There are two meals that can be made with anything or nothing at all – and I made them right away.

The global flu pandemic has blown away many of the routines that anchor us to the present. Among the most unsettling for me is not being able to shop and create a regular meal.  We came back from Europe as the crisis surged to face two weeks shut in from the rest of the world.  Back to our house, but a house whose cupboards we had virtuously cleared for our series of tenants, who themselves had thoughtfully emptied them, the last one only the day before.  What remains is a shaggy collection of spices, beans, rice and assorted condiments that form a sedimentary record of epochs not easily identifiable without carbon dating. 

Fortunately, there are two meals that can be made with anything or nothing at all – and I made them right away. 

The first morning I made cornbread.  I thought about it on the plane, went to bed imagining the taste, and lay planning it when I woke up too early and could not sleep.  Ingredients: polenta from a dusty jar, flour, baking soda (there were three boxes), remains of a tub of lemon yogurt, 2 eggs and a slug of maple syrup (from our last occupant who loves Canada and all things sweet). I heated the cast-iron skillet in the oven.  It smelled faintly of curry, which made me smile and think of the friends who had used it.  Melted a tiny stub of butter in the pan and stirred the whole thing together.  Twenty minutes later we were eating it warm.  Crunchy bite outside and just-soft inside, mellow corn flavor and a savoury hint of browned butter.

Corn bread, of course, is an American classic, with variations up and down the East Coast and across the South.  It can range from a thin, gritty wedge accompanying barbeque or greens to a fluffy pouf with strawberry jam.  It is the first thing I made for my husband when we were newly together, and I have made it so many times that there isn’t a recipe or even proportions, just a feel.  No doubt this is part of its appeal; it is the go-to-ground food par excellence. You know you can always make corn bread no matter how little you have on hand, or how dire the situation.

That night I made soup.  Lentil soup with onions, garlic, long-frozen chorizo, some soft carrots and a few leaves of wilting kale.  I once dreamed of making stone soup – like the Yiddish tale – but with only the stones for ingredients, and I remember the pleasurable surprise of its taste.  All real soup is a lot like stone soup, it starts with nothing and by adding bits and pieces, you arrive at the whole. We ate ours from chipped Portuguese bowls and drank a bottle of wine we didn’t remember buying.  We ate more cornbread, breathed in some contentment, and tried to breathe out worry for family and friends who were not yet, as we were so lucky to be, home.