+
+
This became our house motto during quarantine. Devised at first as a way to rationalize the situation
+and counter the urge to nip to the shops for that extra can of beans, or the right kind of noodles, the
+saying would soon evolve into a blanket pardon for all kitchen sins. What might have been
+inexcusable in normal times was now allowed, even encouraged; no transgression was off-limits.
+Anything could be remedied, adjusted, forgiven.
+
+We do what we can, with what we have. Under this refrain, approximations became standard. As
+long as the item substituted was vaguely in the same category as its counterpart, it was accepted. If
+a recipe called for shiitake, any kind of mushroom would do. Onions and leeks became
+interchangeable, herbs synonymous. Eventually, we started thinking of ingredients only in terms of
+their common denominators: legumes, alliums, citrus and greens.
+
+This in turn opened the door to a kind of culinary freedom I used to scoff at. Previously a devout
+follower of recipes, a measurer of quantities, I felt myself loosening up, and began to strip away
+layer upon layer of prejudice. Cooking had become a game of musical chairs, and I was relearning
+how to play. Sometimes the combinations worked, and sometimes they were less successful. On
+occasion they were even an improvement on the original. When it came, failure was generally the
+result of technique rather than taste, like the meatballs: bound with yoghurt instead of eggs, they
+refused to hold their shape, and were instead fried like mince, then made into a Middle Eastern riff
+on Bolognese.
+
+We do what we can, with what we have. There was always something different, a missing ingredient
+replaced with something that pushed the recipe into a new territory or flavour profile.
+
+Then I wanted to have more.
+
+When lockdown started in the UK, we stopped going to the supermarket. My favourite prepandemic
+routine had been to walk the length of our high street, zigzagging from shop to shop, and building
+menus as I went. COVID had quickly put an end to that. Instead, I spent hours trawling the Internet
+for local suppliers who accepted online orders - first for fruit and vegetables, and later bread, meat
+and dairy.
+
+The online orders meant a change in habit. Not only did our meals have to be planned in advance;
+ingredients also had to last, and stretched as far as possible. I turned to the freezer. Once the resting
+ground for half-used bags of frozen peas and long-expired ice cream, the freezer now made all meals
+possible. Breads were quartered, wrapped and frozen. Fresh herbs were bought in bulk and
+suspended in time to make sure they were always on hand: dill, parsley, mint and basil, all chopped
+and neatly kept in small sandwich bags. Meat was the easiest, as it often came freezer-ready from
+the supplier. Egg whites, bagels, broth and chocolate cake; nothing that could be frozen wasn’t, and
+every online order included something bought solely for the freezer. It became the hardestworking
+appliance in the house, a treasure chest and time capsule.
+
+What we couldn’t order, we made. A casualty of the bulk-buying craze at the start of the pandemic,
+pasta had become notoriously difficult to find either in-store or online. And then I remembered we
+had a pasta machine. Never used and previously belonging to a relative, it had spent years in the
+back of the cupboard, too heavy and complicated-looking to warrant a try. Now there was an
+excuse, and it took pride of place on the kitchen counter. We didn’t experiment much with shapes,
+and found it easier to cut tagliatelle with a sharp knife than the machine’s attachment. Not having a
+pasta drying rack meant hanging our fresh ribbons on the clothes horse, which was both endlessly
+amusing and surprisingly effective. We do what we can, with what we have.
+
+Another lesson was bread. We both hated supermarket sandwich bread, and although our local
+bakery did deliver, the habit was expensive. It quickly became hard to justify spending so much on a
+few loaves of sourdough, as delicious and freezer-friendly as they were. So, I started baking. After an
+early and unexpected success with bagels, I moved on to bread rolls. Focaccia was next. I grew bold,
+and tried my hand at burger buns and brioche. Romanian breads I loved the most, and since visiting
+home was out of the question, baking them proved comforting in a spiritual sense. They were also
+the most successful.
+
+What I stayed away from was sourdough. I was at once both daunted by the process, which felt
+limiting and unforgiving, and repulsed by the idea of storing a living thing in the fridge. And what if
+the wrong kind of bacteria developed – could I poison us?
+
+And then came the second lockdown. Indoors again, I missed sourdough, especially after a few trips
+to the farmers’ market over the summer in search of loaves. So, I went for it. Building the starter
+brought a new routine, a daily ritual of feeding and discarding, of watching for growth. It’s had many
+names, mainly because we kept forgetting what we’d previously called it. We recently settled on
+Oddish, a Pokemon reference, the idea being to avoid further evolutions. Since November it’s
+yielded countless loaves, and we’ve learned to bake with it unfed to maximize tang and chew.
+This past year has been a lesson in many ways. We’ve steered away from supermarkets and bought
+small and local. We learned home economics. What had once been bought on a whim and left to rot
+at the back of the fridge is now washed, blanched and frozen for a later day. Repertoires are
+expanded and new techniques have been learned. Most importantly though, the pandemic has been
+a lesson in coping, in adapting to the situation and creating new habits, meals and rituals out of what
+is already there.
+
We do what we can, with what we have.
+