The Benefits and Drawbacks of Being a Chef Stuck at Home By Themself

You know, I told myself that I would write more content when I had all of this solo time, stuck at home, looking for a job, with the virus all but forcing me into a quarantine, but it hasn’t really happened. These days, I find myself in a bit of a weird lifestyle.

Those who have known me for any real amount of time know that I have never really had a great sleep schedule. I have always been the guy awake at two or three in the morning, who gets out of bed at one in the afternoon if left to his own devices and a lack of things to do. This past month of not having to go to work has really kicked that up a notch. Lately, it has been in bed at half past three or four in the morning, which doesn’t mean I actually fall asleep right away.

I thought that it may have to do with my caffeine consumption, because if I make a French press of coffee, well, I’m gonna end up drinking the whole French press of coffee. I tried limiting myself, by making three quarters of a French press, and, of course, I drank all of that too. I switched to milk tea, one twenty ounce vacuum mug of it. Drank it. Still, I couldn’t sleep until well after four in the morning.

I think, in the end, it’s that I don’t really have anything structured to do.

Sometimes, I open my eyes at eight in the morning after going to sleep at sometime around four thirty in the morning. I could get up, but I’m still totally zonked. So, I close my eyes and go back to sleep. I open them again at one in the afternoon. There’s nothing really that needs to be done, so I putter around on YouTube while in bed. By the time I actually get out of bed, it’s two or three. I don’t tend to eat or drink anything until four in the afternoon. Sometimes it’s something small, like a sandwich or some left overs. Sometimes, it’s my primary meal of the day.

To be honest, I have been cooking a lot over the past month, but I haven’t been eating a ton. I usually have one reasonable sized meal per day, and one small something or other. Lately the timing has worked out to one meal at four and another at midnight. It’s pretty messed up. I honestly don’t know what to do about it all, except hurry up and get a job so that I have somewhere to go and something to do.

I do my best to not leave the apartment these days with the pandemic and all. It seems like the smart thing to do. Today, I went out for a walk, because I definitely needed to get out from between these four walls. I spent two and a half hours walking between my place in Kendall Square and Harvard Square. There were an awful lot of people out on the streets, waiting in line to get into shops, restaurants, or cafes. I couldn’t believe it. Me, on the other hand, I really wanted a Dunkin’ coffee, but I decided against it, because either I would have to pull my mask down in public to drink said coffee, or I would have to wait until I got home, when the coffee would be sub-optimal temperature.

Those are my two biggest problems with the takeout and outdoor dining in a city such as Boston. Sub-optimal temperatures. They kill me. Do you know how much I want a fresh bowl of pho? I would murder your grandmother with a cheese wire for one. That’s right I said it. All for a safe, fresh bowl of steaming pho… That I didn’t have to make my damn self. Even sushi, when you get it for take out (which, strangely, I haven’t since I have gotten back to Boston), it’s not at optimal temperature when you sit down to eat it. The fish is too warm. The rice is too cool. It truly sucks.

So I have been cooking a lot at home. I have a ton of food in my refrigerator and freezer. I have been breaking down bigger packaging into smaller portions and freezing or prepping and vacsealing it. I know that I’m not going to consume all of this food nearly as fast as I’m buying the raw ingredients. But, I find that the act of cooking reasonably frequently helps keep my mind somewhat active. It gives me something to do besides watch TV and play Animal Crossing (don’t judge).

When I’m cooking, I can just relax and have some fun. I turn on Wynton Marsalis and just go. Because it’s just me, my kitchen stays clean, and there are far fewer dishes to do than if I were cooking for someone else. Because I know what direction I’m going in, I can wash my dishes as I go. It’s not a frenzied panic to get all of the food up and ready at the same time.It’s much of an “Oh…. I’m done with this …. I’ll just wash it now” kind of mentality.

I think, also, what has been nice about the way that I have been cooking is that I have made it so that if I don’t really want to cook on any particular day, I don’t have to. If I’m feeling lazy, I can just make a pot of rice and warm up a bag of Taiwanese stewed minced pork, or black bean spare ribs, or khao man gai. If I want to start from scratch, I definitely have vegetables and noodles in my fridge, as well as easily defrostable proteins in the freezer.

One thing that has annoyed me has been the sensitivity of my smoke alarm. The thing goes off if someone lets off a particularly rancid fart. It went off when I added clam broth to a wok with sauteing aromatics. I WAS ADDING LIQUID! It made me so angry. Also, my apartment now smells a lot more like food than it has in the past ten or so years. I made myself a really nice duck breast on New Year’s Eve, and I could still smell the duck when I woke up this morning two days later.

In my mind, it’s going to be a rough winter. When I was in Thailand and under lockdown, I could still go out to my balcony and feel the warm wind. I could stand there eating tropical fruit as I stared off to Wat Dhammamongkol. I know it’s not nearly as cold now as it will be in a few weeks, but it still bums me out. If it were spring time in Boston, I could at least drag my chair out onto my balcony.

It will be nice to either see some of my friends again, or be somewhere warm. I see neither of these things happening anytime soon. So, for now, I just get to keep watching old travel videos on YouTube and biding my time until something happens, whether it be a job that seems worthwhile, warmer weather, or a way to escape the country.