Sequestration Meal #180

 

I discovered some forgotten Yves veggie ham in my fridge on a night I felt like putting in only slightly more effort than a sandwich, so I made a quesadilla with it and some Daiya mozzarella shreds and served it with a side of quick guacamole for dipping. (It's the kind that consists entirely of avocado, salt, pepper, and lime juice, and perhaps should not even be called guacamole so much as mashed avocado with lime.)

It was satisfying, albeit hard to photograph after the sun went down.

I hope everyone stayed safe this Thanksgiving, though I admit from what I've seen I think we're in trouble. I am well-stocked with things to ward off the supply chain issues that could come soon. Whatever you're doing in this moment to take care of yourself, know that I'm sure you're doing a good job.

Sometimes I think about the people who will re-enact this on some future documentary, like people re-enacting life in, say, World War II Britain in our own century, and I wonder how the filmmakers will structure it. Deny them toilet paper? Send them capricious grocery deliveries missing things? But how will they give them the stress-induced lethargy that makes everything so much harder? The anger that takes over sometimes, and won't make room for thoughts of cooking vegetables and beans? The sudden waves of ennui that make food itself seem pointless? The strange bursts of joy over grocery deliveries that finally include things like tater tots and ginger beer? The satisfaction from pushing through and accomplishing something anyway?

The past is a foreign country we can never hope to visit, and I've never really felt that as much as I do these days. I work in an archive (well, theoretically; I work from home now) and the past is part of my present all the time, but I think I know, more than I ever did, how little I can ever hope to recapture of what people felt if we weren't there to feel it with them. So I guess Food for Dissertating has sometimes become, in a way, one of the ways I'm trying to capture it for them, in the future. But there is hope in that, hope for a future that will have the mercy not to understand. 

I'm rambling today, I guess! See you tomorrow.