The excellent news yesterday were that this confinement will end on May 11, unless there is a relapse. This means that we will be allowed to move without a certificate within 100 kilometers from home, and beyond that only for work or family emergency related purposes (with a certificate). Even with restricted movement that’s good news since printer ink is a scare commodity these days — all stores have run out of it!

In our normal life, we (or I) used to do little forward planning of meals; it we did it was just two days ahead for weekends. This meant that we did grocery shopping practically every day, or even twice a day when I got main articles during the day, and, if we were missing something, Tomi got the rest when coming back from work.

Now, during this lockdown we’ve rented a city car and gone shopping for items of “première nécessité” only once or twice a week, which has required some planning. Luckily our supermarket has been well stocked, and carries a good selection of things, so we can get almost everything in one place,  exceptions being some exotic (Asian)  ingredients. They also sell meat, fish, and some vegetables in larger quantities for quite inexpensive prices.  So, we have been able to cook several meals from them at a time which has proved quite economical. We have actually saved quite a bit of money during this lockdown for these two reasons: planning ahead and buying ingredients in larger quantities. I wonder if that will continue after the lockdown— now it has been easy to arrange since we are both home during the day, and can choose whatever time we want to go  shopping.

Here are some photos of colorful meals we have cooked during these 44 days.

Epilogue

When I grew up I don’t remember my mother cooking much, because she was mostly recovering from several back operations, but I remember one special occasion. We did not eat much meat except pork chops or ground beef/pork which was always made into meatballs. But one day my mother made osso buco. I don’t know where she got the idea, but I remember I liked it. Since veal shanks for osso buco are readily available here, finally yesterday we made this dish. And it was good.