Your Cupboard is bare? A pity, but no reason for panic.
Back in the day I would walk to the butcher for pretty much each and every meal I prepared at home. Living in Bernal Heights was culinary nirvana. When Avedano’s opened my life became effortless. I am not joking. They have the very best of everything. The local grocery store, The Good Life, did a damn fine job of providing nearly everything a new age shopper could desire and all the bacon I could ever need for a Sunday brunch. But the fish was never all that fresh and the steaks were absolutely lacking. (stay tuned for a gushing review of Avedano’s at a future date.)
I live in the mountains with raccoons and wicked squirrels that steal apples off my tree. I can certainly get to one of two grocery stores. Johnny’s is lowbrow Safeway of sorts. The New Leaf is your basic hippie food store that has a solid array of all the basics. If you need hot dogs, BBQ ribs and Captain Crunch you hit up Johnny’s. For tofu, soymilk and weird hemp seed cereal you go to the New Leaf. Needless to say I shop at both with maniacal frequency.
Still, I am a broken shopper. I do not stock up. What can I tell you, my shopping habits were hard wired in Tokyo where people typically pick up what they need for dinner on the way home from the office. Fresh foods in small portions. Less is more. You can only imagine how amazed and repulsed I was the first time I went to a Cost-Co. Baffled and bemused I walked out of there with twenty pounds of beef jerky, a thousand Advil and enough paper towels to mop up the Pacific. I like boutique shopping, I do not like malls. So, are we getting clear on the psychology behind the daily shopper? No? Well, work with me here. Empathy. Yes, if you were me you would shop this way too and you would be fine with it. Regardless, this continual shopping and a definite lack of hoarding has some very obvious flaws. For starters there is that issue of, oh well, sometimes the store is closed. In Tokyo this was never a problem as things are typically available in convenience stores 24/7. No, you can’t get into the basement food stalls in Mitsukoshi Department stores before ten a.m., but there is always 7-11 and, well, they have everything from socks to 'manga' and freshly packaged 'bento' box lunches to gurgling pots filled with ‘o-den’ (a Japanese stew sold primarily in the winter)
What do I do when there is nothing to eat? Best bet is to get creative and to toss caution to the wind. Basics, like eggs? I never run out of these. Dinner time and nothing to eat? Have breakfast! Simple and easy. A simple omelet is a wonderful survival meal. In a pinch you can always dine, if not in style, at least on a fluffy egg treat. Any cheese in the house? You will most certainly need this. Any lunch meat? I am not joking here. I think salami might be a breach of dining ethics, but you can certainly shred some of that lunch meat, honey glazed turkey and toss it into your omelet. Because the dish requires that you fold one side over on top of the other you’ll be hiding many potentially unsightly ingredients. If you are having a dinner date they may not even notice that you put the sandwich meat slices into the mix. I generally have fresh garden herbs on hand at all times. These put a nice touch on a survival dinner. They add the gourmet flare to your meal of empty cupboard desperation.
A glass of wine? An excellent accompaniment to the 'breakfast for dinner' plan. For that matter an excellent choice for day old pizza or even that wretched last resort, the canned soup you found in the nether regions of the cupboard behind the canned pinto beans. Top Ramen? I don’t typically keep this in the house, but if I did? Rest assured it would taste better with an exceptional pinot noir from the Willamette Valley in Oregon…
Dessert? A fine place to dig deep. You must have sugar in the house. Use this to make dessert. In a pinch? Cinnamon and toast would work. Chocolate of any kind helps keep the blues away. Baking chocolate is fine but you will need to add the aforementioned sugar. If you have the ingredients for a chocolate souffle that would be splendid. You might need fresh cream for a topping though... Tapioca is a great one, but you will generally need to wait for it to chill and set. Patience will be rewarded here if you are indeed trying to impress a date. A light dusting of freshly grated nutmeg can also reap rewards on the style charts.
Generally this is not a terrible problem because, well, I like to shop on a daily basis. It’s not like I am holed up here in the woods with nothing but crackers and bakers chocolate to eat for months at a time. Survival training for the Marines involves dining on grasshoppers and worms. I am happy to report that survival in my world as a daily shopper will avoid crickets on the menu and keep the palate at a reasonable state of joy until that damn store opens in the morning…
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