I used to shop for groceries every day. Coronavirus got me to rethink my pantry | Perspective

I’ve often joked that I probably wouldn’t survive a natural disaster -- or a global pandemic -- because I only keep enough food at home for two or three days.

Until the stay-at-home order, my pantry’s role was to hold my least-used cookbooks, my backup food processor, two ice cream makers, an electric wine bottle opener, a smoking tool, and the LED lights I use to style plates on Instagram.

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There was some food. But not much.

One shelf held two jars of marmalade that I bought in France. Tinned fish from Portugal that I didn’t want to eat because the labels have pretty brown women. An open cereal box and a package of dried cranberries to go in it. Cavatappi in case I need a hit of mac and cheese, and rice noodles from that one time I made pho. Two cans: chickpeas and San Marzano tomatoes.

Occupying half of another shelf: spices.

I do keep eggs, butter, lemons, onions, shallots, and garlic on hand. And I always have plenty of sugar, flour, and fancy chocolates for baking, plus an array of snooty salts from all over the world. Everything else, even basics like rice or potatoes, requires a half-mile walk to the grocery store.

Until three weeks ago, I was an almost daily grocery store shopper, buying only what I could consume within 24 to 36 hours, and no more than I could carry in my favorite canvas tote bag.

With only my mouth to feed, I don’t need to plan meals. I could just wander through the grocery store aisles to see what was in stock, then make cooking decisions accordingly.

I’d chat up the fishmonger who would steer me toward the best of the fresh catch.

“Get whole snapper,” he’d say, then give me a head nod.

OK, I can grill that tonight. Let’s see what else they have.

I’d meander to the produce aisle.

The Swiss chard looks nice. Oh, but that gem lettuce. I’ll eat that. Oh wait, they have beets. Let me buy a small one and I’ll make for a little salad.

I’d repeat this excursion the next day. Sometimes the same day.

I never buy enough for leftovers. I know that I won’t eat them.

I cook this way partly because I like my meals to be fresh and because I want to avoid food waste. With one in five Philadelphians facing hunger or food insecurity, it feels unethical to me to buy several weeks worth of groceries just because I can afford to.

But as canned goods vanished from shelves, the baking aisle was reduced to dust, and shoppers waited in queues that extended to the exit, placing the grocery store workers I talked to daily at risk, I knew I had to reexamine my privileged shopping habits.

The most difficult part for me was deciding what to buy, when I’m used to purchasing a little of this and a bit of that. I cursed the size of packages -- Jumbo! and Family Size! -- knowing that I could never finish a 16-ounce bag of snow peas before the mold would appear. I scoffed at the frozen veggie offerings that were down to chopped broccoli, which no one wants anyway. I resisted the frozen seafood, knowing that once the package is defrosted, I would have to come up with different ways to eat six fillets. Panfried sole. Baked sole. Sole Meunière. Sole sandwich ...?

But things were becoming more dire. Grocery store workers were being diagnosed with COVID-19, and deaths were mounting. Leaving the house was now treacherous, and I still had only a five-to-six-day supply of food. I got in my car for the first time in months and drove to the market -- the only way I could force myself to transport more groceries than I could carry.

I packed my shelves with extra cans of tomatoes, olives, capers, and bags of flour in organic, wheat, soft winter varieties. I even found those elusive jars of dried yeast. My fridge filled up with cheese, butter, and enough sour cream for 50/11 pound cakes. I bought dozens of lemons, extra shallots and garlic, and containers of fresh thyme, even though I grow it live on my window sill.

I rationalized this shopping because it limits my constant trips to the grocery store. And I figured if things got real, I could make enough lemon curd to live on tarts for a month.

But, last week, I heard a loud crash coming from my kitchen.

Several of the packages of shelf-stable goods finally had enough. The bottles of olive oil and vinegar, the condiments, and specialty flours, and extra packages of sugar and pasta that I’d crammed between the waffle iron and parchment paper had tumbled to the floor. Fortunately, I only had to clean a spill made by a 32-ounce box of chicken stock. As I picked up a jar of coarse mustard that I use in a glaze for fish, I remembered the tiny trout fillets I’d bought from the now masked fishmonger. I counted back the days since I had been to the market. Five. My mind played a “welp” gif.

I peeled back the package, sniffed the fillets, and sure enough, the rancid fish burned my nostrils.

Unintended food waste.

My conscience scolded me for buying more food than I needed. I took this incident as a reminder to shop inside my kitchen before venturing out to the grocery store. Then I made a cash donation to an organization that is fighting food hunger in Philadelphia.

Jamila Robinson is the Inquirer’s food editor.

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