Guest Feature: A Message from Sasha Davies
Meet Sasha
Sasha Davies is a freelance writer and project manager living in LA. She has logged 15 years tasting, serving, and writing about food. Learn more about Sasha here.
REAL TALK ABOUT HOME COOKING
My inbox has been deluged with stacks of recipes for lunches that will be easy to make and power me through my day, dinners that I can make in batch quantities, and everything BEAN. Granted, I read a decent amount of culinary content in non-pandemic times, but something about the onslaught of encouragement has rubbed me the wrong way.
Reading these can-do emails, I was instantly more stressed out. I felt pressure to take advantage of this time at home to take on big food projects or try new recipes; feeling bad for leaning on the same old tricks I use to feed myself in normal times. Then I remembered the thing I'm always striving to remember: to allow myself to have my own experience. Even during a crisis.
Yesterday I discovered I was not the only one struggling with the notion that there's a "right way" to approach cooking while sheltering in place. The editor of Bon Appetit shared how he cooked with such gusto that he flamed out in less than a week, and the NYT recalled the words of food writer Sam Sifton who said recipes like sheet music, open to improvisation.
If you're having a hard time feeding yourself–wasting food because you don't know how much to buy, cooking giant batches of things that don't taste that good and then suffering through them lunch after lunch, or wanting tasty food but not wanting to cook–spending a minute devising a strategy might be helpful. Buckle up. It's about to get advice-y in here. Straight from the person who just finished telling you how annoyed she is by all the "help" in her inbox.
The first two things I recommend are what I would tell anyone facing a big life choice–jobs, relationships, vacations, volunteerism, finances–to do:
1. ASK YOURSELF A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS (see below)
2. ANSWER THEM HONESTLY (for real, no one else even has to know)
What's important to me here? Potential responses might be things like flavor, nutrition, ease, variety, my time, family-friendly, adventure, minimal cleanup, familiarity, etc.
What am I afraid of/worried about? (and, can I do anything about those things?)
Your answers to these questions might help you let yourself off the hook, find recipes better-suited to your situation, or understand what kind of support you need. Maybe you develop a new set of rules? No recipes with more than 5 ingredients. No recipes! 20-minutes max prep time. Save every penny I would spend on groceries for take-out orders from restaurants near me. Lunch is always leftovers. Design what will feed you best–your tummy and your spirit–and then do your best to stick to it.
The truth is, I'm not feeling adventurous in the kitchen right now. When I roll up my sleeves and open the pantry I'm seeking comfort and ease. I'm thankful that I know how to manage my refrigerator so things don't go to waste and do it in a way that doesn't make eating feel like a chore. (That knowledge came from making tons of mistakes, btw.) And I am grateful that I enjoy the challenge of making a satisfying meal from the disparate items I have on hand. That's not a skill I developed on purpose; it came from years of my desire to not leave the house trumping my desire to have the ingredients to make a specific recipe.
Be kind to yourself, or maybe, more importantly, BE YOURSELF. If you've got a cooking dilemma, scroll up and hit reply. I'd love to help.
TAKE NOTES
I know how this looks, I'm a writer encouraging people to write things down. But I don't think of what I'm nudging you to do like writing, it's more of a suggestion to take notes.
Even though it feels like we could never possibly forget the details of this time, things are moving fast–showing no signs of slowing down–and, as one of my mentors used to say, we only have so much RAMM (the memory, in computing, that can be accessed randomly).
All of us are learning a lot about ourselves, how we feel about the way the world works, and what we need to feel whole on a given day. Write some of it down- it makes for great data. I'm so happy that I kept a few of my notebooks from the years I had the restaurant, their contents add texture to my memories, including the ones that look like lists of ingredients that can reconnect me with the fun and creativity I felt while planning a menu. The distressing entries–cataloging sleeplessness and posing unanswerable questions–are also helpful reminders on the days I wonder why I gave it up.
You don't need a journal, you don't have to do this alone, and it doesn't take a lot of time. Jot down a couple of notes when you wake, before you fall asleep, or after you brush your teeth. Ask a friend to do it with you and exchange them as a text thread. It doesn't have to be anything deep, it's just a trick to get you to pay closer attention to your experience.
If a blank canvas is too overwhelming, start with some questions like–no pressure to do more than one:
What changed for me today?
Who am I thinking about (and what are those thoughts)?
What, if anything, do I miss/not miss?
Did I have any firsts today?
My inbox is open if you want to trade messages.
SWEET STUFF
There's a bunch of scary, awful things happening right now. And, and, and, there's also a shit ton of wonderful. I've heard from people who are sleeping more than usual and feeling better as a result, others are finally exercising the way they always meant to do, and almost everyone I know is making a bigger effort to connect with friends and family. Just yesterday I heard about a class of surgical residents at USC who opted to press pause on their surgical training and learn ICU nursing skills instead because the virus isn't creating candidates for surgery, it's putting patients in the ICU.
People are offering their skills to help others engage in art, movement, and music. There are groups of experts and researchers working together in new ways to work the problems presented by this pandemic and to begin thinking about the ways that changes implemented now have the potential to transform our society for the better. I found this op-ed about the potential for Americans to save America, heartening when I read it this week.
BECAUSE, HOPE:
"Imagine the world as a theater. The acts of the powerful and the official occupy center stage...A lot of the fate of the world is decided onstage, in the limelight, and the actors there will tell you that all of it is, that there is no other place...
Pay attention to the inventive arenas that exert political power outside that stage or change the contents of the drama onstage. From the places that you have been instructed to ignore or rendered unable to see come the stories that change the world.
This means, of course, that the most foundational change of all, the one from which all else issues, is hardest to track...And it means that the changes that count take place not merely onstage as action but in the minds of those who are again and again pictured only as audience or bystanders."
-Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
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