I’m throwing out too much food. You are, too. I’m essentially a functioning human being (low-frequency functional, but still), so I know I can’t be the only one.
This makes me feel bad because what type of idiot in massive credit card debt wastes food? Worse, it feels like an insult to the abundance of the world, the abundance of America, the abundance of modernity.
My grandmother never used the “but there are starving children in Africa” trope to get me to finish my plate, but she did look at me sadly when I wouldn’t finish my breakfast and say, “During the war, we could only dream of French toast.” This didn’t land when I was five, but somehow, it’s haunting me now.
Now, I’m in a cycle of wasting food and then lying in bed berating myself about it, trying to come up with solutions. I never can because no one taught me how to live.
I watched my mother cook dinner every night, but never joined to her to learn how, and she never invited me. I watched my grandmother dip slices of bread in an egg mixture — and somehow decided that she had invented French toast — but aside from making cookies with me once in a while, she taught me nothing.
I’m not sure why I missed out on this, I’m not sure what they were thinking, or whether everyone raised kids this way in the 1970s when feminism was at an inflection point.
I’m not sure if all of GenXers waste food the way I do. It’s not something we talk about. Here’s how it happens for me.
On Sunday, I’m filled with dread about the coming week but also a sliver of positivity: “Today, I will cook for the week!” I think. Then the fever dream continues, and I tell myself, “I will eat what I make throughout the week, and I will even bring my lunch to work!” I believe myself when I decide these things.
Sunday night always starts strong, and last Sunday was no exception. I made these magical olive oil-braised garbanzo beans and this incredible zucchini thing. I made a box of couscous and wolfed down a bowl of this concoction while watching TV. True bliss.
I even tossed some leftover broccoli into the garbanzo beans. I congratulated myself for this, because this was true home economics, stretching everything and wasting nothing. Dinner probably cost $3. Take that, French Toast Grandma.
I remained pretty solid on Monday. I had the day off work, and I was running around the city, so I paid for lunch somewhere (can’t remember where, alarming). But when I got home, I ate my garbanzo beans/zucchini/couscous, loved it, and congratulated myself again.
Teona Swift | Pexels
But on Tuesday, I started to crack. When I woke up, the French Toast Grandma side of me insisted that I pack a lunch for work. But I just didn’t want to.
So I raced around in the morning in a fake frenzy, acting as if I were late for work and that I “forgot” to bring my lunch. It’s strange to gaslight yourself this way — I wasn’t late for work, I didn’t have to rush — but I couldn’t face the idea that I am so undisciplined that I would rather pay 1 million dollars for avocado toast in downtown Los Angeles than eat the same thing three times in a row.
But that night, I stopped my nosedive and yet again ate garbanzo beans and zucchini for dinner. It was less delicious by now, but I reminded myself that I see Instagram influencers who prep food for every meal, putting sad little unseasoned pieces of chicken breast in one tiny section of a glass container, apple slices in another, and some almonds yet another and they eat this stuff all week, no deviation.
I reminded myself that my dad had the same breakfast for my entire life, an English muffin with Monterey jack cheese and butter until his doctor told him to knock it off. Then it was an English muffin with hummus for the next two decades, no deviation.
And there was my friend’s boss who brought the same lunch to work every single day, a sandwich made of brown bread and gjetost cheese. If they could do that, I could certainly eat this for a fourth time, especially if I chased dinner with some Lindt chocolate truffles.
But on Wednesday, it all fell apart. Spectacularly. I had lunch plans with one of my bosses, and we went to Water Grill, where she sucked down oysters from a seafood tower and ate lobster tail and dover sole drenched in butter.
This was a stumble I could have recovered from by going home and eating leftovers again, but I just couldn’t do it. So I spent $40 on getting ramen delivered and ate it all in one sitting. No leftovers to at least make it two meals.
After spending about $200 on one day’s worth of food, the rest of my garbanzo beans and zucchini languished in the fridge. And there they remain, today, more than a week after I made them. I can’t bring myself to eat this concoction again, and yet I can’t bring myself to throw it out.
