Stockpiling

The first couple of weeks for us were presumably the same as for everyone- summed up in one word; ‘panic’. Mild panic by Bosnian standards (I live with one of the most relaxed men on earth so he semi cancels me out), but panic all the same. I remember reading a meme at the time which nicely summed up how I felt “Another productive day: 8 hours of watching TV and 4 hours of thinking I have coronavirus”. Obviously, I was still working minimum 9 hours a day during the week but the lack of commuting and going out left me with far more free time.

Now that I think about it, another good word to summarise that beginning period is also ‘meme’. I wonder how many millions of memes were circulated during that time?! I mean, not only was I getting memes from the usual suspects left right and centre, but I started getting regular memes from both of Miguel’s parents, my mother, but most shocking of all, my father. I mean, it took that man a good 10 years to become comfortable sending SMS messages (it’s still a rarity). Before corona, I honestly thought he didn’t know how to use Watsapp. Either he learnt during corona or that was just an excuse because he couldn’t be bothered to reply to my messages. Now he was sending me memes almost daily; in Serbian, in English and even Mexican ones which god knows who he received those from. Madness.

But we can’t forget the biggest panic of the time- stockpiling. I hadn’t even thought about food being an issue until Salma mentioned she would take the car to the supermarket to “stock up” a week and a half before lockdown. There were a few jokes circulating at the time about people in Australia stockpiling on loo role but I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. Besides, we live next to the biggest and most well-stocked Sainsburys in London. There is literally nothing you can’t buy there.

I had also spent most of the week leading up to our shop taking the piss out of all these crazy people freaking out and unnecessarily stockpiling. What a bunch of weirdos. I was just going to keep Salma company and take advantage of the car to buy some heavy stuff.

When we got to the supermarket though I had a bit of a reality check. Half the aisles were already empty and there wasn’t even any talk of lockdown yet. Our Sainsburys usually has half an aisle dedicated to rice, another half to pasta, another to flour, sauces, eggs etc. All of those aisles were almost empty, some already were. I was shocked and filled immediately with panic. I mean I can live with being boxed in a tiny London flat for weeks on end with no sunshine or air, I can live with the lack of human interaction, the lack of going out, all of it. But there is one thing I cannot live without and that is a healthy and plentiful supply of food and alcohol.

The one thing I did find quite funny is that the pasta aisles were all almost completely empty bar one tiny corner where the orzo was stocked. My Cypriot ex used to buy and cook orzo all the time; it’s a staple part of the Greek/Cypriot diet. Clearly for the Brits not so much, as they would rather starve during lockdown than eat orzo.

I was now faced with a dilemma. I had to stockpile while making myself look totally casual and relaxed and not show that I was one of those crazy weirdos freaking out and unnecessarily stockpiling. I went aisle by aisle casually picking up a few tins of this and a few tins of that….and then maybe an aisle or two later I would come back to the same aisle and pick up another few tins of the same thing.

As I was going through my mental panic shopping list I was confronted with the horrifying fact that corona would mean that I potentially wouldn’t be able to get my hands on any ajvar for God knows how long now. I mean it’s every Serbs worst nightmare.

I luckily remembered this manky Macedonian ajvar (non-serbs can google) that they sell in the ‘World’ section of our Sainsburys. It’s really shitty ajvar and it’s massively overpriced. You can get much better ajvar for cheaper in most Yugi shops in London, so no one buys that one. I’ve walked past that aisle every time I’ve been shopping since I moved here a year and a half ago and not one single ajvar has been sold in that whole period.

So I headed over to the World section to at least buy some overpriced manky ajvar (that I could potentially make a pita with if I couldn’t bring myself to eat it as is). But yes, you guessed it, the ajvar was ALL GONE.

The thing that pissed me off the most is that there aren’t that many Yugis living in this area. I’m pretty sure there is currently a bunch of Brits in Imperial Wharf/Clapham with jars of untouched manky ajvar in their cupboards, which will eventually get thrown away because they have no idea what to do with it.

Whatever, I was going to make my own ajvar….oh no there isn’t any peppers either…..so I’ll just have some pasta instead…nope gone……what about eggs….gone….fine, I’ll just eat bread….gone….ok well luckily I can just make bread, I’ll go get some flour….oh no….

For that first week we got creative. Everything came with a side of orzo and the main meals of the week included Thomas the tank engine shaped pasta, fish fingers and crepes made of buckwheat flour (never again).

Our one consolidation was loo roll. Luckily for us Salma only buys eco friendly loo roll which she gets specially delivered and so buys in bulk. And I mean bulk. Half our spare room is taken up by loo role most of the year (it’s a small room to be fair). And very luckily for us, Salma had just run out a week prior to the corona panic and restocked. Which meant come what may, even if we had to live without ajvar, bread, eggs, rice, beans or normal shaped pasta, we would at least be able to wipe our eco-friendly bottoms through to 2021.