I have been living alone for going on five years, and working for a restaurant for more than four, so it is cost-effective for me to do cooking for one. But just this March the procurement of ingredients has become more problematic. There’s been unbelievable panic-buying at Phoenix-area grocery stores due to the Coronavirus, and I found out when I went shopping today that not only were people buying the shelves bare of toilet paper and hand sanitizer, but gone also were eggs, bread, peanut butter…and RUSSET POTATOES?? And yet, at the Sprouts where I shopped, they had a fully stocked meat section, and plenty of yams. They also had some of my favorite potatoes, those funny-looking little purple ones. I bought a bag of those, a nice 9-ounce sirloin, an outrageously-priced semi-loaf of sourdough bread, about a pound of steel-cut oats, and a half gallon of 1% milk.

A new sign along the Sprouts aisles told customers that due to the shortages they could not guarantee the quality of the merchandise. So I made sure to hand-scrub the bejabers out of the potatoes. I caught some of the water I’d rinsed them in, and the potato skins had imparted a lovely Virgin-Islands-tidepool blue to the water.

The water I boiled the potatoes in was a different story, though. Rich forest green.

I thin-sliced half the sirloin just as if I were slicing a tomato. The other half I salted, peppered, and wrapped in aluminum foil for a midday meal tomorrow.  Sautėed my slices in salted butter, ladled the slices on paper towel and then onto the plate, and took this picture after condimenting the meal with butter, sour cream, ketchup, and minced ginger:

My beverage was a 22-ounce can of Sapporo Premium Beer. I would cheerfully and with great gluttony have cut up the rest of the steak and more potatoes, eating twice as much, but I have a feeling we’ll all be tightening our belts, right soon.