While plenty of food is still available in grocery stores, certain shopping trends have already begun to present themselves in this pending apocalypse. Along with the omission of canned goods, dry pasta and toilet paper (yeah, good luck eating that), the bread aisles of supermarkets seem to have been swept by locusts as well.
Bread often gets a bad rap, especially when we’re eating well and looking for a food group to neatly blame all of our winter transgressions on. But as we head into a world of uncertainty (and misinformation), it's obvious that we want carbs to fill up on while we're holed up inside.
Since you might not be able to get your hands on mass-produced loaves – which have the unfortunate reputation for swapping whole grains for bleached flour and additives anyway – now is a great time to start baking fresh bread at home.
A couple of months ago, I discovered a no-knead bread recipe that was so easy and so satisfying, I’ve had limited contact with the bread aisle ever since. While countless recipes float around on the internet, my tried-and-true uses four simple ingredients that are probably already hiding in your cupboard waiting to be turned into delicious dough: all-purpose flour, water, salt and yeast. You can prep the night before and watch as your dough mountain grows into a delicious monster, then simply plonk your baby into a Dutch oven or deep pot and wait for 45 minutes as that incredible smell (and your hunger) fills the kitchen.
Yes, it’s possible that my carb-addled brain is desperately seeking excuses for not kicking my floury friend out of bed (literally, my bed is full of toast crumbs). But in a world where guidebooks for juice diets, charcoal cleanses and dodgy weight-loss vitamins are runaway internet bestsellers, it’s unreasonable to make an enemy of the fibre-filled staff of life.
