Control Freaks Are Having a Moment
During the coronavirus pandemic, it’s okay to obsess over hobbies. Okay? Okay?!
When I first understood the severity of coronavirus, I did what I always do when I’m stressed out: I started cooking. A lot.
Of soup.
I made so many soups: Lentil kielbasa. Chicken and rice soup. Chicken tortilla. Chicken and lentil. They filled up my freezer until there was no more room, at which point I started eating soup for every meal and hoarding it in my fridge. I gave my sister quarts and quarts of frozen soup. I even set up a Twitch account with plans to livestream my soup-making as entertainment while we’re all stuck inside. It’s the end of the world, but the soups? The soups will still be there, fueling me as I try to barter my futile skills as a blogger for a hand axe and two sweet potatoes.
I’ve always been a home cook, but certainly not to this degree. Until recently, I didn’t really know what was driving me to do all this cooking. But several soups deep, I realized: I was doing it to have some semblance of control over a situation that very much seemed to be spiraling out of control.
It turns out, control freaks like me are made for crippling global pandemics. My soup-making is how I try to wrest control back from a very uncontrollable…
