I think Woolies must have had a pre-lockdown special on stones, and my hunch is that there was some serious white level hoarding going on. I’m just sad that I missed that particular SMS informing me of this breathtaking special…

“WRewards: Don’t let imminent lockdown prevent you from exercising your right to self-righteous indignation. We have perfect deals for great deep level finger pointing. 40% OFF offer on ALL stones, along with the regulation 30% OFF Country Road. Valid until 28 March 2020. Shop safely in store”

Because the thing is, when I throw stones, I like my neighbours in their glass houses to see just how fucking suburban chic I look in my linen slacks. Jeff in marketing really nailed this “Country Roading Stones” campaign; he may just get his job back after the apocalypse. And elsewhere, I know Yuppiechef sold out of Le Creuset kettles (in black) well before the lockdown began.

I’ve lost count of the number of Tone Deaf Rangers I’ve seen galloping around. Someone actually told me “Lockdown isn’t a thing in KZN, the taxis are still running”. I know KZN can sometimes seem like the Wild Wild West, but I promise it is still part of South Africa, and Cyril is still your president. I promise guys, I know I live in Cape Town and I’ve changed (must be the wind). Then there have been the people cruising around their neighborhoods as vigilante pitch-fork operators, “Boet I’m just doing my bit to name and shame these okes who aren’t taking lockdown seriously”. Here’s the thing Charl… you’re under lockdown too… cruising the strip in your white Fortuner is not abiding by the rules. But sure, we get that you’re doing your civic duty to police “those people” who aren’t taking lockdown seriously.

And “those people” appear on WhatsApp family groups in videos and pictures… usually with comments like “We’re doomed”. And “They just don’t care”. And then in some of these places where “they” live, the army and police get sent in and people die. There’s a figure going around that 8 people have been killed at the hands of the police since lockdown… and fun fact they’re not white people in the suburbs. And let me tell you there are a lot of white people with very creative interpretations of what “stay the fuck at home” means.

When I look outside my window I’m not seeing an army presence… And you chaps and chapettes cruising the neighbourhood and doing your “social distancing” chats in the Spar and Woolies, and at your gated community recycling centres… the army aren’t watching you. The army aren’t watching the people who are sneaking across the lawns of their manicured estates to have a quick “social-distancing” beer or glass of wine. “It’ll be fine babe, we just won’t hug”. The virus arrived in the places that are getting policed and monitored the least… our kettles are boiling.

So perhaps we  should all adjust our attitudes and realise how fucking lucky we are to have unfettered access to Internet, running water, electricity (Inshallah), and comfort… while others can’t do social distancing that well because they have to queue for fucking outside toilets and money to stay alive. And let’s maybe think about all the medical workers, shelf packers, cashiers, and, and, and who wish thay they could fucking stay home in their jimjams and bake banana bread.

But my favourite Tone Deaf Ranger, who is up for “Best Minister in a Comedy Role” at the Rona2020 Awards, goes to Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams who needed no coaxing from Marlon Brando to come outside. In the most dazzling twist of irony “Stella!”, the fucking minister of communications, telecommunications, and postal services was caught attending a bloody lovely luncheon in a mate’s kiff house. But apparently she wasn’t there to enjoy the vibe, oh no she was picking up essentials… masks and other necessary accoutrements. The story went viral on socials… cos you know Minister of Communications…

What a fucking time to be alive guys.

For the first time in over two weeks I went out into the world to buy food. I’d been putting it off for a few days and living off rice cakes, which I’ve nicknamed “nice cakes” in order to Emperor’s New Clothes my taste buds. Fun Fact, they still taste crap but they’re a suitable vessel for almond butter and one step up from a teaspoon or finger. Actually screw that, give me the jar and my finger any day..

‘Introducing new Almond Butter licked off a Finger- it’s the Covid-19 version of Fugu… it’s the “near death experience” that makes it so tasty.’

Shopping during an apocalypse is a completely different experience to pre-apocalypse (PA) shopping, because there’s a general tendency to favour the canned food section. But you know me, I like to live dangerously so I went ape shit for the lettuce. I went fucking bananas because I feel like I’m getting scurvy and even though lettuce is basically crunchy water I just couldn’t help myself. Italian mix, Romaine, baby gem, you name it I bought it. And, this is Woolworths lettuce, so it’ll survive longer than most of the cans you’ve got stashed in your walk-in pantries. Grapes? 2 for R60 “Yes Please!” Broccoli? “Come at me!” Butternut, onions, potatoes? No chance, this is the apocalypse and the whole butternut is the new avocado.

So, I meandered from the bountiful Woolies salad bar, past the barren wastelands of hardy “cupboard” veg, and reached the aisle where the long-life milk used to be. Unfortunately, suburbanites seemed to have got my memo about “nice cakes” because there were only two really fucked up packs of those, which I reluctantly drop-kicked into my trolley because I felt sorry for them. Plenty bread though; as my dad would say, “Plentch!” People obviously aren’t aware that you can freeze bread, or that we haven’t actually gone back in time to the “old days” where you had two days to eat your weekly loaf. Maybe okes around here are still banting? Who knows?

Toilet paper for days. Literally days of toilet paper. I hate all of you bastards for making me spend the last two weeks with 1Ply. It was kak. I do not recommend. 0 Star Rating.

It’s absolutely no surprise that there had been a “clean up in aisle four” and the shelves were completely devoid of canned food. A lot of kids are going to be really chuffed with another night of “tuna surprise” I’ll tell you that for free. “What’s the surprise mum?” “The surprise is it’s crap!” No jokes though, “the great can shortage of 2020” did upset me because I really fancied making that Sweetcorn Bake I read about in the Your Family magazine of May 1994. Never mind, when the apocalypse is over canned foods will no longer be a luxury item and I’ll be able to treat all of my friends to a nice plate of hot slop.

Fresh milk- 2 litres, and again it’s Woolworths milk so it’s as long-life as it gets. I should be concerned about how long Woolies food lasts but I’m not. I survived the 80s as a Tartrazine kid I’m basically bullet-proof. And, as it turns out cheese is no longer a hot item in the suburbs either… Seriously what the fuck are you people eating? You do know that cheese is basically frot milk right? It doesn’t go off… you just scrape off the manky bits and you’re good to go for at least another week. People are giving up on cheeses… bunch of heathens and sinners. Repent! So, after twenty minutes of not very careful shopping I was ready to join the social distancing queue and avoid those horrible healthy snacks in the gauntlet of financial ruin. FYI on the Woolies Snack Pack of Mixed Nuts Index, the economy is thriving.    

There’s an unwritten rule at supermarkets where you’re allowed to check out other people’s baskets and trolleys and pass judgement. It’s kind of like Vampire Rules, but you have to be a little bit discreet, you can’t point or be too obvious about your snooping. Yesterday I got some serious judgement and I could tell that people thought that I’m definitely not taking lockdown seriously at all. Not only was I wearing my “Not Today Satan” t-shirt, not only did I have way too much fucking lettuce (I think I may have buyers remorse), not only did I have the makings of one helluva cheeseboard (“What the fuck is this asshole celebrating doesn’t she know we’re in the midst of a pandemic?”), not only did I have zero canned or frozen items (not my fault), but I also wasn’t wearing a face mask (make up doesn’t count).

It’s weird that even though the shops are still open for business, and we’re told not to stockpile, there’s this mentality that we need to embrace the “Apocalypse Menu”. It’s wartime, and we have to go back to austerity cooking in order to show that we’re doing our bit for the war effort. And while I was musing about apocalypse cookbooks, as luck would have it, my friend “Jeff Goldblum” sent me an absolute clanger of a message.

‘So for some strange reason my diet is reverting to the mid 90s. Is it OK to crave Ultramel custard? It’s like Mandela is about to be released and we’ll never eat again. Buy Ultramel and toilet paper.’

‘And let’s not mention brown onion soup in a sachet…’

And then it happened… He sent two photos of “that chicken dish” and the potato bake made with the help of our friend Royco.

And as I looked at Jeff’s throwback to the bad old days it reaffirmed my belief that food is political. The Apocalypse Pantry has become a window into how we feared hunger and rationing in the past. And all of those fears come with a wave of nostalgia for the foods that we associate with “national lockdown”. Our long-lost friends Knorr, Royco, and Maggie are invited back to our dinner tables, we slip back into familiar conversations with them, and it’s like we’ve never been apart.

“Can someone please pass the Aromat.”      

Woolies Dean Street really is the gift that keeps on giving. And, now that they’ve revamped they’re really killing it from the perspective of attracting a new class of wanky shoppers. I’m a wanky shopper. I love Woolworths and I have been known to buy quinoa and haloumi from there. Bullshit, I do all my shopping there. Literally all of it. I use Woolies toilet paper.

Anyway I was there a few weeks back because I was making dinner for my folks. It was a real Southern Suburbs shit festival from a weather perspective, so the onslaught of black puffer jackets was at fever pitch. Black Puffer Adders with their piercing eyes and Cath Kidson carrier bags were out with a real sense of damp and furious purpose. They wanted more than the regulation midweek chicken schnitzel. They were after the butternut soup. Luckily I didn’t have to break a nail fighting for the last pouches of bland soup (yes Woolies, your butternut soup sucks) because I was after fish.

Being midweek the fresh fish selection was thin on the ground. I guess it’s a metaphor for the state of our oceans, but I don’t want to linger on that clusterfuck because I’m on a helluva Game of Thrones come down as it is. Back to the fish. I procured frozen hake because “cheap”, a few tins of tuna because I’m really into mercury these days, and the last package of fresh smoked trout fillet that was on special, which is why I bought it. I felt guilty for being so miserly towards my mum and stepdad, so grudgingly went in search for some prawns. I gazed at the prawns. I weighed up my options. Maybe the smoked trout could go, and I could get away with just hake, tuna and prawns? Decisions.

Just as I was about to return the very last smoked salmon trout from whence it came, in marches, let’s call her Ruth, and her delightful three maybe four year old (I can’t tell I literally have no understanding of children), who, for the purposes of this narrative is Gwendolyn. Ruth does a precursory scan of the fresh fish and her nose wrinkles, she shifts from one Birkenstock to the next. ‘Where’s the salmon trout? WHERE IS the salmon trout!’ I wait to see how this plays out, reaffirming my newly emerged cavalier “fuck the budget” we’re having salmon trout AND prawns, in what is now a luxury midweek middle finger to Ruth fish pie.

Ruth is not convinced by the absence of product above the barcoded ‘salmon trout’ label. She is white, and therefore smoked trout appears if you will it to appear. No luck. ‘Gwendolyn, there’s none of the smoked trout fillets that you like!’ Gwendolyn is resolute. Passive. Ruth, panicked by Gwendolyn’s nonchalance goes head first into the refrigerator scrambling for options… she retrieves fishcakes, oak-smoked Norwegian salmon ribbons, chili flavoured poached salmon fillets, and fresh hake. In a frenzy she reads each label to Gwendolyn asking her ‘will you eat this my darling?’ Gwendolyn manages a withering ‘yes’ when the chili salmon is thrust in front of her.

Ruth abandons all of the dead fish. ‘This won’t do. You must have the smoked trout.’

What happens next won’t surprise you…

‘I must find the manager…’

At this point I believe it prudent to interject and say, ‘I believe I have the last of the smoked trout… I got the last one…’ I want to crouch down on my haunches and marvel at my preciouses but I wasn’t confident that I wouldn’t get a Birkenstock to the forehead. Ruth didn’t hear me of course, because she was too busy monologuing with herself. ‘Manager, yes he will know… maybe…’ Just then one of the uber-over friendly shelf packers appears. He is too nose deep in those new fangled pretzel crackers to show any interest in Ruth’s dazzling performance of ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’. Ruth says loudly, to darling Gwendolyn, ‘I shall ask him!’ Pause. ‘Actually no, he won’t know what lightly smoked rainbow trout fillets are.’

Absolutely Ruth, the guy whose job it is to stock this aisle won’t know what you’re talking about because only managers (white), know what you’re after. Smoked trout is, after all for white people and their spawn.

At this point I wave the package of smoked trout in front of Ruth and say, ‘So I got the last one,  and I’m going to make fish pie.’

I don’t know what her face did. I’d like to think her head exploded. When I look back on this perfunctory Wednesday afternoon I am certain I heard sobbing.

And FYI, Fucking best fish pie I’ve ever made… if you’d like to follow my  recipe it calls for lightly smoked rainbow trout fillet (the very last one in the store).