Coronavirus Follies: The Cupboard Challenge

Those of you who are forced to "social distance" will be happy to know that it will get better.

The children will eventually grow up and move into their own cocoons. The pets will die, and your husband will leave you after listening to you beak at him for 18 months. 

Then you will have peace, real peace. No more fighting over the remote. You will be able to eat everything you want and not care if you can no longer see your feet in the shower. 

And Trump will be gone, so you'll have that. He will have succumbed to his Adderall addiction, syphilis, or the chemicals in his spray-on tan. Trust me when I tell you that. I have never lied to you. 

In the meantime, I am here to keep your spirits up. 

You see, I know how to socially distance.

I have been in social isolation since 1984.

Today's assignment is called the Cupboard Challenge. ™ 

It will involve having a look in your pantry and your freezer, then making a plan to either use up what's in them, or throw them out. 

I have been doing this for the past week because, well, I stopped drinking on March 1 on the advice of my liver and my brain cells. As part of the exercise, I had to clear out the liquor cabinet. So I thought: why stop there?

I've also been out of work for 10 long months, and I am literally living on leftovers. I have $85 to last until Scott's pay day, and COVID 19 gave me the extra incentive to stay out of the grocery store.

So here I am. And here you will be, too, after not having a paycheque for 10 months. How do you like it so far?

I was encouraged when I started this project because all three pantries, and the freezer, were full, chock-a-block full, with all kinds of weird and wonderful, even exotic ingredients, that I would finally be able to put to use. I also have a full cupboard of coconut milk after I got a very good deal on it at Loblaws a few months back.

My week began with my heart full, and my recipe book open. I made Jamaican pork curry, adding in Caribbean ingredients that I bought when Jesus was a sailor, when I was going through my Island phase. It was delish! Yesterday, I found a hambone in the freezer, which had been there since Christmas along with a full bag of home made baked beans that the kids forgot to take home on December 26th. So I made pea soup, and last night we enjoyed a ham dinner with scalloped potatoes and a nice salad. Win! Win!

The piece de resistance was a pie I made using Shirriff's lemon pie filling which I had bought about two years ago during one of my classic Loblaw's half price spending sprees. I didn't have a crust, and I cannot make pie crust, so I used a Graham cracker crust from a bag of pre-crushed cookies in the back of the cupboard. Yum!

I'll be honest, I am not great at making pies, and this experiment reflected my ineptitude. I tried making meringue two ways, first using egg whites from a carton, then from the actual eggs. Neither set, and the result looked something like white dish suds. 

But I was undeterred. I knew it would look like crap, but it would taste delicious!

And it did. The meringue, and the filling. 

The crust, not so much. 

It tasted like it was made from turpentine, and smelled like benzine laced cadavers. 

Yep, it was that bad.

Scott ate it anyway while watching a commercial for blood spatter, aka the tv show Bad Blood, which we should not have been streaming under any circumstances. I mean, once Vito Rizzuto is dead, along with a stellar ensemble cast, there was absolutely no need for a second season. 

The guy from Sons of Anarchy simply cannot carry this series.

But I digress.

I learned my lesson with the lemon pie. 

Today, I'm throwing out everything in the cupboard that I haven't bought in the last three months.

That includes: coconut flour, nuts, dried fruit, and at least 12 boxes of Goldfish. Oh, yes, and 15 boxes of Certo, which I will never use, not ever, even if I inherit a fruit grove from my farmer friend Doug Backus.

My recommendation is that you should do the same.

Because my friends, if I learned one thing from my experiment, it's this: if the COVID 19 doesn't kill you, your rancid pantry surely will.