although, I’ve gotten very good at leveraging curbside pick up at my community gardens and groceries, Instacart, Target Pick Up and Amazon Fresh deliveries (I’m doing the best I can to support local, but sometimes you need stuff that they just can’t provide). I’ve challenged myself to become more creative in adapting recipes and I think I might have reached LEVEL 11 at meal planning.

All practicality aside, cooking and baking makes me happy. It always has. I’m calmed by being in the kitchen. Being fortunate enough to be able to help some of my neighbors through this by sharing meals (through porch drop-off, of course!) has helped me to feel more connected to the community in which I’ve lived for the past 3 1/2 years and made me value that connection more than I ever have before. We all need to be cared for, right? Even feisty, independent people who swear that THEY’RE FINE (present company included).

So. After a month of being trapped in my house and losing my shit at least once a day, I can still say that I’m grateful for the lessons that I’m learning in #MyLittleQuarantineKitchen. Lessons on planning, patience, practice, failure, feeding, sharing, caring and, hopefully, how to bake cookies in a cast iron skillet on a gas grill, because my oven broke last week and I’m pretty sure no one is coming to fix it in the foreseeable future (mainly because I don’t want to risk anyone’s health in order to have it repaired right now). I’m thankful to have the time to research and try new recipes and I’m benefitting from the time to capture the process and share it with all of you.

How are YOU coping? And I’d love to know…WHAT ARE YOU COOKING??? Tell me in the comments!