Covid Chronicles. Chapter 103: A Change in Eating Habits

Read chapter 102 here

Photos by Retiring Guy

Wednesday, January 13, 2021        

The pandemic has changed our eating habits, adding a greater sense of purpose to our meal planning. Cooking for 3 and sharing meal prep are also factors. As a result, leftovers sometimes accumulate In the refrigerator. Oftentimes, these food containers are pushed aside or moved to another shelf as one of us searches for another item. Yogurt. A carton of strawberries. A small can of V-8. After a while, it’s similar to randomly mixing face-down Scrabble tiles before the start of the game. Nobody knows where stuff is. Occasionally, we uncover what look like a science experiment in mold growth. 

Nearly a year into the pandemic, we decided to resolve this problem. JoAnna ordered a magnetic whiteboard through Amazon. Now we can list the leftovers we have available, creating, in essence, a rotating lunch menu. So far, it’s working our very well. 

The left side of the whiteboard is reserved for creating a grocery list. Yesterday before leaving the house to run errands, I took a photo and used it for reference at my various stops. The downside is not having a paper copy on which we can cross out what’s just been placed in the cart. We need use a quadrant organization: grocery, bakery, butcher, produce. 

JoAnna added a freezer category, as we tend to make multiple meat purchases whenever we visit Knoche’s. The freezers of both the kitchen and garage refrigerators have remained full through the pandemic. And the pullout drawer of the kitchen freezer has deep wells for storage that requires a lot of pawing through to see what all is there. 

None of us has yet to make a move to create a freezer inventory. 

It’s certainly not for lack of time.