Where do I even start?

One of my students who might be bunkering down in our town asked me the other day, “Grace, where to I even start?” when thinking about supplies and how to prep for COVID-19.

Luckily, I come from a long line of massive pantries. My folks have a whole room in their basement dedicated to extra pantry staples. My sister laughed at me last week when I was doing a 9:00 p.m. grocery store run because she already had 4 gallons of vinegar in her basement (show off!). When we finally had to clean out my grandparents basement several years ago, we found canned goods from 1972.

I keep joking I was built for this moment.

This process for us started a little over two weeks ago with my freezers. I was ruthless, pulling everything out, throwing away anything that was outdated or I wouldn’t touch in a crisis. Then I did the same exercise with my pantries. The goal was to create space and a mental inventory of what we already had, which was a lot–a turkey, a pork butt, last month’s ButcherBox order, three cases of water and lots of paleo/keto baking supplies.

What my lists looked like

My list will look different than your list because we’re likely starting from different places, but I always find a template to be hella helpful. Below I’ll tackle the food lists, and do my best to group in categories and where I found them.

The Deep Freeze

• Meats from ButcherBox. I get the beef/chicken mixed box, and they were doing a deal on 10 pounds of ground beef so that was in there as well. Everything is pre-wrapped and frozen, so upon arrival it went straight into my freezer.
• Frozen Veggies and Fruit. There is going to come a time where going to get fresh produce just won’t be either an option, or a safe option, imo. For me, I prefer frozen fruits and veggies to most canned options, so I stocked up on the things I knew we would eat–broccoli, cauliflower, peas, carrots, strawberries, berry mixes, and Walmart had a frozen root vegetable mix that I’m real excited to try. I got these at our Kroger and Walmart
• Frozen French Fries and Hashbrowns. I have a six year old and two year old. ‘Nough said.
• Frozen Bread. If we need a loaf in a pinch and I don’t have the capacity to make it from scratch, Kroger sells frozen loaves in a four pack, and I’m here for it.
• Butter. You’ll thank me later, but if your family tolerates/loves butter like mine does, you can buy it and put it directly in your freezer. It will be great for any baking you all get into later!

The Pantry

• Coffee. Let’s just be honest–when we need to move to more severe social distancing, my family is not going to want to see me without coffee. I ordered enough Nespresso pods to get me through 60 days on two cups a day.
• Canned Fruits and Veggies. I know, I know I just said the frozen are better, but Y’ALL–I only have so much space. In my basement I have a whole set of shelves that I brutally cleared out, and sitting there now are: canned tomatoes and sauce and paste, corn, carrots, peaches, pineapple, pears and apple sauce in abundance. All of these came from Walmart, just insert what your family prefers.
• Shelf stable milks. My kids drink a lot of milk, and I’m stressing about this one. I napped goat milk and almond milk, and here’s hoping we can make that work. I snagged the last of these at Food Lion.
• Powdered milk. This one is now getting hard to find, but it’s easy to use to either bolster a recipe, or make milk as well. I wish I had more of it, frankly. I was able to get a box at Kroger, and have had no luck finding it online.
• Creamer. I am a faithful Nutpods user, so I stocked up on French Vanilla between Thrive Market (they are running low) and Amazon. I had enough original on hand for everyday cooking.
• Canned Coconut Milk. Great in soups and stews and for baking, I get mine at Thrive Market.
• Cooking fats. I stocked up on sunflower oil and avocado oil, but had enough Ghee and coconut oil on hand already.
• Beans. Not my fave, but I do enjoy the Kroger brand red beans.
• Rice. A solid grain option and easy to store.
• Boxed Mac and Cheese. Its a dirty little secret in our house, but our kids love it…so I stocked up on it.
• Flour. Grabbed a couple of bags of flour at Walmart to bolster our supplies in case we want to bake. I always keep baking supplies on hand, and so in our basement we have a large plastic garbage bin that I use to store these types of items, and to help unwanted pest-guest out.
• Sugar. Granulated, brown and powdered all came home from Walmart. See Flour. Cookies are coming.
• Baking soda/baking powder. See baking. Plus baking soda is a cleaning power house. I got the big box of baking soda, and found both at Walmart.

The Fridge

• Eggs. Our store had them on sale for 50 cents a dozen, so I came home with 8 dozen. Sounds excessive, I know, but they last and when we bake or use them for breakfast foods, we’ll go through them.
• Fresh fruits and veggies. I tried to get things my kids just love so that we’d have them for a little while longer. I also got some good greens for us in case we can’t get them for a little while.
• Root Veggies. These last for quite some time, so I stocked up on potatoes, onions and carrots.

This feels like a lot….

And it is. Holding space for you right now, because even though this is how I tend to think about shopping and stocking, it’s a lot to do in a short amount of time. I’ve been a crazy wreck dashing to stores, making online orders and still trying to do my job and be present at home.

If you haven’t been prepping, take a deep breath and take this one step at a time. Pro tips from me include going first thing when the store opens–it’s freshly cleaned and stocked, and often not crowded. If you have been prepping, solidarity my friend.

As Glennon Melton Doyle always shares, we can do hard things. We’ve go this, even if we have to be six feet apart while Super Market Sweeping.

Tags: COVID-19, Online Shopping, Pantry Staples