The Quandary of Quinny Poo

Dear Tamar:

I’ve been in a senior living facility for 2 1/2 years and not cooked in that time. I’m now returning home to an empty pantry to begin cooking again. What are the essentials I should be sure to buy on my first shop?

Quinny Poo

Dear Quinny Poo,

I started this a number of times, with lots of mooning and philosophizing about aging. Then, it occurred to me that the greater charity would be for me to get to the point.

My father in law, in his seventies, cooks rice by the three-cup batch and freezes it in single cup batches. He does the same with black beans (his preferred variety), and braised pork shoulder. He thaws amounts that suit him and my mother in law. He likes this strategy because it feeds them without dooming them to monotony. The rice goes under green curry chicken one night, and under the black beans another, and in burritos a third. He tells me he does the same with several soups—also frozen in small batches—and with cooked chicken. He says he wishes someone would start a service for aging singles which delivered such frozen batches. I do, too.

In the meantime: I buy 15 lb bags of rice. I know you are just one person, but my family is only three people. I find that having that much rice encourages me to cook big, freezable batches. (We eat fried rice for lunch, so I just refrigerate. But my father in law swears by freezing.) For beans: get really good ones. They don’t cost much more than mediocre ones, and they make you feel glossy and fancy—rather than deprived—eating beans. I love Rancho Gordo and Masienda. In a few months there will be fresh shelling beans, too. When you see these at a farmers’ market, they’re worth buying and shelling and then freezing, raw, in bags. They need no soaking, and cook to perfectly tender in a half hour, straight from frozen. Get some lemonade or beer and invite people over to help you shell.

I suggest buying an aged cheese—Parmesan or Pecorino—a big wedge of it. You can chisel off pieces when you want an elegant snack, but you can also grate it over anything—whether a pantry pasta (I love this one by Fanny Singer) or boiled broccoli or canned lentil soup—and make it feel plush. A jar of capers and a jar of anchovies are needed for the pasta above, and will come in handy again—like for bigoli in salsa, which is mostly anchovies and onions, and chicken piccata, which needs capers, butter, and lemon, and for the 10,000 things I breathlessly list in this article extolling them both.

I recommend a big unfussy container of the best olive oil you can get—if you can manage it, California Olive Ranch sells 2L bags in cardboard boxes. (They even have a subscription option!)

Where I live, we are in a garlic-less time of year—before the first green garlic comes up. I’ve been buying imported stuff for a few weeks. You may want to do the same. It’s annoying to buy something from far away that will be coming up soon in nearby soil. But it’s worth it, because of how much just garlic and oil do for any meal—even just bread. Onions, too.

You’ll need kosher salt or sea salt—per your preference. You’ll want butter—I vote for salted and cultured. We only live once. Let’s do it well. You’ll need good eggs of course—eggs are self-contained meals for one. And whatever vegetables or meat you see, and are excited about. I never think of these as staples, because it’s more fun to let them be specific. You’ll want bread, when you see it…

Dear cook, I should be supplying brawn, to complement the wisdom and experience you surely retain. But here we are, trading places: with me as the brains, and you doing all the heavy lifting. I’ve kept it brief for two reasons. I imagine all the provisioning, the pantry stocking, and the lighting of the burner will start to feel familiar soon—I don’t want to waste your time. And I suspect that as soon as good smells start coming from your reawakened kitchen, friends and neighbors will start showing up to help.