I am not a good food shopper. My excuse is that I barely cook so I have no idea what ingredients I might need to make actual food.

The only thing I make with regularity is turkey loaf for the dogs. I started doing it when Dalai was a skinny puppy. I do it now because she is a skinny old lady.

In my first house I had a gorgeous, vintage Wedgewood oven/stove.  Because I don’t cook, I used the oven maybe twice a year. (This was pre-turkey loaf.) After I’d lived there a few years I had a repairman come out because when I did turn the oven on, there was a horrible smell. I thought it might be a gas leak or something.

He took one look at the oven and stared at me in shock. “It’s the dust,” he said. “The oven is filled with dust. That’s the smell.”

Oops.

I digress.

Obviously I’m not one of those smart people who plans their meals for a week and goes shopping with a list. I’m more of the ‘what can I zip into the market and grab and make tonight’ kind of cook. In a normal week I may fly in and out of the store three times, buying just enough to last for a couple of days.

What with social distancing and safer at home orders, this no longer is a viable method of survival.

I have tried to change. I actually attempted to think about eating before I’m hungry, which I hate to do, and went into the store armed with a mask, gloves and an actual list.

Yeah, that wasn’t so successful. I waited until mid-morning in order to avoid the lines. (I haven’t been to Trader Joe’s since the lockdown. At the TJ’s near me, there are literally lines around the block; I love the place but nothing is worth that.)

Unfortunately that means that by the time I got there most of the things on my list were sold out. Carrots? Nope. Beyond meat? Nada. Pasta? Not a chance. Shit.

As always, I just wanted to get out of the store as quickly as possible. But now shopping brings an element of panic as well as boredom. Since the items on my carefully prepared list were missing, I found myself randomly grabbing stuff so I could stand in the socially distanced line and flee to the safety and peace of my car as fast as I could.

This meant that when I arrived home and opened my shopping bags it was a little like Christmas: a surprise. But not a good in a good way.

I came home with cans of tuna, which was okay, I like tuna. There was also a loaf of nasty white bread, a head of cabbage that I snatched thinking it was iceberg lettuce, and a red pepper. I’d also bought a dozen eggs to add to the carton I already had in the fridge. And five lemons.

I ended up making a really good, easy, tray of shortbread lemon bars (from Sally’s Baking Addiction). They were delicious, but didn’t solve the meal issue.

I ended up on muddling through with an ancient can of soup (is there an expiration date on lentil soup?) which, if I do say so myself, paired nicely with the lemon bars.

In short, I am still going to the grocery a couple of times a week, which is less than ideal.  I reassure myself that I’d have to do so anyway, since in the summer I pick up 25 pound bags of carrots twice a week for the horses.

I tried getting 50 pounds once, but they went bad before they could be eaten. There is truly nothing more disgusting than 20ish pounds of rotting carrots. Ew.

What all this means is that I’m going to have to get creative. So if you need me for the next week I’ll be combing the internet for recipes that use cabbage, eggs and a lemon.