Bored With Food (And Everything Else)

I think we can all agree that the time period since March feels like a one really long day. A real blur of time, right? I’m feeling that way with my meals too. Some days just feel so repetitive in terms of what I eat. But aren’t all of my meals always repetitive?   It’s not like I ever vary my diet all that much. So what’s the real problem here? The real problem is the bored and trapped nature of life right now. So naturally, it’s affecting my feelings around my meals too.

I’m doing the best I can, you know, given the fact that I know nothing will return to normal over here in my area of New York anytime soon.

And please, there’s no need to suggest getting creative in the kitchen to cure boredom. I would rather be bored than start cooking and trying recipes. In fact, I cringe every time my son starts cooking (he’s been cooking a lot lately and sometimes I really want to cry about it). I don’t want to clean the kitchen nor do I want to use a wide variety of ingredients, pots, and pans. I don’t even want to see someone else using all of my pots, pans, and ingredients. I’m just not that cooking-baking type of person anymore.

Instead, I will ride out this bored with everything feeling by eating what I eat and then getting take out when I feel the need to mix things up. I’m totally fine with breakfast, lunch only sometimes annoys me — it’s usually dinner that puts me over the boredom edge.

See this dimly lit toast with crunchy peanut butter?! I called this lunch the other day. This toasted cinnamon raisin Ezekiel bread with peanut butter was lunch because I couldn’t find the right mood to eat anything else. I was hungry but literally wanted NOTHING.

Here’s a lunch salad that was half boring/half decent once I was eating it. I used a spring lettuce mix, tomatoes, chickpeas, and avocado, plus some steam fresh vegetables. I’m trying not to use those frozen bags of vegetables but I like the blend of broccoli, carrots, snap peas, and water chestnuts so much. It was time to use a bag, you know? I ended up using part of the steam fresh vegetable in this salad.

Over the weekend, I took out from Pete The Greek for dinner. I transferred the beet salad into a bowl from home along with a side of the hummus and pita bread.

This is what the beet salad looks like before I mix it all up though – I never shared this photo but we had Pete The Greek right before the whole pandemic really hit. You know, back when we were able to eat in restaurants.

It had been a few weeks since I had the whole wheat margarita slice from Mario’s! It’s still definitely one of my most favorite types of pizza. In fact, maybe I will pick up another slice tonight.

This dinner was a mix of roasted fresh broccoli and cauliflower with a blend of chickpeas, quinoa, and lentils. I added Trader Joe’s sweet chili sauce and avocado. I can’t start using too much of my sweet chili sauce because if I run out, I’m not sure when I will go to Trader Joe’s again to replace it. It’s been well over a month now since I’ve shopped at Trader Joe’s.

Are the drive-thru lines at your Starbucks locations wrapping around the blocks? They are in my area, although not all the Starbucks locations are open so maybe that’s why the crazy lines are happening. I’m fine with Dunkin Donuts since I only ever order a regular coffee which is what I had the other morning. The line wasn’t long at all. I swear this stop to pick up our coffee felt like a real outing right now!

And finally, we picked up dinner last night from Villa Monte. I wanted the whole wheat vegetable slice (mainly because it’s different from the pizza I’ve been eating lately) plus a chopped salad. The salad is big (like the salads from La Piazza) so I have leftovers for today. While I do have salad ingredients in the house, I just need someone else to make my salad during the high boredom moments. It makes a difference.

One final note: I don’t actually miss going food shopping. What I miss is the feeling of being able to food shop without thinking about lines, wearing a mask, and worrying about getting inside to see stores out of stock.