Never one to miss an opportunity to dress up, I celebrated “May the 4th Be with You!”
After all, roughly half of my walk-in closet houses costumes from the days when I used to produce my own spoken word and storytelling show, The Austin Writers Roulette. I’ve recycled this Princess Leia costume many times over, but never with a mask. This burst of impractical creativity felt more exhilarating than usual. Just what the doctor ordered during this COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to this being my regular grocery shopping day,
I shopped for three special recipes for the next day’s celebration, Cinco de Mayo: two “Mexican” recipes and a coconut margarita recipe.
The first dish I cooked was something no self-respecting Mexican would ever eat
–or at the very least, consider “Mexican.” It had “tater tots” in its recipe name, but like any potato, meat, bean, corn, cheese and hot sauce dish, I absolutely loved it.
For my second recipe, which used ingredients commonly found in Mexican food, but wasn’t quite a Mexican dish, I made something that could either be thought of as a burrito pie or taco casserole or some such thing, but this recipe used tortillas as its carb rather than tater tots. All in all, still very delicious.
The only recipe I felt absolutely confident about was the Coconut Margarita.
Not that I necessarily needed a recipe since, as my favorite type of margarita, I had been making these for years. I just wanted to see if there were any interesting twists on it that I’d find delicious. There weren’t.
Little did I realize at the time, but this would mark the last time I bought meat at the grocery store for a while. As it stood, I’d only bought poultry on a regular basis: eggs, turkey and chicken. Since I’m an omnivore, I’d order red meat at restaurants.
Yet, now with meat packing plants closing down due to the pandemic, I’m no longer buying meat except for eggs. Even for takeout, I’ve been ordering seafood.
A lawyer friend of mine took me to task, telling me that my buying habits wouldn’t change how they processed meat. Plus lessening the demand would merely put more people out of work.
Yet, she misunderstood my position. With meat processing places shutting down do to illness among the employees who worked there, the price of meat has increased. I stopped buying avocados last year for the very same reason. Regardless of how anyone processes food, if I can’t afford it, I don’t buy it.
I’d love to vote with my dollars. Have my spending habits influence better practices up the food chain, but the reality is, there are many other food choices I can make. What I look for in recipes are tastiness and affordability. I generally cook nutritious dishes, but my Cinco de Mayo recipes weren’t quite that. I tried to compensate by not eating large portions in one setting, but let’s face it: since I made both to alternate between lunch and dinner, I just slow trained through those less than good nutrition dishes.
The other sinister consideration was perhaps I’d do myself a favor by weaning off meat. I’ve known for a while that the US consumed resources at a 5 planets/yr rate. The next iteration of “meat processing” may not be something I actually want to eat.
We’re either heading for a more dystopian society or we’ll bounce back better than before. Or, and this may be the dismal truth, dystopia will exist for those of us who don’t make the financial cut while systemic improvement will exist for those who can continue to afford it.