Antidote. And Other Things We Wished We’d Known During Quarantine and Corona

PC: Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

More With Less is the raggedy reality dawning on most of us as we come to grips with this new way of living during the uncertainty and stress of corona. Needing reassurance here in Hungary, I found myself going back to an old friend today. She’s been my companion these many years during constant states of change in new and strange-to-me cultures, through days of wondering what comes next and in steps of navigating the unknown. As we have changed continents and made homes in 3 eastern european countries, she’s offered wisdom. She got me through Moscow in the newly post-communist years where the Russian shelves were sometimes bare of groceries. She got me through the early years in Bulgaria after the revolution. While the last decade in Hungary has been more comfortable, she has sat on the shelf for longer periods, but this week as I noticed more empty shelves in my community grocery store, I found myself pulling her down to thumb through the stained pages once again. She is More-With-Less, and she is a Mennonite cookbook given to me years ago when we left for Russia. As we find our way in this new age of corona, our stores do have food, but there’s noticeably less: less choice, less volume and there’s more: more empty spaces, more items missing. In truth, I don’t think it’s her recipes that bring me back again and again, as much as it is her ethic of living and eating simply, compassionately and responsibly so that there is enough for everyone. Her sage advice, though old now, seems both woke and relevant today.

Watch journalist and poet Kitty O’Meara give the gift of perspective in her poem The People. An Antidote to Global Anxiety and Uncertainty. We need these reminders in these days — reminders that we have choices about how we live into our new reality.

More Table Community with Less Food

Doing more with less is an act of love. If our family chooses to consume healthy meals that are responsibly portioned, we leave food on the shelves for others. Buy enough…