I'm trying to get into the mindset that food is readily available and that I don't need to shop differently than I normally do. At least not yet. I've been working from home since mid-December, and although I usually have social plans that involve food and drink at bars and restaurants periodically, I've been watching my spending. What that means that even in the before times, I was doing a lot of cooking at home. Not quite this much, mind you, but a lot more than I did when I was going to an office every day. Even when I switched jobs years ago, I got into the habits of making coffee and bringing breakfast and/or lunch into the office.  That all is to say that I generally shop for a good amount of cooking. Before the pandemic I often said that I could be trapped in my apartment for at least a month and be just fine, food-wise. At some point I'd be eating nothing but grains and rice, but still, I wouldn't starve.

There are certain things I buy quite frequently, regardless of meal planning: chicken thighs, tortillas, ground beef, frozen dumplings, eggs, milk, bread or english muffins, onions and garlic, cheddar or swiss cheeses (not fancy cheese, which I tend to overeat), scallions (which I and everyone else will apparently never buy again -- see picture), tuna, canned tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, lettuce or spinach, black beans, bacon and probably a few more things I'm not remembering. If I don't have those things in my fridge/freezer, I generally will get them on my next scheduled grocery visit. Note: I don't have all of these things right now -- I'm lacking dumplings and ground beef, but I'll get them at some point, freezer space permitting. There are also things I cook fairly regularly, one of which is this NY Times recipe for chicken shawarma. It's simple, delicious, and I always like having the leftovers. I often serve it in a tortilla, or over rice, with a side salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and feta. That's exactly what I did last night, but I skipped the tortilla/rice and just ate it right off the plate. My only issue was that I had brought some of my favorite spices up to CT -- cumin, smoked paprika, curry powder, and garam masala, and I mistakenly left them there. That said, I did have cumin seeds on hand in NYC, so I toasted them and ground them -- now I have ground cumin! The rest I have ordered from Penzey's, which I highly recommend (and R&N will drop mine off the next time they return to the city).

Also, when I cook, I make things in batches and often freeze portions for later so I don't have to eat it all week. For example, I still have a quart and half of adult spaghetti-os that I can revisit at some point.  Before the pandemic I made a batch of waffles with Trader Joe's protein pancake and waffle mix and froze a few of them. For brunch yesterday, I ate the last of those waffles with strawberries and a side of bacon. Many thanks to past me for making them.