Freedom Fighting Starts in the Kitchen

My Sunday rituals are a heady swirl of self-preservation and laziness. I pad around the kitchen a lot, listen to infectious grooves, and take charge of the only thing that remains 100% in my control: my food.

I make a big breakfast, then contemplate my next moves.

Usually, I get to cleaning out the fridge and freezer. I’ll pull any veggie scraps from the week's meal preps from the freezer, and then whatever bones I’ve generated that week get re-roasted. That’s my basics for a big batch of stock.

That stock gets used in everything from pan gravy for comfort-food chicken sandwiches through to elaborate soups. It’s cooked in rice, sauces, and anywhere else I can put it.

Stock does two things: one, reduces food waste to save my money, but two, adds wicked nutrition into my meals.

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This, too, is the Resistance.

Cooking Capitalism

If you’ve paid attention to the cost of food, you’ve noticed skyrocketing prices around things that build flavour — like garlic. Here, a decent head of garlic can cost $2 now, if not $3. And herbs? Oof! I grow my own these days.

One can make all kinds of arguments for how and why prices on basics have exploded, but I nurse a cynical view. Capitalist foodmakers realize people are learning about flavour and nutritional foundations in cooking, so they've made formerly cheap foundational ingredients like garlic so much more expensive because we use it in everything.

Big Food wants to deter people from cooking by making them feel like it's so expensive, they might as well buy the processed food and at least save some time. And that's exactly what they want you to do.

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But part of saving the planet, and your money, comes from realizing how many carbon processes are involved in each packaged product — from creating the container through to the inks on the label, and the materials in the packaging, never mind any boxes and the multiple destinations those ingredients were transported to throughout the processes.

By cooking from fresh, though, those veggies are put in a box or into a package in a shipping centre, brought to the store, and that’s the end of that carbon process.

It's also the end of the capitalist process. Because, in cooking from scratch, you cut out the processing and packaging industry, who are trying to make fresh veggies more expensive for you so you are reliant upon their products.

But cut those fuckers out and you hurt their profits, cut into their lobbying funds, and, in theory, help restore the natural order of farm-to-plate food.

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What you buy is political. Every day. Every time.

Are we not learning this? Every dollar you spend either props up the billionaire class or subverts it.

Here in Canada, we recognize buying American products helps maintain the uneven power America has over the world, and our evolving take on that is Fuck That Shit.

Resourcefulness Saves Lives

These are exhausting times. Terrifying times.

But you cannot underestimate how important it is to become resourceful – immediately. Learn to use every bit of the food you have. Appreciate it, use it all.

History snippet: Prior to the German occupation of Athens, Greece in WWII, there were roughly 700,000 people in the city. By the time the Nazis were defeated, some 44,000 Athenians died of starvation. Greeks, today, are among the most resourceful cooks you'll find.

The reality is, we don’t know what the fuck is coming in the next few years.

Anyone who’s studied history has read this book before, and we know it don’t look good. This is a terrifying time for anyone who understands history. We know what is coming.

(Luckily, we who are versed in history also know this not only can be defeated, but usually is. Never underestimate the power of a motivated peasantry.)

Me, I’m getting my ducks in a row to be as practical, pragmatic, cheap, and resourceful as I can be.

That means cooking from scratch, embracing greens, using scraps, making meat go further, and really, really learning to love soupmaking.

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The economic tensions that unfolded in Europe prior to WWII persisted throughout the war. People became profoundly self-reliant out of necessity. They lived and cooked through very lean times. Britain’s war rationing didn’t end till about 1954, a decade after the war!

We’ve been lucky, spoiled people, and many of us need to learn how to not be that way anymore.

Capitalism has done everything it could to condition you to become poor at resource-cooking, if you even cook at all. There’s an entire class of food billionaires who have made their fortune off making you think cooking was “work” and you “deserved” to not have to do it.

It’s a rude awakening. Now that you’ve been trapped into the convenience food lifestyle, they’re closing the stranglehold by shrinking package quantities while they raise the price, so you’re fucked both ways.

Cooking for Therapy, Wellness, and Control

But I’m here to tell you that we can learn to enjoy the practice of making the most of what we have. It teaches us gratitude and how to embrace creativity. We can make truly delicious things with stuff we think is past its best.

Great cookery isn’t about having the most expensive ingredients. It’s about knowing how to get the most of what you’ve got in front of you. That's... a pretty amazing ethic to develop for life in general.

Often, magic can be made with 20 minutes of work over the course of two hours of something just simmering there, making itself delicious.

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Today, I cooked up a bunch of tomatilloes and peppers and made a great salsa verde. It was 5 minutes of work. Most of that sauce is in a jar now. But what was left in the blender (a couple tablespoons?) got a splash of water thrown in, blended up, and reserved in a bowl. It’ll go into soup tonight.

Joining it will be the little leftover chicken ($15) I roasted 5 days ago and have eaten daily since, as well as ½ cups of beans I hydrated today, a variety of veggies kicking around the fridge, and I’ll probably finely dice the cilantro stems of the bunch I paid $2.49 for yesterday. (Too many people throw the stems out when they’re exploding with flavour and are bangin’ good in soups.)

My end result will be around three big bowls of a delicious, nutritious black bean & chicken chili verde, and all if it will have been left-over from what I had from my meals this week, or in the case of the tomatillos, were in need of being used up.

Adversity (and TV) Taught Me Well

I’m often greeted with awe from people at how resourceful I am in the kitchen. But I’m 50. I’ve been cooking since I was 7. Still, nearly everything I ever learned was from TV cooking shows, because my parents were not great, and everyone else in my family lived thousands of miles away.

But while my friends could afford frequent meals out after college, I turned 30 the same month I had a traumatic brain injury, and, within 4 years of that, suffered a catastrophic back injury.

My friends had financial freedom and few fucks to give in their 30s while I lived close to the margins and nearly lost my home a couple times.

Then I sold everything, travelled the world, and started life over again in my 40s. I’ve spent the last 5 years paying off debts incurred all of that.

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I made my choices. So, I don’t begrudge having to make 2 sausages become 4 or 6 meals, or rehydrating beans instead of buying cans because my money goes twice as far that way.

Would it be nice to be able to buy premium ingredients non-stop?

I'd like the option more often, sure! But I defy you to eat at my table and tell me I’m not living well. I do buy premium ingredients sometimes, but they're things that will keep for months and can be used on multiple meals (like condiments).

Finding joy in cooking, listening to music, and exploring resourcefulness can give you a compelling sense of peace in an otherwise crazy world.

Therapeutic as fuck.

So much is out of our power. But know what we do have?

The power to make a great soup.

The power to turn frugal ingredients into something that speaks to our soul and makes us feel I did that with every bite we take. Or I love you so much, I made THIS.

That’s the food of love, the food of time, and the food of centuries of peasants who’ve experienced all kinds of oppression that, if we’re lucky, we may never understand.

But should that oppression find us, the one thing left in our power will be how we use and appreciate food available to us.

We have much to learn, grasshoppers, but there’s still time to learn it.

The Joy of the Fridge Clean-out

How does one get all resource-cheffy?

Clean out your fridge of things safe to consume, which you want to use before it jumps the shark. Do this once a week and you'll always avoid food waste! I like to do it Sundays, so I get a great pot of stuff for leftovers during the work week.

Celery, onion, and carrots should constantly live in your kitchen in economic hardship — they’re cheap, last a long time, have versatile uses, and are the basis of nearly every European-style soup. These three ingredients make Fridge Cleanout Days a plug-and-play scenario, of sorts.

Group your fridge cleanout on the counter. Veggies in one group, meats in another.

If you can’t think of how to use up what’s kicking around, then take a picture, post it for people online, and get advice. Tag foodies you know, and ask, “hey, I wanna clean out my fridge, what can I cook with this stuff?” Reddit loves this stuff!

When all else fails, make delicious veggie stock. From onion skins and carrot tops to tomato ends and the tough greens of leeks, all these can combine for delicious broth. Loaded with nutrients, and I cannot stress how valuable that is in a time where resources may become scarce and things like vitamins and other supplements may be a luxury outside of your means.

Then, build flavour.

I have tried-and-true tricks: Sautee onions, add a splash of tomato paste to cook out for a minute, then deglaze them with some leftover wine (or the bottle of vermouth I keep in the fridge just for soups). Simmering a parmesan rind in the broth also brings incredible flavour.

Veggie stock only needs to be simmered for for 45-60 minutes to get all the goodness out of it, then it can go in everything from rice to soup. I'll even season a mug full of veggie broth with sea salt, then drink like a tea. It's the original “vitamin water” and ever so comforting on a cold winter night by the sea.

Plus, no worries about finishing it all. If you don’t use all the stock within a week, you can re-boil it for 10 minutes to make it food-safe for at least another week! Ad nauseum.

Let's Talk About Fat, Baby

Over time, things like rendering out fat from meat scraps may become necessary tools — like saving bacon grease — if times become harder and food becomes more scarce.

But why wait? It’s a great habit now. Fat’s delicious. I'm on Team "Fat? Fuck Yeah!"

I currently have 2 tablespoons of chicken fat from roasting a bird this week sitting in the fridge. Sometime soon, I’ll make chicken-fat potato wedges in my air fryer for a workday snack. It'd also be delicious instead of butter or oil for dumplings for chicken soup. Sometimes, I mix warm chicken fat with lemon juice and salt, then toss salad greens in that with shredded chicken and tomatoes for a light, easy, very chicken-y salad.

When it's $20 or so for a litre of olive oil, every time you use a tablespoon of chicken or bacon fat, you save 35 cents. Frying eggs? Grab a bit of rendered bacon fat instead of butter or oil.

Just switching olive oil to rendered fat for 5 tablespoons per a week over the course of a year will save you $100 a year.

All of these tricks literally add up, not just as savings in the expenses, but in food waste consequences to the planet. (Methane from food waste is roughly 25 times more dangerous to our atmosphere than C02 is, but there's also all the CO2 created in growing it, transporting it, and food production, and that's all paid out every time you toss food.)

It's Pragmatism, Not Panic

We don’t know what’s lying in wait for us. We don’t know how soon bad becomes worse, if it does. Not just politically, but with the climate as well.

What we DO have is a lot of economic and situational indicators suggesting that “worse” is an inevitability, and not a distant one. Making adjustments to your routine now isn’t “negative” or “panicking,” it is being intelligent, resourceful, and pragmatic.

I’m not panicking.

I’m planning.

I did the same thing in January 2020, when it appeared a pandemic might be in the offing, and I was better situated than most people I knew for the duration of the hell that followed.

Besides the incredible health changes I've enjoyed since 2020, I'm now looking to be debt-free by early 2026.

So, I'll be strong enough to punch Nazis, and everything I own, I’ll own outright. It won’t be much, but it’ll all be mine. No one will have sway over me.

And I’ll still be able to make a bowl of beans and rice go a long, long way.

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Learning to cook isn’t about 'traditional values' or being 'domestic' or giving up on feminism, it’s about maintaining power over your life, your budget, and your health.

But it’s also about taking the time to practice what little control you have. It can bring peace and fulfillment, while making you healthier, saving the planet, and saving your money.

Given you’ll need to do eat 2-3 times daily for the rest of your life, cooking resourcefully is one of the biggest political choices you make, and the most immediate, persistent way to affect capitalist tyrants on a day-to-day basis.

The biggest lie ever told was convincing you convenience foods would empower you and your life, when all it did was make you more of a cog in the capitalist wheel.

Freedom begins in the kitchen.