What to Eat During a Pandemic
Ruth talks to Judy Graham about making a soup from pantry staples
Judy Graham making lentil soup while in quarantine.
After a 5-year hiatus, I decided to revive Ruth Talks Food as a podcast/blog combo. In the age of Covid-19, it seemed like the right thing to do since food--shopping for it, cooking it and eating it--has become a major challenge and central topic of conversation.
With our favorite restaurants closed or offering takeout-only menus, more people are cooking at home and trying to make do with whatever ingredients they find in their pantries and fridges so as not to risk contracting a virus while on a visit to the local grocery. Even when people do venture to the market, recipe ingredients are often in short supply.
What should you make? What can you substitute for what you can't find? How do you make something tasty from canned, frozen or dry ingredients and vegetables long past their prime?
Questions like these will be part of the conversation, along with discussions of tried-and-true recipes; new, invented ones; and some ideas for people who may have done little cooking in their life and need a bit of encouragement.
For my first podcast, I talked to my mother-in-law, Judy Graham. A resourceful entrepreneur and host of the popular YouTube channel, Knitting Tips By Judy, Judy and her partner, artist/photographer Mike Ansell, love going out to restaurants, especially favorites near the beach.
Until the new rules about social distancing, my husband, Judy's son, Jefferson Graham, and I often joined them for a weekend lunch or dinner. But now we're isolated in our respective houses making the best of a difficult situation, like everyone else. Instead of going out, Judy is suddenly cooking a lot and looking for creative ways to spin one meal into two, three or even four.
One of Judy's go-to preparations is soup. Mostly she uses what she has on hand, sometimes inspired by a recipe, but seldom measuring anything. This is something I love to do too. "Soup is good food," the old Campbell's Soup slogan dating back 45 years, still applies, especially when the soup is homemade.
The day we talked, Judy told me about her take on a Moroccan lentil soup. She adds warm spices, chickpeas, veggies and broth to lentils to create a magical potage, then adds something new every day to give it a new twist for the next meal. By the end of the week, it’s an entirely different soup!
Judy calls her version “My Kitchen Refrigerator Pantry Soup.” It reminds me of the proverbial European folktale, “Stone Soup,” in which strangers contribute ingredients to a soup that begins with a stone boiling in a pot of water and ends up as a tasty meal that everyone shares. A perfect story for our time.
Please take a listen and let me know your thoughts.
https://anchor.fm/ruth98/episodes/Ruth-Talks-Food-Talking-Soup-With-Judy-Graham-ec7msg
Thanks for reading this, everyone. Please share it with anyone who might be interested. I’d love to talk to you about your thoughts and stories about food during this challenging time.