Making a good sauce is more difficult than it used to be. Every day, I wish I could walk into a grocery store and pick out food from all over the world, just like the good old days. My girlfriend Melanie and her older brother Sam took me in at their farm after the collapse, but growing is not the same as buying when you used to be a real chef like me. 

It’s just the three of us living in one big farmhouse. The O’donnell family, who help to tend the farm with Sam, live in the house Sam and Melanie’s parents used to live in. Melanie jokes that I would have never survived the apocalypse if it weren’t for her. It’s probably true too, I would have stayed camped out in my apartment forever if Melanie hadn’t dragged me out of there. 

Growing tomatoes on our farm isn’t as easy as it once was, or so Sam says. Sam’s been on the farm his whole life, but the rest of us have only been living here since the crash. I’ve been cooking my whole life, so naturally enough I inherited the position of resident chef. 

I spent my entire morning walking the tomato field and turning over vines to find a basketful of decent tomatoes. Lots of times I find vines that are laden with rotten tomatoes, all blue and brown and mushy. When I ask Sam about it he just shrugs his shoulders. He shrugs his shoulders at a lot of things though. Sam says that’s just the way it is, “shitty soil,” he says. He’s always picking the dry soil up in his hand and then watching it fly away in the breeze like grains of sand.

The tomatoes may have been suffering in quality, but I’ve always known how to grow garlic. I always keep an ample supply of my favorite flavor stored up. A normal recipe for seven would call for one, maybe two cloves. To me, this means five cloves at a minimum. 

The kitchen in the farm house has a gas stove that you have to ignite yourself, with a metal top that radiates heat like no other. I like the hunk of metal, it’s so rustic. Back when I was cooking in restaurants, everything was electronic. Completing tasks without any electronic assistance has been one of my favorite aspects of life since the crash.

I started my sauce early in the afternoon, once I had all my tomatoes picked and prepped. Most people know to keep their sauce cooking all day, but too many schmucks neglect to stir their sauce throughout the day. I’ll never go more than fifteen minutes without stirring my sauce. 

Once I got my garlic minced, I was ready to accompany it with some ground meat. I like to cook the two together, so that the garlic can really sink into the meat. Then I throw all of it into the sauce for another two hours. I say “meat” and not beef or chicken or turkey, because nowadays we don’t get the privilege of knowing what kind of meat we are eating. I’ve found it’s best for everyone if all of our meat is ground up. 

Sam trades giant sacks of potatoes for pounds of meat with our neighbors to the west, who run a slaughterhouse. But more often than not, the white paper our meat comes wrapped in will claim to be something that it is clearly not. We know that they ran out of livestock there months ago, but there’s no one else in our area selling meat. 

Luckily enough the herb garden is adjacent to the house, so I don’t have to go far for the final ingredients. We have lots of fresh basil and thyme; I pick extra thyme for Melanie. The parsley looks a little scarce, but I still pick enough for a decent garnish. 

Dinner is supposed to be at six, or sundown. Normally, Melanie would get back around five, but she is late. Normally, she would come straight to the kitchen, offer me any help I needed and tell me about her day. I am waiting for her nervously, sitting over the stove, stirring with one hand and reading a cheap paperback novel with the other. Melanie is the only one of us with a real job. People need doctors, so Melanie is a valuable asset. 

Once she is two hours late I start to sense the anxiety spreading amongst us. Sam looks the most distressed, Melanie is his little sister after all. He keeps looking at me like I should tell him what to do. We always knew that Melanie taking house calls was risky, but we also need the money. I chop parsley until it becomes green dust.

Dinner time has come and gone, and my sauce is threatening to evaporate, I have to take action. Mel was supposed to pick up pasta, among other food items, with the money she would have made today. I try not to show how scared I am for Sam’s sake, I try to stay optimistic. 

Completely unprepared, I throw together a concoction of orzo, which we had left over from last year’s measley grain harvest, and some egg noodles I whip together real quick. It pairs well enough with my rich meat sauce, but dinner is eaten in silence. Melanie is the sociable link between us and the O’donnells.

We still set the table for seven, in case Mel turns up halfway through. But we are too optimistic. Torturing my subconscious, I can’t escape the thought that Melanie could end up in our meat next week.