How to make delicious meals from the basics on ‘Quarantine Cooking Show’
At a time when supplies of some foods are limited and supermarket shelves are bare, being resourceful with what’s in the pantry becomes paramount. And with that, Mary Beth Albright can help.
In her “Quarantine Cooking Show,” which streams in The Washington Post website’s food section, the Post’s food editor and one-time “Food Network Star” contestant offers tips and recipes using common nonperishable items that many people already have in-house. In quick three- to five-minute videos, she shows how to make such comestibles as roasted canned tomatoes, coconut rice, salami chips and salmon cakes.
In all cases, these are simple, inexpensive meals that anyone can make, and Albright argues it’s not unlike how people ate when eating food made outside the home was a rarity.
“I think honestly that ... this is the way that humanity has cooked for most of our existence,” she says. “It’s like, what do we have around, and how are we going to make something that’s going to be nourishing and delicious out of it? I think in a way it’s like, ‘Oh, OK, here’s the next wave of cooking’ things that are going to happen. In a way, it’s going back to the way things have always been. (It’s) efficient and scrappy.”
Albright is somewhat of an authority in the areas of quarantining and food, given her background in emergency preparedness, law, public health and the Surgeon General’s Office (she worked for the legendary Dr. C. Everett Koop), and her passion for food issues and cooking. In this challenging time, she wanted to produce something that would enhance people’s well-being, show them how to mitigate risk and give them information on how to take care of themselves through food.
Which is why one of her early “Quarantine” episodes walks through the 10 foods to stock up on in case you’re locked down.
“It’s really stuff that one might have on hand or might be able to find,” she says. “Like, I’m not going to do anything with like ... a steak because I don’t know if people can find that right now.
“I don’t start off with something that I necessarily have in the house – and I have a lot of stuff in the house when (I) make food videos. That just happens,” she says with a laugh. “But I do try to go for the things that I think will be on shelves. You can buy 10 cans of canned salmon right now and just keep them around and make these salmon cakes.”