Getting a handle on cooking for one
One is the loneliest number, especially when it comes to making dinner.
While the Going Mobile team pursued individual passions over winter, Leslie found herself cooking for one for several weeks. Instead of making things easier, cooking for one is surprisingly challenging. Here’s how she coped -- take it away, chef Leslie!
Cooking has always been a source of joy, but those creative efforts are usually rewarded by the flood of praise coming from the most appreciative diner I’ve ever met. If you remove the incentive of sharing a meal and talking about how it all came together, dinner prep can be a bit of a drag.
After years of shrinking portions to accommodate our teeny fridge and pantry space, I thought it would be no big deal to fly solo. Wrong!
For starters, there was the grocery shopping struggle. In Palm Springs, I was getting around town on my ebike. That was absolutely wonderful except the best supermarkets weren’t within easy reach. I gave myself a huge pat on the back for negotiating busy roads in order to reach a Trader Joe’s, for instance.
The highlight of my weeks in the desert was pedaling to the Saturday farmers market to pick up produce and cheese and bread, but not too much. It all had to fit in the milk crate I strapped to the back of my bike. And, as much as I love it, citrus can be a heavy load.
Speaking of those juicy fruits, one of my go-to salads for the winter citrus season became the classic combo of grapefruit and avocado. My grandmother first introduced me to that then-exotic pair when I was a kid and I remember my younger sister crying because she didn’t want to try it. Ha!
In the land of amazing produce, salads became my go-to din din. So easy to add protein on top of a pile of greens. My favorite salad toppers included a slab of seared salmon – frozen Alaskan sockeye seasoned with Tom Douglas’s Rub with Love – or some canned tuna with a squeeze of lemon.
Maybe that sounds like I was leaning into the Lean Cuisine route, but nope. I also savored grilled lamb chops and Italian sausages and crumbled bacon on top of those crispy piles of lettuce. I topped ramen with hard-boiled eggs smothered in sriracha mayo and piled extra cheese on my date and prosciutto pizza. When I had a craving for fried chicken, I went ahead and made it.
After many of these meals, there were leftovers, but I made them disappear the following morning by plopping a sunny-side egg on top.
I didn’t go hungry, yet dinners weren’t the same as when I was sharing them with the person I’ve been sitting across the table from for more than four decades! We tried Facetime’n while chowing down but it wasn’t the same.
The biggest takeaway from our 2023 winter experiment was that we can certainly survive as solo acts, but we’re even better together. (Duh! Plus, I don’t want to deal with that nasty sewer hose. And can you please open this jar?)
When John flew back to Palm Springs, I welcomed him “home” with a full-on feast of his favorites including grilled steak, wild mushroom risotto, roasted veggies and a Caesar salad. It was definitely the best dinner we’d had in months.
