My pandemic epiphany: I'll always spend all of my money on takeout
I’ve always imagined – despite little evidence – that deep down, I may be a great cook. I’m used to finding talents late in life: writing wasn’t something I took remotely seriously until college and I only discovered I had a party trick (you know how some bodybuilders can make their pecs dance? That, but with boobs) at 26. Secretly, I’ve always assumed I don’t cook because I would simply rather not, not because I am unable.
My habit of almost exclusively eating out is just a product of not having the time to cook, or learn to. That, I have always reasoned, is why my skills never developed beyond those accrued at college, which primarily consist of boiling pasta, rice, an egg. But when I had the time – the sprawling, endless free time that only becomes available in, say, the face of a global pandemic – I’d wow everyone with what I was sure was an inevitability.
Except, over the last few months, the cookbooks gathering dust on my shelf have continued todo so. Utensils bought from Amazon with the very best intentions have already proven themselves purely ornamental.And when restaurants were shuttered and friends bragged of the money they were saving sans junk food, I was becoming stealthily creative at finding ways to keep it a constant in my life.
During lockdown, my fast-food expenditure has only worsened. My friends have eventually become bored and sick at the sight of their own cooking; meanwhile, I haveremained uncharacteristically quiet. Since adolescence I’ve been promising to learn how to cook jollof rice yet on a weekly basis, I have been sheepishly procuring it from a local takeaway, drowning out the imagined admonishment of my mother. One portion and a side of plantain costs double what it costs to make it at home, but not having to make it myself is priceless.
For years, my mum was dismayed at my lack of cooking ability. How on earth, she fretted, would I get married? But every partner I’ve had is more than happy to take over in the kitchen. While my mother always warned me cooking is a fundamental life skill, I wondered whether it was a bit like studying math
– teachers alwaysassuredus it was crucial, but surely, I thought,that was only because they didn’t grow up with calculators on their phones? My mother’s fear that I will one day die of starvation is just a product of being from a time before Ubereats.
Needless to say, I’ve been in for a little shock: at the coronavirus peak, the majority of restaurants couldn’t even operate through apps. And my dormant kitchen prowess never did show up. My university diet of oven pizza and cheese on chips, however, did.
When feeling fancy, I’d order weeks’ worth of homemade artisan pasta from a “pasta by post” service that delivers straight to your door. I knew I reached a new low when I started bulkbuying snacks – biscuits and crisps by the box load – on Amazon. While Instagram became a hotspot for homebodies discovering their new love of making homemade cakes and bread, I just bought bread and cakes made from other people’s homes.
Just like before the pandemic, I was wincing at my food bill. But in a time of such uncertainty, it was a strangely comforting constant; no matter what, my money will always go on food.
Unless a desert island situation presents itself, I’ll probably never know where my limitations in the kitchen begin and end. Lockdown has been a steep learning curve, but one of the biggest revelations has been just how much it will take for me to make my own meals.