Boxed in
Overwhelmed by cardboard packaging? Bake, mail, repeat.
Photo: BRIE PASSANO for Midwest Living
HOUSEHOLD STAPLES—once wrested from the wild, the farm, or the supermarket—now come on a truck, in a box. No spear, spade, or parking spot required. The homesteader stays home; given pandemic, or pandemonium, or the panoply of options online, why budge? Stalking her prey on screen, she picks apricots, gathers eggs, stockpiles butter. All she need do is wait, slit tape, celebrate. She boasts full shelves and empty boxes. Lots of empty boxes.
She practices the standard remedies: Flatten into recyclable. Shred into compost. Neglect into “art.” None proves equal to the job. Boxes idle, stiff-jointed and on edge. They long for work—fort, diorama, rock collection—but find themselves furloughed.
The solution is baking. The cardboard curator crisps up a round of gingersnaps, fills one carton, and ships it out. The cookies, her recipient reports, crumble. She turns instead to the bar—brownie, blondie, shortbread—admiring its burly build and square shoulders. She’s especially keen on brown butter shortbread, whose nutty flavor and tender texture deepen in the journey between bake and bite.
Friends approve—though, given the box build-up, she may need to recruit more friends. Still, the scheme is working. Every morning, packages heavy with buttery bars take off from the porch. Every afternoon, packages full of baking supplies land. If she keeps this up, forever, maybe she’ll come out even.
So glad you are back!!!