Recipes for the End of the World

(...because let's talk about food, mkay?)

In San Antonio, early March 2020. A little too prescient.

In early 2020, which was the last time the world felt like it was ending, I had just moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, eager to take advantage of the strong writing and arts community there and hoping to find an adjunct teaching position like the one I had at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. That February I’d signed a one-year rental agreement for a sweet little two-bedroom house a block away from University of New Mexico.

Three weeks later I attended a writing conference in San Antonio. There was vague information about a virus going around that may or may not be something serious. On the flight out I sat next to a D. C. policy wonk, and we argued politics the whole way, straining the patience of those around us.

About a third of the usual attendees were there. The massive Book Fair was like a ghost town. San Antonio was beautiful. My “Ride or Die Eileen” and I ate tacos and drank good beer and bought a lot of books and parted ways on Sunday morning, March 9th.

On the ride home from the ABQ airport, my Uber driver and I chatted about the Shelter in Place order that had just come down from New Mexico’s governor. I went inside my rented house and unpacked my suitcase, and by the next morning the collapse was well under way.

In the midst of the isolation and burgeoning fear that all of us began to feel, some geniuses from Boone started an online social media foodie group.

We talk a lot about comfort food, but I don’t know if we talk about comfort cooking. I definitely do it when heavy stress lands. It feels like cooking and preparing food answer some need for control, but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s in part about the boldness of creativity in the face of existential threats.

I joined the cooking-foodie group immediately. My first posts were of salads and some condiments I made. In my posts, I included #recipesfortheendoftheworld with a kidding/not kidding wink and nod. But in truth as the months went on I knew our old world was gone, and that the Covid-19 pandemic would change us all in ways we’d only begin to understand later.

Even though we were physically separated, it was often as if we were in the same room, oohing and aahing over someone’s medium-rare grilled steak slathered with cowboy butter or inhaling the heady aroma of just-baked cinnamon rolls oozing cream cheese frosting, or cheering on someone brand new to cooking who’d just tried something for the first time.

One of my favorite experiments I shared was Lemon-Thyme Marmalade. I had a bunch of lemons to use up, and a beautiful pot of thyme that I’d rooted from a packet of grocery store herbs, and so I thought I’d give it a try. I imagined it as a glaze for grilled salmon, spooned over cream cheese or brie with crackers, and spread on crunchy, grainy toast (I was also developing a pretty serious sourdough baking habit).

Lemon-Thyme Marmalade with a New Mexico sky as a backdrop.

I tried all those things, and they were as fabulous as I imagined. Then I spooned some over a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. Wickedly luscious.

Through our online group, recipes were shared and family secrets were disclosed. Kitchen hacks made the rounds. Drool-worthy photos tempted. I think we felt, sometimes, as if we were holding hands through the whole nightmare.

Five years later, we again find ourselves in a time of deep uncertainty. For many of us, I think, there is a sense of collapse that’s not unlike what we felt at the onset of the pandemic. Now, as then, we are going to need each other.

I love what happens when food and cooking and people combine. I love it so much that I’ve started this new section where I’ll be sharing food stories, cooking ideas, memories of epic kitchen tales from days gone by, often recipes, and more than the occasional nod to others who are writing on Substack about food and growing food and about cooking.

Like Olivia Cooks, (Olivia is a classically-trained chef) who currently is doing videos about growing your own food from seed and sometimes having to do it in small spaces. (Closet potatoes? Bathroom pumpkins? Tell me more!) She is going live on Saturday morning (2/15) to give tips on how to start seeds. She’ll be doing lots of other live videos, too, to teach and support others. Olivia has deep concerns about our nation’s food supply in the not-too-distant future, I think rightly so.

Check out Madame DeFarge 93’s post on doing seed exchanges. How often do you use up the entire paper packet of seeds? What if you could trade what’s left of your carrot seeds, say, for some eggplant, your tomatoes for some basil? Madame is facilitating an massive exchange on her Substack chat.

Emily Reese Nunn serves up the Department of Salad with a generous helping of her delicious, biting humor. David Leibovitz, who hearkens back to early days of Chez Panisse, opens the door on French food and French cooking and deliciousness in general.

And many others. In difficult times we can come together and find ways to inspire each other, offer support and helpful information, lift each other up, and celebrate what is worth celebrating. Because even in difficult times, there can still be joy. We can still savor life in the midst of the challenges that are likely to come our way.

The fact is, something magical happens when we share our food and our food stories — connections are made, doors open, and even such an elusive thing as hope can be enlivened again. I want to foster that here. I want to tell my food stories, and I want to hear yours. Let’s think about Recipes For the End of the World as a sort of table we gather around, as a kitchen we crowd into. And let’s see where our conversation takes us.